User:InflatableSupertrooper/Lombards
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The Kingdom of the Lombards (Latin: Regnum Langobardorum) also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy (Latin: Regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic-speaking people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century. The king was traditionally elected by the 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 centre of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy.
Kingdom of the Lombards Regnum Langobardorum Regnum totius Italiae | |||||||||||||
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568–774 | |||||||||||||
Capital | Pavia | ||||||||||||
Common languages | Vulgar Latin | ||||||||||||
Religion | Paganism Christianity | ||||||||||||
Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||||||
568 | |||||||||||||
June 774 | |||||||||||||
Currency | Tremissis | ||||||||||||
ISO 3166 code | IT | ||||||||||||
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The Lombard invasion of Italy was opposed by the Byzantine Empire, which retained control of much of the peninsula until the mid-8th century. For most of the kingdom's history, the Byzantine-ruled Exarchate of Ravenna and Duchy of Rome separated the northern Lombard duchies, collectively known as Langobardia Maior, from the two large southern duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, which constituted Langobardia Minor. Because of this division, the southern duchies were considerably more autonomous than the smaller northern duchies.
Over time, the Lombards gradually adopted Roman titles, names and traditions. By the time Paul the Deacon was writing in the late 8th century, the Lombardic language, dress and hairstyles had all disappeared.[1] Initially the Lombards were Arianist Christians, at odds with the Papacy both religiously and politically. However, by the end of the 7th century, their conversion to Catholicism was all but complete. Nevertheless, their conflict with the Papacy continued, and was responsible for their gradual loss of power in the face of the Franks, who conquered the kingdom in 774. Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, adopted the title "King of the Lombards", although he never managed to gain control of Benevento, the southernmost Lombard duchy.
A reduced Regnum Italiae, a heritage of the Lombards, continued to exist for centuries as one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, roughly corresponding to the territory of the former Langobardia Maior. The so-called Iron Crown of Lombardy, one of the oldest surviving royal insignia of Christendom, may have originated in Lombard Italy as early as the 7th century and continued to be used to crown Kings of Italy until Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century.