Between Ostrogothic and Carolingian Italy: Survivals, Revivals, Ruptures

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The victory of Justinian, achieved after a lacerating war, put an end to the ambitious project conceived and implemented by Theoderic after his arrival in Italy: that of a new society in which peoples divided by centuries-old cultural barriers would live together in peace and justice, without renouncing their own traditions but respecting shared principles inspired by the values of civilitas. What did this great experiment leave to Europe and Italy in the centuries to come? What were the survivals and the ruptures, what were the revivals of that world in early medieval society? How did that past continue to be recounted and how did it interact with the present, especially in the decisive moment of the Frankish conquest of Italy? This book aims to confront these questions, and it does so by exploring different themes, concerning politics and ideology, culture and literary tradition, law, epigraphy and archaeology. Abbreviations x Preface, by Fabrizio Oppedisano xi Ostrogoths vs. Franks: Imagining the Past in the Middle Ages, by Fabrizio Oppedisano 1 1. Goths and Franks in the Chronicle of Giovanni 3 2. Myths of origins 8 3. Goths and Franks in the Carolingian age 9 4. Conclusions: Cassiodorus, the 'Variae' and the evanescent memory of Roman-Ostrogothic society 11 Roman Law in the regnum Italiae under the Emperor Lothar I (817-855): Epitomes, Manuscripts, and Carolingian Legislation, by Stefan Esders 19 1. Introduction 21 2. Roman law as an ecclesiastical legal resource: the 'Epitome Iuliani' in Northern Italy 23 3. Roman law as a personal law: the Frankish 'Epitome Aegidii' in the regnum Italiae 28 4. Conclusions 35 The Creation of Two Ethnographic Identities: the Cases of the Ostrogoths and the Langobards, by Robert Kasperski 41 1. Introduction 43 2. The ethnographic identity of the Ostrogoths 45 3. The ethnographic identity of the Langobards 49 4. Conclusions 55 The Imperial Image of Theoderic: the Case of the Regisole of Pavia, by Carlo Ferrari 59 1. Introduction 61 2. Ravenna, Aachen, Pavia 64 3. The Regisole: how it looked and who it represented 66 4. The arrival of the Regisole in Pavia in the 8th century 70 5. Aistulf in Ravenna 74 6. Concluding remarks: the imperial image of Theoderic and the Regisole 75 'Stilo... memoriaeque mandavi': Two and a Half Conspiracies. Auctors, Actors, Confessions, Records, and Models, by Danuta Shanzer 81 1. Introduction 83 2. Boethius at the Ostrogothic court 84 3. A detour to Ammianus (half a conspiracy?) 86 4. Back to Boethius 89 5. A Carolingian conspiracy 89 6. Midpoint: so far, so good? 90 7. Theodulf: collateral damage? 91 8. Conspiracies in general: into orbit? 98 9. Paying later vs. paying now: and how? 102 Appendix. The Cassiodoran Vita 103 Cassiodorus' 'Variae' in the 9th Century, by Marco Cristini 109 1. Introduction 111 2. Cassiodorus at Aachen: the 'Variae' as models for Charlemagne’s letters to Constantinople 111 3. Cassiodorus and Paschasius Radbertus 119 4. Cassiodorus and the 'Constitutum Constantini' 120 5. Conclusions 122 The Revival of Cassiodorus' 'Variae' in the High Middle Ages (10th-11th Century), by Dario Internullo 127 1. Introduction 129 2. Reusing Cassiodorus' 'Variae' at the turn of the first Millennium (997-1027) 130 3. The local contexts: Tivoli and Rome, notaries and judges 137 4. Reasons for reuse. A first 'legal Renaissance'? 141 Epigraphic Stratigraphy: is There Any Trace of the Ostrogoths in Early Medieval 'Layers' (6th-9th Century)?, by Flavia Frauzel 149 1. Introduction 151 2. Post-war and doubtful Ostrogothic/Lombard inscriptions 152 3. The epigraph of Wideramn and similar plaques from Lombardy and Piedmont 155 4. Survival and changes in epigraphic and palaeographic features between the 7th-8th centuries 159 5. The Carolingian Graphic Reform and its effects on epigraphy 161 6. Conclusions 164 The Centres of Public Power Between the Cities and the Countryside in the Light of the Recent Archaeology (Italian Peninsula, Late 5th-9th Century), by Federico Cantini 189 1. Introduction 191 2. Late Antiquity 191 3. The Gothic era (late 5th to mid-6th century) 193 4. The period of the Lombard Kingdom (mid-6th to mid-8th centuries) 194 5. The Carolingian era (mid-8th-9th century) 198 6. Central-Northern Tuscia: Lucca, Pisa, Volterra and San Genesio 200 7. Conclusions 204 Conclusions, by Stefano Gasparri 223 Index of Persons 233 Index of Place Names and Ethnonyms 237 Index of Sources 241