Gisulf I of Friuli

Last updated
This cross has traditionally been linked to Gisulf. Gisulf cross.jpg
This cross has traditionally been linked to Gisulf.

Gisulf I (Latin : Gisulfus I) was probably the first duke of Friuli (then Forum Julii). He was a nephew of Alboin, first king of the Lombards in Italy, who appointed him duke around 569 after the Lombard conquest of the region, [1] [2]

Before this, Gisulf had been Alboin's marpahis or "master of the horse", sometimes considered a shield-bearer. He was, according to Paul the Deacon, "a man suitable in every way." He asked Alboin for permission to choose which faras or clans he would lead or rule over in Friuli, and this request was granted. He thus chose which families would settle permanently in Friuli, and he "acquired the honour of a leader (ducior)." [3] As riders would need to patrol the Venetian plain and bring swift news of any approaching foes, Alboin also granted him a great herd of brood mares of strength and endurance. [4]

He reigned during the Rule of the Dukes from 575 to 585. He was succeeded by his nephew, Gisulf II.

Notes

  1. Wolfram, Herwig. The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990 [1997], p. 287
  2. Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400-1000, University of Michigan Press, 1989, p. 30 ISBN   9780472080991
  3. Paul, bk 2, ch IX Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine .
  4. Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and Her Invaders: The Lombard kingdom, 600-744, Clarendon Press, 1916, p. 42

Sources

Preceded by
none
Duke of Friuli
c. 569 – c. 590
Succeeded by


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alboin</span> King of the Lombards from c. 560 to 572

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 effect 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 there of the Germanic peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lombards</span> Historical ethnic group of the Italian Peninsula of Germanic origin

The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul the Deacon</span> 8th century Benedictine monk, scribe and historian

Paul the Deacon, also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefridus, Barnefridus, or Winfridus, and sometimes suffixed Cassinensis, was a Benedictine monk, scribe, and historian of the Lombards.

Year 569 (DLXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 569 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cividale del Friuli</span> Comune in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Cividale del Friuli is a town and comune (municipality) in the Regional decentralization entity of Udine, part of the North-Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The town lies 135 metres (443 ft) above sea-level in the foothills of the eastern Alps, 15 kilometres (9 mi) by rail from the city of Udine and close to the Slovenian border. It is situated on the river Natisone, which forms a picturesque ravine here. Formerly an important regional power, it is today a quiet, small town that attracts tourists thanks to its medieval center.

Callinicus was the exarch of Ravenna from 597 until 602 or 603. He is called Gallicinus, or Gallicini patricii, by the Lombard historian Paul the Deacon.

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 Rule of the Dukes was an interregnum in the Lombard Kingdom of Italy (574/5–584/5) during which Italy was ruled by the Lombard dukes of the old Roman provinces and urban centres. The interregnum is said to have lasted a decade according to Paul the Deacon, but all other sources—the Fredegarii Chronicon, the Origo Gentis Langobardorum, the Chronicon Gothanum, and the Copenhagen continuator of Prosper Tiro—accord it twelve years. Here is how Paul describes the dukes' rule:

After his death the Langobards had no king for ten years but were under dukes, and each one of the dukes held possession of his own city, Zaban of Ticinum, Wallari of Bergamus, Alichis of Brexia, Euin of Tridentum, Gisulf of Forum Julii. But there were thirty other dukes besides these in their own cities. In these days many of the noble Romans were killed from love of gain, and the remainder were divided among their "guests" and made tributaries, that they should pay the third part of their products to the Langobards. By these dukes of the Langobards in the seventh year from the coming of Alboin and of his whole people, the churches were despoiled, the priests killed, the cities overthrown, the people who had grown up like crops annihilated, and besides those regions which Alboin had taken, the greater part of Italy was seized and subjugated by the Langobards.

The dukes and margraves of Friuli were the rulers of the Duchy and March of Friuli in the Middle Ages.

Gisulf II was the Duke of Friuli from around 591 to his death. He was the son and successor of Grasulf I of Friuli.

Tasso was the joint Duke of Friuli with his younger brother Kakko from their father's death (611) to their own. Their father was Gisulf II and their mother Romilda of Friuli. In or around 611, Gisulf was killed fending off an Avar invasion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of the Lombards</span> 568–774 state in the Italian Peninsula

The Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the Lombard Kingdom and later as 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garibald I of Bavaria</span> Duke of Bavaria from 555 to 591

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duchy of Friuli</span>

The Duchy of Friuli was a Lombard duchy in present-day Friuli, the first to be established after the conquest of the Italian peninsula in 568. It was one of the largest domains in Langobardia Major and an important buffer between the Lombard kingdom and the Slavs, Avars, and the Byzantine Empire. The original chief city in the province was Roman Aquileia, but the Lombard capital of Friuli was Forum Julii, modern Cividale.

The Gausi or Gausian dynasty was a prominent Lombard ruling clan in the second half of the 6th century (547–572). They were either pagans or perhaps Arian Christians and were frequently at odds with the Roman Catholic Church. Under their rule, the Lombards first migrated into the Italian peninsula.

Grasulf I was a nephew of Alboin, the first Lombard King of Italy, and brother of Gisulf, the first Duke of Friuli, whom he succeeded as duke sometime after 575.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duchy of Tridentum</span>

The Duchy of Tridentum (Trent) was an autonomous Lombard duchy, established by Euin during the Lombard interregnum of 574–584 that followed the assassination of the Lombard leader Alboin. The stronghold of Euin's territory was the Roman city of Tridentum in the upper valley of the Adige, in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, where the duchy formed one of the marches of the Lombard Kingdom of Italy. There he shared power with the bishop, who was nominally subject to the Patriarch of Aquileia. In 574–75, Lombard raiding parties pillaged the valley of the Rhône, incurring retaliatory raids into the duchy by Austrasian Franks, who had seized control of the mountain passes leading into the kingdom of Burgundy. Euin was at the head of the army loyal to Authari that went into the territory of the duke of Friuli in Istria, c 589, and he was sent by Agilulf to make peace with the Franks his neighbors, in 591. After Euin's death c 595, Agilulf installed Gaidoald, who was a Catholic, rather than an Arian Christian. After some friction between king and duke, they were reconciled in 600. The separate Lombard duchy of Brescia was united with Tridentum in the person of Alagis, a fervent Arian and opponent of the Lombard king, Perctarit, who was killed in the battle of Cornate d'Adda (688).

Gaidoald was the second Lombard duke of Trent, succeeding Euin in 595.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helmichis</span> Italian regicide

Helmichis was a Lombard noble who killed his king, Alboin, in 572 and unsuccessfully attempted to usurp his throne. Alboin's queen, Rosamund, supported or at least did not oppose Helmichis' plan to remove the king, and after the assassination Helmichis married her. The assassination was assisted by Peredeo, the king's chamber-guard, who in some sources becomes the material executer of the murder. Helmichis is first mentioned by the contemporary chronicler Marius of Avenches, but the most detailed account of his endeavours derives from Paul the Deacon's late 8th-century Historia Langobardorum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Byzantine–Lombard wars</span>

The Byzantine–Lombard wars were a protracted series of conflicts which occurred from AD 568 to 750 between the Byzantine Empire and a Germanic tribe known as the Lombards. The wars began primarily because of the imperialistic inclinations of the Lombard king Alboin, as he sought to take possession of Northern Italy. The conflicts ended in a Byzantine defeat, as the Lombards were able to secure large parts of Northern Italy at first, eventually conquering the Exarchate of Ravenna in 750.