Lombard Kingdom Research Articles

Ökumenisches Kirchenrecht im Zerrbild historiographischer Erzählung

Abstract The Quinisext Council, assembled in Constantinople shortly after 690 to issue a series of more than 100 canons on practical issues and on clerical discipline, was designed as an Ecumenical council, but failed to gain ‘universal’ acceptance in the West. Moving beyond traditional interpretations which saw the conflict over the Quinisext Council largely as one between Emperor Justinian II in Constantinople and the papacy in Rome, the article asks how issues related to the Quinisext Council were received in the churches of the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Lombard, Visigothic, Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Drawing on accounts in Paulus Diaconus’ ‘History of the Lombards’, the ‘Chronicle of Alfons III’ ( of Asturia ) and Agnellus’ ‘Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna’, it is argued that there must have been a much wider debate about the Quinisext canons on celibacy and on chastity of clerics. As is shown by the analysis of these sources, some of the Quinisext canons on these topics were accepted in the exarchate of Ravenna, the Lombard kingdom of Italy and the Visigothic kingdom in Spain and Southern Gaul around 700; only when attitudes changed profoundly after the mid-eighth century, the acceptance of the council’s decisions by rulers and bishops became subject to polemical narratives in later historiography. By contrast, a case can be made on the basis of synodal decisions, canon law, hagiographical texts, theological treatises and chronicles that in the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the Quinisext canons on clerical marriage were refuted by bishops, who confirmed older positions on the debated issues as transmitted through canon law tradition. Asking what may have caused both the acceptance and rejection of the Council’s decisions and revisiting the development of the papacy’s attitude to the Quinisext canons, it is argued here that juxtapositions and a priori-statements on religious culture in ‘East’ and ‘West’ are not helpful to understand the wide-ranging connectivity and communication that becomes visible from this debate. A Mediterranean perspective that fully embraces the world of the post-Roman ‘West’ including Britain does more justice to the openness of historical processes around 700.

Benevento and Salerno

Abstract After the Carolingian conquest of the Lombard Kingdom in 774, the Duchy of Benevento became an independent principality. Duke Arechis (758–787) proclaimed himself princeps gentis Langobardorum, thus opposing the political authority of the new King of the Lombards, Charlemagne. During the second half of the 8th century, Arechis refounded Salerno as the second capital city of Lombard Southern Italy by building a palace which stood as a marker of his political authority within the urban landscape. When the competition between two factions of the Beneventan aristocracy led to a civil war (839–849), Salerno became first a gathering place for members of the faction opposing Prince Radelchis and then the capital city of a new Lombard principality. By considering both written and archaeological sources, this paper focuses on the social and political aspects that led to the urban development of Salerno and challenged the role of Benevento during the 8th and 9th centuries. Some final considerations contextualise the rise of Capua as a third capital city in Lombard Southern Italy during the 9th and 10th centuries.

Before the canon houses. A reform at the domus episcopi of Lucca in the Lombard period

The essay investigates the repercussions of mid‐eighth‐century reforms on the urban clergy of northern Italy. A detailed study reveals that a hitherto unknown reform project was undertaken in Lucca. The evidence comes from the analysis of numerous surviving manuscripts: these yielded some interesting findings that, after an introduction to the state of the field, are discussed in the central part of the article. The final part contains a brief reflection on some canonical collections that allows us to draw out some connections between western Tuscany and Verona and the Po Valley, thus indicating greater concerns with the state of the urban clergy in the Lombard kingdom than was hitherto thought.

Burials of elite children in the Italian peninsula between the second half of the sixth and the end of the seventh centuries AD. Strategies of funerary distinction and funerary goods in the female realm

Abstract The investigation of elite girls' burials in the Italian peninsula is part of a broader doctoral research project that aims to outline the territorial distribution of Early Mediaeval elite women and girls in the Italian peninsula and analyse the strategies of their funerary self-representation in a short but significant period. Altogether 24 elite girls' burials have been identified in Roman-Byzantine and Lombard territories between the second half of the sixth and the end of the seventh centuries AD. Our analysis focuses on the most significant elements: find context, burial topography, the quality of the funerary goods, and funerary construction. In Byzantine territories, elite children were given ad sanctos burial, but with significant differences in purchasing power between the cities and the countryside. The urban elite was willing to spend huge amounts of money for the burial of their girls inside churches, while the same level of wealth has not been detected in the countryside so far. On the other hand, in the Lombard Kingdom and the Duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, funerals given to elite Lombard girls did not differ from those of older age groups and involved handing over important family brooches between generations. By the mid-seventh century AD, elite girl's burials were frequently near or inside churches and rural oratories, contributing in a significant way to a gradual narrowing of the cultural gap between Lombards and the local population.

How the sustainable development goals challenge public management. Action research on the cultural heritage of an Italian smart city

Pressure to face sustainability challenges is encouraging research into the ways in which public managers embed sustainability in their work and implement it. The 2030 Agenda has given a boost to the use of accounting practices to achieve Sustainable Developments Goals. While sustainability, together with accounting and accountability, has been explored, less attention has been paid to the antecedents leading to its embedding in public management practices. To provide a contribution on this matter, this study investigates the organizational processes facilitating public managers in institutionalizing sustainability, accounting and accountability practices. Focusing on the 11th Sustainable Development Goal, “cities” are entrusted with making cultural heritage management sustainable, raising the research question: what challenges does the 11th Sustainable Development Goal pose for the public management of urban cultural heritage? Action Research was carried out to investigate knowledge building within a project—the “Pavia Network Project” (2014–2017)—involving practitioners and researchers. The research findings shed light on the organizational processes that led to the implementation of sustainable accounting and accountability by an Italian smart city. The choice fell on Pavia because of its invaluable cultural heritage, having been, through time, the capital of the Early Medieval Lombard Kingdom, a wealthy Renaissance court and an historical university town. From the discussion of the results, a conceptual model on the antecedents of sustainable accounting and accountability knowledge arose. Besides the limitations of Action Research, this model suggests meaningful insights for both practitioners and researchers into the organizational changes triggered by the 2030 Agenda.

Royal Women in Lombard Italy: Gender and Royal Power

An analysis of Lombard royal authority shows that women played an important role in forwarding royal families’ strategies of authority, despite an increasing and explicit exclusion from political power in the mid-seventh century, along with changing conceptions of Lombard ethnicity. Thus, this paper analyzes the gendered construction of ethnic identity in the development of royal power, as well as royal Lombard women’s patronage of the church to argue that royal women played a fundamental role in the creation and maintenance of royal Lombard ideology, although their roles were negotiated and changed as the Lombard kingdom and conception of Lombard kingship took on a sacral character, thereby coopting activities initially not within the realm of military masculinity.

Langobardia maior et minor: indagini sul legame tra la scultura altomedievale e i capitelli campani

Langobardia maior et minor: indagini sul legame tra la scultura altomedievale e i capitelli campani. Within the southern Italian city of Capua – in the 10th and 11th century ruler's residence of the Lombard principality of Benevento and capital of Langobardia minor – a group of early medieval capitals has survived, which can be divided into three closely related types. On the basis of type I, which is bound to the corinthian capital, an examination will be made regarding to what extent relationships can be verified with the architectural sculpture of the older Lombard kingdom in northern Italy, which was incorporated into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne as early as 774. For this purpose, certain technical and stylistic characteristics can be used, which concern in particular the overlapping tips of the acanthus leaves. The thesis is that in the very specific forms of Capuan capitals a line of tradition can be traced that is also found in other contexts of early medieval art in Campania, possibly with origins in the north.

Frühbyzantinische Kreuzdiskurse des 6. und 7. Jahrhunderts und ihre Rezeption in Konstantinopel, Kappadokien und im Westen

Abstract The paper establishes connections between funerary art in the Eastern (Cappadocia) and the Western Mediterranean (Lombard kingdom in Northern Italy) during the seventh century. Jewelry pendants and gemstone decorations are also covered. The similarities of the image concepts suggest common design principles, with the cross as a symbol of the Son of Man when God returns on Judgment Day (Mt 24, 30). As celestial signs in the midst of stars and planets, these forms of the cross, which may also have influenced the Baiuvarian and Alemannic gold-leaf crosses, have a cosmic character. Under the sign of the concentric cross, according to Mt 24, 31, the angels gather together the elect (Christians) from the four directions of the world.

Aspects of Movement and Mobility in Lombard Law: Fugitives, Runaway Slaves and Strangers

Lombard laws were issued between 643 and 755. They comprise in toto an invaluable normative source for the Lombard kingdom and society in the seventh and eighth centuries. Commentators have concentrated upon the witness that the laws comprise for the ability of Lombard kings to rule, control and influence society. This paper, however, will consider aspects of both movement and mobility through and across the kingdom using the prism provided by the law with regard to fugitives, runaway slaves and strangers. What does the law tell us about the conceptual parameters associated with those who composed and compiled Lombard law? How did the Lombard kingdom respond to movement and mobility? What do prescriptions which relate to frontiers reveal about the broader interconnectivity of the Mediterranean world? In addressing these issues, and in considering the broader connotations revealed, this paper will argue for a deeper mobility in the early medieval West.

