Contested Identities in the Byzantine West, circa 540–895

This chapter considers Byzantine identities in the western Mediterranean. The prime chronological focus runs from the re-imposition of Byzantine control of the Italian peninsula with the defeat of the Ostrogoths in the middle of the sixth century until the reacquisition of Beneventan independence in 895. The adoption of this longer time frame beyond the end of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna in 751, which is usually seen to signify the end of active Byzantine authority in central and northern Italy, allows discussion of the persistence of micro- and macro-identities in the central Mediterranean that favoured, cultivated, and retained a Byzantine focus.