Albsuinda was the only child of Alboin

Alboin

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...

, King of the Lombards

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...

 in 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....

 (reigned c. 560 – 572), and his first wife 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 Merovingian

Merovingian dynasty

The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the 5th century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family...

 king of the Franks

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...

 Chlothar (reigned 511 – 561). Still young Albsuinda had lost her mother shortly before the final clash in 567 with the people of the Gepids in Pannonia (modern Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

), in which the Gepids were completely destroyed. After the victory her father had promptly remarried taking as second 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 Cunimund

Cunimund

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:...

 that Alboin had personally killed on the battlefield.

In 568 Alboin left Pannonia with his people to invade Byzantine

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...

-held Italy

Italy in the Middle Ages

This is the history of Italy during the Middle Ages.- Transition from Late Antiquity :Italy was invaded by the Visigoths in the 5th century, and Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410. The last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed in 476 by an Eastern Germanic general, Odoacer...

, most of which by 572 he had conquered. In the same year Albsuinda's stepmother Rosamund successfully connived to have Alboin killed in 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...

. According to 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:...

, following the assassination of her father she was carried still a child to Byzantine

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...

-held 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...

 by her stepmother Rosamund and the usurper Helmichis. They carried her there because as Alboin's only child she had considerable political value, since she could possibly become the link to transmit through a marriage dynastic rights to an eventual husband. Another reason for her presence with the fugitives was that she also served to guarantee the loyalty of the Lombard garrison of Verona that had followed Helmichis to Ravenna.

Shortly after having reached Ravenna Rosamund and Helmichis killed each other. After that the highest Byzantine official in Italy, the Pretorian Prefect Longinus, sent her 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:...

, the Empire's capital. Here the Byzantine diplomacy

Byzantine diplomacy

Byzantine diplomacy concerns the principles, methods, mechanisms, ideals, and techniques that the Byzantine Empire espoused and used in order to negotiate with other states and to promote the goals of its foreign policy...

probably thought to use her as a political tool to impose on the Lombards a pro-Byzantine king, but nothing more is heard of her from the sources.