The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.
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.
The Duchy of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in the Italian Peninsula that was centred on Benevento, a city in Southern Italy. Lombard dukes ruled Benevento from 571 to 1077, when it was conquered by the Normans for four years before it was given to the Pope. Being cut off from the rest of the Lombard possessions by the papal Duchy of Rome, Benevento was practically independent from the start. Only during the reigns of Grimoald and the kings from Liutprand on was the duchy closely tied to the Kingdom of the Lombards. After the fall of the kingdom in 774, the duchy became the sole Lombard territory which continued to exist as a rump state, maintaining its de facto independence for nearly 300 years, although it was divided after 849. Benevento dwindled in size in the early 11th century, and was completely captured by the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1053.
Tato was an early 6th century king of the Lombards. He was the son of Claffo and a king of the Lething Dynasty. According to Procopius, the Lombards were subject and paid tribute to the Heruli during his reign. In 508, he fought with King Rodulf of the Heruli, who was slain. This was a devastating blow to the Heruli and augmented the power of the Lombards. According to Paul the Deacon, the war started because Tato's daughter Rumetrada murdered Rodulf's brother.
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.
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. Wacho had good relations with the Franks.
Perctarit was the first Catholic king of the Lombards who lead a religiously divided kingdom during the 7th Century. He ruled from 661 to 662 the first time and later from 671 to 688. He is significant for making Catholicism the official religion, sparing the life of an invading leader, and building projects around the capital.
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum is a short, 7th-century AD Latin account offering a founding myth of the Longobard people. The first part describes the origin and naming of the Lombards, the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit (672–688).
Walthari son of Wacho from his third wife Silinga, was a king of the Lombards from 539 to 546. He was an infant king, and rulership of the kingdom was administered by Audoin. Audoin probably killed Waltari before he reached manhood, in order to gain the throne for himself around 546, and led the Lombards into Pannonia. Procopius mentions he died of disease. He was the last of the Lething Dynasty.
The Bavarian dynasty was those kings of the Lombards who were descended from Garibald I, the Agilolfing duke of Bavaria. They came to rule the Lombards through Garibald's daughter Theodelinda, who married the Lombard king Authari in 588. The Bavarians were really a branch of the Agilolfings, and were themselves two branches: the branch descended in the female line through Garibald's eldest child and daughter, Theodelinda, and the branch descended from Garibald's eldest son Gundoald. Of the first branch, only Adaloald, Theodelinda's son by her second husband, whom she had chosen to be king, Agilulf, reigned, though her son-in-law Arioald also ruled. Through Gundoald, six kings reigned in succession, broken only by the usurper Grimuald, who married Gundoald's granddaughter:
Garibald was the young son of Grimoald I of Benevento, king of the Lombards, and Theodota, daughter of Aripert I. After his father's death in 671, he reigned briefly for three months until the numerous adherents of Perctarit, his uncle, who had been exiled by Grimoald nine years earlier, besought their candidate to return and elected him, deposing the young king. He was the last Arian king in Europe.
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.
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 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 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.
Bisinus was the king of Thuringia in the 5th century AD or around 500. He is the earliest historically attested ruler of the Thuringians. Almost nothing more about him can be said with certainty, including whether all the variations on his name in the sources refer to one or two different persons. His name is given as Bysinus, Bessinus or Bissinus in Frankish sources, and as Pissa, Pisen, Fisud or Fisut in Lombard ones.
Austria was, according to the early medieval geographical classification, the eastern portion of Langobardia Major, the north-central part of the Lombard Kingdom, extended from the Adda to Friuli and opposite to Neustria. The partition had not only been territorial, but also implied significant cultural and political differences.
Lombard architecture refers to the architecture of the Kingdom of the Lombards, which lasted from 568 to 774 and which was commissioned by Lombard kings and dukes.
The Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani, also called the Chronicon Gothanum, is a history of the Lombard people written at and for the court of King Pippin of Italy between the years 806 and 810. It is preserved in the 10th/11th century Codex Gothanus 84, from which its conventional Latin titles are derived; The chronicle is not titled in the manuscript. The text is ideologically pro-Carolingian, and among its sources are Isidore of Seville and possibly Jerome.
