The Lombards

The past few days have been filled with discussion about the Lombards, aka the Langobards, and their origin according to medieval texts. This blog has mostly dealt with them previously because of their occupation of the northern Italian peninsula. That's not where they started, however.

They are mentioned by 1st-century Roman historians as a group occupying the Lower Elbe (the river that connects Hamburg to the North Sea). At one time defeated by the Ostrogoths, after the departure of Ostrogoths from the region, some Lombards traveled west. Paul the Deacon describes their migrations and their conflicts with various peoples as they moved across the Danube and into Europe.

By 570CE they had conquered northern Italy, and in the next few years added central Italy to their kingdom. The height of their presence and influence in that part of Europe was reached during the reign of King Liutprand. Liutprand reigned more than 30 years (712 - 744), and you can see his minted gold coinage above. Charles Martel of the Franks allied with Liutprand as a Christian defense against threatened Muslim incursions.

The first Lombards to enter Italy had been pagans, although some had become Arian Christians. They slowly adopted Roman Christianity and Romanized names, s that by the time Paul the Deacons was writing he did not report any evidence of their paganism.

Lombardy continued 36 duchies. They had expanded throughout much of Italy by taking advantage of local conflicts and conquering the divided communities—especially due to violence between groups that feel on both sides of the iconoclasm controversy. Some of the duchies have been mentioned before: Friuli, Pavia, Spoleto, Benevento.

By the time of Charles Martel's grandson, Charlemagne, the Lombards were not seen as allies so much as another territory to conquer. But that would come a little later. Tomorrow we'll look at more of the Kingdom of Lombardy.

The Origin of the Langobard People

The History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon drew heavily on other works, especially about prior times. One of these was a 7th-century work called Origio Gentis Langobardorum ("The Origin of the Langobard People"). From this work Paul got the mythical origin of the Lombards and the origin of their Langobard name.

It starts with a group called the Winnilles on the island of Scandanan, a "great island" in the Arctic. They had two rulers, Ybor and Agio, whose mother, Gambara, wise a wise and respected woman.

The Winnilles were oppressed by the Vandals, who wanted tribute from the Winnilles:

Then the leaders of the Wandals, that is Ambri and Assi, moved with their army, and said to the Winniles; 'Either pay us tribute or prepare yourselves for battle and fight with us.' Then answered Ybor and Agio, with their mother Gambara: 'It is better for us to make ready the battle than to pay tributes to the Wandals.' [source]

With a battle looming, the Vandal leaders asked the god Odin (called Godan in the manuscript) for victory.  Godan (as mythical gods sometimes are known to do) did not promise a victory to one side, saying instead that he would give victory to whichever group he saw first when the sun rose the next day.

Gambara of the Winnilles had another idea: she and her sons prayed to Freya, Godan's wife, for aid. Freya gave them advice:

...at sunrise the Winniles should come, and that their women, with  their hair let down around their face in the likeness of a beard, should also come with their husbands.

Freya then "stacked the deck" for the Winnilles. The next morning while she and Godan were in bed:

Frea, the wife of Godan, turned around the bed where her husband was lying and put his face toward the east, and awakened him. And he, looking at them, saw the Winniles and their women having their hair let down around their face.

(See the illustration for the two looking down.) Startled at the view, Godan says:

"Who are these longbeards?" Then spoke Frea to Godan: "My lord, thou hast given them the name, now give them also the victory." And he gave them victory, so that they should defend themselves according to his counsel and obtain victory. From that time, the Winniles were called Langobards.

Paul the Deacon, a good Christian monk, did not approve of the pagan gods in this version of the origin, referring it to a "silly story" (ridiculam fabulam). Paul says the name Langobard simply comes from being known for their long beards.

So whence did they really come? Let's check out what we really know about the Lombards, their origin and presence in northern Italy. See you next time.

History of the Lombards

Paul the Deacon assembled information from some of the greatest scholars and historians and his own observations to create his Historia Langobardorum. Written between 787 and 796CE, he recounts the mythical origins of the Lombards.

In his recording, he offers us such gems as this, from chapter 4:

In the farthest boundaries of Germany toward the west-northwest, on the shore of the ocean itself, a cave is seen under a projecting rock, where for an unknown time seven men repose wrapped in a long sleep, not only their bodies, but also their clothes being so uninjured, that from this fact alone, that they last without decay through the course of so many years, they are held in veneration among those ignorant and barbarous peoples. These then, so far as regards their dress, are perceived to be Romans. When a certain man, stirred by cupidity, wanted to strip one of them, straightway his arms withered, as is said, and his punishment so frightened the others that no one dared touch them further.

Another time when the number seven was significant comes in chapter 15:

At this time a certain prostitute had brought forth seven little boys at a birth, and the mother, more cruel than all wild beasts, threw them into a fish-pond to be drowned. ... It happened therefore that when King Agelmund had stopped his horse and looked at the wretched infants, ..., one of them put his hand on the royal spear and clutched it. The king moved by pity and marveling greatly at the act, pronounced that he would be a great man. And straightway he ordered him to be lifted from the fish-pond and commanded him to be brought to a nurse to be nourished with every care, and because he took him from a fish-pond which in their language is called "lama" he gave him the name Lamissio.

Lamissio later proves the king's prophecy by defeating someone in single combat and therefore awarding the Lombards access to cross a disputed river. Lamissio later is named king when Agelmund is killed by Bulgarians.

His term "Langobards" is defined as "long-beards," and a name given to them by Odin himself. That anecdote is a little long, and coms from one of Paul's sources, the 7th-century Origio Gentis Langobardorum ("The Origin of the Langobard People"; see illustration for a 10th-century copy). I'll share it tomorrow.

Paul the Deacon's Writings

Paul the Deacon (c.720s – 13 April c.796-799) has many writings attributed to him (some probably erroneously, like a life of Gregory the Great, that was probably written much earlier than Paul). He was in the household of Adelperga, a daughter of King Desiderius of the Lombards.

Adalperga, upon reading a history by a 4th century Roman named Eutropius that covered the founding of Rome to Eutropius' lifetime, was not pleased that it covered only pagan Roman achievements and not any Christian topics. She asked Paul to amend it, so he added extracts from Scripture to a version just for her.

Another request for a history came from Angilram, the Bishop of Metz, to write a history of the diocese of Metz, giving Paul access to the diocesan records. Paul finished it by 784, noting that Angilram's own entry would be completed later (it wasn't). Paul also refers to Angilram in his Historia Langobardorum ("History of the Lombards"), calling him a "very gentle man and distinguished by holiness."

Paul also wrote a summary of De verborum significatione libri XX ('Twenty Books on the Meaning of Words") that he dedicated to Charlemagne. It was edited by a 2nd century Roman (Festus) of a work by a turn-of-the-millenium Roman grammarian (Verrius). Later...

Paul’s work, and through it that of Festus and of Verrius, became the subject of intense interest again during the Italian Renaissance after a copy of the work was discovered by Poggio Bracciolini and Bartolomeo da Montepulciano at the Abbey of St. Gall in 1416. [source]

Charlemagne also asked him to compile a collection of homilies, which Paul did and which was used in Frankish liturgy. One of Paul's homilies, In Assumptione, raises the possibility that the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. He also produced a commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict which still exists, although in a revised form.

His major work, the history he wrote of the Lombard people, was his most used, right up until the 15th century. Although possessing factual errors and questionable timelines, it is a view into the culture and myths over the course of a couple centuries. Some of the sources from which he drew are lost to us, making his work even more valuable as insight to an earlier time. There are 115 extant manuscripts, all with minor differences and many with large pieces missing.

Let's dig out some gems from this work tomorrow.

Paul the Deacon

Winfrid was born about 720 in the Duchy of Friuli, the northern part of the Italian Peninsula that was the kingdom of the Lombards. His parents, Warnefrid and Theodolinda, were well-to-do, and Winfrid grew up well-educated, knowing some Greek along with Latin.

Winfrid decided that rather than inherit from his father, he would join the clergy, taking the title Paulus Diaconus, Paul the Deacon. He was likely one of the secretaries to King Desiderius of the Lombards. When Desiderius married his daughter Adelperga to the Duke of Benevento, Adelperga requested that Paul continue the Breviarium Historiae Romanae ("Summary of Roman History") begun by a 4th century Roman, Eutropius.

He was with her at the court in Benevento prior to 774, probably fleeing when Charlemagne captured the territory. By 782 he was in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. While there he met Charlemagne, who was very interested in both the Church and education and took a liking to someone who wrote history. Their relationship was strong enough that, after a revolt against Charlemagne's rule in Friuli in which Paul's brother Arichis was imprisoned for taking part, Paul could write to Charlemagne on Arichis' behalf and get his brother freed.

