![]() The Lombard arrival broke the political unity of the Italian Peninsula for the first time since the Roman conquest (between the 3rd and 2nd century BC). In the spring of 568 the Lombards, led by King Alboin, moved from Pannonia and quickly overwhelmed the small Byzantine army left by Narses to guard Italy. Although the Byzantine Empire eventually prevailed, the triumph proved to be a pyrrhic victory, as all these factors caused the population of the Italian Peninsula to crash, leaving the conquered territories severely underpopulated and impoverished.Īlthough an invasion attempt by the Franks, then allies of the Ostrogoths, late in the war was successfully repelled, a large migration by the Lombards, a Germanic people that had been previously allied with the Byzantine Empire, ensued. Problems were further exacerbated by volcanic winter (536), causing widespread famine (538–542) and a devastating plague pandemic (541–542). In the resulting Gothic War (535–554) waged against the Ostrogothic Kingdom, Byzantine hopes of an early and easy triumph evolved into a long war of attrition that resulted in mass dislocation of population and destruction of property. In the 6th century Byzantine Emperor Justinian attempted to reassert imperial authority in the territories of the Western Roman Empire. See also: Langobardia major and Langobardia Minor The so-called Iron Crown of Lombardy, one of the oldest surviving royal insignias of Christendom, may have originated in Lombard Italy as early as the 7th century and continued to be used to crown kings of Italy until Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century. Ī reduced Regnum Italiae, a heritage of the Lombards, continued to exist for centuries as one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, roughly corresponding to the territory of the former Langobardia Maior. Any genetic legacy of the Lombards was quickly diluted into the Italian population owing to their relatively small number and their geographic dispersal in order to rule and administer their kingdom. Some regions were never under Lombard domination, including Latium, Sardinia, Sicily, Calabria, Naples and southern Apulia. The Kingdom of the Lombards at the time of its demise was the last minor Germanic kingdom in Europe. Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, adopted the title "King of the Lombards", although he never managed to gain control of Benevento, the southernmost Lombard duchy. Nevertheless, their conflict with the Pope continued and was responsible for their gradual loss of power to the Franks, who conquered the kingdom in 774. However, by the end of the 7th century, their conversion to Catholicism was all but complete. Initially the Lombards were Arian Christians or pagans, which put them at odds with the Roman population as well as the Byzantine Empire and the Pope. ![]() By the time Paul the Deacon was writing in the late 8th century, the Lombardic language, dress and hairstyles had all disappeared. ![]() Over time, the Lombards gradually adopted Roman titles, names, and traditions. Because of this division, the southern duchies were considerably more autonomous than the smaller northern duchies. For most of the kingdom's history, the Byzantine-ruled Exarchate of Ravenna and Duchy of Rome separated the northern Lombard duchies, collectively known as Langobardia Maior, from the two large southern duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, which constituted Langobardia Minor. The Lombard invasion of Italy was opposed by the Byzantine Empire, which retained control of much of the peninsula until the mid-8th century. The capital of the kingdom and the center of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy. The kingdom was subdivided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the municipal level. The king was traditionally elected by the very highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, as several attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The Kingdom of the Lombards ( Latin: Regnum Langobardorum Italian: Regno dei Longobardi Lombard: Regn di Lombard) also known as the Lombard Kingdom later the Kingdom of (all) Italy ( Latin: Regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century.
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