Alboin
Encyclopedia
Alboin was king of the Lombards
from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations
by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting impact on Italy and the Pannonian Basin
; in the former his invasion marked the beginning of centuries of Lombard rule, and in the latter his defeat of the Gepids and his departure from Pannonia
ended the dominance of the Germanic peoples
.
The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, Audoin
, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbors, the Gepids. The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars
, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire
's reduced ability to defend its territory in the wake of the Gothic War.
After succeeding in gathering together a large coalition of peoples, Alboin began his trek in 568. After crossing the Julian Alps
he entered an almost undefended Italy, and rapidly took control of most of Venetia and Liguria
. In 569, unopposed, he took northern Italy's main city, Milan
. Pavia
offered stiff resistance however, and was only taken after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany
, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves.
Alboin was assassinated on June 28, 572, in a coup d'état
instigated by the Byzantines. It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund
, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier. The coup failed in the face of opposition from a majority of the Lombards, who elected Cleph
as Alboin's successor, forcing Helmichis and Rosamund to flee to Ravenna
under imperial protection. Alboin's death deprived the Lombards of the only leader who could have kept the newborn Germanic entity together, the last in the line of hero-kings who had led the Lombards through their migrations from Elba to Italy. For many centuries following his death Alboin's heroism and his success in battle were celebrated in Saxon and Bavarian epic poetry.
had migrated towards the east into Pannonia, taking advantage of the difficulties facing the Ostrogothic Kingdom
in Italy following the death of its founder, Theodoric
in 526. Wacho's death in about 540 brought his son Walthari to the throne, but as the latter was still a minor the kingdom was governed in his stead by Alboin's father, Audoin, of the Gausian
clan. Seven years later the king died, giving Audoin the opportunity to crown himself and overthrow the reigning Lethings
.
Alboin was probably born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and the king's wife Rodelinda
. She may have been the niece of King Theodoric and betrothed to Audoin through the mediation of Emperor Justinian
. Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Catholic. Alboin took as his first wife the Catholic Chlothsind
, daughter of the Frankish
King Chlothar. This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald
in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids. The new Frankish alliance was important because of the Franks' known hostility to the Byzantine empire, providing the Lombards with more than one option. However, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when already a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death.
Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids. At the Battle of Asfeld
he killed Turismod
, son of the Gepid king Thurisind
, in a victory that resulted in the Emperor Justinian's intervention to maintain equilibrium between the rival regional powers. After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon
, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king, and have him donate his weapons, as was customary. For this initiation he went to the court of Thurisind, where the Gepid king gave him Turismod's arms. Walter Goffart
believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, and is sceptical that it can be considered a typical heldenlied ("hero's lay
").
, Thurisind's son. The cause of the conflict is uncertain, as the sources are divided; the Lombard Paul the Deacon accuses the Gepids, while the Byzantine historian Menander Protector
places the blame on Alboin, an interpretation favoured by historian Walter Pohl
.
An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta
sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund
, that Alboin proceeded then to marry. The tale is treated with scepticism by Walter Goffart, who observes that it conflicts with the Origo Gentis Langobardorum
, where she was captured only after the death of her father. The Gepids obtained the support of the Emperor in exchange for a promise to cede him the region of Sirmium
, the seat of the Gepid kings. Thus in 565 or 566 Justinian's successor Justin II
sent his son-in-law Baduarius
as magister militum
(field commander) to lead a Byzantine army against Alboin in support of Cunimund, ending in the Lombards' complete defeat.
Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Alboin made an alliance in 566 with the Avars
under Bayan I, at the expense of some tough conditions; the Avars demanded a tenth of the Lombards' cattle, half of the war booty, and on the war's conclusion all of the lands held by the Gepids. The Lombards played on the pre-existing hostility between the Avars and the Byzantines, claiming that the latter were allied with the Gepids. Cunimund, on the other hand, encountered hostility when he once again asked the Emperor for military assistance, as the Byzantines had been angered by the Gepids' failure to cede Sirmium to them, as had been agreed. Moreover, Justin II was moving away from the foreign policy of Justinian, and believed in dealing more strictly with bordering states and peoples. Attempts to mollify Justin II with tributes failed, and as a result the Byzantines kept themselves neutral if not outright supportive of the Avars.
In 567 the allies made their final move against Cunimund, with Alboin invading the Gepids' lands from the northwest while Bayan attacked from the northeast. Cunimund attempted to prevent the two armies joining up by moving against the Lombards and clashing with Alboin somewhere between the Tibiscus
and Danube rivers. The Gepids were defeated in the ensuing battle, their king slain by Alboin, and Cunimund's daughter Rosamund taken captive, according to references in the Origo. The full destruction of the Gepid kingdom was completed by the Avars, who overcame the Gepids in the east. As a result, the Gepids ceased to exist as an independent people, and were partly absorbed by the Lombards and the Avars. Some time before 568, Alboin's first wife Chlothsind died, and after his victory against Cunimund Alboin married Rosamund, to establish a bond with the remaining Gepids. The war also marked a watershed in the geo-political history of the region, as together with the Lombard migration the following year, it signalled the end of six centuries of Germanic dominance in the Pannonian Basin.
had ravaged the region and conflict remained endemic, with the Three-Chapter Controversy
sparking religious opposition and administration at a standstill after the able governor of the peninsula, Narses
, was recalled. Nevertheless the Lombards viewed Italy as a rich land which promised great booty, assets Alboin used to gather together a horde which included not only Lombards but many other peoples of the region, including Heruli
, Suebi
, Gepids, Thuringii
, Bulgars
, Sarmatians
, the remaining Romans and a few Ostrogoths. But the most important group, other than the Lombards, were the Saxons
, of whom 20,000 participated in the trek. These Saxons were tributaries to the Frankish King Sigebert
, and their participation indicates that Alboin had the support of the Franks for his venture.
The precise size of the heterogeneous group gathered by Alboin is impossible to know, and many different estimates have been made. Neil Christie
considers 150,000 to be a realistic size, a number which would make the Lombards a more numerous force than the Ostrogoths on the eve of their invasion of Italy. Jörg Jarnut proposes 100,000–150,000 as an approximation; Wilfried Menghen in Die Langobarden estimates 150,000 to 200,000; while Stefano Gasparri cautiously judges the peoples united by Alboin to be somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000.
As a precautionary move Alboin strengthened his alliance with the Avars, signing what Paul calls a foedus perpetuum ("perpetual treaty") and what is referred to in the 9th-century Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani as a pactum et foedus amicitiae ("pact and friendship treaty"), adding that the treaty was put down on paper. By the conditions accepted in the treaty, the Avars were to take possession of Pannonia and the Lombards were promised military support in Italy should the need arise; also, for a period of 200 years the Lombards were to maintain the right to reclaim their former territories if the plan to conquer Italy failed, thus leaving Alboin with an alternative open. The accord also had the advantage of protecting Alboin's rear, as an Avar-occupied Pannonia would make it difficult for the Byzantines to bring forces to Italy by land. The agreement proved immensely successful, and relations with the Avars were almost uninterruptedly friendly during the lifetime of the Lombard Kingdom.
A further cause of the Lombard migration into Italy may have been an invitation from Narses. According to a controversial tradition reported by several medieval sources, Narses, out of spite for having been removed by Justinian's successor Justin II, called the Lombards to Italy. Often dismissed as an unreliable tradition, it has been studied with attention by modern scholars, in particular Neil Christie, who see in it a possible record of a formal invitation by the Byzantine state to settle in northern Italy as foederati
, to help protect the region against the Franks, an arrangement that may have been disowned by Justin II after Narses' removal.
The Lombard migration started on Easter Monday, April 2, 568. The decision to combine the departure with a Christian celebration can be understood in the context of Alboin's recent conversion to Arian Christianity
, as attested by the presence of Arian Gothic missionaries at his court. The conversion is likely to have been motivated mostly from political considerations, and intended to consolidate the migration's cohesion, distinguishing them from the Catholic Romans. It also connected Alboin and his people to the Gothic heritage, and in this way obtain the support of the Ostrogoths serving in the Byzantine army as foederati. It has been speculated that Alboin's migration could have been partly the result of a call from surviving Ostrogoths in Italy.
The season chosen for leaving Pannonia was unusually early; the Germanic peoples generally waited until autumn before beginning a migration, giving themselves time to do the harvesting and replenish their granaries for the march. The reason behind the spring departure could be the anxiety induced by the neighboring Avars, despite the friendship treaty. Nomadic peoples like the Avars also waited for autumn to begin their military campaigns, as they needed enough forage for their horses. A sign of this anxiety can also be seen in the decision taken by Alboin to ravage Pannonia, which created a sanitary cordon between the Lombards and the Avars.
The road followed by Alboin to reach Italy has been the subject of controversy, as is the length of the trek. According to Neil Christie the Lombards divided themselves into migrational groups, with a vanguard scouting the road, probably following the Poetovio
– Celeia
– Emona
– Forum Iulii
route, while the wagons and most of the people proceeded slowly behind because of the goods and chattels they brought with them, and possibly also because they were waiting for the Saxons to join them on the road. By September raiding parties were looting Venetia, but it was probably only in 569 that the Julian Alps
were crossed at the Vipava Valley
; the eyewitness Secundus of Non
gives the date as May 20 or 21. The 569 date for the entry into Italy is not void of difficulties however, and Jörg Jarnut believes the conquest of most of Venetia had already been completed in 568. According to Carlo Guido Mor, a major difficulty remains in explaining how Alboin could have reached Milan on September 3 assuming he had passed the border only in the May of the same year.
The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops (milities limitanei). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in Friuli
"without any hindrance".
The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was Forum Iulii
(Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local magister militum. Alboin chose this walled centre close to the frontier to be capital of the Duchy of Friuli
and made his nephew and shield bearer
Gisulf
duke
of the region with the specific duty of defending the borders from eventual Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those farae, or clans, that he preferred.
Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the comes
civitatis
(city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count (comes) to duke (dux) and from county (comitatus) to duchy (ducatus) also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy. The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.
, the most important road junction in the northeast, and the administrative capital of Venetia. The imminent arrival of the Lombards had a considerable impact on the city's population; the Patriarch of Aquileia Paulinus
fled with his clergy and flock to the island of Grado
in Byzantine-controlled territory.
From Aquileia, Alboin took the Via Postumia
and swept through Venetia, taking in rapid succession Tarvisium
(Treviso), Vicentia
(Vicenza), Verona
, Brixia
(Brescia) and Bergomum
(Bergamo). The Lombards faced difficulties only in taking Opitergium
(Oderzo), which Alboin decided to avoid, as he similarly avoided tackling the main Venetian towns closer to the coast on the Via Annia
, such as Altinum
, Patavium
(Padova), Mons Silicis
(Monselice), Mantua
and Cremona
. The invasion of Venetia generated a considerable level of turmoil, spurring waves of refugees from the Lombard-controlled interior to the Byzantine-held coast, often led by their bishops, and resulting in new settlements such as Torcello
and Heraclia
.
Alboin moved west in his march, invading the region of Liguria
(north-east Italy) and reaching its capital Mediolanum
(Milan
) on September 3, 569, only to find it already abandoned by the vicarius
Italiae (vicar of Italy), the authority entrusted with the administration of the diocese of Annonarian Italy. Archbishop Honoratus, his clergy, and part of the laity accompanied the vicarius Italiae to find a safe haven in the Byzantine port of Genua
(Genoa). Alboin counted the years of his reign from the capture of Milan, when he assumed the title of dominus Italiae (Lord of Italy). His success also meant the collapse of Byzantine defences in the northern part of the Po plain, and large movements of refugees to Byzantine areas.
Several explanations have been advanced to explain the swiftness and ease of the initial Lombard advance in northern Italy. It has been suggested that the towns' doors may have been opened by the betrayal of the Gothic auxiliaries in the Byzantine army, but historians generally hold that Lombard success occurred because Italy was not considered by Byzantium as a vital part of the empire, especially at a time when the empire was imperilled by the attacks of Avars and Slavs
in the Balkans
and Sassanids
in the east. The Byzantine decision not to contest the Lombard invasion reflects the desire of Justinian's successors to reorient the core of the Empire's polices eastward.
to escape from the Lombards, like the two most senior bishops in the north, Honoratus and Paulinus. However, most of the suffragan bishop
s in the north sought an accommodation with the Lombards, as did in 569 the bishop of Tarvisium Felix when he journeyed to the Piave river to parley with Alboin, obtaining respect for the Church and its goods in return for this act of homage. It seems certain that many sees maintained an uninterrupted episcopal succession through the turmoil of the invasion and the following years. The transition was eased by the hostility existing among the northern Italian bishops towards the papacy and the empire due to the religious dispute involving the "Three-Chapter Controversy
". In Lombard territory, churchmen were at least sure to avoid imperial religious persecution.
In the view of Pierre Riché, the disappearance of 220 bishops' seats indicates that the Lombard migration was a crippling catastrophe for the Church. Yet according to Walter Pohl the regions directly occupied by Alboin suffered less devastation and had a relatively robust survival rate for towns, whereas the occupation of territory by autonomous military bands interested mainly in raiding and looting had a more severe impact, with the bishoprics in such places rarely surviving.
(Pavia
), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy
. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae
and the Adriatic coast
.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria
(Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus
(Lake Como). During Alboin's kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines
and plundered Tuscia
, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram
, it was probably only in 578–579 that Tuscany
was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
Alboin's problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or duces, who led each band (fara) of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as foederati but as enemies of the Empire.
The king's disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus
' victory at Embrun
. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram
in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia
, Sigebert I
. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham
.
The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald
and Zotto's respective rise to power in Spoletium
(Spoleto
) and Beneventum
(Benevento
).
Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on June 28, 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum
in his Chronica, written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul's Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins
describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours
' account presented in the Historia Francorum, and echoed by the later Fredegar
. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the Historia and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".
. In Paul the events that lead to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father", and this reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.
The tale has been often dismissed as a fable, and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis
. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples, and in particular among the Lombards' neighbours, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic
ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the Promised Land
, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin
and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull, but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
In her plan to kill her husband she found an ally in Helmichis, the king's foster brother and spatharius (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king's cubicularius
(bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on June 28, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the Origo had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo as not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the Latin word peritus, meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of the hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elba to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarian
s celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
To complete the coup d'état
and legitimize his claim to the throne, Helmichis married the queen, whose high standing arose not only from being the king's widow but also from being the most prominent member of the remaining Gepid nation, and as such her support was a guarantee of the Gepids' loyalty to Helmichis. The latter could also count on the support of the Lombard garrison of Verona, where many may have opposed Alboin's aggressive policy and could have cultivated the hope of reaching an entente with the Empire. The Byzantines were almost certainly deeply involved in the plot. It was in their interest to stem the Lombard tide by bringing a pro-Byzantine regime into power in Verona, and possibly in the long run break the unity of the Lombards' kingdom, winning over the dukes with honors and emoluments.
The coup ultimately failed, as it met with the resistance of most of the warriors, who were opposed to the king's assassination. As a result, the Lombard garrison in Ticinum proclaimed Duke Cleph
the new king, and Helmichis, rather than going to war against overwhelming odds, escaped to Ravenna with Longinus' assistance, taking with him his wife, his troops, the royal treasure and Alboin's daughter Albsuinda
. In Ravenna the two lovers became estranged and killed each other. Subsequently Longinus sent Albsuinda and the treasure to Constantinople
.
Cleph kept the throne for only 18 months before being assassinated by a slave
. Possibly he too was killed at the instigation of the Byzantines, who had every interest in avoiding an hostile and solid leadership among the Lombards. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum
, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari
, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom while the remaining imperial territories were reorganized under the control of an exarch
in Ravenna with the capacity to defend the country without the Emperor's assistance.
The consolidation of Byzantine and Lombard dominions had long-lasting consequences for Italy, as the region was from that moment on fragmented among multiple rulers until Italian unification
in 1871.
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting impact on Italy and the Pannonian Basin
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large basin in East-Central Europe.The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense - meaning only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried...
; in the former his invasion marked the beginning of centuries of Lombard rule, and in the latter his defeat of the Gepids and his departure from Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
ended the dominance of the Germanic peoples
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
.
The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, Audoin
Audoin
Alduin, Auduin, or Audoin was king of the Lombards from 546 to 560. The Lombards became, under him, fœderati of the Byzantines , signing a treaty with Justinian I which gave them power in Pannonia and the north. Beginning in 551, he was obliged to send troops to serve Narses in Italy against the...
, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbors, the Gepids. The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
's reduced ability to defend its territory in the wake of the Gothic War.
After succeeding in gathering together a large coalition of peoples, Alboin began his trek in 568. After crossing the Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...
he entered an almost undefended Italy, and rapidly took control of most of Venetia and Liguria
Liguria
Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
. In 569, unopposed, he took northern Italy's main city, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
offered stiff resistance however, and was only taken after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves.
Alboin was assassinated on June 28, 572, in a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
instigated by the Byzantines. It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund
Rosamund (Gepid)
Rosamund or Rosamunde was the daughter of Cunimund, king of the Gepids, and wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards.Rosamund was born into a kingdom in crisis, as the Gepid people had been fighting a losing battle against the Lombards since 546, firstly within the context of a Lombardic-Byzantine...
, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier. The coup failed in the face of opposition from a majority of the Lombards, who elected Cleph
Cleph
Cleph was king of the Lombards from 572 or 573 to 574 or 575.He succeeded Alboin, to whom he was not related by blood. He was a violent and terrifying figure to the Romans and Byzantines struggling to maintain control of the peninsula...
as Alboin's successor, forcing Helmichis and Rosamund to flee to Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
under imperial protection. Alboin's death deprived the Lombards of the only leader who could have kept the newborn Germanic entity together, the last in the line of hero-kings who had led the Lombards through their migrations from Elba to Italy. For many centuries following his death Alboin's heroism and his success in battle were celebrated in Saxon and Bavarian epic poetry.
Father's rule
The Lombards under King WachoWacho
Wacho was king of the Lombards before they entered Italy from an unknown date until his death in 539. His father was Unichis. Wacho usurped the throne by assassinating his uncle, King Tato . Tato's son Ildchis fought with him and fled to the Gepids where he died...
had migrated towards the east into Pannonia, taking advantage of the difficulties facing the Ostrogothic Kingdom
Ostrogothic Kingdom
The Kingdom established by the Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas lasted from 493 to 553. In Italy the Ostrogoths replaced Odoacer, the de facto ruler of Italy who had deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The Gothic kingdom reached its zenith under the rule of its...
in Italy following the death of its founder, Theodoric
Theodoric the Great
Theodoric the Great was king of the Ostrogoths , ruler of Italy , regent of the Visigoths , and a viceroy of the Eastern Roman Empire...
in 526. Wacho's death in about 540 brought his son Walthari to the throne, but as the latter was still a minor the kingdom was governed in his stead by Alboin's father, Audoin, of the Gausian
Gausian dynasty
The Gausi or Gausian dynasty was a prominent Lombard ruling clan in the second half of the 6th century . They were Arian Christians and at odds with the Roman Catholic Church...
clan. Seven years later the king died, giving Audoin the opportunity to crown himself and overthrow the reigning Lethings
Lethings
The Lethings were a dynasty of Lombard kings ruling in the 5th and 6th centuries until 546. They were the first Lombard royal dynasty and represent the emergence of the Lombard rulership out of obscurity and into history....
.
Alboin was probably born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and the king's wife Rodelinda
Rodelinda (6th century)
Rodelinda was a Lombard queen who lived in the 6th century. She was the wife of king Audoin and mother of king Alboin.She was the first wife of Audoin, regent for the infant king of the Lombards Walthari from 540 to 546/547 and king in his own right from 546/547 to an uncertain date after 552, and...
. She may have been the niece of King Theodoric and betrothed to Audoin through the mediation of Emperor Justinian
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...
. Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Catholic. Alboin took as his first wife the Catholic Chlothsind
Chlothsind
Chothsind was a daughter of Ingund and King Chlothar I, who was himself one of four sons of King Clovis I. She was the first wife of Alboin King of the Lombards. According to Paul the Deacon, she had one child by Alboin, Albsuinda.- References :...
, daughter of the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
King Chlothar. This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald
Theudebald
Theudebald or Theodebald , son of Theudebert I and Deuteria, was the king of Metz, Rheims, or Austrasia—as it's variously called—from 547 or 548 to 555.He was only thirteen years of age when he succeeded and of ill health...
in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids. The new Frankish alliance was important because of the Franks' known hostility to the Byzantine empire, providing the Lombards with more than one option. However, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire is a set of three volumes collectively describing every person attested or claimed to have lived in the Roman world from AD 260, the date of the beginning of Gallienus' sole rule, to 641, the date of the death of Heraclius, which is commonly held to mark the...
interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when already a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death.
Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids. At the Battle of Asfeld
Battle of Asfeld
The Battle of Asfeld was fought in 552 between the Lombards and the Gepids. The Lombards, led by King Audoin, were victorious, and, Thorismund, the son of King Thorisind was slain in the battle....
he killed Turismod
Turismod
Turismod was a son of the king of the Gepids Thurisind. He was killed in 551 or 552 on the battlefield by Alboin, son of the king of the Lombards Audoin....
, son of the Gepid king Thurisind
Thurisind
Thurisind was king of the Gepids, an East Germanic Gothic people, from c. 548 to 560. He was the penultimate Gepid king, and succeeded King Elemund by staging a coup d'état and forcing the king's son into exile...
, in a victory that resulted in the Emperor Justinian's intervention to maintain equilibrium between the rival regional powers. After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon
Paul the Deacon
Paul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...
, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king, and have him donate his weapons, as was customary. For this initiation he went to the court of Thurisind, where the Gepid king gave him Turismod's arms. Walter Goffart
Walter Goffart
Walter Andre Goffart is a historian of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages who specializes in research on the barbarian kingdoms of those periods. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale University....
believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, and is sceptical that it can be considered a typical heldenlied ("hero's lay
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
").
Reign in Pannonia
Alboin came to the throne after the death of his father, sometime between 560 and 565. As was customary among the Lombards, Alboin took the crown after an election by the tribe's freemen, who traditionally selected the king from the dead sovereign's clan. Shortly afterwards, in 565, a new war erupted with the Gepids, now led by CunimundCunimund
Cunimund was a king of the Gepids in the 6th century. Cunimund was the last of the Gepid kings and led them in their defeat by the Lombards in 567.-Background:...
, Thurisind's son. The cause of the conflict is uncertain, as the sources are divided; the Lombard Paul the Deacon accuses the Gepids, while the Byzantine historian Menander Protector
Menander Protector
Menander Protector , Byzantine historian, was born in Constantinople in the middle of the 6th century AD. The little that is known of his life is contained in the account of himself quoted by Suidas. He at first took up the study of law, but abandoned it for a life of pleasure...
places the blame on Alboin, an interpretation favoured by historian Walter Pohl
Walter Pohl
Walter Pohl is an Austrian historian. His area of expertise is the history of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages....
.
An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta
Theophylact Simocatta
Theophylact Simocatta was an early seventh-century Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as the last historian of Late Antiquity, writing in the time of Heraclius about the late Emperor Maurice .-Life:His history of the reign of emperor Maurice is in eight books...
sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund
Rosamund (Gepid)
Rosamund or Rosamunde was the daughter of Cunimund, king of the Gepids, and wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards.Rosamund was born into a kingdom in crisis, as the Gepid people had been fighting a losing battle against the Lombards since 546, firstly within the context of a Lombardic-Byzantine...
, that Alboin proceeded then to marry. The tale is treated with scepticism by Walter Goffart, who observes that it conflicts with the Origo Gentis Langobardorum
Origo Gentis Langobardorum
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum is a short 7th century account offering a founding myth of the Lombard people. The first part visions the origin and naming of the Lombards, and the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit , which helps date the original writing of...
, where she was captured only after the death of her father. The Gepids obtained the support of the Emperor in exchange for a promise to cede him the region of Sirmium
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in ancient Roman Pannonia. Firstly mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by the Illyrians and Celts, it was conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC and subsequently became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Pannonia. In 294 AD, Sirmium was...
, the seat of the Gepid kings. Thus in 565 or 566 Justinian's successor Justin II
Justin II
Justin II was Byzantine Emperor from 565 to 578. He was the husband of Sophia, nephew of Justinian I and the late Empress Theodora, and was therefore a member of the Justinian Dynasty. His reign is marked by war with Persia and the loss of the greater part of Italy...
sent his son-in-law Baduarius
Baduarius
Baduarius was an East Roman aristocrat, the son-in-law of Byzantine emperor Justin II . Theophanes the Confessor erroneously calls him a brother.- Life :...
as magister militum
Magister militum
Magister militum was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine. Used alone, the term referred to the senior military officer of the Empire...
(field commander) to lead a Byzantine army against Alboin in support of Cunimund, ending in the Lombards' complete defeat.
Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Alboin made an alliance in 566 with the Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
under Bayan I, at the expense of some tough conditions; the Avars demanded a tenth of the Lombards' cattle, half of the war booty, and on the war's conclusion all of the lands held by the Gepids. The Lombards played on the pre-existing hostility between the Avars and the Byzantines, claiming that the latter were allied with the Gepids. Cunimund, on the other hand, encountered hostility when he once again asked the Emperor for military assistance, as the Byzantines had been angered by the Gepids' failure to cede Sirmium to them, as had been agreed. Moreover, Justin II was moving away from the foreign policy of Justinian, and believed in dealing more strictly with bordering states and peoples. Attempts to mollify Justin II with tributes failed, and as a result the Byzantines kept themselves neutral if not outright supportive of the Avars.
In 567 the allies made their final move against Cunimund, with Alboin invading the Gepids' lands from the northwest while Bayan attacked from the northeast. Cunimund attempted to prevent the two armies joining up by moving against the Lombards and clashing with Alboin somewhere between the Tibiscus
Timis River
The Timiş or Tamiš is a 359 km long river originating from Țarcu Mountains , southern Carpathian Mountains, Caraş-Severin County, Romania. It flows through the Banat region and flows into the Danube near Pančevo, in northern Serbia....
and Danube rivers. The Gepids were defeated in the ensuing battle, their king slain by Alboin, and Cunimund's daughter Rosamund taken captive, according to references in the Origo. The full destruction of the Gepid kingdom was completed by the Avars, who overcame the Gepids in the east. As a result, the Gepids ceased to exist as an independent people, and were partly absorbed by the Lombards and the Avars. Some time before 568, Alboin's first wife Chlothsind died, and after his victory against Cunimund Alboin married Rosamund, to establish a bond with the remaining Gepids. The war also marked a watershed in the geo-political history of the region, as together with the Lombard migration the following year, it signalled the end of six centuries of Germanic dominance in the Pannonian Basin.
Preparations and departure from Pannonia
Despite his success against the Gepids, Alboin had failed to greatly increase his power, and was now faced with a much stronger threat from the Avars. Historians consider this the decisive factor in convincing Alboin to undertake a migration, even though there are indications that before the war with the Gepids a decision was maturing to leave for Italy, a country thousands of Lombards had seen in the 550s when hired by the Byzantines to fight in the Gothic War. Additionally, the Lombards would have known of the weakness of Byzantine Italy, which had endured a number of problems after being retaken from the Goths. In particular the so-called Plague of JustinianPlague of Justinian
The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire , including its capital Constantinople, in 541–542 AD. It was one of the greatest plagues in history. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic is bubonic plague, which later became infamous for either causing or...
had ravaged the region and conflict remained endemic, with the Three-Chapter Controversy
Three-Chapter Controversy
The Three-Chapter Controversy, a phase in the Chalcedonian controversy, was an attempt to reconcile the Non-Chalcedonian Christians of Syria and Egypt with Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodoxy, following the failure of the Henotikon...
sparking religious opposition and administration at a standstill after the able governor of the peninsula, Narses
Narses
Narses was, with Belisarius, one of the great generals in the service of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I during the "Reconquest" that took place during Justinian's reign....
, was recalled. Nevertheless the Lombards viewed Italy as a rich land which promised great booty, assets Alboin used to gather together a horde which included not only Lombards but many other peoples of the region, including Heruli
Heruli
The Heruli were an East Germanic tribe who are famous for their naval exploits. Migrating from Northern Europe to the Black Sea in the third century They were part of the...
, Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
, Gepids, Thuringii
Thuringii
The Thuringii or Toringi were a Germanic tribe which appeared late during the Völkerwanderung in the Harz Mountains of central Germania around 280, in a region which still bears their name to this day — Thuringia. They evidently filled a void left when the previous inhabitants — the...
, Bulgars
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
, Sarmatians
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
, the remaining Romans and a few Ostrogoths. But the most important group, other than the Lombards, were the Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
, of whom 20,000 participated in the trek. These Saxons were tributaries to the Frankish King Sigebert
Sigebert I
Sigebert I was the king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund...
, and their participation indicates that Alboin had the support of the Franks for his venture.
The precise size of the heterogeneous group gathered by Alboin is impossible to know, and many different estimates have been made. Neil Christie
Neil Christie
Dr Neil Christie is a British archaeologist and historian, and a Reader in Archeology at the University of Leicester.- Biography :Prior to joining the Archeology and Ancient History team at the University of Leicester in 1992, Dr Christie was both an undergraduate and doctoral student in Archeology...
considers 150,000 to be a realistic size, a number which would make the Lombards a more numerous force than the Ostrogoths on the eve of their invasion of Italy. Jörg Jarnut proposes 100,000–150,000 as an approximation; Wilfried Menghen in Die Langobarden estimates 150,000 to 200,000; while Stefano Gasparri cautiously judges the peoples united by Alboin to be somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000.
A further cause of the Lombard migration into Italy may have been an invitation from Narses. According to a controversial tradition reported by several medieval sources, Narses, out of spite for having been removed by Justinian's successor Justin II, called the Lombards to Italy. Often dismissed as an unreliable tradition, it has been studied with attention by modern scholars, in particular Neil Christie, who see in it a possible record of a formal invitation by the Byzantine state to settle in northern Italy as foederati
Foederati
Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire...
, to help protect the region against the Franks, an arrangement that may have been disowned by Justin II after Narses' removal.
March to Italy
| "This Albuin led into Italy the Langobards who were invited by Narses (chief) of the secretaries. And Albuin, king of the Langobards, moved out of Pannonia in the month of April after Easter in the first indiction. In the second indiction, indeed, they began to plunder in Italy, but in the third indiction he became master of Italy." |
| The Origin of the Nation of the Langobards, Chapter V |
The Lombard migration started on Easter Monday, April 2, 568. The decision to combine the departure with a Christian celebration can be understood in the context of Alboin's recent conversion to Arian Christianity
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
, as attested by the presence of Arian Gothic missionaries at his court. The conversion is likely to have been motivated mostly from political considerations, and intended to consolidate the migration's cohesion, distinguishing them from the Catholic Romans. It also connected Alboin and his people to the Gothic heritage, and in this way obtain the support of the Ostrogoths serving in the Byzantine army as foederati. It has been speculated that Alboin's migration could have been partly the result of a call from surviving Ostrogoths in Italy.
The season chosen for leaving Pannonia was unusually early; the Germanic peoples generally waited until autumn before beginning a migration, giving themselves time to do the harvesting and replenish their granaries for the march. The reason behind the spring departure could be the anxiety induced by the neighboring Avars, despite the friendship treaty. Nomadic peoples like the Avars also waited for autumn to begin their military campaigns, as they needed enough forage for their horses. A sign of this anxiety can also be seen in the decision taken by Alboin to ravage Pannonia, which created a sanitary cordon between the Lombards and the Avars.
The road followed by Alboin to reach Italy has been the subject of controversy, as is the length of the trek. According to Neil Christie the Lombards divided themselves into migrational groups, with a vanguard scouting the road, probably following the Poetovio
Ptuj
Ptuj is a city and one of 11 urban municipalities in Slovenia. Traditionally the area was part of the Lower Styria region. The municipality is now included in the Podravje statistical region...
– Celeia
Celje
Celje is a typical Central European town and the third largest town in Slovenia. It is a regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the Urban Municipality of Celje . The town of Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle at the confluence of the Savinja, Ložnica, and Voglajna...
– Emona
Emona
Emona or Aemona, short for Colonia Iulia emona, was a Roman castrum founded in 14-15 AD, possibly by the Legio XV Apollinaris , on a territory already populated by ancient settlers of uncertain origin...
– Forum Iulii
Cividale del Friuli
-External links:*...
route, while the wagons and most of the people proceeded slowly behind because of the goods and chattels they brought with them, and possibly also because they were waiting for the Saxons to join them on the road. By September raiding parties were looting Venetia, but it was probably only in 569 that the Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...
were crossed at the Vipava Valley
Vipava Valley
The Vipava Valley is a valley located in the Slovenian Littoral, between the towns of Nova Gorica and Vipava.-Geography:It is a narrow valley, serving as the main passage between Friulian lowland and central Slovenia, and thus also an important corridor connecting Northern Italy to Central Europe...
; the eyewitness Secundus of Non
Secundus of Non
Secundus of Non or Trent was an adviser at the court of the Lombard king Agilulf . He wrote a now lost history of the Lombards which Paul the Deacon used in his Historia Langobardorum. "He seems to have known much about the early Lombard leaders, but very little about how and where the Lombards...
gives the date as May 20 or 21. The 569 date for the entry into Italy is not void of difficulties however, and Jörg Jarnut believes the conquest of most of Venetia had already been completed in 568. According to Carlo Guido Mor, a major difficulty remains in explaining how Alboin could have reached Milan on September 3 assuming he had passed the border only in the May of the same year.
Foundation of the Duchy of Friuli
| "When Alboin without any hindrance had thence entered the territories of Venetia [...] – that is, the limits of the city or rather of the fortress of Forum Julii (Cividale) – he began to consider to whom he should especially commit the first of the provinces that he had taken. [...] he determined [...] to put over the city of Forum Julii nd over its whole district, his nephew Gisulf [...] This Gisulf announed that he would not first undertake the government of the city and people unless Alboin would give him the "faras", that is, the families or stocks of the Langobards that he himself wished to choose. And this was done" |
| Paul the Deacon Historia Langobardorum, Book II, Ch. 9 |
The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops (milities limitanei). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
"without any hindrance".
The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was Forum Iulii
Cividale del Friuli
-External links:*...
(Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local magister militum. Alboin chose this walled centre close to the frontier to be capital of the Duchy of Friuli
Duchy of Friuli
The Duchy of Friuli was one of the great territorial Lombard duchies, the first to be established. It was an important buffer between the Lombard kingdom of Italy and the Slavs...
and made his nephew and shield bearer
Shield bearer
A shield bearer was usually a lightly armored soldier who often accompanied a soldier of a higher rank with a protective shield. Thus commanders were often protected by several shield bearers...
Gisulf
Gisulf I of Friuli
Gisulf I was probably the first duke of Friuli , a nephew of Alboin, first king of the Lombards in Italy. Alboin appointed him duke around 569 after the Lombard conquest of the region, though some scholars believe he appointed Gisulf's father, his brother, Grasulf, duke.Before this, Gisulf had been...
duke
Duke (Lombard)
Among the Lombards, the duke or dux was the man who act as political and military commander of a set of "military families" , irrespective of any territorial appropriation.-Etymology:...
of the region with the specific duty of defending the borders from eventual Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those farae, or clans, that he preferred.
Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the comes
Comes
Comes , plural comites , is the Latin word for companion, either individually or as a member of a collective known as comitatus, especially the suite of a magnate, in some cases large and/or formal enough to have a specific name, such as a cohors amicorum. The word comes derives from com- "with" +...
civitatis
Civitas
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas , according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law . It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other...
(city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count (comes) to duke (dux) and from county (comitatus) to duchy (ducatus) also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy. The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.
Conquest of Milan
From Forum Iulii, Alboin next reached AquileiaAquileia
Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...
, the most important road junction in the northeast, and the administrative capital of Venetia. The imminent arrival of the Lombards had a considerable impact on the city's population; the Patriarch of Aquileia Paulinus
Paulinus I of Aquileia
Paulinus I was the first Patriarch of Aquileia from 557 to 571.When he took over the see was in schism with Rome. When the Lombards invaded northern Italy in 569, Paulinus fled Aquileia with his treasures, as had the other Archibishop in schism with Rome, Honoratus of Milan...
fled with his clergy and flock to the island of Grado
Grado, Italy
Grado is a town and comune in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located on a peninsula of the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste....
in Byzantine-controlled territory.
From Aquileia, Alboin took the Via Postumia
Via Postumia
The Via Postumia was an ancient Roman road of northern Italy constructed in 148 BC by the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus Magnus.It ran from the coast at Genua through the mountains to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, just east of the point where it crossed the Po River...
and swept through Venetia, taking in rapid succession Tarvisium
Treviso
Treviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...
(Treviso), Vicentia
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
(Vicenza), Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, Brixia
Brescia
Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, between the Mella and the Naviglio, with a population of around 197,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...
(Brescia) and Bergomum
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
(Bergamo). The Lombards faced difficulties only in taking Opitergium
Oderzo
Oderzo is a town and comune in the province of Treviso, Veneto, northern Italy.It lies in the heart of the Venetian plain, about 66 km to the northeast of Venice...
(Oderzo), which Alboin decided to avoid, as he similarly avoided tackling the main Venetian towns closer to the coast on the Via Annia
Via Annia
The Via Annia was the consular Roman road through Cisalpine Gaul which linked Atria to Aquileia, passing through Patavium , then, skirting the barely-inhabited lagoon, through Altinum and Iulia Concordia...
, such as Altinum
Altinum
260px|thumb|Remains of the Roman [[decumanus]].Altinum is the name of an ancient coastal town of the Veneti 15 km SE of the modern Treviso, northern Italy, on the edge of the lagoons...
, Patavium
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
(Padova), Mons Silicis
Monselice
Monselice is a town and municipality located in northeastern Italy, in the Veneto region, in the province of Padua.It is about 20 km southeast of the city of Padua, at the southern edge of the Euganean Hills .-History:...
(Monselice), Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
and Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
. The invasion of Venetia generated a considerable level of turmoil, spurring waves of refugees from the Lombard-controlled interior to the Byzantine-held coast, often led by their bishops, and resulting in new settlements such as Torcello
Torcello
Torcello is a quiet and sparsely populated island at the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon. It is considered the oldest continuously populated region of Venice, and once held the largest population of the Republic of Venice.-History:...
and Heraclia
Eraclea
thumb|250px|right|Location of Eraclea in the province of Venice.Eraclea is a town and comune in the province of Venice, Veneto, Italy. SP42 goes through it.Eraclea Mare is the Lido of Eraclea....
.
Alboin moved west in his march, invading the region of Liguria
Liguria
Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
(north-east Italy) and reaching its capital Mediolanum
Mediolanum
Mediolanum, the ancient Milan, was an important Celtic and then Roman centre of northern Italy. This article charts the history of the city from its settlement by the Insubres around 600 BC, through its conquest by the Romans and its development into a key centre of Western Christianity and capital...
(Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
) on September 3, 569, only to find it already abandoned by the vicarius
Vicarius
Vicarius is a Latin word, meaning substitute or deputy. It is the root and origin of the English word "vicar" and cognate to the Persian word most familiar in the variant vizier....
Italiae (vicar of Italy), the authority entrusted with the administration of the diocese of Annonarian Italy. Archbishop Honoratus, his clergy, and part of the laity accompanied the vicarius Italiae to find a safe haven in the Byzantine port of Genua
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
(Genoa). Alboin counted the years of his reign from the capture of Milan, when he assumed the title of dominus Italiae (Lord of Italy). His success also meant the collapse of Byzantine defences in the northern part of the Po plain, and large movements of refugees to Byzantine areas.
Several explanations have been advanced to explain the swiftness and ease of the initial Lombard advance in northern Italy. It has been suggested that the towns' doors may have been opened by the betrayal of the Gothic auxiliaries in the Byzantine army, but historians generally hold that Lombard success occurred because Italy was not considered by Byzantium as a vital part of the empire, especially at a time when the empire was imperilled by the attacks of Avars and Slavs
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Sassanids
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
in the east. The Byzantine decision not to contest the Lombard invasion reflects the desire of Justinian's successors to reorient the core of the Empire's polices eastward.
Impact of the migration on Annonarian Italy
The impact of the Lombard migration on the Late Roman aristocracy was disruptive, especially in combination with the Gothic War; the latter conflict had finished in the north only in 562, when the last Gothic stronghold, Verona, was taken. Many men of means (Paul's possessores) either lost their lives or their goods, but the exact extent of the despoliation of the Roman aristocracy is a subject of heated debate. The clergy was also greatly affected. The Lombards were mostly pagans, and displayed little respect for the clergy and Church property. Many churchmen left their seesEpiscopal See
An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
to escape from the Lombards, like the two most senior bishops in the north, Honoratus and Paulinus. However, most of the suffragan bishop
Suffragan bishop
A suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
s in the north sought an accommodation with the Lombards, as did in 569 the bishop of Tarvisium Felix when he journeyed to the Piave river to parley with Alboin, obtaining respect for the Church and its goods in return for this act of homage. It seems certain that many sees maintained an uninterrupted episcopal succession through the turmoil of the invasion and the following years. The transition was eased by the hostility existing among the northern Italian bishops towards the papacy and the empire due to the religious dispute involving the "Three-Chapter Controversy
Schism of the Three Chapters
The Schism of the Three Chapters was a schism that affected the Roman Catholic Church in North Italy lasting from 553 to 698 AD, although the area out of communion with Rome contracted throughout that time...
". In Lombard territory, churchmen were at least sure to avoid imperial religious persecution.
In the view of Pierre Riché, the disappearance of 220 bishops' seats indicates that the Lombard migration was a crippling catastrophe for the Church. Yet according to Walter Pohl the regions directly occupied by Alboin suffered less devastation and had a relatively robust survival rate for towns, whereas the occupation of territory by autonomous military bands interested mainly in raiding and looting had a more severe impact, with the bishoprics in such places rarely surviving.
Siege of Ticinum
The first attested instance of strong resistance to Alboin's migration took place at the town of TicinumTicinum
Ticinum was an ancient city of Gallia Transpadana, founded on the banks of the river of the same name a little way above its confluence with the Padus ....
(Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy
Praetorian prefecture of Italy
The praetorian prefecture of Italy ) was one of four large Praetorian prefectures into which the Late Roman Empire was divided. It comprised the Italian peninsula, the Western Balkans, the Danubian provinces and parts of North Africa...
. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae
Alpes Maritimae
Alpes Maritimae was a province of the Roman Empire, one of three small provinces straddling the Alps between modern France and Italy...
and the Adriatic coast
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria
Aosta
Aosta is the principal city of the bilingual Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, north-northwest of Turin. It is situated near the Italian entrance of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, at the confluence of the Buthier and the Dora Baltea, and at the junction of the Great and Little St. Bernard routes...
(Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus
Lake Como
Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...
(Lake Como). During Alboin's kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines
Apennine mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...
and plundered Tuscia
Tuscia
Tuscia is a historical region of Italy that comprised the southern territories under Etruscan influence. While it later came to coincide with today’s province of Viterbo, it was originally much larger, including the whole Region of Tuscany, a great part of Umbria and the northern parts of...
, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram
Herwig Wolfram
Herwig Wolfram is an Austrian historian. Professor emeritus at the University of Vienna, from 1983 until 2002 he was Director of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research ....
, it was probably only in 578–579 that Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
Alboin's problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or duces, who led each band (fara) of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as foederati but as enemies of the Empire.
The king's disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus
Mummolus
Mummolus, Mommolus, or Mummulus, born Eunius to one Peonius, Count of Auxerre. He was a Gallo-Roman patrician and prefect who served Guntram, King of Burgundy, as a general....
' victory at Embrun
Embrun, Hautes-Alpes
Embrun is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-Description:...
. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram
Guntram
Saint Guntram was the king of Burgundy from 561 to 592. He was a son of Chlothar I and Ingunda...
in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia
Austrasia
Austrasia formed the northeastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of the territory of present-day eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Metz served as its capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Rheims, Trier, and...
, Sigebert I
Sigebert I
Sigebert I was the king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund...
. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham
Christopher Wickham
Christopher John Wickham, FBA is Chichele Professor of Medieval History in the University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College.-Biography:...
.
The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald
Faroald I of Spoleto
Faroald I was the first Duke of Spoleto, which he established during the decade of interregnum that followed the death of Alboin's successor . He led the Lombards into the centre of the Italian peninsula while Zotto led them into the south.In 579, he sacked Classis, the harbour of Ravenna...
and Zotto's respective rise to power in Spoletium
Duchy of Spoleto
The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...
(Spoleto
Spoleto
Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...
) and Beneventum
Duchy of Benevento
The Duchy and later Principality of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in medieval Italy, centred on Benevento, a city central in the Mezzogiorno. Owing to the Ducatus Romanus of the popes, which cut it off from the rest of Lombard Italy, Benevento was from the first practically...
(Benevento
Benevento
Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and Sabato...
).
Earliest narratives
| "When his wife Chlotsinda died, Albin married another wife whose father he had killed a short time before. For this reason the woman always hated her husband and awaited an opportunity to avenge the wrong done her father, and so it happened that she fell in love with one of the household slaves and poisoned her husband. When he died she went off with the slave but they were overtaken and put to death together." |
| Gregory of Tours Historia Francorum, Book II, Ch. 41 |
Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on June 28, 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum
Marius Aventicensis
Marius Aventicensis or, popularly, Marius of Avenches was the Bishop of Aventicum from 574, remembered for his terse chronicle...
in his Chronica, written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul's Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins
Roger Collins
Roger J. H. Collins is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh.Collins studied at the University of Oxford under Peter Brown and John Michael Wallace-Hadrill. He then taught ancient and medieval history at the universities of Liverpool and...
describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
' account presented in the Historia Francorum, and echoed by the later Fredegar
Chronicle of Fredegar
The Chronicle of Fredegar is a chronicle that is a primary source of events in Frankish Gaul from 584 to around 641. Later authors continued the history to the coronation of Charlemagne and his brother Carloman on 9 October 768....
. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the Historia and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".
Skull cup
Elements present in Marius' account are echoed in Paul's Historia Langobardorum, which also contains distinctive features. One of the best known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the skull cupSkull cup
A skull cup is a drinking vessel or eating bowl made from an inverted human calvaria that has been cut away from the rest of the skull. The use of a human skull as a drinking cup in ritual use or as a trophy is reported in numerous sources throughout history and among various peoples, and among...
. In Paul the events that lead to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father", and this reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.
The tale has been often dismissed as a fable, and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis
Ratchis
Ratchis was the Duke of Friuli and King of the Lombards . His father was Duke Pemmo. His Roman wife was Tassia. He ruled in peace until he besieged, for reasons unknown, Perugia. Pope Zachary convinced him to lift the siege and he abdicated and entered, with his family, the abbey of Montecassino...
. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples, and in particular among the Lombards' neighbours, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the Promised Land
Promised land
The Promised Land is a term used to describe the land promised or given by God, according to the Hebrew Bible, to the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob. The promise is firstly made to Abraham and then renewed to his son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob , Abraham's grandson...
, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull, but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
Death
Cubicularius
Cubicularius, Hellenized as koubikoularios , was a title used for the eunuch chamberlains of the imperial palace in the later Roman Empire and in the Byzantine Empire...
(bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on June 28, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the Origo had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo as not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the Latin word peritus, meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of the hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elba to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarian
History of Bavaria
The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland of the modern Federal Republic of...
s celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
Aftermath
| "Helmegis then, upon the death of his king, attempted to usurp his kingdom, but he could not at all do this, because the Langobards, grieving greatly for the king's death, strove to make way with him. And straightway Rosemund sent word to Longinus, prefect of Ravenna, that he should quickly send a ship to fetch them. Longinus, delighted by such a message, speedily sent a ship in which Helmegis with Rosemund his wife embarked, fleeing at night." |
| Paul the Deacon Historia Langobardorum, Book II, Ch. 29 |
To complete the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
and legitimize his claim to the throne, Helmichis married the queen, whose high standing arose not only from being the king's widow but also from being the most prominent member of the remaining Gepid nation, and as such her support was a guarantee of the Gepids' loyalty to Helmichis. The latter could also count on the support of the Lombard garrison of Verona, where many may have opposed Alboin's aggressive policy and could have cultivated the hope of reaching an entente with the Empire. The Byzantines were almost certainly deeply involved in the plot. It was in their interest to stem the Lombard tide by bringing a pro-Byzantine regime into power in Verona, and possibly in the long run break the unity of the Lombards' kingdom, winning over the dukes with honors and emoluments.
The coup ultimately failed, as it met with the resistance of most of the warriors, who were opposed to the king's assassination. As a result, the Lombard garrison in Ticinum proclaimed Duke Cleph
Cleph
Cleph was king of the Lombards from 572 or 573 to 574 or 575.He succeeded Alboin, to whom he was not related by blood. He was a violent and terrifying figure to the Romans and Byzantines struggling to maintain control of the peninsula...
the new king, and Helmichis, rather than going to war against overwhelming odds, escaped to Ravenna with Longinus' assistance, taking with him his wife, his troops, the royal treasure and Alboin's daughter Albsuinda
Albsuinda
Albsuinda was the only child of Alboin, King of the Lombards in Pannonia , and his first wife Chlothsind, daughter of the Merovingian king of the Franks Chlothar...
. In Ravenna the two lovers became estranged and killed each other. Subsequently Longinus sent Albsuinda and the treasure to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
.
Slavery in medieval Europe
Slavery in early medieval Europe was relatively common. It was widespread at the end of antiquity. The etymology of the word slave comes from this period, the word sklabos meaning Slav. Slavery declined in the Middle Ages in most parts of Europe as serfdom slowly rose, but it never completely...
. Possibly he too was killed at the instigation of the Byzantines, who had every interest in avoiding an hostile and solid leadership among the Lombards. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum
Rule of the Dukes
The Rule of the Dukes was an interregnum in the Lombard Kingdom of Italy during which Italy was ruled by the Lombard dukes of the old Roman provinces and urban centres...
, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari
Authari
Authari also known as Agilolf, was king of the Lombards from 584 to his death. After his father, Cleph, died in 574, the Lombardic nobility refused to appoint a successor, resulting in ten years interregnum known as the Rule of the Dukes.In 574 and 575 the Lombards made the blunder of invading...
, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom while the remaining imperial territories were reorganized under the control of an exarch
Exarchate of Ravenna
The Exarchate of Ravenna or of Italy was a centre of Byzantine power in Italy, from the end of the 6th century to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the Lombards.-Introduction:...
in Ravenna with the capacity to defend the country without the Emperor's assistance.
The consolidation of Byzantine and Lombard dominions had long-lasting consequences for Italy, as the region was from that moment on fragmented among multiple rulers until Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
in 1871.