Gilded Lombardic silver fibula from the Tuscany region of Italy dated to 600 CE on display at the British Museum in London

Gilded Lombardic silver fibula from the Tuscany region of Italy dated to 600 CE on display at the British Museum in London
The Lombards were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774 CE. The Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili, who dwelt in southern Scandinavia before migrating south to seek new lands. In the 1st century CE, they formed part of the Suebi, in northwestern Germany. By the end of the 5th century, they had moved into the area roughly coinciding with modern Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube river, where they subdued the Heruls and later fought frequent wars with the Gepids. The Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552 CE. His successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids in 567 CE. Then, Alboin decided to lead his people to Italy, which had become severely depopulated and devastated after the long Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians, and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569 CE they had conquered all of northern Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. They established a kingdom named Regnum Italicum that reached its zenith under the 8th-century ruler Liutprand. Even after their conquest by Charlemagne in 774 CE, the Lombard nobles continued to rule the southern part of the Italian peninsula well into the 11th century until they finally fell to the Normans.


Image: Gilded Lombardic silver fibula from the Tuscany region of Italy dated to 600 CE on display at the British Museum in London. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Jononmac46 (digitally enhanced).

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