Theodelinda also spelled Theudelinde, was a queen of the Lombards by marriage to two consecutive Lombard rulers, Autari and then Agilulf, and regent of Lombardia during the minority of her son Adaloald, and co-regent when he reached majority, from 616 to 626. For well over thirty years, she exercised influence across the Lombard realm, which comprised most of Italy between the Apennines and the Alps. Born a Frankish Catholic, she convinced her first spouse Autari to convert from pagan beliefs to Christianity.
King of Italy was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a barbarian military leader, in the late 5th century, followed by the Ostrogothic kings up to the mid-6th century. With the Frankish conquest of Italy in the 8th century, the Carolingians assumed the title, which was maintained by subsequent Holy Roman Emperors throughout the Middle Ages. The last Emperor to claim the title was Charles V in the 16th century. During this period, the holders of the title were crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
Authari was king of the Lombards from 584 to his death. He was considered as the first Lombard king to have adopted some level of Romanitas (Roman-ness) and introduced policies that led to drastic changes, particularly in the treatment of the Romans and greater tolerance for the Christian faith.
The Agilolfings were a noble family that ruled the Duchy of Bavaria on behalf of their Merovingian suzerains from about 550 until 788. A cadet branch of the Agilolfings also ruled the Kingdom of the Lombards intermittently from 616 to 712. They are mentioned as the leading dynasty in the Lex Baiuvariorum. Their Bavarian residence was at Regensburg.
Liutpert was the Lombard king of Italy from 700 and to 702, with interruption. Upon succeeding his father, King Cunincpert, at a young age, he ruled together with his tutor, Ansprand, the duke of Asti. After eight months, he was deposed by Raginpert, the duke of Turin and son of Godepert, Liutpert's great-uncle, but succeeded in returning to the throne several months later upon Raginpert's death, only to be deposed again, taken captive from Pavia, and drowned by Aripert II, Raginpert's son. He was buried in the Basilica of Santissimo Salvatore in Pavia.
Aripert I was king of the Lombards (653–661) in Italy. He was the son of Gundoald, Duke of Asti, who had crossed the Alps from Bavaria with his sister Theodelinda. As a relative of the Bavarian ducal house, his was called the Bavarian Dynasty.
Aripert II was the king of the Lombards from 701 to 712. Duke of Turin and son of King Raginpert, and thus a scion of the Bavarian Dynasty, he was associated with the throne as early as 700. He was removed by Liutpert, who reigned from 700 to 702, with the exception of the year 701, when Raginpert seized the throne. After his father's death, he tried to take the throne, too. He defeated Liutpert and the regent Ansprand's men at Pavia and captured the king, whom he later had strangled in his bath. He seized the capital and forced Ansprand over the Alps. He was firmly in power by 703.
Godepert was king of the Lombards, eldest son and successor of Aripert I. He was an Arian who governed from the ancient capital, Pavia, while his brother, Perctarit, a Roman Catholic, governed from Milan. In a war with his brother, he beckoned Duke Grimoald I of Benevento, who assassinated him in his Pavian palace, the Reggia. Godepert's son Raginpert managed to escape and would later rule, but first, Grimoald would seize the throne. He was buried in the Basilica of Santissimo Salvatore in Pavia.
Perctarit was king of the Lombards from 661 to 662 the first time and later from 671 to 688.
Raginpert was the Duke of Turin and then King of the Lombards briefly in 701. He was the son of Godepert and grandson of Aripert I. He usurped the throne in 701 and removed Liutpert, his grandnephew, putting his son Aripert in line for the succession. He and his Neustrians went out to meet the regent, Ansprand, in battle and defeated him at Novara, but died shortly after. His son Aripert did not succeed in taking the throne right away.
Grimoald or Grimwald (†671) was a 7th-century King of Italy, ruling as Duke of Benevento from 647 to 662, and then as King of the Lombards from 662 until his death in 671.
The Kingdom of the Lombards also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy, was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century. The king was traditionally elected by the very highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, as several attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The kingdom was subdivided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the municipal level. The capital of the kingdom and the center of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy.
Garibald I was Duke of Bavaria from 555 until 591. He was the head of the Agilolfings, and the ancestor of the Bavarian dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of the Lombards.
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.
The Harodingian dynasty was a prominent Lombard noble family which provided Italy with two kings in the middle of the seventh century (636–653).
Gundoald or Gundwald was a Bavarian nobleman of the Agilolfing family, a son of Duke Garibald I and Waldrada, and Duke of Asti from sometime around 589.
Gundeberga or Gundeperga, queen of the Lombards, (591-..) was the daughter of Theodelinda and her second husband, the Lombard king Agilulf. She married Arioald, (king of the Lombards; 626-636) and his successor Rothari, (king of the Lombards; 636-652).
Rotarit was a Lombard duke, the last Duke of Bergamo.
The Basilica of Santissimo Salvatore is a Roman Catholic church in Pavia, region of Lombardy, Italy. It was founded in 657 by the Lombard king Aripert I and became a mausoleum for many of the Lombard kings.
