Interpreting Transformations of People and Landscapes in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Archaeological Approaches and Issues

Pilar Diarte-Blasco, Neil Christie

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781789250350
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

In this volume of papers, deriving from two conferences held in Rome and Leicester in 2016, nineteen leading European archaeologists discuss and interpret the complex evolution of landscapes – both urban and rural – across Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (c. AD 300–700). The geographical coverage extends from Italy to the Mediterranean West through to the Rhine frontier and onto Hadrian's Wall. Core are questions of impacts due to the socio-political, religious, military and economic transformations affecting provinces, territories and kingdoms across these often turbulent centuries: how did townscapes change and at what rate? What were the fates of villas? When do post-classical landscapes emerge and in what form? To what degree did Europe become an insecure, defended landscape? In what ways did people – cityfolk, farmers, nobility, churchmen, merchants – adapt? Do the elite remain visible and how prominent is the Church? Where and how do we see culture change through the arrival of new groups or new ideas? Do burials form a clear guide to the changing world? And how did the environment change in this period of stress – was the classical period landscape much altered through the attested depopulation and economic deterioration? And underlying much of the discussion is a consideration of the nature and quality of our source material: how good is the archaeology of these periods and how good is our current reading of the materials available? Combined, these expert studies offer valuable new analyses of people and places in a complex, challenging and crucial period in European history.

1

Transformation in the Cities of Northern Italy between the Fifth and Seventh Centuries AD. Forms, Functions and Societies

Gian Pietro Brogiolo

Introduction

Between the fifth and sixth centuries, urban landscapes changed in almost every centre within the territories of the old Roman Western Empire. That they changed following similar patterns is an aspect to reflect on, because it suggests similarities in contexts different in terms of geography, timeline and history. In fact, transformations in planning and control, architecture, production and consumption, assessable in terms of urban, social and economic landscapes, occurred at different times and were sometimes triggered by accidental factors, some short and catastrophic such as destructions following conflicts or earthquakes, others longer, caused by gradual environmental changes. The ‘end of the ancient city’ was a general phenomenon, variously brought about by numerous factors, single or concurrent, which undermined its economic and market functions (elements only revived and redefined later on, between the ninth and tenth centuries), but also marked by the end of the aristocracies of Late Antiquity. Yet urban seats did endure, linked primarily to the fact that these could continue to be seats of power, in the form of the bishop and of the new authorities and elites of the barbarian kingdoms; combined, these replaced the city curias. Expressions of these new powers were installed in the Episcopal quarter and in the palatium respectively, and these, alongside a wider proliferation of Christian topography (other churches, funerary sites, relics, etc.), became the landmarks of the medieval city. These replaced the fora, baths and entertainment buildings which had constituted the foci of the ancient city, these robbed or bypassed in the ceremonies, processions, habits and activities of medieval urbanism (Dey 2015).

Yet, alongside these elements, in order to ensure social cohesion and to provide an urban or civic identity, there was a need for defence and defensive walls in the fifth to seventh centuries, defining active urban centres as well as territorial castra and castella. Underscoring their importance leads to interpretations which contrast with historiographic positions currently held by numerous historians and archaeologists. Thus discussion and reflection here on this issue is not only appropriate but also required to escape from the perspective of a single way of thinking on which has been based a good part of contemporary historiography.

The focus of this paper is on urban transformations in northern Italy, a geographical area which has seen some good urban archaeology whose results reflect well processes recognised more generally across the old and former Roman Western provinces. My case study region is also valuable for the centuries under consideration since a very distinctive aspect is the evolution of urban hierarchies, marked in particular by the shifting of its capital, first of all in the late Roman Empire, then in the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and finally under Lombard rule (Brogiolo 2000).

New Urban Landscapes

The many and diverse structural changes to cities between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages have been traced and documented on variable levels by 40 years of urban excavations in the north of the Italian peninsula; these transformations are widely known, but not always fully understood, and with sequences known better for some territories than others (Fig. 1.1). I shall restrict myself here to summarising conclusions which have been detailed elsewhere (Brogiolo 2011, whose geographical coverage extends across the whole western Mediterranean (Italy, southern Gaul and Hispania). The processes of change highlighted in this present analysis can be split up between those which determined the end of the ancient city and those which contributed to building and characterising the medieval urban form.

Figure 1.1 Early medieval sites in northern Italy cited in the text (image: author)

The first processes comprise the destruction, dismantling and re-adaptation of infrastructures (roads, aqueducts, sewers and harbours), public monuments (temples, fora and administrative buildings, places of entertainment, bath complexes) and private domus. Some buildings were demolished in order to extract re-usable materials to build new ones (e.g. the robbing of the Capitolium at Verona); others, deprived of their role and of upkeep, were left to slowly decay; whereas others still were ‘cannibalised’ and adapted for new functions (such as Verona’s arena or amphitheatre, colonised for craft activities and houses, and that of Padua for houses; while in Aosta and Trieste, the bishop’s complex was installed in the former forum spaces).

Yet the same timespan also saw townscapes enhanced or remodelled with new elements which would go to define the early medieval and medieval city in Italy: (1) defensive works made up of moats/ditches and walls, which often required re-working of ancient urban curtain walls that had become neglected or had fallen into disuse (as at Verona, where the Republican circuit needed to be rebuilt), and which sometimes saw the defining of a reduced urban area (one well known example of this reduced cityscape is Bologna); (2) diverse centres for the administrative military power (notably the bases of counts and dukes who first join with and then replace the administration of the curia); (3) churches as landmarks of a growing Christian urban topography; (4) production activities installed in the city, but not always in defined areas; (5) a modified funerary world, which tends to shift from the suburbs (where it had been confined in the classical city context), into different places within the townscape, but which, by the end of the Early Middle Ages, was gathered around specific churches; and (6) new types of buildings: large edifices, masonry buildings (these the preserve of lay and ecclesiastical aristocracies) and lots of huts/wooden houses which replaced (and often overlay) ancient wealthy urban town houses or domus.

However, as outlined below, this evolution of (and into) the early medieval city was locally modulated according to variations in the urban hierarchies, these themselves the result of changing historical contexts.

Historical Contexts and New Urban Hierarchies

In northern Italy, between the fourth and seventh centuries, the many and varied historical contexts, often turbulent, impacted on most regions as well as individual cities, changing the position of the latter within a more general realignment of hierarchical patterns.

The onset of change is linked to the transferal of the Roman imperial capital from Rome to Milan in AD 282 (where it remained until 402), prompted by the serious military situation of the third quarter of the third century, with the dual military front opened in the East by the Sassanians, who inflicted serious defeats, and in the West more widely with the raids into Italy of the Alamanni, which were only halted and repelled in 268 south of Lake Garda. The anxieties and threats of these raids can be linked directly to the restoration of the urban fortifications of Verona in 265. The emperor could in fact force the cities to build walls at their own expense; in the case of Verona, this was done by Gallienus. The feat, as proudly proclaimed in the inscription over the main gate, was completed in just eight months according to the instructions of the dux ducenarius Aurelius Marcellinus (CIL, V, 3329). The short timespan involved may relate to the fact that these works were primarily a question of strengthening the wall of the Caesarean period through the addition of new towers, alongside basic repairs of the main curtain (see Cavalieri Manasse and Hudson 1999).

