28 Facts About Lombards

The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed.

The Northern European origins of the Lombards is supported by genetic, anthropological, archaeological and earlier literary evidence.

Lombards thought the pagan stories of his people "silly" and "laughable".

Priester states that when the Winnili changed their name to "Lombards", they changed their old agricultural fertility cult to a cult of Odin, thus creating a conscious tribal tradition.

Frohlich inverts the order of events in Priester and states that with the Odin cult, the Lombards grew their beards in resemblance of the Odin of tradition and their new name reflected this.

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Bruckner remarks that the name of the Lombards stands in close relation to the worship of Odin, whose many names include "the Long-bearded" or "the Grey-bearded", and that the Lombard given name Ansegranus shows that the Lombards had this idea of their chief deity.

Marobod had made peace with the Romans, and that is why the Lombards were not part of the Germanic confederacy under Arminius at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9.

The Lombards appeared on the scene with sufficient power to control the destiny of the tribe that had been the leader in the struggle for independence thirty-eight years earlier, for they restored the deposed leader to sovereignty.

The Lombards are not mentioned at first, perhaps because they were not initially on the border of Rome, or perhaps because they were subjected to a larger tribal union, like the Saxons.

However, the Codex Gothanus states that the Lombards were subjected by the Saxons around 300 but rose up against them under their first king, Agelmund, who ruled for 30 years.

In Vurgundaib, the Lombards were stormed in camp by "Bulgars" and were defeated; King Agelmund was killed and Laimicho was made king.

Lombards was in his youth and desired to avenge the slaughter of Agelmund.

Lombards's death began an interregnum of years during which the dukes did not elect any king, a period regarded as a time of violence and disorder.

Lombards extended his dominions, conquering Liguria in 643 and the remaining part of the Byzantine territories of inner Veneto, including the Roman city of Opitergium .

In 705, the Friuli Lombards were defeated and lost the land to the west of the Soca River, namely the Gorizia Hills and the Venetian Slovenia.

Lombards managed to regain a certain control over Spoleto and Benevento, and, taking advantage of the disagreements between the Pope and Byzantium concerning the reverence of icons, he annexed the Exarchate of Ravenna and the duchy of Rome.

Lombards helped the Frankish marshal Charles Martel drive back the Arabs.

Lombards decided to reopen struggles against the Pope, who was supporting the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento against him, and entered Rome in 772, the first Lombard king to do so.

Lombards tried to turn Benevento into a secundum Ticinum: a second Pavia.

Lombards tried to claim the kingship, but with no support and no chance of a coronation in Pavia.

Lombards subsequently declared them to be in perpetual union, and they were separated only in 982, on the death of Pandulf Ironhead.

The Normans, first called in by the Lombards to fight the Byzantines for control of Apulia and Calabria, had become rivals for hegemony in the south.

The Lombards regarded the Normans as barbarians and the Byzantines as oppressors.

The evidence suggested that the Lombards originated in Northern Europe, and were a patriarchal people who settled Central Europe and then later Italy through a migration from the north.

Lombards was found to be a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b and the maternal haplogroup H65a.

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In chapter 40 of his Germania, Roman historian Tacitus, discussing the Suebian tribes of Germania, writes that the Lombards were one of the Suebian tribes united in worship of the deity Nerthus, who is often identified with the Norse goddess Freyja.

St Barbatus of Benevento observed many pagan rituals and traditions among the Lombards authorised by the Duke Romuald, son of King Grimoald:.

Lombards first adopted Christianity while still in Pannonia, but their conversion and Christianisation was largely nominal and far from complete.