"Ravenna" by Judith Herrin

Ravenna is a fascinating town. Founded as a safe retreat for the Roman emperors when Rome became vulnerable to barbarian attacks (a little like how Venice was founded as a refuge from later barbarian attacks), and the capital for Theodoric the Gothic king who held it as a more or less independent fief under Constantinople's hegemony it became the centre for the Italian foothold of the Byzantine emperor until it was eventually taken first by the Lombards and later by the Franks under Charlemagne. It thus spent four hundred years being the meeting place for the developing Latinate culture associated with the Roman Catholic papacy and the developing Byzantine culture associated with Constantinople. This culture clash led, as so often, to learning; it was the centre for an important early medieval medical school as well as the city in which Boethius flourished (and later died). 

Famous names kept appearing. As well as those above were Byzantine emperors Justinian, Leo the Iconoclast, and Irene, and others including Belisarius and Stilicho, Pope Gregory the Great , Gerbert of Aurillac and "the famous Queen Radegund" who is presumably the same as the saint celebrated in Canterbury's St Radegund's Car Park.

I found it hard going. As with many books such as this, I found that there was too much information. Ravenna is a fascinating city and there are some compelling personalities but to condense four hundred year into as many pages means that the canvas is overcrowded with incident. This happened and then this and then this; it was history as an overwhelming flood.

Furthermore, sometimes the sequencing seemed awry. For example, in chapter 28 Herrin tells us that the death of Johannicis was "monstrous" (when the emperor who ordered it is deposed) but it is not until chapter 30 that we revisit what happened and find out the manner of the death. I was frequently confused.

But in these books there are always little nuggets. I didn't realise that the Lombards were identified by their long bears (longobardi). Nor did I know that, according to the "Anonymous Cosmographer of Ravenna" "the sun does not hide behind huge mountains during the night, or sink belowe the waters of the Ocean, but returns to its seat in the East ... from Germania and Britannia, via the Baltic islands of the Fini, to the Caucasus, Scythia, Sarmatia and the Caspian Gates to Bactrian India." (Ch 27). And the iconoclasts in 726 were prompted by "a terrifying subaquatic volcanic eruption in the Segean [which] threw up a new island between Thera and Therasia ... [in which] monstrous deposits of ash and solid lava were borne to the shores of the Aegean in a tsunami" (Ch 32)

Selected quotes:

• "The pattern of son following father into the same priestly profession is one common to early medieval Europe; popes Boniface, Felix III and Agapitus were all sons of priests, and Silverius (the short-lived pope of 536-7)was the son of Pope Hormisdas." (Ch 15)
• "Two canons were devoted to appropriate Christian art, the first stipulating the human depiction of Christ rather than his symbolic representation as the Lamb of God, and the second forbidding any artistic representation that might generate improper feelings." (Ch 28)
• "The first Christian icons adopted the same format of small wood panels, similar to the portraits of ancient gods that have survived in the dry conditions of Egypt." (Ch 32)
• "The veneration of images of Christian holy figures ... had always been distinguished from idolatry ... The invisible God could never be represented and was always to be worshipped spiritually." (Ch 32)
• "A particular Byzantine institution, a bride-show ... Officials were duly sent around the empire to find only the most beautiful girls, who had to conform to particular measurements - the Cinderella story of the shoe that fits makes its appearance here." (Ch 36)
• "Irene ... removed her son from power by having him blinded." (Ch 37)

Ultimately I felt that this book failed to do justice to an absolutely fascinating period of history, with the establishment of the Christian church and the early battles for orthodoxy, with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and with the arrival of the Islamic caliphate.

November 2021; 400 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God