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Aristocracy in Ravenna in the age of Lothar I: integration and historical memory

  • Edward M. Schoolman

There remains a significant lacuna in the narrative sources about the aristocracy in Ravenna during the age of Lothar I. For example, the Liber Pontificalis of Ravenna offers very little on account of its focus and defective ending, while Riccobaldo of Ferrara, who was able to work in the episcopal archives in the end of the thirteenth century, also leaves only traces in his histories of either Lothar or the city. The charters from the church of Ravenna, on the other hand, demonstrate a significant change during Lothar’s 37-year reign in Italy. They are witness to a period of Frankish integration into Ravenna’s aristocratic elites through marriages, a phenomenon referenced for later periods in the literary sources. By 855, at the end of Lothar’s reign, the charters allude to a shift in the composition of Ravenna’s aristocracy, having transformed into an elite admixture of noble Franks and the landholding elites of Ravenna who saw the identity of their lineage as «descended from dukes». The post-dating or even absence of this shift in later narrative sources reveals that it was not the first half of the ninth century but later realignments of Ravenna’s urban elite that left a stronger mark on the city’s past.

  • Keywords:
  • Middle Ages: ninth century,
  • Ravenna,
  • aristocracy,
  • Carolingians,
  • historical memory,
  • ecclesiastical authority.,
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Edward M. Schoolman

University of Nevada, Reno, United States - ORCID: 0000-0002-1416-1222

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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Aristocracy in Ravenna in the age of Lothar I: integration and historical memory

Authors

Edward M. Schoolman

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0771-3.16

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Aristocratic networks. Elites and social dynamics in Italy in the age of Lothar I

Editors

Giuseppe Albertoni, Manuel Fauliri, Leonardo Sernagiotto

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

350

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0771-3

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0770-6

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979-12-215-0771-3

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0773-7

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Reti Medievali E-Book

Series ISSN

2704-6362

Series E-ISSN

2704-6079

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