page_title: Rieti
section_title: Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: Rieti / History / Middle Ages
caption_attribution_description: English: Cattedrale di Santa Maria - Tower - Rieti, Lazio, Italia
context_page_description: Rieti is an ancient town and comune in Lazio, central Italy, with a population of 47,700. It is the administrative seat of the province of Rieti and see of the diocese of Rieti, as well as the modern capital of the Sabina region.
  The town centre stands on a small hilltop, commanding from the southern edge the wide Rieti valley, at the bottom of the Sabine hills and of monti Reatini, including mount Terminillo. The plain was once a large lake, drained by the ancient Romans, and is now the fertile basin of the Velino River. Only the small Ripasottile and Lungo lakes remain of the larger original.
context_section_description: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire Rieti suffered destruction by Barbarians, but never ceased to be an important gastaldate during the Lombard domination, as part of the Duchy of Spoleto. Under the Franks, it was the county capital. It was sacked by the Saracens in the 9th and 10th century and by the Norman king Roger II of Sicily in 1149.
  The city was rebuilt with the help of the Roman comune, and from 1198 was also a free commune, of Guelph orientation, with a podestà of its own.
  As a favourite Papal seat, Rieti was the place of important historical events: Constance of Hauteville married here by proxy Emperor Henry VI (1185). Charles I of Anjou was crowned King of Apulia, Sicily and Jerusalem by Pope Nicholas I in 1289. Pope Gregory IX celebrated canonized St. Dominic in Rieti (1234).
caption: Bell tower of St. Mary Cathedral
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