The Translation of St Sylvester’s Relics from Rome to Nonantola: Itineraries of corpora sacra at the Crossroads between Devotion and Identity in Eighth-Tenth-Century Italy

Pope Sylvester I (314-335) became an important figure in the political history of early medieval Italy. His legendary relationship with Constantine I (306-337), the first Christian emperor, played a significant role in establishing his ideological prominence. Declared a saint of the early Roman Church, Sylvester’s relics did not gain much attention until the middle of the eighth century, when they became a source of competition. On the one hand, Roman popes venerated his body in the monastery of St Stephen and St Sylvester, founded by Pope Paul I around 760 inside the Eternal City; on the other hand, the Lombard king Aistulf and his brother-in-law, Abbot Anselm, claimed to have brought Sylvester’s relics north, in order to have them buried in Anselm’s newly founded monastery of Nonantola in the Po Valley. Scholars would appear to have overlooked this major issue when investigating the relationship between Lombard elite society and Roman popes in the eighth century. This article will therefore consider the dates, forms, and narratives of the translatio of St Sylvester in order to evaluate Nonantola’s political and ideological involvement in this »holy« movement. The main argument is that through the »journey« of Sylvester’s relics within the Lombard kingdom, King Aistulf was able to increase his prestige and political influence. For its part, Nonantola rewrote the history of its origins by centring it on the relics of the Constantinian pontiff and those of Pope Hadrian I, in order to claim political and spiritual primacy throughout the medieval period.

Networking Nuns: Imperial Power and Family Alliances at S. Salvatore di Brescia (c. 837-61)

Female religious foundations in the early medieval period have long been recognized as essential ‘places of power’: physical and symbolic loci through which were created and consolidated the socio-economic prestige of aristocratic family groups, including the royal and imperial dynasties. This was especially true in Italy, where lay founders invested considerable resources in the nunneries, but perhaps even more so through the oblation of women from their family to become nuns there. This article explores a specific case study, that of San Salvatore di Brescia in northern Italy, in the 830s to the 870s. Founded as a ducal, then royal, monastery by Desiderius and Ansa, the last sovereigns of the Lombard kingdom, the abbey witnessed a flourishing period under Emperors Lothar I and Louis II. It then functioned as a government tool for expanding and imposing their authority, through the presence there of their own daughters, and of some women from the highest-ranking aristocracy of both Lombard and Frankish origins. The international dimension of San Salvatore in those years is well attested in its Liber Vitae (a. 856), which commemorates all the nuns, their male relatives and other contemporary personalities bound to them through direct and indirect links of fidelity. This success, argue the authors, was the result of both a bottom- and a top-driven process, through which the Lombard heritage of the abbey and its deep rooting in the local social and political landscape through the native elites, played a fundamental bridging role in connecting the first and the second generation of Frankish imperial officials in Italy with the original Lombard aristocracy.

Granice Państwa Kościelnego w II połowie VIII wieku w świetle wczesnych źródeł historycznych

Borders of the Papal State in the Second Half of 8th Century in the Light of Early Sources
 In 756 as the result of donation made by frankish king Pepin papacy formally controlled duchy of Rome, part of former exarchate of Ravenna (earlier directly submitted to Ravenna), larger part of duchy of the Pentapolis and probably duchy of Perugia. Papacy claimed belonged to Lombards territory of plenaria iustitiae (part of Pentapolis and duchy of Ferrara) as well. In 765 king Desiderius transfered to papacy not plenaria iustitiae but some parts of Tuscany, duchy of Benevento and duchy of Spoleto. In 774 took place frankish intervention which destroyed lombard kingdom. Frankish king Charlemagne conveyed to pope Hadrian I new territories (lombard Tuscany, Corsica, Spoleto, Benevento, Istria, Veneto) and confirmed old donations. However the pope had not possibility to really take over these lands. In 781 as the recompensation king conveyed to Hadrian southern part of Lombard Tuscany, territory of Sabina, part of Campania and confirmed territories in exarchate and Pentapolis. Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily were added as well. In 787 papacy received next part of Campania. Determination of the shape of the territories practically controlled by the pope is very difficult because in many lands there were problems with introduction of real papal reign.

Una fine inevitabile? Il crollo del regno longobardo di fronte ai Franchi e al papato

According to the Italian historiography, from Alessandro Manzoni (1822) to the two major Italian historians who studied the Lombards at the middle of the twentieth century, Gian Piero Bognetti and Ottorino Bertolini, the Lombards remained always separated from the Roman population, of which the pope was the natural leader; the Lombards, too, became very late Catholics, in time, though, to experience the drama of having to fight against the pope, whose supreme spiritual authority the Lombards themselves at that point recognized. Consequently, the fall of the independent kingdom by the hands of the Franks would be logical and inevitable. This is an old and outdated position: the end of the independent Lombard kingdom wasn’t inevitable. At the time of the Frankish conquest, the kingdom was politically solid inward, in economic growth and very dynamic outward. During the reigns of Liutprand, Ratchis and Aistulf (712-757), the kingdom exercised its hegemony over the whole Italy. In this period no strong elements of internal weakness emerged. Therefore, the defeat of 774 was substantially caused by external factors, ie the alliance between the Franks and the papacy. However, the attitude of the popes against the Lombard kingdom was not always hostile. Things changed only with Stephen II, because of two simultaneous events occurring in 751: the royal anointing of Pepin in the Frankish kingdom and the conquest of the Exarchate by Aistulf. Italian political balance broke and caused the decisive rapprochement between Rome and the Franks. But there were still many uncertainties, as proved, for example, by Charlemagne’s marriage with a daughter of Desiderius. Carloman’s death in 771 and, the following year, the election of the new pope Adrian I caused the repudiation of the Lombard bride by Charlemagne, his descent into Italy in 773, and the capture of Pavia the year after: Desiderius was exiled in France and Charlemagne became rex Langobardorum. The very rapid epilogue of the story of the kingdom, however, depended on contingent factors: to the last, the story could take a different direction. Rather different was the situation on the military front. In fact the Lombard army was not quite able to compete with the Frankish one, accustomed to the seasonal war and to the looting along the borders of the kingdom. This fact alone explains the rapid defeat of the Lombard at the Clusae against the Franks. The structures of the Lombard kingdom were not at all upset by the Frankish conquest. Already around 780, the Italian capitularia mention the Lombards counts alongside the Frankish ones; in the same period the Lombards fit into the vassals’ files. All this indicates a transition without any major shocks from the old system, previous to the 774, to the next Frankish rule.

The collapse of the early medieval European kingdoms (8th-9th centuries)

This monographic section contains some partial approaches to the problem of the collapse of early medieval kingdoms during 8th and 9th centuries. Different cases of study are analysed: the Visigothic kingdom and Northwestern Iberia, the Lombard kingdom, Mercia, the Post-Carolingian evolution in a regional scale and the Great Moravia. The understanding of early medieval polities and their fluidity is the aim of all papers. The frequent breakdown of the kingdoms was not a proof of a supposed fragility, if not a usual solution to sociopolitical stress. Sometimes, the end of the kingdoms involved a decline of socio-political complexity, so the theoretical framework of the study of collapse could be useful.

The Others and Their Stories

The ninth century was a fundamental period for the history of Naples. Newly untethered from Constantinople and trying to forge a stable state, the Campanian city faced a complex political landscape in Southern Italy. The Frankish conquest of the Lombard kingdom and the weakening of the Byzantine Empire, which allowed the Saracens to seize Sicily, reshaped the South into a region dominated by several competing protagonists. Naples resisted conquest at the hands of the neighbouring Lombards of Benevento while simultaneously maintaining peaceful relationships with the two empires and the Saracens. The goal of this article is to examine how Neapolitan authors portrayed Byzantines, Franks, Lombards and Saracens, and what they knew about them. In particular, it will focus on the Gesta Episcoporum Neapolitanorum ( Deeds of the Neapolitan Bishops) by John the Deacon—the main Neapolitan source for that epoch.

