LOMBARDS: A warlike Teutonic tribe of the period of migrations. They are first mentioned by Strabo. Their oldest abode on the Elbe is recalled by such names as Bardowik and Bar dengau. While settled here they were defeated by the Romans in the year 5 A.D. A few centuries later, driven doubtless by hunger, they wandered southeastward into the Danube region. Under the heroic Alboin they destroyed the Gepidae, and in 568 entered Italy. In the course of the next few years they conquered northern and central Italy, and erected Pavia (Ticinum) into a royal residence. They failed to acquire Venice and Naples and the Grecian coast strips, as also Rome and Ravenna. The people they conquered became, for the most part, half free (aldiones). The few free men were excluded from public offices and army service, and all stood subject to Lombard law, and were ob liged to make over to their district lords a portion of the fruits of the soil. The several divisions of the people, classed as nobles, freemen, half-free, and serfs, were governed by kings of noble de scent, endowed with conquered or confiscated estates, and qualified as army leaders, judges, lawgivers, and administrators. The leaders of army divisions were at first dukes during only a life term, but afterward they became heredi tary princes with almost royal power, not a few of them, such as the dukes of Spoleto and Bene vento, being nearly independent. Unfortunately for the Lombards, King Alboin was murdered by his consort in 572, and in 574 his successor was murdered. Then followed, under thirty-five dukes, a decade of turmoil, until an invasion of the

Franks led to the election of the powerful Autharis. He overcame the rebellious, concluded peace with the Franks, acquired the valley of the Po, and married the Catholic Bavarian Princess Theodelinda.

Under Theodelinda and her second consort, Agilulf, the Arian Lombards turned gradually to the Catholic faith. The royal pair founded and endowed churches and cloisters, as at Monza and Bobbio, installed Catholic bishops, and had their son baptized and brought up in the new faith. It was mainly Gregory the Great who contributed to this tranformation. Notwithstanding some relapses into Arianism, the orthodox faith continued to spread; and in towns where there were a Catholic and an Arian bishop the former took precedence over the latter. However, in relation to the pope, the bishop preserved an attitude of independence. After 653 all the rulers and all the bishops were of the orthodox faith, and Milan was the ecclesiastical center of the realm.

The reign of Rotharis (615), enlarger of the kingdom and subduer of formidable dukes, is distinguished by the promulgation of the Edict of Rotharis (643), comprehending penal and private law, and for the first time affording written law. Though barbaric in form it is humane in substance, and insures protection to the poor. Still more humane and equitable were the laws of Luitprand (712-744), under whom the kingdom achieved its greatest prosperity. He mitigated slavery and combated abuses, such as premature abjuration of cloister vows and duels. His piety manifested itself in the building of many churches, and in reverence of the popes, although the latter resisted his efforts toward the unity of Italy, which the fusion of Romans and Lombards, already initiated, was to consummate. After reiterated threats from Rome (under Gregory II. and III.), Pope Zacharias obtained peace from him (743), and the partial restoration of Lombard conquests; likewise, from his successor Ratchis (744-749), who was friendly to the Romans, the relinquishment of the siege of Perugia. Ratchia was succeeded by his warlike brother Aatolphus, whose resumption of menacing projects of unity drove Pope Stephen II, to an alliance with the Frankish King Pepin. In the course of two campaigns (754 and 756) Pepin won the capital, forced Astolphua to pay tribute, swear fealty, and surrender the exarchate of Ravenna, Emilia and Pentapolis, and places not as yet ceded, thus furnishing the nucleus for the temporal dominion of the popes (see Papal States). Aatolphus' successor, Desiderius (756-774), was at first accommodating to the pope and the Frankish rulers; but after his power was well secured, he fell out with both Adrian I. and Charlemagne. In 774 Charlemagne conquered Desiderius, sent him to a cloister, confiscated the kingdom, and called himself king of the Franks and Lombards. Thus the unity of major Italy and the sovereignty over Rome was consummated by a Frankish, instead of by a Lombard king. However, the conqueror, as well as his son Pepin, the governor and king of the Lombards, still had to fight several momentous conflicts with the kinsmen of Desiderius, the dukes of Friuli and Benevento.

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The former obtained recognition of his Lombard possessions by way of Byzantium.

H. Hahn.

Bibliography: The sources are in the reports of such Greek and Roman writers as Strabo and Tacitus, in Byzantine writers such as Procopius (in CSHB, vols. i.-iii.), Theophylect (in Labbe'e Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, Paris, 1648) and Theophanes (ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1885-87): also in dfGH, Script. rer. Langob., ed. Waitz, 1878; MGH, Leg., iv. 1868; C. Troya, Codice diplomatico longobardo, 6 vols Naples, 1852-55; Dahlmann and Waitz, Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte, Leipsic, 1905. The Historia Langobardarum of Paulus Diaconus is translated by W. D. Foulke, New York, 1907. Consult: P. Balan, Romani e Langobardi, Modena, 1867; F. Dahn, Langobardische Studien, vol. i.. Leipsic, 1876; idem, Urgeschichte der germanischen und romischen Volker, vol. iv., chap. 7, Berlin, 1889; F. Bartolini, I Barbari. Storia delle dominazioni barbarische, 395-1024, Milan, 1876; J. Weise, Italien und die Langobardenherrscher, Halle, 1887; J. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vols. v.-viii., Oxford, 1895-99; L. . M. Hartmann, Geschichte Italiens in Mittelalter, vols. i.-iii., Gotha, 1900-08; P. Villari, The Barbarian Invasions of Italy, 2 vols., London. 1902 (2d ed. of the Italian, Milan, 1905); L. Gauthier, Les Lombards dans les Deux-Bourgognes, Paris, 1907; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xlv. and vol. v. 517-518; Neander, Christian Church, vol. iii. passim.