Byzantine Apulia

AbstractThe paper examines the history of Apulia from late antiquity to the late 11th century, when it formed part of the Byzantine Empire, through an assessment of archaeological discoveries, many of which were made over the last few years. The emerging picture is that of a relatively poor land in the Italian peninsula that, despite the political and economic upheavals of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, continued to remain of great and intrinsic importance to the Byzantine Empire and sustained evermore rapid economic growth from the later 8th or 9th centuries, acting as a middleman in contacts throughout the rest of Italy and the west.