end, but the remnant of the Spanish infantry retreated in order along the river causeway, keeping the pursuers at bay with their arquebuses. Gaston de Foix, recklessly charging into the midst of them, was killed. (C. F. A.)
RAVENNA, EXARCHATE OF, the official name of that part of Italy which remained in the allegiance of the Roman
emperors at Constantinople from the closing years of the 6th
to the middle of the 8th century. The civil and military head
of these possessions, the exarch (q.v.), was stationed at Ravenna.
The territory round the town, from the southern border of
the modern Venetia to the beginning of the Pentapolis at
Rimini, was under his direct administration and formed in
a limited sense the ex arch ate. The other provinces were
governed by dukes and magistri militum, titles which were
generally, but not always, borne by the same person. But as
all were subject to his authority, they were included in the
exarchate of Ravenna, which was therefore another name for
the province of Italy. The borders of these dominions varied
according to the fortunes of the imperial authority in its long
struggle with the Lombards. Sicily formed a separate government.
Corsica and Sardinia belonged to the exarchate of
Africa. The reorganization of the province of Italy into
the ex arch ate was forced on the emperors by the Lombard
invasion, which began in 568, and their permanent settlement.
The Lombards thrust a wedge into Italy. Its base was in
Venetia, and its point was advanced to the Tiber. From the
early days of the conquest they spread to the south, and established
the duchies of Spoletum and Beneventum in the modern
kingdom of Naples. They may thus be said to have hollowed
out the imperial, or Byzantine, possessions in Italy, the interior
being under their power, and the coast remaining to the imperial
officers. This illustration, however, is subject to two serious
exceptions. As the Lombards spread they came into possession
of many parts of the coast. Then a belt of imperial
territory stretching from Rimini on the Adriatic, S.W. to the
mouth of the Tiber, and including the duchies of Perugia and
Rome, served to unite the immediate territory of Ravenna
with the duchy of Naples, and to separate the two bodies
under Lombard dominion, the kingdom in the north, and
the southern duchies Spoletum and Beneventum. The
organization of the ex arch ate is placed by modern investigators
under the reign of the emperor Maurice (582–602), when
the imperial government began to recognize the necessity of
providing for a new and a long struggle. At the end of the
6th century the exarchate included Istria; the maritime
part of Venetia as distinct from the interior which was in the
hands of the Lombard kings at Pavia; the exarchate proper,
or territory around Ravenna on the eastern side of the
Apennines, to which was added Calabria, which at that period
meant the heel and not the toe of the boot; the Pentapolis,
or coast from Rimini to Ancona with the interior as far as the
mountains; the duchy of Rome, or belt of territory connecting
the Pentapolis with the western coast, the coast of Naples,
with Bruttium the toe of the boot, the modern Calabria, and
Liguria, to the Riviera of Genoa. The Piedmont, Lombardy,
mainland of Venetia, Tuscany and the interior of Naples belonged to the Lombards. The advance of these barbarians
was for a time checked during the anarchy which followed
the death of Alboin, and was subject to other suspensions.
The superior organization of the imperial government enabled
it to regain lost territory and delay complete ruin. In 590
the empire regained much of Venetia. But these revivals were
not permanent. The superiority of the empire was a mechanical
one, and during the two centuries or so that the ex arch ate
lasted it lost ground. In 640 the Ligurian seacoast fell under
the power of the Lombards, and ceased to be an imperial province.
About a century later the exarchate had been greatly
reduced, though the imperial officials endeavoured to conceal
the fact by retaining and transferring names when the reality
of possession was lost. About 740 it consisted of Istria,
Venetia (the maritime portion of which was ceasing to be a
province and was becoming a protected state, the forerunner
of the future republic of Venice), Ferrara, Ravenna (the
ex arch ate in the limited sense), Pentapolis, Perusia, Rome,
the coast of Naples and Calabria (in the sense of the toe and
not the heel of the boot) which was being overrun by the Lombards
of the duchy of Beneventum, which with Spoletum held
the interior. In Rome the pope was the real master. These
fragments of the “ province of Italy,” as it was when reconquered
by Justinian, were almost all lost either to the Lombards,
who finally conquered Ravenna itself about 750, or by
the revolt of the pope, who separated from the empire on
account of the iconoclastic reforms. The intervention of Pippin
the Carolingian, who was called in by the popes to protect them
against the Lombards and the Eastern emperors alike, made a
revival of the exarchate impossible. It disappeared, and the
small remnants of the imperial possessions on the mainland,
Naples and Calabria, passed under the authority of the “ patricius
” of Sicily, and when Sicily was conquered by the Arabs
in the 10th century were erected into the themes of Calabria
and Langobardia. Istria was attached to Dalmatia.
In its internal history the exarchate was subject to the influences which were everywhere, in central and western Europe at least, leading to the subdivision of sovereignty and the establishment of feudalism. Step by step, and in spite of the efforts of the emperors at Constantinople, the great imperial officials became landowners, the owners of land—kinsmen or at least associates of these officials—intruded on the imperial administration, while the necessity for providing for the defence of the imperial territories against the Lombards led to the formation of local militias, who at first were attached to the imperial regiments, but gradually became independent. These armed men formed the exercitus romanae milittae, who were the forerunners of the free armed burghers of the Italian cities of the middle ages. The exercitus of Rome was divided into scholae, and had a chief or patronus, and its banner. Other cities of the exarchate were organized on the same model. Diehl is of opinion that the exercitus was formed of the ancient “ possessores,” or landowners and free townsmen, who were of a less rank than the ordo senatorius. The great landowners who were developing into feudal lords, and the smaller freemen who were becoming independent burghers, broke administration to pieces, and prepared the way ruin of the exarchate.
See Études sur l'administration Byzantine dans l'exarchat de Ravenna (568–751), by Charles Diehl (Paris, 1888).
RAVENSBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, pleasantly situated amid vine-clad
hills on the
river Schussen, 12 m. N. of Friedrichshafen on the lake of
Constance, by the railway of Ulm. Pop. (1905) 14,614, the
great majority of whom are Roman Catholics. Its aspect is
medieval; it still retains its walls and nine picturesque towers,
the most prominent of which, dating from the 15th century,
is known as the “ Mehlsack,” or sack of flour. The town hall
is a handsome 15th-century building. The manufactures
include linen, cotton, embroidered muslins, pottery, glass and
playing-cards. The fruit market is important, and there is
trade in cattle, grain and timber. Ravensburg was founded
in the 11th century by the Guelphs, and in their ancestral
castle on the Veitsburg, which was partially restored in 1892,
the Saxon duke, Henry the Lion, was born. In 1180 the town
passed to the Hohenstaufens, and a century later it became
a free town of the Empire. In the 15th century it was a
flourishing commercial place, its chief industry being the
manufacture of paper. Annexed to Bavaria from 1803 to 1810,
it was ceded to Württemberg in the latter year.
See Hafner. Geschichte von Ravensburg (Ravensburg, 1887).
RAVENSCROFT, EDWARD (fl. 1671–1697), English dramatist, belonged to an ancient Flintshire family. He was entered at the Middle Temple, but devoted his attention mainly to literature. Among his pieces are Mamamouchi, or The Citizen turned Gentleman (Dorset Garden, 1671, pr. 1675); The Careless Lovers (Dorset Garden, 1673, pr. 1673), a comedy