A more serious situation for northern Italy occurred after the defeat of Roman forces by the Goths at Hadrianopolis (AD 378), which marked the start of a phase of widespread strategic State re-organisation which included: (a) the subsequent transfer of the capital to Ravenna in 402; (b) the hierarchical re-aligning of key cities (in particular Pavia, Novara, Como, Brescia, Verona and their districts) to be more directly tied to Milan and the coastal, north Adriatic centre of Aquileia (plus a reinforced Cividale del Friuli); (c) the foundation of new, militarily strategic centres (see Vanesse 2010; Brogiolo 2014), which are archeologically documented by the castra of Lomello (Brogiolo 2015) and Castelseprio (Brogiolo 2013), built on two main roads leading from north and south to the capital, Milan. The investment made for these works was considerable (over 25,000 m3 of defensive walling) and the job was undertaken by skilled workers (from the army), using, for both of the cited sites, a particular type of mortar similar to pozzolana. Such investments were notable, but difficult in the first half of the fifth century when, following the settlement of groups of barbarians in many regions of the West, the State revenue lost a sizeable part of its taxes, meaning that, according to Peter Heather, the State was no longer able to directly pay for urban fortifications (2013, 438–440). However, we would argue that in reality it did continue to fork out (some) money – as documented by the inscription set up in honour of Flavius Constantius for works at Albegna on the Ligurian coast in the 410s (CIL, V, 7781) – whenever local resources were not available.

In this re-organisation, those centres which had gained more elevated strategic roles received special attention – but to the detriment of other, more marginal cities which went into decline (like those which Bishop Ambrose of Milan in 387 called urbium cadavera – see Epistolae, PL, XVI, 39, col. 1099). Strategic re-organisation thus resulted in a new urban hierarchy which would remain largely unaltered until the start of the sixth century.

In the early period of subsequent rule in Italy by the Ostrogoths (from the 490s) the policy of reinforcing the defences of a number of strategic cities, best attested at Verona, Pavia and Brescia, and the building of new fortifications in the Alpine regions, was King Theodoric’s answer to the expansionistic aims of the Franks after the destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom of Aquitania (507). This event also enabled Theodoric to extend his kingdom (which, besides Italy, excluding Sicily and Sardinia, which were then in the hands of the Vandals, stretched from coastal Dalmatia to Pannonia to Noricum), as far as Hispania, this under a form of Ostrogothic protectorate that enabled Theoderic even to collect taxes. A key feature of Ostrogothic rule was the active collaboration with the Roman aristocracy, who continued to manage the administration through the city curiae, with the aid of comites, iudices and duces who held military power (this wielded exclusively by the Goths) and also shared civil, judicial and economic power with the city bishops, who, we can observe, little by little, took over the functions of the curia – a process which was quicker in some cities than in others (see Fauvinet-Ranson 2006; Porena 2012). The curia as a body was already clearly in difficulty by the fourth century due to the impoverishment of the possessores and it was made more evident in the attempt by the State to remedy the problem through the establishment of the post of defensor civitatis (designed to replace the curial system when it was in difficulty and to combat the arrogance of the possessores).

In the second half of the sixth century, cities and castra/ castella were the prime reference point for written sources (narrative and documentary), both for those territories in the hands of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, and for those conquered by the Lombards. For the former, the late sixth-century Descriptio orbis romani, attributed to George of Cyprus (Gelzer 1890), lists five eparchies = provinciae, still under imperial control after the partial Lombard conquest. Two of these (the Annonaria and the Aemilia) concern northern Italy. For the Lombard Kingdom likewise, later sources (at the end of the seventh century, the Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia; and towards the end of the eighth century, Paul the Deacon) indicate the same articulation as well as some confusion between what made a city and fortress; well-known is Paul the Deacon’s (HL,II,9) appellation ‘castrum vel potius civitas’ in referring to Forum Iulii – Cividale, capital of Friuli). As seen in George of Cyprus’ lists, the term civitas still evidently identifies or equates with the capital of a coherent or distinct administrative district; however, this could be an ancient city or a more recently built castrum. Some forts, therefore, were transformed (officially, presumably) into administrative and tax-collection centres; these roles might be archaeologically proven by the discovery of coin weights (as found in Castelseprio but also in some forts in the Trentino), of large quantities of burnt cereals (as at Lundo) and of buildings which arise outside of the fortified complex which might signify new attendant settlement and market duties. We can identify instances of this extramural growth at Castelseprio, whose so-called ‘borgo’ connects to the famous frescoed church of Santa Maria foris portas, and at Monselice where about 15 churches were built on the slopes running down from the hilltop fortress to the foot of the hill (Brogiolo 2017).

