The Lombards take Ravenna, 751

The Lombards take Ravenna

King Aistulf of the Lombards captured Ravenna, the seat of the Byzantine exarch, and the Exarchate of Ravenna — for more than a century and a half the mainstay of Byzantine power in Italy — came to an end. His claims on Rome soon led Pope Stephen II to seek help from the Franks.

Date

751year known

Place

Ravennatoday: Ravenna, Italy · Western and Central Europe

Participants

Lombards, Aistulf, Byzantine Empire

Threads

Early medieval Europe (500–1000)

Also known as

Fall of Ravenna; Падение Равенны; End of the Exarchate of Ravenna; Конец Равеннского экзархата; Aistulf; Айстульф; Eutychius; Евтихий

The exarchate, set up by Emperor Maurice no later than 584, had been shrinking for decades under Lombard pressure and amid quarrels between the papacy and the iconoclast emperors; the Lombards had already held Ravenna briefly in about 729–734, before the exarch Eutychius recovered it with papal and Venetian help. Aistulf, king from 749, abandoned his predecessor Ratchis’s accommodation with the Romans: a law of March 750 calls him king of the Lombards “to whom the Lord has entrusted the Roman people”. In 750 he occupied Comacchio and Ferrara, in 751 he took Ravenna and held court in the exarch’s palace, and in 752 he turned against the Pentapolis. The standard date of the fall of Ravenna is 751, though some works give 750. The fate of the last exarch, Eutychius, is uncertain: by some accounts he was killed on Aistulf’s orders, by others driven out of the city.

Aistulf went on to demand tribute from the Duchy of Rome. Constantine V sent envoys to ask for the lost lands back, but Byzantium could give the pope no military help, and in 753 Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps to seek the aid of Pepin the Short. Two Frankish campaigns, in 754 or 755 and in 756, forced Aistulf to give up the exarchate — not to the empire, however, but to the papacy.

Connections

Consequences

Donation of PepinApril 754 – 756 · Western and Central EuropeThe loss of Ravenna and Aistulf’s pressure on Rome drove Pope Stephen II to the Franks; Pepin handed the exarchate to the papacy

Related events

Lombard invasion of Italy2 April 568 – 572 · Western and Central EuropeThe Lombards, in Italy since 568, took the capital of Byzantine Italy

Pepin the Short becomes King of the Franks751 · Western and Central EuropeIn the same year Pepin took the Frankish crown with papal approval; three years later he marched against Aistulf

Same participants

Edict of Rothari22 November 643 · Western and Central Europevia Lombards

Plague in Constantinople, 746–747746 – between 747 and 748 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire

Same place

Deposition of Romulus Augustulus4 September 476 · Western and Central Europe

Theodoric takes Ravenna490 – 5 March 493 · Western and Central Europe

The Lombards take Ravenna

Connections

Consequences

Related events

Same participants

Same place

Meanwhile in the world

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

Middle East and Egypt

Central and Northern Asia

South Asia

East Asia

North America

Latin America

The same period

Sources