Chapter II: Lombard Invasion to Liutprand’s Death (2)

Many of the most wealthy Italians were slain or banished; the remainder were divided among the strangers; and a tributary obligation was imposed (under the name of hospitality), of paying to the Lombards a third part of the fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid tenure. Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his strong and insolent guest; or the annual payment, a third of the produce, was exchanged by a more equitable transaction for an adequate proportion of landed property. Under these foreign masters, the business of agriculture, in the cultivation of corn, vines, and olives, was exercised with degenerate skill and industry by the labour of the slaves and natives. But the occupations of a pastoral life were more pleasing to the idleness of the barbarians. In the rich meadows of Venetia, they restored and improved the breed of horses for which that province had once been illustrious.

THE REIGN AND WOOING OF AUTHARI

So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the Lombards of the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. Their heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung over their eyes and mouths, and a long beard represented the name and character of the nation. Their dress consisted of loose linen garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which were decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes of variegated colours. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open sandals; and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was constantly girt to their side. Yet this strange apparel, and horrid aspect, often concealed a gentle and generous disposition: and as soon as the rage of battle had subsided, the captives and subjects were sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor. The vices of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable, as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. The adventurous gallantry of Authari breathes the true spirit of chivalry and romance. After the loss of his promised bride, a Merovingian princess, he sought in marriage the daughter of the king of Bavaria; and Garibald accepted the alliance of the Italian monarch. Impatient of the slow progress of negotiation, the ardent lover escaped from his palace and visited the court of Bavaria in the train of his own embassy. At the public audience, the unknown stranger advanced to the throne, and informed Garibald that the ambassador was indeed the minister of state, but that he alone was the friend of Authari, who had trusted him with the delicate commission of making a faithful report of the charms of his spouse.

Theudelinda was summoned to undergo this important examination; and after a pause of silent rapture, he hailed her as the queen of Italy, and humbly requested that, according to the custom of the nation, she would present a cup of wine to the first of her new subjects. By the command of her father she obeyed: Authari received the cup in his turn, and, in restoring it to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and drew his own finger over his face and lips. In the evening, Theudelinda imparted to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity of the stranger, and was comforted by the assurance that such boldness could proceed only from the king, her husband, who, by his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of her love. The ambassadors were dismissed; no sooner did they reach the confines of Italy than Authari, raising himself on his horse, darted his battle-axe against a tree with incomparable strength and dexterity. “Such,” said he to the astonished Bavarians, “such are the strokes of the king of the Lombards.” On the approach of a French army, Garibald and his daughter took refuge in the dominions of their ally; and the marriage was consummated in the palace of Verona. At the end of one year, it was dissolved by the death of Authari (Sept. 5th, 590), but the virtues of Theudelinda had endeared her to the nation, and she was permitted to bestow, with her hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.

LOMBARD GOVERNMENT AND LAW

From this fact, as well as from similar events, it is certain that the Lombards possessed freedom to elect their sovereign, and sense to decline the frequent use of that dangerous privilege. The public revenue arose from the produce of land, and the profits of justice. When the independent dukes agreed that Authari should ascend the throne of his father, they endowed the regal office with a fair moiety of their respective domains. The proudest nobles aspired to the honours of servitude near the person of their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of his vassals by the precarious gift of pensions and “benefices”; and atoned for the injuries of war by the rich foundation of monasteries and churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he never usurped the powers of a sole and absolute legislator. The king of Italy convened the national assemblies in the palace, or more probably in the fields of Pavia: his great council was composed of the persons most eminent by their birth and dignities; but the validity, as well as the execution, of their decrees, depended on the approbation of the “faithful” people, the “fortunate” army of the Lombards.

About fourscore years after the conquest of Italy, their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin, and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some new regulations were introduced, more suitable to their present condition; the example of Rothari was imitated by the wisest of his successors, and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed the least imperfect of the barbaric codes. Secure by their courage in the possession of liberty, these rude and hasty legislators were incapable of balancing the powers of the constitution, or of discussing the nice theory of political government.

Such crimes as threatened the life of the sovereign, or the safety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death; but their attention was principally confined to the defence of the person and property of the subject. According to the strange jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold declares a just sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious word, were measured with scrupulous and almost ridiculous diligence; and the prudence of the legislator encouraged the ignoble practice of bartering honour and revenge for a pecuniary compensation.

The ignorance of the Lombards, in the state of paganism or Christianity, gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of witchcraft; but the judges of the seventeenth century might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of Rothari, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty. The same spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and country, may be ascribed to Liutprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the impious and inveterate abuse of duels, observing from his own experience, that the juster cause had often been oppressed by successful violence.

Whatever merit may be discovered in the laws of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of the barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is marked with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more equitable government than any of the other kingdoms which had been founded on the ruins of the Western Empire.

THE DECAY OF ROME

[Sidenote: [590-671 A.D.]]

Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, which had reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted; the lofty tree under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on the ground. The ministers of command, and the messengers of victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually feared. The inhabitants shut or opened their gates with a trembling hand, beheld from the walls the flames of their houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond the sea and the mountains. The Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure, and the air is infectious.

Curiosity and ambition no longer attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but if chance or necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the city, and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tiber swelled above its banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the valleys of the Seven Hills. A pestilential disease arose from the stagnation of the deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that fourscore persons expired in an hour, in the midst of a solemn procession which implored the mercy of Heaven.

A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails, soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war; but as the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the human race. Yet the number of citizens still exceeded the measure of subsistence: their precarious food was supplied from the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of famine betrays the inattention of the emperor to a distant province. The edifices of Rome were exposed to the same ruin and decay; the mouldering fabrics were easily overthrown by inundations, tempests, and earthquakes; and the monks, who had occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their base triumph over the ruins of antiquity.

It is commonly believed, that Pope Gregory I attacked the temples, and mutilated the statues, of the city; that by the command of the barbarian, the Palatine library was reduced to ashes; and that the history of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd and mischievous fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself reveal his implacable aversion to the monuments of classic genius: and he points his severest censure against the profane learning of a bishop, who taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin poets, and pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and those of Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful and recent; the temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus, have been demolished by the slow operation of ages, and a formal proscription would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy in the countries which were not subject to the ecclesiastical dictator.

Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the name of Rome might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been animated by a vital principle, which again restored her to honour and dominion.[w]

THE LOMBARD KINGS (636-712 A.D.)

Theudelinda had chosen for her husband and co-ruler, the Thuringian duke Agilulf who reigned from 590 to 615. Under these two the Arian Lombards kept peace with the Catholic church, and Pope Gregory the Great, who is more fully treated under the history of the papacy, deserves honour for arranging the peace and preventing a conspiracy to massacre the Lombards as the French were butchered on the day of the Sicilian Vespers.

Agilulf was followed by Adalwald (Adeloald), 615-624, and he by Ariwald (Arioald), 624-636, who was followed by Rothari (636-652).[a]

From the time when Rothari established the Lombard monarchy by his strong hand, to the reign of Liutprand, the first king who deliberately conceived the design of uniting the whole of Italy under his sceptre, the throne of Pavia passed through many vicissitudes, and the monarchy could only maintain its authority with difficulty against the power of the aspiring nobles, and of the dukes in particular. Rodwald, the son of Rothari, having been assassinated, after a reign of barely six months (652), by a Lombard whom he had grievously insulted, loyalty to the memory of Queen Theudelinda led the nation to set her nephew Aribert, the son of Gundwald of Asti, on the throne. The reign of this monarch (653-661), the first Catholic king of the Lombards, is shrouded in obscurity. According to the dispositions made by him on his death-bed, his two youthful sons, Godebert and Perctarit, were to divide his dominions, one fixing his capital at Pavia and the other at Milan. The consequence of this ill-judged arrangement was a fratricidal civil war. Both belligerents appealed for aid to Grimwald, duke of Benevento, and thus gave this powerful and ambitious ruler the opportunity of placing the crown on his own head (662-671). He entered Pavia as the ally of Godebert; but seized the first favourable moment to murder the young king. Thereupon Perctarit of Milan, the other brother, dreading a like fate for himself, fled to the Avars, leaving his wife Rodelinda and his infant son Cunincbert behind him.

Grimwald, who had married the daughter of Aribert, then ruled the Lombard kingdom for ten years with vigour and prudence, and successfully repelled the attacks of the Franks on the west and of the Greeks on the east. When a Lombard duke, Lupus of Friuli by name, refused to swear allegiance to him, he instigated the chagan of the Avars to make war on the recalcitrant noble. The disloyal governor and the majority of his comrades in arms fell in a four days’ battle against the barbarians (663). The Avars, however, obstinately refused to evacuate the territory which they had purchased with their blood. Grimwald was forced to muster an army to coerce them, but he avoided giving battle and ultimately succeeded by artifice in inducing his savage visitors to withdraw. In order to secure himself against revolt and disloyalty for the future, he conferred the most important dukedoms on his own adherents and friends, taking care to bestow the municipal territories (_civitates_) upon persons who were not native to the respective cities and so had no ties to the soil. Accordingly Benevento fell to the share of his son Romwald; Spoleto to his faithful comrade Transamund, on whom he also bestowed his daughter in marriage; and the duchy of Friuli to Wechtari of Vicenza.

[Sidenote: [671-712 A.D.]]

Grimwald was nevertheless unable to secure the crown for his own line. Death had barely closed the formidable monarch’s eyes before Perctarit was conducted from the frontier to Pavia and proclaimed king amidst loud rejoicings, while Garibald, Grimwald’s son, disappeared from the scene. Of Perctarit’s subsequent reign (671-686), in which he associated his son Cunincbert (686-700) with him in the government, we know nothing except that he waged a protracted war with Alahis, duke of Trient, who had rebelled against him. After the death of Perctarit the struggle took a turn so unfavourable to the royal cause that Alahis, who in the meantime had added the duchy of Brescia to that of Trient, marched into Pavia, forced the king to take refuge on an island in Lake Como, and proclaimed himself king. His reign was brief. Desertion and treachery weakened his cause, and he fell in a decisive battle against Cunincbert not far from Como. Cunincbert then took up his residence once more in the royal palace at Pavia.

DECLINE OF THE LOMBARD KINGDOM

Under Cunincbert’s son Liutbert, who succeeded as a minor under the guardianship of Duke Ansprand, the kingdom of Lombardy fell on evil days. Raginbert, the son of Godebert, a scion of the royal house, who had risen in the reign of Cunincbert to the rank of Duke of Turin, now advanced pretensions to the throne. Ansprand and his ally, Rothari of Bergamo, were defeated on the field of Novara, where the fortunes of Italy have so often been decided. Raginbert did not long survive his victory; but his son Aribert maintained his claims and won a second victory over the opposite party at Pavia. Ansprand escaped to the island in Lake Como where Cunincbert had formerly found refuge; the young king fell into the hands of the victors. Rothari withdrew to his own duchy of Bergamo, but expiated his short-lived dream of sovereignty (for he had aspired to the throne himself) by an untimely death in prison at Turin. The ill-starred Liutbert was murdered in his bath about the same time, and Ansprand was forced to leave his last refuge on Italian soil and flee across the Alps.

Aribert now reigned at Pavia without a rival (701-712). But strenuously as he strove to curb the power of the dukes and to win popularity by the justice of his administration, he was unable to maintain his sovereignty. For eight years Ansprand had waited in vain at the court of the duke of Bavaria for the aid he desired. In the ninth it was granted. He entered upper Italy at the head of an imposing force “to set upon his own head the crown he had not been able to keep for his ward.” Aribert, though not defeated in the field, lost heart and absconded to Pavia. A mutiny arose in the army in consequence, the king’s life seemed to be in danger, and he resolved upon flight. He tried to swim the Ticino, but the weight of the gold he had taken with him dragged him down and he was drowned. The reins of government were then assumed (712) by Ansprand, “a man of conspicuous valour and rare wisdom.” He had only three months to enjoy the good fortune for which he had striven so long; but on his death-bed he had the joy of seeing his son Liutprand raised to the throne and acknowledged king in a solemn assembly of the people.[x]

REIGN OF LIUTPRAND (712-744 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [712-724 A.D.]]

Between the 6th and 13th of June, 712, which is the date, as nearly as we can fix it, when Flavius Liutprand came to the throne, he was, according to all records, in the prime of his manhood. He took to wife a Bavarian princess, Guntrud, the child of Theudibert, who bore him a daughter, their only offspring. The exact time of his marriage is not known. It took place not long after Aribert of the Cottian Alps made his donation to the Roman church; the year in which Gregory II became pope. If this circumstance is taken in connection with the fact that between 715-716 the Bavarian duke, Theodo I (Theudibert’s father), undertook a journey to Rome, highly important to the clerical interests of Bavaria, it cannot be doubted that this duke, whose house had so long been allied in friendship with Liutprand, must have tarried in Pavia to see the king, and that at this interview the further tie of a marriage alliance was first discussed.

The intimate relations between the Bavarians and Lombards lasted up to a late period; they were at one time neighbours in Pannonia, and earlier still there are authenticated accounts of their being related as is shown by the close resemblance in their customs and speech. Most of our information drawn from the earliest Bavarian chronicles, we owe to Paulus,[p] the historian of the Lombards. Even before these latter wandered into Italy the marriage of Walderada, widow of Theudebald of Austrasia and daughter of the Lombard Wacho, had taken place with Garibald, the first duke of Bavaria, under whose reign that country became in fact a dependency of France.

The earlier theory that the Bavarians were once among the Alboin peoples has, it is true, been energetically opposed, but, as the author of this history believes, without grounds. Even as far back as the three kings in Italy, Authari took to wife a Bavarian princess, the much-chronicled Theudelinda, who gave to the kingdom a new dynasty,--if such a word can be used in speaking of the Lombard--and to a certain extent, a new faith.

Many traces are to be found of the subsequent intercourse between the two races, but a close and really important connection did not, so far as can be discovered from the scanty sources of information at our disposal, occur until the time of King Ansprand.

Theodo I had divided his country into five parts, of which he kept one for himself, assigning the remaining four divisions to his four sons--Theudibert, Grimwald, Tassilo II, and Theodobald. Rudhart’s supposition was that Theudibert, with whom the Lombards came almost exclusively into touch, kept the south division, adjoining Liutprand’s kingdom, together with the see of Salzburg.

After Theodobald’s early death his inheritance fell to his surviving brothers; and the same was the case with Theodo’s land after his death in 717 or in 722.

In the year 724 Theudibert also died. He seems to have exercised a kind of supremacy over his brother. He left behind him a son, Hucpert, brother-in-law to Liutprand; when, as presently happened, Grimwald wished to make himself supreme ruler in Bavaria, and to overthrow Hucpert, he turned to his neighbours over the border for help. He received it, and it was on this occasion that Liutprand built some forts on the Etsch (Adige).

LIUTPRAND AND MARTEL

[Sidenote: [534-725 A.D.]]

The wanderings of the Bavarian dukes had given another powerful neighbour, Charles Martel, the ruler of the Franks, the opportunity of interfering with them. There are proofs that friendly intercourse existed between the Franks and the Lombards, even before the latter migrated to Italy. Theudebert I, one of the few descendants of Clovis who has left an honourable name in history, was wedded to Wisigarda, a daughter of King Wacho, whose second daughter, Walderada, was the first wife of Theudebald, the illegitimate son of the successor of Theudebert. All friendly relations between these two peoples ceased with Alboin, who, before he married the notorious Rosamund, took to wife a daughter of Clotair I, named either Clotosuinda or Flutswinda, and after his time we find them opposed and hostile to one another. At first during the years 568, 571, 572, 574, and 575, there were only insignificant battles, brought about by the incursions of the Lombard tribes who were not yet settled in the Frankish territory. More serious, and not exactly conducive to fame or success for the Franks, were the wars which Childebert II, in pursuance of an agreement made by him with the East Roman emperor, himself conducted against Authari down to the year 590. It was only under Agilulf that peace was actually secured in 591.

In 605, in connection with the marriage of King Adalwald with a daughter of Theudebert II, a bond of “everlasting peace between the Franks and Lombards” was sworn to. We are also told by Paulus that King Grimwald almost completely annihilated a Frankish host, which had passed from Provence into upper Italy, but no exact date is furnished. It was only when under the strong rule of the first Carlovingians on the one hand and of Liutprand on the other, when order was to some extent restored in both kingdoms, that the two rulers once more approached one another with a view to the discussion of a foreign policy. In 725 Charles Martel undertook his first campaign, in order to put the Bavarians in mind of their long-forgotten dependence on the Franks. There are no chronicles which tell us whether or not Liutprand then came into communication with his great contemporary. But it is certain that a good understanding existed between them in the years which followed, a friendship which only grew closer with time. This is proved chiefly by the fact that Charles Martel, in his thirties, sent his youthful son Pepin (born 714 or 715) to the Lombard king that the king might cut off his hair “according to the custom.” This Liutprand did, assuming by this act the place of second father to the young man, afterwards sending him home, enriched by many presents. According to two later chroniclers Charles had then already concluded an alliance with Liutprand, an assertion which the historian has rather deduced from later occurrences, than based upon any exact knowledge of the actual facts.

When the Saracens again invaded Gaul, and had pushed on into Provence, Charles sent envoys bearing presents to Liutprand, and asked him for assistance, which was granted. The report of a Lombard army in the neighbourhood was sufficient to induce the “unbelievers,” who had reached the valley of Susa, to retreat, and to the abandonment of Arles (Arelate).

LIUTPRAND AND THE ITALIAN POWERS

[Sidenote: [731-744 A.D.]]

The expeditions to Bavaria and France are the only ones Liutprand undertook outside of Italy. Even within the peninsula his predecessors had not left him very much to do. The change of rulers repeatedly enforced in the second half of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth century was, of course, anything but advantageous to the aggrandisement of the Lombard royal house. The leading forces in the country, the dukes, whose power dated from the earliest monarchical times in Italy, made what use they could of the internecine discord to assert their own authority.

At the extreme point of independence of the crown stood the Beneventine dukes, who from time immemorial had maintained a unique position in the south, being indeed recognised by constitutional law as almost independent of the kingly power. They traced back their origin to royal blood, to Duke Gisulf of Friuli, a brother of Alboin.

In 731 Liutprand found an opportunity to interfere in Beneventine affairs. He came in person to Benevento, and took away with him his grand-nephew who was not of age, whilst in his place he installed his nephew Gregory, leaving him peacefully established before he returned.

Gregory, after a reign of about seven years, met his death by violence in 738. By this time the opponents in south Lombardy had chosen a duke for themselves in the person of the otherwise unknown Gottschalk. Whether he had any connection and if so, of what kind, with the native princely house is not to be learned from any of the records. According to Paulus[p] he ruled for three years, 738 or 739 to 742. In the last year, as Liutprand having completely subjugated Spoleto betook himself to an expedition against Benevento, Gottschalk was attacked by the Beneventines, who were hostile to him, and killed. Thus Liutprand on his arrival found his way clear, and placed his great-nephew, now grown to man’s estate, upon the ducal throne as Gisulf II. He then returned to Pavia, and from that time had no occasion to interfere further in Benevento. In Spoleto a similar state of things was the consequence of similar circumstances.

[Sidenote: [719-744 A.D.]]

The Friulian princes owe their distinguished position to the province which Alboin “lent to his cousin Gisulf, his _marpahis_,” and which was occupied by the flower of the Lombard warriors, and more particularly owing to the circumstance that it formed the frontier which was so much exposed to the attacks of the Avars. After the frightful defeat, which Gisulf had once sustained from the Avars, the Lombards bore themselves manfully under constantly recurring attacks; the sons and successors of the first dukes, Taso and Cacco, succeeding in extending their territory as far as what was afterwards called the Windisch boundary-land, the Slav inhabitants of which paid tribute to Friuli up to the time of the duke Ratchis. A second great defeat which Duke Ferdulf suffered at the turn of the seventh century seemed to have no further consequences.

