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INSERT MAP OF THE LOMBARD DOMINATION

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PART III

HISTORICAL OUTLINE

568-800

Our narrative of historical events broke off at the death of Narses, which took place probably in 567, a few months before the invasion of the Lombards, whom he is half suspected of having incited to attack Italy. I have now to sketch the history of about two centuries of Lombard domination—a period rather dark and dreary, during which many seeds, so to speak, that afterwards bore flower and fruit were maturing underground, but which in itself has little to attract us except certain interesting personalities and certain early preheraldings of the coming springtime of Italian art.

I propose therefore to summarize somewhat briefly the political incidents of these two centuries. The sources of our information are various. Among them those of most interest are the writings of Pope Gregory the Great, the Edict of King Rotharis (Roteric), the prologue to which gives numerous facts (down to about 640) which enlighten a very obscure period; and combined with the MSS. of this prologue is found an interesting Origo Langobardorum by some unknown Lombard writer of about 607, who gives the somewhat legendary early history of the Lombards; lastly, we have the most valuable Historia Langobardorum by Paul Warnefrid, commonly known as Paul the Deacon, a Lombard who lived for some time at the court of Charles the Great and finally retired to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where he died, probably about 800. His History, which has been already cited on several occasions, gives a most graphic description of the wretched state of Italy at the time of the Lombard invasion, and a

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series of vivid portraits of the Lombard kings down to the reign of Liutprand, the narrative being interspersed with many stories of Herodotean type. The work is unfinished, perhaps because, being himself a Lombard and yet owing much to the favours of the Frankish monarch, he found the conquest of Italy by the Franks too painful to describe. We shall meet him again, especially after we reach the days of Gregory and Queen Theodelinda.

According to Paul the Deacon the Longobardi or Langobardi (‘Long-beards’) came, like the Goths, from Scandinavia—whither, it may be assumed, their ancestors found their way from the central regions of Asia. They are mentioned by a Latin writer, Velleius Paterculus, who during the reign of Augustus served in Germany under Tiberius. He describes them as of a ferocity ‘more than German,’ and as dwelling on the Lower Elbe. About 178 they took part in the southward movement attempted by various tribes, which was foiled by Marcus Aurelius. Then for three centuries we hear no more of them, apparently about 508 they pushed southwards from the Elbe and, having conquered the Herulians, established themselves on the northern banks of the Danube. Some forty-four years later (viz. in 552), as will be remembered, the Lombard auxiliaries in the army of Narses behaved with such savagery that he was compelled to bribe them to return to their home in Rugiland. The king, or chieftain, of these Lombard auxiliaries was Audoin, whose somewhat mythical ancestors, or predecessors, scarcely need record here, but whose son, Alboin, now claims our attention.

Opposite the Lombards of Rugiland (the region along the north banks of the Danube between Regensburg and Vienna) were the Gepidae, who seem to have moved westwards from Dacia and to have occupied the country (Pannonia, etc.) abandoned by Theoderic and his Ostrogoths. These Gepidae were in 554 proving troublesome to the Empire, and Justinian, adopting the traditional policy of the Byzantine court, bribed the Lombards to attack them. In the first campaign

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the young Albion killed Torismund, the son of the Gepidan king, but the war continued, and it was not till the Lombards had bought with a third of their cattle and much land and booty the alliance of the Avars—those ferocious savages of Turkish stock who had so alarmed Justinian and had been refused tribute by Justin—that they crushed their foes in a great battle. The Gepidae seem to have been almost exterminated, for they are heard of no more as a nation, and their king Cunimund suffered the same fate as his brother Torismund, (Susan note-called son earlier) being slain by Alboin, now king of the Lombards. His head was cut off, and of the skull Alboin had a drinking-cup made. His daughter, Rosamund, was captured and forced to marry Alboin, who, it is said, had seen and loved her a good many years previously, but had been contemptuously rejected by her father. (1)

The Lombard invasion of Italy was due to several causes. One of these was doubtless the pressure exercised by the savage and importunate Avars, who themselves were probably urged westward by the advance of other Oriental races; another was, perhaps, the invitation of Narses; another again, and in itself a sufficing reason, was the fact that Italy, whose wealth and fertility always strongly attracted invaders, was known to be at this time almost defenceless. The Byzantines had failed to consolidate their conquest. Their rŽgime had succeeded even less than that of the Ostrogoths in establishing itself by winning the favour, or the acquiescence, of the Italian people. Narses had so incensed the clergy and the nobles by his military despotism and the people by his extortionate avarice that, as the Roman envoys had declared to Justin, Italy, devastated by long wars, depopulated by famine and pestilence and utterly unable to take up arms in her own defence, was ready to welcome Gothic, or almost any other, domination, as likely to prove more tolerable than that of Narses and the Eastern Empire. Narses had indeed been deposed from power, but

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his successor, Longinus, though he seems to have attempted to introduce some reforms, had proved a failure. He concerted no systematic defence, but shut himself up in Ravenna. The scattered remnants of the Gothic army doubtless made common cause with the new barbarian invader, and in about eighteen months many of the chief cities of Northern Italy surrendered or were captured by the hordes (2) of Lombards, Gepidae, Suevi, Saxons, Bulgars, and Bavarians, which, with their women, children, their cattle, and all their movable possessions, had followed Alboin across the well-known pass of the Julian Alps, so often before used by invading hosts.

Pavia offered an obstinate resistance and was besieged for three years. It was at this time a stronger and more important city than Milan, which had not recovered from its almost total destruction by the Franks, and it now became the capital of the Lombard kingdom. (3) This kingdom comprised in North Italy the two provinces of Neustria and Austria, which covered somewhat the same regions that we call Lombardy, Piemont, Emilia, and North Venetia, with the following chief cities: Verona, Vicenza, Mantua, Trento, Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Pavia, Turin, Parma, Modena, Aquileia, Treviso. Towards the north, the west, and the east these dominions were bounded by the Alps, but towards the south Alboin extended his conquests across the Apennines and over Tuscia down to the region of Urbino and the Furlo pass (the famous Petra intercisa), which strategical position he seized. And so little resistance was offered in Central Italy that bands of the barbarians marched much further south and made themselves masters of all the inland regions and a considerable part of the coast-line, except where there were strongly fortified havens accessible for the Byzantine fleets. Two of their leaders then constituted themselves dukes (duces) of this conquered territory, the one choosing Spoleto and the other Benevento as his stronghold. These two Lombard

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dukedoms, which later proved the source of many troubles, seem from the first to have paid only a nominal allegiance to Alboin, and ere long they became practically independent.

The cities and regions of Italy that still acknowledged Byzantine supremacy and nominally formed the Exarchate (4) were the following: Ravenna and the surrounding territory (the ‘Exarchate’ in the limited sense of the word), with the cities of Padua, Bologna, etc.; the duchy of Venetia, i.e. Venice (4) and some adjacent islands and mainland territory; a part of Istria; the ‘Pentapolis,’ with the cities Rimini, Ancona, etc.; Genoa and the Ligurian Riviera; Rome and its ‘duchy’; Naples and its territory, including Cumae and Amalfi; the ‘heel and toe’ of Italy; Sicily and Sardinia.

It will thus be seen that the Lombard conquest was by no means complete. For a century the domination of Italy was divided between two alien races of exceedingly diverse character—a fact that of itself tended strongly towards disintegration; and this disintegration of nationality was widened and deepened, until it became incurable, by the internal discords and constitutional weakness of the rival claimants; for since rebellion and anarchy constantly vexed the Lombard kingdom, and the Byzantines were for ever vainly struggling to maintain their authority against the rapidly growing power of the Roman Popes and the spirit of emancipation that was ever more prevalent in their Italian dependencies, in all parts of the country cities began to assume more or less independence, or to combine themselves into small independent states, causing countless political complications and rivalries.

Shortly after his capture of Pavia (572) Alboin was assassinated. The story of his death reads like some Gyges story from Herodotus [Susan note] and seems to have found an echo in our legend

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of ‘fair Rosamond.’ At a banquet he is said to have invited, or compelled, his wife to drink from the cup which, as has been related, was formed from the skull of her father Cunimund. Rosamund revenged herself by persuading her lover, a noble named Helmechis, the armour-bearer, perhaps the foster-brother, of the king, to murder him, or, according to other accounts, to hire an assassin for the deed. Alboin, attacked during his afternoon siesta, endeavoured in vain to draw his sword, which had been tied to the scabbard by his wife, and after defending himself for some time with a stool was overpowered and slain. (6) Helmechis and Rosamund, supported by the Gepidan soldiery, attempted to seize the regal power, but had to yield to the indignation of the Lombards and appealed for help to the Byzantine governor of Ravenna, Longinus. He is said to have sent vessels up the Po and the Adige, and on these they escaped, together with Alboin’s daughter, Albsuinda. At Ravenna they were received with honour. Then Rosamund, perceiving that Longinus was struck with her beauty, determined to rid herself of Helmechis, who, having drunk a part of the wine that she had brought to his bathroom, detected that it was poisoned and threatening her with his dagger, forced her to drain the rest of the deadly draught. Possibly the details of this dramatic story are fictions, built up—as is suggested by Ranke, the historian of the Popes—on some attempt, favoured by the queen, to introduce Byzantine influence, or even some plot to establish Byzantine supremacy. But truth is sometimes quite as strange as fiction, and the state of things among the Lombards was at this early stage, in spite of their professed Christianity (or rather Arianism), such as to make the tale quite credible.

However that may be, dissension and plots were evidently rife at this time, for the next king, Clefi or Kleph, after a reign of eighteen months was assassinated—it is said, by a slave—

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and, as the dukes could not agree, no one was elected in his stead, but for the next ten years the dukes, of whom there seem to have been thirty-six, (7) each ruled his own dukedom without recognizing any liege-lord, and, if we may believe Paul the Deacon, most of them ruled very cruelly, evicting and not seldom killing the richer landowners, and exacting a third of incomes, sacking Catholic churches, and persecuting the clergy.

In the north the Lombards had already more than once attacked and had been worsted by the Franks, who at this time held all the Alpine frontiers to the north-west (Savoy, Switzerland, Provence, etc.), whence they could with ease sweep down on Milan and the valley of the Po, as they had done in the time of the Goths. These Franks seemed to be the only possible hope for Italy, for the Byzantine power was waning rapidly (8) and an appeal by the Romans to the Eastern Emperor (now Tiberius) had obtained no answer but the advice to try the effect of bribing the Lombards, or to induce the Franks to attack them. Doubtless the idea had been mooted before Tiberius gave this counsel of despair, and it is not surprising that about a year later (581) Pope Pelagius II wrote to the bishop of Auxerre asking him to remind the Franks that ‘it was the duty imposed on them by God, as orthodox Catholics, to save Rome and all Italy from this most wicked Lombard people.’ Still more effective probably proved fifty thousand gold pieces sent to the Franks by the Eastern Emperor, Maurice, who on the death of Tiberius had been elected, says Gibbon, ‘from the crowd,’ but who nevertheless proved worthy of the imperial dignity. The Franks seem to have reacted to these appeals, but they were at the moment so much engrossed by civil dissensions that after making one or two furious raids they again allowed themselves to be bought—

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this time by the Lombards. Thus the Frankish conquest of Lombard Italy, which seemed quite possible and imminent, was for the time deferred.

But their alliance with the Franks had raised the hopes and courage of the Byzantines in Italy, and at Constantinople the urgent appeals that Pope Pelagius again made through his correspondent or Nuntius (apocrisarius) Gregory—afterwards Gregory the Great—resulted in the election of a new and enterprising (9) Exarch, Smaragdus (Smaraldo) by name, who ere long arrived with considerable forces. The Lombards, on the other hand, being without a king, were disorganized and incapable of combined action, till at last, conscious of the cause of their weakness, the rival and insubordinate dukes held a conclave at Pavia (585) and consented to accept Autharis (Auteric), the son of Clefi, as their sovereign, giving up portions of their revenues to endow the monarchy. The struggle between Lombards and Byzantines became now intensified, especially in the north and east, where two events happened that are worthy of mention: the Isola Comacina, a small rocky island in the Lake of Como which is of especial interest in regard to the origins of Lombard architecture (see p. 277), and which at this period was a strongly fortified outpost of the Byzantines, was captured by the Lombards; and, on the other hand, in 588 Smaragdus recaptured the town and haven of Classe—a feat that scarcely seems surprising, since the Byzantines were masters of the sea. Indeed it is far more surprising that the Lombards could have held the place for nine years, shut in as they were between the sea and the ramparts of Ravenna.

This desultory war was for a time interrupted by a great victory gained by Autharis over the Franks, who, once more yielding to the entreaties or bribes of the Byzantines, came

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pouring down the SplŸgen pass into the regions about Lake Como. According to Paul the Deacon so vast a slaughter of Franks had never been known before. During the interval of comparative quiet that followed this battle (589) the Lombard king, anxious to provide himself with allies in view of further molestation, proposed himself as suitor for the hand of a Bavarian princess, Theudelinde. The story of his wooing and much else about Queen Theudelinde, or Theodelinda, as she was called by the Romans, will be told on a later occasion. (10) Here it suffices to say that the marriage so enraged Childebert, the Frankish king, that he once more invaded Lombard Italy. But once more the Franks were compelled to retire on account of civil broils at home, and their retreat was hastened by an extraordinary deluge that in this year overwhelmed the lowlands of Italy, and not less by the plague, which broke out with great virulence.

Pope Pelagius was one of the many thousand victims of this pestilence of 590. He was succeeded by Gregory. Of him we have already heard as papal nuntius at Constantinople; and we shall hear much more about him, as he was certainly one of the most interesting personalities of this age, though it may be questioned whether in the highest sense of the word he was great. In this year (590) died also King Autharis. He was probably one of the best of the Lombard rulers, although certain obscurely worded expressions of Paul the Deacon have sometimes been interpreted to mean that under his rule the Italians were still more oppressed than they had been by the dukes, and were in fact enslaved and portioned out as bondmen among the Lombards. (11) But this seems inconsistent with other passages in which he speaks of the state of

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the country at this time. ‘Neither acts of violence were known,’ he says, ‘nor any revolutionary plots; no one oppressed another unjustly, no one despoiled another; there were no thefts, no highway robberies; everyone went his way whithersoever he wished without fear or anxiety.’

That the Lombards were originally barbarians of a wilder and more inartistic type than the Goths is apparent; they seem to have had little of the sensibility for Southern art and literature that is so noticeable in the case of Theoderic and of Amalasuntha and even of Theodahad; but on the other hand they were evidently less brutal. None of the Lombard rulers—not even Alboin himself—can be accused of the ferocious brutality displayed by Theoderic and by Theodahad. The savage appearance of the original Lombards, their linen garments striped with variegated colours, their heads shaven behind, shaggy locks hanging over their faces, and long beards over their breasts, was viewed (says Gibbon) with curiosity and affright by their near descendants. In the summer palace of Theoderic at Monza, which Queen Theodelinda restored and adorned with frescos, were depicted these barbaric ancestors of the race; and they doubtless excited much wonder and repulsion long before the days of Paul the Deacon, who saw and described with some consternation the portraits of his forefathers. But beneath this savage exterior, and behind much savagery in war—such as forced even Narses to rid himself of their presence as allies—there was in their nature an element of kindliness, generosity, and chivalry which often, as Gibbon allows, ‘surprised their captives and subjects.’ These qualities are very apparent in the Lombard laws of Rotharis, as we shall see later, and are well intimated by the epitaph of a Lombard warrior given by Paul the Deacon: