Longobardia (Fema)

Longobardia on a map of Byzantine femmes in southern Italy of the 10th century

Longobardia ( Greek Λογγιβαρδία, Λαγουβαρδία ) is one of the Turmas , and later also the Females of the Byzantine Empire .

It appeared as a result of the Byzantine conquest of part of the Apennine Peninsula, which had previously been taken from the Byzantines by the Lombards in the VI century. It united the modern Italian regions of Puglia and part of Basilicata , the administrative center of the theme was the city of Bari .

The exact origin and territorial evolution of the Longobardia theme is not fully established. It appeared as a turma (county) of the Kefallia theme in 876, immediately after Bari was recaptured from the Muslims (873). In parallel, the process of ousting the Lombards by the Byzantines from the southern extremities of the peninsula began.

At the end of the 9th century, the Longobardia is governed jointly with other European possessions of the Byzantine Empire: in 891, Symbaticus , the first known strategist of the Longobardia, was also the governor of Macedonia, Thrace and Kefallelenia, while his successor, George, runs the Longobardia together with Kefaleniya. In 911, the theme, however, has a separate strategist. In the years 938–956, the Theme Longobardia merged with the Theme of Calabria, although the duration of this arrangement is unclear. In any case, after 965 , both themes were combined into a new Italian catepanate , which lasted until the end of the Byzantine presence on the peninsula (1071) ^[1] .