Not long after Ferdulf’s death, which was followed by a short interregnum, Pemmo, father of two kings of widely different characters, King Ratchis and Aistulf, received the dukedom from Aribert II. His reign seems to have been a long one, extending over forty years--that is, far into the time of Liutprand. His first endeavour was to heal the wounds which Ferdulf’s rashness had inflicted upon his country. By a victory in the neighbourhood of Villach he succeeded in sending home a newly arrived tribe of Slavs (Avars) after they had been severely punished. He concluded a peace with his enemy, who from that time forward cherished a salutary respect for the Friulian arms. In later years, however, by his conflict with Callistus, patriarch of Aquileia, he drew on himself the serious displeasure of the king which eventually led to the loss of his dukedom. Till then, the patriarchs, not being secure in their own dominions from the enmity of the East Romans, had always resided at Cormona, but Callistus, who was a “very elegant nobleman” and moreover a particular favourite of Liutprand, who had assisted him to the attainment of his dignity, found the residence of his predecessors in authority too undistinguished, and decided to remove to Friuli, which appeared to him far more suitable. Unfortunately, there already resided here, with the consent of the dukes, the bishop of the neighbouring Tulia Carnica, whose see was at that time held by Amator. The ambitious, high-spirited patriarch drove him, without ceremony, from his own house, and coolly took possession of it. Pemmo, who witnessed this proceeding, but with great disfavour, was not prepared to allow such a thing to happen in his own town. He arrested Callistus, whose life was for some time in danger, kept him in prison, and “let him eat the bread of sorrow.” When Liutprand was informed of the oppression of one of his protégés he took energetic measures, deposed the reigning duke and installed in his stead, Ratchis, the duke’s elder son.

Soon after his appointment, he undertook a successful expedition to devastate the Slav population in Carinthia, with the intention of giving them a warning against any invasion of his territory. With this our information concerning the history of Friuli during the reign of Liutprand comes to an end.

LIUTPRAND, THE POPE, AND CONSTANTINOPLE

[Sidenote: [712-728 A.D.]]

When Liutprand came to the throne, Peter Constantine was pope at Rome (708-715) and appeared to have no relations with the Lombard king. The first hint of any communication between the two powers relates to a donation of ecclesiastical properties from the Cottian Alps, which King Aribert II had once made to Pope John VII (705-707) and which Liutprand, on his accession, now confirmed to Constantine I, after whose death the gift was revoked, but finally, on the request of Gregory II, again renewed.

Somewhere about this year (717-718) may be dated the first split between the East Romans and the Lombards, and indeed it was the Beneventines who were responsible for the first hostilities. It appears that Constantinople possessed a not inconsiderable district in the heart of the Benevento territory, a duchy which comprised among other towns Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, Misenum, Puteoli, and Cumæ. In a time of peace, Romwald II seized upon the last-named town which was fortified and therefore of some importance. Gregory II, who at this time, previous to the dispute about iconoclasm, was well disposed towards the Byzantines, interposed with argument, threats of displeasure, and demands for restitution, but in vain. Finally he induced the Greek duke, John of Naples, to intervene, which was from the first his obvious duty. John marched into Cumæ in the dead of night and took possession of the place; three hundred Lombards, among them one Gastald, met their death, and five hundred were led captive to Naples. As a reward Gregory gave John of Naples 70 pounds in gold, which he had promised him if he would undertake the business.

Liutprand was not personally affected by this proceeding, as Benevento had at that time nothing to do with the Lombard kingdom and existed as an independent duchy.

Since the open outbreak of the quarrel about the images, (as described previously under the history of Leo the Isaurian and more fully under the papacy), however, he showed himself inimical first to the extension of the emperor’s possessions in Italy, and in pursuance of the same policy, to Rome as well, which nominally at least was still under imperial rule.

The sides taken in the conflicts which followed, although varying from time to time, may be given briefly as follows: On one side Liutprand against East Rome--the lawful emperor and he never being on friendly terms; on the other the pope--an unequivocal enemy to the emperor ever since the image quarrel, but none the less no sincere ally of the Lombard king, whose ever-extending power he worked in every way to counteract, whilst keeping on the alert lest his machinations to this end should advance the Byzantine interests. He also, when occasion offered, called in the aid of the Beneventine and Spoletine dukes.

The conflict was initiated by Liutprand at a time highly favourable to his main desire which, there can be no doubt, was that all Italy should be united into one kingdom under a Lombard king,--namely in the year 726, when by his energetic attack upon the iconodules in his own territory, the emperor had raised about him an atmosphere of bitterness and insurrection, had especially made a lasting enemy of the bishop in Rome who was regarded by western Europe as the head of the Christian church and was by no means in a position to combat the rebellions in his Italian provinces, or to keep his unwilling vassals under his empire. All these circumstances combined to help Liutprand in his enterprise--the extension of his own power at the cost of that of the empire. No one could have understood better how to turn the mistakes made in Rome and Constantinople to account.

About 726 the Lombards possessed themselves of the fortified town of Narnia (Narni), which at that time belonged to Eastern Rome. After that Liutprand himself marched at the head of the united forces of his kingdom (_generali motione facta_) upon Ravenna, the centre of the Byzantine power in Italy. After a siege lasting many days he succeeded at least in taking Classis, the port of Ravenna, which he destroyed, after sacking it with great profit to himself.

[Sidenote: [728-741 A.D.]]

The emperor, instead of yielding to Gregory II, at least in appearance, and so securing his assistance in resisting the encroachments made by Liutprand, still further widened the gulf between the pope and himself by his stubborn and ungracious demeanour. The consequences were not slow to follow. Even if the many attempts against his life and position described in the biography of the pope are rather imaginary (and due to the dread felt in Rome of Leo III) than attacks which actually occurred, they nevertheless give us the right idea of the temper in Rome at that time; there is no doubt that the appointment of a new pope favoured by the emperor and who might be removed to Constantinople, was contemplated in Italy. The fact of a later successful understanding between the two, such as Gregorovius[aa] and Schlosser[bb] would have us accept, has no authenticated probability. In 728-729 Liutprand and Eutychius were still acting in concert against the pope and his friends; and the imperial edict of 728, wherein “all images of angels, saints, and martyrs were proscribed under penalties” shows no inclination towards reconciliation. Whether the Lombards, who defended the pope at the Ponte Salario against the forces of Eutychius and the exarch Paulus, which were approaching to depose him from the papal chair, acted under instructions from Liutprand, or from Transamund II, duke of Spoleto, or on their own initiative, we cannot discover from the _Vita Gregorii_,[z] which contains the record.

Accordingly whilst a state of great confusion and warfare prevailed both in the east and west of Italy, as well as in the district surrounding Naples, Liutprand continued his victorious career.

To favour the Greeks was not his idea, so long as the pope gave him no offence; moreover he had a certain awe of the church, and of its head, which he never uprooted from his inner nature. Besides, his situation, independent of both sides and therefore alternately feared and courted by both, was the best possible for facilitating the execution of his ambitious and far-reaching projects.

In September of the year 727 till September 728 he addressed himself to a neighbourhood quite dangerously in the vicinity of Rome, seizing the town of Sutrium (Sutri), which, like the strip of country between the dukedoms of Spoleto and Tuscany was not yet incorporated with the Lombard kingdom. By dint of much persuasion and still more gold, he consented 140 days later to return this piece of territory, and leave the pope in possession, “the first presentation of a town to the church”--“the first germ of the pontifical state outside the walls of Rome.”

The following year after the subjection already mentioned, of Spoleto and Benevento, he followed Eutychius against Rome, and encamped on the Neronian meadows to the great dismay of the inhabitants. Nevertheless the matter was conducted to a peaceable issue. After a touching conference with Gregory II the Lombard king not only commenced no hostilities, but showed all possible respect to the papal throne, at the same time cautioning the pope to place himself on a better footing with Eutychius, and his (Liutprand’s) other allies. For this reason the idea of a serious alliance having existed between Liutprand and the emperor cannot be entertained.

Not long after, on the 11th of February, 731, Gregory II died. Under the rule of his successor, Gregory III, an enthusiastic image-worshipper, whose life in the _Liber Pontificalis_[z] is very scantily and unsatisfactorily told, “the Roman district was brought under the control of the accursed Lombards, under the king Liutprand himself,” a sentence which must not, of course, be taken literally, and which unfortunately stands without further explanation.

Probably the decade in which Gregory III sat on the stool of St. Peter, was the period during which these events took place which are only related by Paulus Diaconus.[p] To give an even moderately correct chronology of the sequence of events would be a hopeless endeavour. The battles against the East Romans which are here mentioned, are confined to those in the exarchate of Ravenna. Wherever the king himself led the fight, he always came off victor (according to Paulus), whilst in his absence the Lombards sustained many rebuffs. In the last year of Gregory III the complications between Rome and Liutprand assumed a very serious aspect, the intervention of the pope in Lombard affairs, which were purely secular, costing him dear.

It now appears to have been only by lavish expenditure that he was able to establish a friendly understanding. The fortress Gallese, north of Nepi on the Tiber, till now the object of so much desire, was resigned by Spoleto to the Ducatus Romanus, _i.e._, nominally to the East Roman kingdom, but in reality to the Patrimonium Petri. We have definite information that a formal treaty followed between the pope on the one side and the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento on the other, with the express purpose of restoring and protecting the autonomous rights of the dukes and safe-guarding both the eastern and western possessions of the pope from the clutches of Liutprand.

When, therefore, in 738, the king commenced a campaign in the Roman district in which the neighbourhood, particularly the church property in it, was not spared, the two dukes refused to answer the summons of Liutprand to follow and take part in the spoliation. Thereupon Liutprand abandoned the idea of Rome, and marched next against the insurrectionary duke of Spoleto through the devastated territory of Campania. Transamund did not venture to make any stand against him, but fled in the direction of Rome to Gregory III. Hilderic was promoted by the king to be duke in his stead, and assumed control, probably during June, 739. Liutprand next appealed urgently to the pope for the surrender of the insurrectionary vassals, but, as might have been expected, without success, Patricius the East Roman, and Duke Stephanus the commander of the troops in the Roman duchy both setting themselves in keen opposition to Liutprand’s desires. The latter avenged himself by seizing four towns. After accomplishing this as well as a siege of the Holy City, he returned in August, 739, to Pavia. A letter, the second written by Gregory III in 739 to Charles Martel, which has been preserved, gives a description of the poverty and anxiety in the Papal dominions, and is a veritable masterpiece of the meanest perfidy, in which he adjures Charles Martel by the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, which he had presented to him, to lend his help and strength against the dreaded Liutprand.

Scarcely had the king withdrawn when Transamund II, aided by the troops of the Roman duchy which were left with him in the confidence that he would regain the towns lost to the Romans, applied himself to re-assuming the sovereign power. The entire Roman military force invaded the dukedom of Spoleto in two columns, one town after another surrendered after a short resistance, and in December, 739, Transamund entered his capital in state; Hilderic being removed by murder. “And at this time there was a great disquietude among the Lombardians, as the Beneventines and Spoletines allied themselves with the Romans.”

Now that Transamund again felt himself in some measure secure in his duchy it was in vain that the pope and Patricius admonished him to fulfil his promise, and wrest from the king the four towns which had been lost through his means. The endeavour was next made to gain possession of them by friendly means, through the mediation of the Lombardian bishop, to whom on the 15th of October, 740, Gregory III despatched a pressing letter. All was in vain. Already there were new portents of evil, already Liutprand was arming himself for a new campaign against Rome, when, before the storm broke, came the death of Gregory III on the 29th of November, 741, five weeks after Charles Martel, five months after the emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, his implacable foe; Zacharias, his successor, consecrated on December 3rd, being left behind to quench the fire want of foresight had allowed to break out.

[Sidenote: [741-743 A.D.]]

Zacharias, a Greek, and, as his chronicler[z] tells us, an unusually mild and virtuous ruler, was wise enough to see that, with a man of Liutprand’s character, the sensible and most advantageous course was to get upon good terms.

The new pope, not long after his consecration, sent a legation to Pavia, whose special mission was to negotiate the restitution of the four towns which two years previously had been wrung from the Roman duchy. Liutprand put no great difficulties in the way, and promised the desired concession. In exchange he demanded that the pope should place the Roman troops at his disposal for the campaign he was planning to subdue the faithless Transamund. By this combination Transamund was bereft of all hope that he might be able to maintain his position. He saw himself that there was nothing more to be done, and, renouncing all thought of resistance marched to meet Liutprand to whom he yielded himself captive. It is probable that he intended by this voluntary submission to appeal once more to the king’s gentle disposition. But Liutprand dared make no second attempt to rely upon the faith of his vanquished enemy, and Transamund found himself consigned to a cloister. Liutprand’s nephew took, probably some few years later, the place thus left vacant. Gottschalk’s exit from Benevento, which according to Paulus followed close upon Transamund’s, has been already related. All this occurred between February and September, 742. Thus the unity of the kingdom of Lombardy was at length restored, and an end put to the arrogant insubordination of the crown vassals.

PEACE WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [743-744 A.D.]]

No haste was evinced in Pavia to carry out the promised restitution of the four towns, this tardiness causing the pope great concern. In order to put an end to this uncertainty, and find out whether there really was any chance of the matter being amicably arranged, Zacharias, “like a true shepherd of the flock entrusted to him by God,” set out from the Holy City at the head of his spiritual cortège and marched “full of confidence and brave in heart” to the charmingly situated Interamna (Terni), at that time the headquarters of the Lombards, in order to try what his personal influence would do towards effecting the desired arrangement. Liutprand showed him all honour. “Moved by the pious speech, and full of admiration for the firm courage and admonitions of the holy man,” Liutprand conceded everything he asked, “thanks to the influence of the Holy Spirit,” and gave the four disputed towns, which he had taken on account of the Transamund quarrel, together with their inhabitants, as a present to the church of Holy Peter.

It is noticeable that, as Gregorovius[aa] points out, this restitution did not at all affect the Byzantine emperor, but only the successor of Peter. And in order that the pope might enjoy complete ease of mind, he was further guaranteed a twenty years’ peace. To gratify him Liutprand even set free all the Greek and Roman prisoners of war he had taken in Tuscany and in the territory north of the river Po, amongst whom were men of high rank, such as the consuls Sergius, Leo, Victor, and Agnellus. Thus a final reconciliation was effected, the conditions of which were all Rome could possibly desire.

On the same day the Sunday, after the solemn celebration of the mass, the pope invited his royal friend to his table in order that he, the pope, might impart the apostolic blessing. Liutprand ate on this occasion with such a hearty appetite as to call forth the jovial remark from him that he had never before eaten so well at a midday meal. The next day, Monday, they bade each other farewell.

Liutprand now turned his attention in another direction. The quarrels about the throne, in which the successor to Leo III, Emperor Constantine V (Copronymus), was embroiled with his brother-in-law Artavasdes, incited him to a renewed attack upon the East Roman possession in Italy. The Ravenna district felt the weight of his displeasure, and he found all preparations made for laying siege a second time to the principal town, when Patricius, the exarch Eutychius, and the archbishop John of Ravenna with the people of that city, sought the mediation of the pope, first by letter and then through envoys.

On the 28th of June, 743, the pope reached the river Po. Here he was met by the high vassals of the Lombard crown and conducted to their capital.

The pope disburdened his mind of his desire that the king would not further oppress the province of Ravenna by devastation and yet further that he would restore the towns taken from the Ravenna including the fortress of Cesena. The naïveté of such demands is certainly astonishing, but still more amazing are the unknown circumstances which induced Liutprand to concede so much. At first, it is true, he met them with a stout refusal. But what remained for him, if he would avoid the open conflict he dreaded with the church and its consequences, except submission, unless he sacrificed the security and peace of his realm, the result of years of activity in extending his foreign dominion? In spite of his promise given to the pope, Liutprand appears to have continued harassing the exarchate.

In January, 744, after a reign of thirty-one years and seven months, Liutprand concluded his eventful life. He was buried in the church of St. Adrian, where his father too had found his last resting-place. In the year 1173 his bones were removed to the church of St. Peter’s monastery, so often referred to as “Ecclesia di Ciel d’Oro,” a monastery which owed its existence to him.[y]

HODGKIN’S ESTIMATE OF LIUTPRAND

[Sidenote: [712-744 A.D.]]

In some respects the statesmanship of Liutprand seems to me to have been too highly praised. The one aim which he seems to have consistently and successfully pursued was the consolidation of the Lombard monarchy and the reduction of the great dukes into a condition of real subjection to his crown. He availed himself (and what Lombard king would not have done so?) of any opportunity which offered itself for cutting yet shorter the reduced and fragmentary territories which still called themselves parts of “the Roman Republic.” But both from policy and from his own devout temperament he was disinclined to do anything which might cause a rupture with the see of Rome, and the popes perceiving this, often induced him to abandon hardly earned conquests by appealing to “his devotion to St. Peter.”

I cannot better close this chapter than by quoting the character of Liutprand given us by the loving yet faithful hand of Paulus Diaconus[p] in the concluding words of that history, which has been our chief guide through two dark and troubled centuries:

“He was a man of great wisdom, prudent in counsel and a lover of peace, mighty in war, clement towards offenders, chaste, modest, one who prayed through the night-watches, generous in his almsgiving, ignorant it is true of literature, but a man who might be compared to the philosophers, a fosterer of his people, an augmenter of their laws.”[b]

For the present we must leave the fortunes of the Lombards to trace the origins and the rise of the Frankish people who now loom large across the horizons of Italy and to whom the papacy appeals for help against the powers that threaten its enormous and greedy ambition.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[114] [We may say here with Hodgkin[b] in using the word Lombards before its strict time, “it seems not worth while to encumber the text by the constant repetition of a long and somewhat uncouth race-name, but the reader is asked to remember that in strictness the form Langobardi should be preserved.” It is the 12th century before the words “Lombard” and “Lombardy” come into general use and then largely with a geographical reference to Northern Italy, rather than an historical reference to the Langobard conquerors of far more than Lombardy. The origin of the name “Langobard” has been discussed under the “Eastern Empire,” Chapter IV.]

[115] [Hodgkin,[b] however, says,“The war between King Tato and King Rodulph is narrated by Procopius as well as by Paulus and can be assigned without much risk of error to a definite date, 511 or 512.”]

[116] [The distaff story is told by Paulus[p] Diaconus, who wrote two centuries later and quoted a work a century earlier. Isidore of Seville,[v] however, who wrote only half a century after Narses’ recall, accuses him of calling in the Lombards. The story is none the less somewhat dubious.]

[117] [Hodgkin[b] says of the Lombards: “They are the anarchists of the Völkerwanderung, whose delight is only in destruction, and who seem incapable of culture. Yet this is the race from which, in the fullness of time, under the transmuting power of the old Italian civilisation, were to spring Anselm and Lanfranc, Hildebrand and Dante Alighieri.”]

[118] [This custom of making a drinking cup of an enemy’s skull originally came from Asiatic Scythia, and was widely diffused in northern Europe: nowhere was it more religiously observed than in Scandinavia, the cradle of the Lombards. Their historian avers that he had seen the cup with his own eyes: _Hoc ne cui videretur impossibile,--veritatem in Christo loquor--ego hoc poculum vidi in quodam die festo_, etc. _Paulus Diaconus_,[p] lib. ii. cap. 28.

A modern Italian historian (Botta), totally unacquainted with the manners of the north, expresses great surprise at this act of Alboin: _La naturale ferocia pel vino e per la vittoria a oltraggio fatta insolente, lo menava a tal atto di cui non è memoria nelle storie delle piu barbare nazioni_, etc. The thing was common enough, as abundantly appears from the Scandinavian records.]