Maybe he already had a reputation for writing history; maybe it was Adelperga's request that got him started on the pursuit. He would start (but not finish) a history of the Lombards (Historia Langobardorum) in six books. When much history about the Carolingian era is written from the point of view of the Franks, Paul's Historia is a valuable view from the other side, that of the Lombards. It also gives us a look into beliefs and culture. It begins with:

The region of the north, in proportion as it is removed from the heat of the sun and is chilled with snow and frost, is so much the more healthful to the bodies of men and fitted for the propagation of nations, just as, on the other hand, every southern region, the nearer it is to the heat of the sun, the more it abounds in diseases and is less fitted for the bringing up of the human race.

He drew on Bede, Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, and other histories (some now lost to us) to compile his history.

Tomorrow we'll look at his later life and other writings, some at the request of Charlemagne.

Gregory the Great

Saint Gregory the Great (c.540 - 12 March 604) started as Pope Gregory I in 590. Earlier than that he started as a prefect of Rome, though he established a monastery on the family estate (on a major road linking the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus; his father was a Roman senator), and lived as a monk for awhile before becoming a papal ambassador. He was well-educated and, thanks to his family connections we assume, probably well-versed in Imperial law.

Under his predecessor, Pelagius II, Rome and the country were in dire straits due to incursions from the Lombards that had ravaged the country. Rome was filled with poor refugees, and the Lombards were "at the gates" and overrunning the peninsula. Pelagius sent emissaries (including Gregory) to Constantinople (the seat of the Empire) to send help.

Constantinople was not helping, and when Gregory became pope in 590, he took matters into his own hands. Rome was overcrowded with people who were starving and destitute. Gregory turned out to be a very effective administrator, possibly from the influence of his father's political knowledge. He started organizing ways to help the citizens.

Charitable relief was one of his greatest triumphs, using profits from donations to churches to help the poorest among the population. He demanded that each parish seek out those in need and keep track of them. Gregory encouraged his rich acquaintances to expiate their sins by making donations to aid the poor. If his staff (the papacy already had an accounting department) and followers would not cooperate, he replaced them. In one of his letters, he reprimands a subordinate:

I asked you most of all to take care of the poor. And if you knew of people in poverty, you should have pointed them out ... I desire that you give the woman, Pateria, forty solidi for the children's shoes and forty bushels of grain."

Famine was a large problem. The church owned over 1300 square miles of farmland which produced goods that were sold. Gregory set quotas for production, urged the people tending the land to do more, and had the results shipped to Rome to be distributed to the needy. The starving crowds in Rome started to receive—free of charge—necessities such as cheese, fish, grain, meat, oil, and wine.

Gregory was responsible for many other reforms, both political and religious. He made some changes to the order of the Mass which still pertain today, and maybe I will get to those details some day. In yesterday's post, however, I teased that he set in motion something that would make a profound change to the whole of English history. Tomorrow I'll tell you what he did outside of Rome and Italy. Stay tuned.

The Donation of Pepin

The idea of actual Papal States giving the pope serious temporal power really took off in 756 when Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, gave to Pope Stephen II several territories and towns in the Italian peninsula.

To be fair, the territories were not Pepin's to give, not originally anyway. They were under control of Aistulf, king of the Lombards. A few years earlier, in 751, Aistulf conquered the exarchate of Ravenna. The exarchate of Ravenna was the last piece of Italy considered to be part of the Roman Empire, having been established by Byzantine Emperor Justinian as part of his plan to administer the western part of the fading empire.

Aistulf decided that his conquest of Ravenna and killing of the last ruler of it, the exarch Eutychius, meant he was now the nearest thing to a Roman Emperor. He therefore demanded that Rome itself submit to him and send him a tribute of one gold solidus per person.

Pope Stephen II could not negotiate with Aistulf to back down, so he sent a request to Pepin to come to his aid. The Franks and Lombards were on friendly terms, so Stephen thought Pepin would have better luck. Pepin promised the pope he would arrange the return of the Exarchate of Ravenna. The pope in return anointed Pepin and his sons Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman as kings of the Franks (they did not need this to be kings, but it was a nice piece of recognition from a figure who was seen as the head of the Christian faith). He also named them patricians of the Romans, an honorary title suggesting they were Roman elite. The pope also pronounced a blessing on Pepin's wife, Bertrada.

So Pepin took his army to Lombardy, surrounded Aistulf's forces, defeated any military opposition, and made Aistulf promise to return Ravenna. A treaty was signed, Pepin turned around to go home, and once he had left Lombardy, Aistulf ignored the treaty. Aistulf besieged Rome. Word went to Pepin. The Frankish army came and forced Aistulf to abandon the siege.

So more than Ravenna became part of the Papal states, because Pepin turned over Lombardy as well and several other cities. Emissaries of the Roman Empire entreated Pepin to give the land to the political empire, not the spiritual papacy, but Pepin would not. The pope would now be a temporal ruler for centuries to come.

You may have heard that there was an earlier gift of land to the pope, called the Donation of Constantine. We will talk about this hoax tomorrow.

The Papal States

Although the early popes had no temporal power or property, as the Roman Catholic Church grew in popularity and influence, they accrued territory. It started simply, when Constantine gave the Lateran Palace for the pope's use, but the Renaissance saw a significant expansion and increase in the papacy's temporal and political influence.

As the Church grew post-Edict of Milan, donations of and (or buildings to be used as churches) followed from well-to-do Christins. These were all initially treated as property privately held, not as property of a political entity. This may have helped when the Roman Empire crumbled under attacks: Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustus in 476, and the later rule by the Ostrogoths, would have made the Church's position more precarious if it were seen as a political rival. At this time, however, it was just a private "corporation," so to speak. The pope could be a dutiful subject under the new (and potentially hostile) administrations, while still professing spiritual authority.

When the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, headquartered in Constantinople, decided to reconquer the Western Roman Empire from the Goths, it set in motion a chain that would pass more temporal power to the popes. True, the East managed to regain much territory in Italy between 535 and 554, but the fighting left the economy in disarray. This made it easier for the Lombards to enter from the north and proceed to conquer most—not all—of the territory held by Constantinople.

The remaining strip of land stretching diagonally from coast to coast and including Rome. As the Eastern Empire's ability to manage these lands from far away waned, they increasingly left the popes in charge, since by this time the popes were the single largest landowner. At some point, these lands and others became known s the Duchy of Rome.

As their temporal power grew, of course, it led to severe clashes with other rulers. But then, it was other rulers' generosity that contributed to the papal increase in power. One such example was the Donation of Pepin, which I'll tell you about next time.

Charlemagne's Father-in-Law

Desiderius, from a 15th century miniature

I mentioned here how Charlemagne fought and defeated Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and sent him to live out his days in a monastery. What I left out was that Desiderius was Charlemagne's father-in-law.

Was his father-in-law, that is.  Charlemagne married Desiderius' eldest daughter, Desiderata, in 770. Marrying her was a political move, forging an alliance between the Lombards and the Franks. The marriage was annulled in 771, however, and she was sent back to her father.

The political alliances of Desiderius were all over the map, so to speak. When he was named King of the Lombards upon the death of his predecessor, King Aistulf, Aistulf's predecessor, his brother Rachis, who had been in a monastery, left it and tried to take the throne. Desiderius defeated him with the help of Pope Stephen II, after promising that he would give lands to the pope. The pope went for this, since Aistulf had made raids against papal lands. Desiderius, however, was not very forthcoming about handing control of the territories over to the papacy, so by the time Pope Stephen III came along, he was opposed to Charlemagne's marriage to Desiderata, and pushed for the annulment.

Desiderius later tried, like Aistulf, to encroach on papal-controlled lands around Rome, and this time Pope Adrian I called on Charlemagne's aid. It was expedient for Charlemagne to take up the request, since it allowed him to do a favor for the pope and annex Lombardy.

There was another "family connection" between Charlemagne and Desiderius. In 774, Charlemagne's brother Carloman died. Carloman's wife, Gerberga, might have expected her sons to inherit his territory, but Charlemagne simply absorbed it into his own. Gerber fled with her sons to Pavia (and later, Verona) and took refuge with Desiderius. Desiderius, unhappy with the treatment of his daughter by Charlemagne, took in the refugees. This contributed to Charlemagne's willingness to besiege Pavia in aid of Pope Adrian. The family was likely sent to monasteries, just like Desiderius, who was surely sorry that he ever got mixed up with the Frankish royal family.