It is agreed by scholars that the organisation of the bulk of the defensive works in northern Italy – urban and military – pre-date the Lombards. But how far back in time does the splitting up into districts dominated by castra and the fragmentation of the territory of the ancient cities actually go?

North of Italy, Eugippius, in his Vita Sancti Severini, describes the chaotic situation of the Noricum provinces around the mid-fifth century: we hear that the forts or castella were defended by demoralised soldiers whose pay had stopped arriving from Italy and who were constantly under attack by diverse enemies. In view of this situation, the inhabitants first of all sought refuge in other defended bases, including cities or else surrendered themselves as taxpayers to the barbarians (Vita Sancti Severini 27, 31; cf Christie 2004, 20), but ultimately many of them fled to Italy with their belongings, while their enemies, ‘searching for gold, even opened up tombs’ (Vita Sancti Severini 40).

A territorial articulation of the Ostrogothic frontier defences is recorded in Procopius (Gothic War, II, 28) who recalls the comes Sisigis who commanded a number of castella in the Cottian Alps before their takeover by the imperial armies during the Byzantine-Gothic War; Sisigis is perhaps the same individual later named by Grego...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Changing Data and Changing Interpretations in the Study of Transformations of Late Antique Space and Society: Neil Christie
• Chapter 1. Transformation in the Cities of Northern Italy between the Fifth and Seventh Centuries AD. Forms, Functions and Societies: Gian Pietro Brogiolo
• Chapter 2. Rome. An Analysis of Changes in Topography and Population between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Roberto Meneghini
• Chapter 3. The Transformation of Society in Late Antique Hispania (AD 300–700): Javier Arce
• Chapter 4. Per omnium villas vicosque cunctos: Rural Landscapes in Late Antique Southern Italy: Roberto Goffredo and Giuliano Volpe
• Chapter 5. The Countryside of Southern Gaul from the Fourth to Seventh Centuries AD. Settlement, Landscape and Society: Claude Raynaud
• Chapter 6. Villas, Visigoths and Evangelisation: Rural Archaeology in Late Antique Novempopulana:Simon Esmonde Cleary
• Chapter 7. Rural Settlements in the Territory of Salamanca (Spain) between the Late Roman Period and the Early Middle Ages: Testing a Model
• Chapter 8. Transformation in the Avon Valley from the Late Fourth to Seventh Centuries AD: A Case Study from the West Midlands, England: Abigail E. I. Tompkins
• Chapter 9. Changing Landscapes? Land, People and Environment in England, AD 350–600: Stephen Rippon
• Chapter 10. Diversity in Unity: Exploring Survival, Transition and Ethnogenesis in Late Antique Western Britain: Roger White
• Chapter 11. Landscape, Economy and Society in Late and Post-Roman Wales: Andy Seaman
• Chapter 12. Military Might for a Depopulated Region? Interpreting the Archaeology of the Lower Rhine Area in the Late Roman Period: Stijn Heeren
• Chapter 13. Landscapes of the Limitanei at the North-Western Edge of Empire: Rob Collins
• Chapter 14. People and Landscapes in Northern Italy: Interrogating the Burial Archaeology of the Early Middle Ages: Alexandra Chavarría Arnau
• Chapter 15. Rural and Urban Contexts in North-Eastern Spain: Examining and Interpreting Transformations across the Fifth–Seventh Centuries AD: Pilar Diarte-Blasco
• Chapter 16. Spatial Inequality and the Formation of an Early Medieval Landscape in the Centre of the Iberian Peninsula: Lauro Olmo-Enciso
• Chapter 17. Discontinuities, Threads of Continuity, Academic Inertia and All That: Debating the Late Antique and Early Medieval Archaeologies of Inner Iberia: Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado