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.
[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]