Latest / The Story of Italy: Rome, Renaissance, and the Birth of Modern Europe — Fexingo History / The Lombard Invasion: Barbarians Who Became Italian
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered the fall of the Western Empire, the Ostrogoths, and Justinian's attempt to reunite the Roman world. But after the Gothic War ended in 554, Italy was utterly devastated — cities sacked, fields fallow, population decimated. And then, just fourteen years later, a new group swept in from the north: the Lombards. Luna: The Lombards — I've heard the name, but I don't know much about them. Lucas: They were a Germanic people, originally from Scandinavia — the name 'Lombard' comes from 'Langobard', meaning 'long-beards'. By the mid-sixth century, they were settled in Pannonia, roughly modern Hungary. And in 568, under their king Alboin, they crossed the Julian Alps into Italy. Lucas: Unlike the Ostrogoths, who had been Romanized and tried to rule cooperatively, the Lombards were more aggressive. They didn't come as foederati — they came as conquerors. Within a few years, they controlled much of the north and central Italy, including the key city of Pavia, which became their capital. Luna: What happened to the Byzantine forces? Justinian had just won back Italy. Lucas: Justinian died in 565, and his successors were overstretched. The Byzantine general Narses, who had won the Gothic War, was reportedly dismissed and allegedly invited the Lombards as revenge — though that story is probably legend. What's certain is that Byzantine resistance was weak. They held on to Ravenna, Rome, and a few coastal strips, but the Lombards carved out a huge chunk of territory. Lucas: The Lombards didn't establish a single, unified kingdom in the Roman model. Instead, they set up a patchwork of duchies — Spoleto, Benevento, Friuli, Trento — each ruled by a duke who often acted independently. The king held court in Pavia, but his authority was limited. Luna: So Italy went from being a Roman province to a collection of barbarian duchies? Lucas: Exactly. And this fragmentation is the key to understanding medieval Italy. It's the direct ancestor of the warring city-states of the Renaissance. The Lombards never fully conquered the peninsula — the Byzantines held the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Duchy of Rome, and the far south. So Italy became a chessboard of competing powers. Lucas: Now, Alboin himself is a fascinating figure. He was a warrior king, famous for his cruelty. According to the historian Paul the Deacon, Alboin killed the Gepid king Cunimund in battle and made a drinking cup from his skull. He then forced Cunimund's daughter, Rosamund, to marry him. Luna: That's horrifying. And I assume she didn't take that well. Lucas: Not at all. The story goes that at a banquet in Verona, Alboin drunkenly ordered Rosamund to drink from her father's skull-cup. She was humiliated and furious. So she conspired with her lover, a Lombard noble named Helmichis, and the king's bodyguard Peredeo to assassinate Alboin. They killed him in his bed in 572. Luna: That's like something out of a Norse saga. Lucas: It is. And it's recounted by Paul the Deacon in his 'History of the Lombards', written in the 780s — one of our key sources. After Alboin's death, Rosamund and Helmichis fled to Ravenna with the Byzantine exarch, but the story ends badly: she supposedly tried to poison Helmichis, he forced her to drink the poison too, and both died. Lucas: The Lombards struggled with succession after that. There was a period of rule by dukes, then kings returned. By the late sixth century, the most significant figure was not a Lombard but a pope: Gregory the Great, who reigned from 590 to 604. Luna: Pope Gregory the Great — he's the one who sent missionaries to England, right? Lucas: That's right. He's also a pivotal figure in Italian history because he essentially became the de facto ruler of Rome and its surrounding territory. When the Lombards threatened Rome, Gregory negotiated directly with the Lombard duke of Spoleto, Ariulf, and later with King Agilulf. He paid tribute, organized defenses, and took over civic administration from the distant Byzantine exarch. Lucas: This is the birth of the Papal States — the temporal power of the papacy. Gregory acted as a secular ruler because there was no one else to do it. The Byzantine emperor in Constantinople was far away and weak. So the pope stepped into the vacuum. Luna: So the Lombards indirectly created the Papal States? Lucas: In a very real sense, yes. The ongoing Lombard threat forced the papacy to organize politically and militarily. That set a precedent that lasted for over a thousand years, right up to 1870 when the Papal States were finally absorbed into a unified Italy. Lucas: Now, the Lombards also left a lasting cultural mark. They converted from Arianism to Catholicism gradually — a process that smoothed relations with the pope and the local Roman population. They adopted Latin, Roman law, and many Roman customs. King Rothari issued the Edict of Rothari in 643, a written code of Lombard law that blended Germanic tradition with Roman legal principles. Luna: So they weren't just destroyers — they adapted. Lucas: Exactly. Their language merged into the local Romance dialects — many Italian place names are Lombard in origin. For example, towns ending in '-engo' like Gorla Minore or '-ate' like Linate come from Lombard suffixes. Even the name 'Lombardy' itself comes from them. Lucas: The Lombard kingdom lasted until 774, when Charlemagne conquered it at the request of Pope Adrian I. But the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento survived longer, and the Lombard legacy of fragmentation — of a Italy divided among many powers — persisted for centuries. Luna: So the Lombard invasion set the stage for the whole medieval period in Italy. Lucas: Absolutely. The patchwork of Lombard duchies, Byzantine enclaves, and papal territories is the foundation on which the city-states, the Norman kingdoms in the south, and eventually the Renaissance were built. Without the Lombards, Italy might have remained a Byzantine province — and the entire trajectory of European history would be different. Luna: It's amazing how one invasion can reshape everything. Lucas: And it's a reminder that the 'barbarians' weren't just destroyers — they were also builders, adapters, and founders of new political orders. The Lombards, for all their initial brutality, became part of the fabric of Italy. Lucas: Next time, we'll jump ahead to the rise of the maritime republics — Venice, Genoa, Pisa — and see how they carved out an empire of trade in the Mediterranean. But that's another story.