Origin of religious positions and title

Facts about Position/Title

Date Founded	583 CE	Place Founded	Constantinople
Founder(s)	Byzantine Emperor Flavius Mauricius Tiberius (582-602)
Etymology	From the Greek ξαρχος (exarchos)
Original Function	Dynastic Political-religious Governorship reporting to the Emperor on administrative affairs and the Patriarch of Constantinople for religious affairs.
Superior Position(s)	Patriarch of Constantinople
Inferior Position(s)	Europe, North America, South America

An exarch, from the Greek ξαρχος (exarchos), was the political and religious title given to a governor of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire who had extended authority in a province that was distant from the capital, Constantinople.

The position was first invented by Byzantine Emperor Flavius Mauricius Tiberius (582-602) as a way of cementing the influence and control of the Eastern Empire in changing Italy and Northern Africa by empowering the hereditary position with both real temporal and spiritual power.

In political and administrative matters, the Exarch reported directly to the Emperor, but in all religious affairs, the Exarch was required to submit to the ultimate authority of the Patriarch of Constantine - the most powerful and supreme pontiff of the Christian churches since 325.

The first exarchate, with Ravenna at its center, was formed and organized during the reign of Emperor Maurice. The exarch functioned also as the representative of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Similarly, separate exarchates were established for Byzantine Sicily and Africa. By the mid eighth century all these exarchates were lost under the advance of the Lombards and Franks.

The Exarchate of Ravenna

The Exarchate of Ravenna or of Italy was a centre of Byzantine power in Italy, from the end of the 6th century to 751, when the last Exarch (Byzantine governor) was put to death by the Lombards.

The exarchate was organised into a group of duchies (i.e the Duchy of Rome, Duchy of Venetia, Duchy of Calabria, Lucania, Spoleto etc) which were mainly the coastal cities in the Italian peninsula since the Lombards held the advantage in the hinterland.

The civil and military head of these imperial possessions, the exarch himself, was the representative at Ravenna of the emperor in Constantinople. The surrounding territory reached from the boundary with Venice in the north to the Pentapolis at Rimini, the border of the "five cities" in the Marches along the Adriatic coast; and reached even cities not on the coast, as Forlì for instance. All this territory lies on the eastern flank of the Apennines; this was under the exarch's direct administration and formed the Exarchate in the strictest sense. Surrounding territories were governed by dukes and magistri militium more or less subject to his authority. From the perspective of Constantinople, the Exarchate consisted of the province of Italy.

Ravenna became the capital of the Western Roman Empire in 402 under Honorius, due to its fine harbour with access to the Adriatic and its ideal defensive location amidst impassable marshes. The city remained the capital of the Empire until its dissolution in 476, when it became the capital of Odoacer, and then of the Ostrogoths under King Theodoric.

It remained the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, but in 540 during the Gothic War (535–554), Ravenna was occupied by the great Eastern Roman general Belisarius. After this reconquest it became the seat of the provincial governor. At that time, the administrative structure of Italy followed, with some modifications, the old system established by Emperor Diocletian and retained by Odoacer and the Goths.

In 568, the Lombards under their king Alboin, together with other Germanic allies, invaded northern Italy. The area had only a few years ago been completely pacified, and had suffered greatly during the long Gothic War. The local Roman forces were weak, and after taking several towns, in 569 the Lombards conquered Milan. They took Pavia after a three-year siege in 572, and made it their capital.[1] In subsequent years, they took Tuscany. Others, under Faroald and Zotto, penetrated into central and southern Italy, where they established the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento. [2] However, after Alboin's murder in 573, the Lombards fragmented into several autonomous duchies (the "Rule of the Dukes").

Emperor Justin II tried to take advantage of this, and in 576 he sent his son-in-law, Baduarius, to Italy. However, he was defeated and killed in battle, [3] and the continuing crises in the Balkans and the East meant that another imperial effort at reconquest was not possible. Because of the Lombard incursions, the Roman possessions had fragmented into several isolated territories, and in 580, Emperor Tiberius II reorganized them into five provinces, now termed in Greek, eparchies: the Annonaria in northern Italy around Ravenna, Calabria, Campania, Emilia and Liguria, and the Urbicaria around the city of Rome (Urbs).

Thus by the end of the sixth century the new order of powers had settled into a stable pattern. Ravenna, governed by its exarch, who held civil and military authority in addition to his ecclesiastical office, was confined to the city, its port and environs as far north as the Po, beyond which lay territory of the duke of Venice, nominally in imperial service, and south to the Marecchia River, beyond which lay the Pentapolis on the Adriatic, also under a duke nominally representing the Emperor of the East. [4]

At the end, ca 740, the Exarchate consisted of Istria, Venetia (except for the lagoon of Venice itself, which was becoming an independent protected city-state, the forerunner of the future republic of Venice), Ferrara, Ravenna (the exarchate in the limited sense), with the Pentapolis, and Perugia.

The Exarchate of Carthage

The Exarchate of Ravenna was not the sole Byzantine province in Italy. Byzantine Sicily formed a separate government, and Corsica and Sardinia, while they remained Byzantine, belonged to the Exarchate of Africa.


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