Lombard invasion of Italy
Led by King Alboin, the Lombards and their allies left Pannonia and within four years conquered most of northern Italy from the Byzantines, founding a kingdom that lasted until 774.
- Date
- 2 April 568 – 572start: exact date; end: year known · duration: ≈ 4 yearsDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli)today: Cividale del Friuli, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Route
- Forum Iulii (Cividale) → Milan (Mediolanum) → Pavia (Ticinum)
- Participants
- Lombards, Alboin, Byzantine Empire
- Threads
- Early medieval Europe (500–1000)
- Also known as
- Lombard conquest of Italy; Лангобардское завоевание Италии; Kingdom of the Lombards
The migration began on Easter Monday, 2 April 568, and included Gepids, Saxons, Bulgars and other groups besides the Lombards. The first town taken was Forum Iulii (Cividale), which Alboin made the seat of the first Lombard duchy under his nephew Gisulf; the patriarch of Aquileia fled to the lagoon island of Grado. On 3 September 569 Alboin entered Milan, abandoned by the imperial officials; Pavia resisted for three years and fell in 572, shortly before Alboin was murdered in Verona on 28 June 572.
Byzantine Italy, exhausted by the Gothic War and the plague, kept only Ravenna, Rome, the south and the coasts. Italy was split between the Lombard kingdom with its capital at Pavia, the southern Lombard duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, and imperial territories — a division that lasted into the Carolingian age. A medieval tradition that the dismissed governor Narses invited the Lombards is uncertain.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- The Avars settle in the Carpathian Basinbetween 567 and 568 · Western and Central EuropeThe Lombards left Pannonia to their powerful new neighbours, the Avars
Related events
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central EuropeItaly, ruined by twenty years of war, could not resist the invaders
- Siege of Pavia and fall of the Lombard kingdomSeptember 773 – June 774 · Western and Central EuropeThe end of the kingdom founded by Alboin in 568
Same participants
- Jordanes and Procopius describe the Sclaveni and the Antesbetween 550 and 554 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire
- Avar campaign against the Antes602 · Eastern Europevia Byzantine Empire
- Donation of PepinApril 754 – 756 · Western and Central Europevia Lombards
Adjacent events in the thread
- Gregorian mission to the Anglo-Saxons597 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
- The Avars ravage the lands of the Antesbetween 560 and 562
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
Balkans and Anatolia
- Jordanes and Procopius describe the Sclaveni and the Antesbetween 550 and 554
- Plague of Justinian541–549
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Kingdom of the Lombards
- Wikipedia (English): Alboin
- Wikipedia (Russian): Лангобардское королевство
- Wikipedia (Russian): Альбоин
- Christie N. The Lombards: The Ancient Longobards. — Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.