Ascertainment of Customs and Personal Laws in Medieval Italy from the Lombard Kingdom to the Communes

The medieval systems of law in Italy and Europe have been proposed as a sort of virtual laboratory to deal with the issue of ensuring that the principle of equality in the rule of law be compatible with the recognition of indigenous peoples’ customs. The legal framework of the medieval communes sought to strike a balance between the general interest in having legal certainty and uniformity with the citizens’ interest in ruling their family life and economic assets according to their cultural and social values. Up until the 14th century, in Lombardy an individual’s legal status, family and inheritance continued to be ruled according to the customs of the individual’s natio, be they Lombard or Roman. The ascertainment of customs is an arduous task, as oral customs are fluid and vary from place to place and from family to family. For this reason, in the Middle Ages ascertainment was always entrusted to judges and legal experts (sapientes). Until a few decades ago, recognising and enforcing customs was mostly unthinkable due to legal positivism and the principle of equality. Now, however, the limits of the principle of legal equality are well known: »Legal positivism was not able to abolish status« (G. Alpa). The recognition of »legal Indigenous status« provides continuity between the past (the Middle Ages) and present (Indigenous Peoples Basic Law). Just as in the past, when living according to a given natio’s laws and customs did not mean self-government, so today the enforcement of an indigenous peoples’ basic law should not undermine the sovereignty of the State.

Charlemagne and the Lombard Kingdom That Was: the Lombard Past in Post-Conquest Italian Historiography

The Carolingian conquest of Lombard Italy (774) was preceded by a massive effort on the part of the Church to convince the Frankish court of the legitimacy of the invasion. Relying on a terminology borrowed from Gregory I, the papal court produced an offensive portrait of the Lombards, depicted as treacherous, vile, and heathen. This article analyzes eighth-century papal epistolary and the Liber Pontificalis in order to establish the strategies behind this campaign. In a second moment, we turn to the Lombard response after the conquest, and the efforts of Paul the Deacon as well as the anonymous author of the Origo Langobardorum codicis Gothanis to question the papal portrait of the Lombards and to reclaim the Christian past of their people. Both Paul and the Gotha Origo focused on the importance of the conversion — and especially the role of Gregory the Great — in the rehabilitation of the Lombards. Their works, this article suggests, represent an attempt of the Lombards to dissociate their Christian faith from the conquest and to reclaim the narrative about their own past.

Émission monétaire et administration dans le royaume d'Italie. À propos des analyses des deniers carolingiens du Cabinet des Médailles

Recent research carried on into Carolingian Italy tend to conclude that royal power was fairly successful in running public administration and ensuring military defence of the Lombard Kingdom, after its conquest by the Franks. From a monetary point of view, the reforms introduced by Charles the Great to bring Italy progressively into the Frankish system were equally successful. This success has been further emphasized by new analyses on the intrinsic value of the Italian issues. The situation appears different when we focus on the mints. Their very limited number is an anomaly which we are attempting to understand.

Paul the Deacon and the Franks

The conquest of Lombardy in 774 is universally recognized, both by contemporaries and by modern historians, to have been one of the most momentous events in Charlemagne's reign. Yet the process by which Charlemagne consolidated his rule in the Lombard kingdom of Italy, and the cultural and religious consequences of 774 for both Franks and Lombards, are far less easy to determine. In this article I argue that it is in the context of Paul's political involvement both before and after the Frankish conquest that all his writings, and especially the composition of the Historia Langobardorum should be seen. I look at both the content of the Historia Langobardorumand the manuscript tradition and transmission of the work. I suggest that Paul's History might be better understood as a very skilful piece of image making about the Lombards' past and identity on behalf of the Lombards for the Franks, either in Francia itself, or for the Franks and Lombards at the court of Pippin of Italy. It was designed to serve a particular function, namely, to instruct the Franks about the Lombard past and provide some measure of legitimation of Carolingian rule. What can be put together about its reception suggests that it was successful. In short, the Historia Langobardorum is a very active contribution to the shaping of Frankish and Lombard relations and the understanding of kingship in the aftermath of 774.

Unity and Diversity in the Carolingian Church

With their steady series of conquests during the eighth century, adding Alemannia, Frisia, Aquitaine, the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy, Septimania, Bavaria, Saxony, and Brittany to the Frankish heartlands in Gaul, the Carolingians created what Ganshof regarded as an unwieldy empire. Was the Carolingian Church unwieldy too? Recent work, notably that of Janet Nelson, has underlined not only the political ideologies that helped to hold the Frankish realms together, but also the practical institutions and actions of individuals in government and administration. Can the same be done for the Church? Despite the extraordinary diversity of the Carolingian world and its ecclesiastical traditions, can it be described as a unity? What sense of a ‘Frankish Church’ or of ‘Frankish ecclesiastical institutions’ can be detected in the sources?