200 Theodelinda [588-590 years, the first that was concluded between the Lombards and the Empire. Authari seems to have availed himself of this opportunity partly to restore order in North Italy and partly to ensure his boundary in the north, and above all to destroy the Franco-Byzantine league, which threatened the existence of his realm. He therefore betrothed himself to Childebert's sister, but the engagement was soon broken by the Franks when the Frankish imperial and catholic party of Brunhild got the ascendant. Authari however married Theodelinda (588 ?), the Catholic daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibal, who, by her mother, belonged to the old Lombard royal family of the Lethings. The other daughter was married to the mighty duke Evin of Tridentum, and her brother Gundoald was made duke of Asti by Authari. When the Franks, by this time, repeated their invasion of Italy under the leading of a few dukes, they were entirely beaten after a hot battle. Childebert's revenge was prevented by Authari's negotiations with him (589) and by his offer to become even a dependent confederate and pay tribute. Meanwhile, after the armistice had ended, Authari had succeeded in removing the last remnants of imperial power on the northern boundaries of Italy, and had probably also obtained his acknowledgment by the duke of Friuli. Nevertheless his position was much impaired when a new exarch, Romanus, appeared in Ravenna with reinforcements, regained Altinum, Modena, and Mantua, and induced the Lombard dukes of the Emilia, as well as the duke of Friuli, to join the imperialists. The negotiations were broken off, and imperialists and Franks planned to destroy the Lombard power by a systematic and simultaneous attack from north and south, and had even agreed already on the distribution of the booty. Twenty Frankish dukes broke forth from the Alps in two divisions, one marching against Milan, the other under the duke Chedinus against Verona, after having broken through the fortification of the frontier and devastated the land all around (summer 590); but no important conflicts took place, because the Lombards retired into their fortifications, fearing the enemy's overwhelming numbers. The exarch came to meet the Franks at Mantua, and intended to march in a line parallel to them against Pavia, to which Authari had drawn back; but this plan was not put into practice, it is said, in consequence of misunderstandings. The Frankish dukes tried to secure their movable booty, and Duke Chedinus is said to have concluded an armistice for ten months; but epidemics and famine caused great losses on their way back. After these efforts, which had brought no real success to them, the Franks ceased to invade Italy for more than a century and a half. Authari lived to manage the negotiations for peace which led to a lasting friendship between the Franks and Lombards later on, though only on condition of paying tribute to the Franks a burden which was, as it seems, not for a long time thrown off by the Lombards. The northern 590-605] Agilulf 201 boundary, at all events, was secured, and the Lombards were only threatened from one side, by the imperials. But Authari did not live to see the definite treaty of peace; he is said to have been poisoned and died (5 Sept. 590). The result of his active life was the establishment of a kingdom and the Lombard State, though many difficulties still awaited the Lombards from within and without. Two months after Authari's death, Agilulf, duke of Turin, obtained the crown and married his predecessor's widow, Theodelinda. In May 591 an assembly of Lombards at Milan acknowledged him solemnly, but a number of North Italian dukes had then to be subdued in repeated battles; also Piacenza and Parma were again subjected, and in the latter town the king's son-in-law was established as duke, as the king generally claimed the right to nominate the dukes himself. He ensured the northern boundary by an agreement with the Avars which became a defensive and offensive alliance later on. The time had now come for a systematic attack on the imperialists. The newly nominated duke of Benevento, Arichis, who had consolidated his duchy by gaining nearly all the territories in South Italy with the exception of a few towns on the coast, had the especial task of marching against Naples and threatening Rome from the south, while Ariulf of Spoleto had already destroyed the land communication between Rome and Ravenna in April 592, and even appeared before Rome in the summer, afterwards turning to the north and taking the castles on the upper Tiber. To be sure, the exarch succeeded in regaining them during the time he was free of Agilulf; but in 593 the king himself advanced southward, occupied Perusia, and appeared before Rome. The siege ended in a treaty with Pope Gregory who only wished for peace, but it was not acknowledged by the exarch after the king had marched off; the war did not cease, and the Lombards made constant progress. It was only after the Exarch Romanus' death (596) that, by the pope's urging, the transactions were renewed seriously; it is true that the new exarch, Callinicus, carried on the war in North Italy, but he concluded an armistice of a year in autumn 598 on the basis of the status quo and engaged himself to pay 500 pounds in gold to the Lombard king. The armistice was renewed for the time from spring 600-601 but, when the war was taken up again, the exarch succeeded in making prisoners of the duke of Parma and his wife, Agilulf's daughter; but the Lombard king took Padua, devastated Istria with Slav and Avar troops, conquered the fortified town of Monselice, enforced peace on the rebellious dukes of Friuli and Tridentum, and occupied in 603 Cremona and Mantua. The central position of the imperialists at Ravenna appeared to be endangered after the subjugation of all the north of Italy, and the Exarch Smaragdus, who was again sent to Italy after the fall of the Emperor Maurice, hastily concluded a new armistice till 605, and surrendered the king's daughter. Then Agilulf crossed the Apennines 202 Theodelinda and Adaloald [605-628 once more, occupied Balneum Regis and Orvieto, but in November 605 the imperialists obtained a new armistice at the price of paying a tribute of 12,000 solidi. From that time till Agilulf's death and even afterwards, this armistice was continually prolonged. It is true that a definite state of peace, which would have naturally led to a legal partition of the Italian soil, was not effected, though Agilulf's ambassador Stablicianus seems to have entered into negotiations on this subject in Constantinople. Agilulf died in 616 after 25 years of a warlike reign, in which he had expanded and strengthened his empire and obliged the Romans to pay tribute. To Agilulf his son Adaloald (a minor) followed in name, but Theodelinda exercised the ruling influence on government in his place. While Authari had never allowed Lombard children Catholic baptism, a Catholic chapel had been conceded to Theodelinda at Monza and Adaloald himself was already baptized as a Catholic, though by a schismatic, and Theodelinda, who exchanged occasional letters with Pope Gregory, was schismatic in relation to the Three Chapters. In this way Agilulf had not tolerated the organisation of the Roman Church within the reach of his power, but the schismatic bishop of Aquileia and his schismatic suffragans had taken refuge with the Lombards. Agilulf had also given deserted land in the Apennines at the confluence of the torrent Bobbio and the Trebbia to the Irish monk.Columba (Columbanus) who had fled from Gaul, and differed dogmatically from Rome. He also gave permission to lay the foundations of a monastery at Bobbio, but the monks soon turned to orthodoxy after Columbanus' death, and even got a privilege in 628, by which they were exempted from the power of the neighbouring bishop of Tortona. In contrast to the national chiefs, who were still Arian, the government favoured the Catholics or at least the schismatics, and in consequence Roman influence made rapid progress in the Lombard kingdom, favoured partly by the social influence of the Roman subjects, partly by the intercourse with the Roman neighbours, which the long armistices had so well prepared. Nevertheless the peace was once more broken at the beginning of Adaloald's reign between the Exarch Eleutherius and the Lombards under the commander Sundrarius, who owed his training to Agilulf, but this war was ended by another armistice, the exarch consenting to pay a tribute of 500 pounds in gold. In the following years the Roman influence on the king was so great that he was generally said to be either mad or bewitched. Perhaps it was the national party among the Lombards which raised upon the buckler Arioald, the duke of Turin, the husband of Adaloald's sister Gundeberga, and after several combats dethroned King Adaloald, who was then said to have been removed by poison (626). Arioald reigned ten years too, without much change in the course of Lombard politics. He came in conflict with his Catholic wife, who was released from prison by the intervention of the Franks 626-652] Duchy of Friuli 203 and allowed Catholic service in a church of John the Baptist at Pavia. The alliance which Agilulf had formed with the Avars was dissolved. They invaded Italy and killed Gisulf, duke of Friuli, with nearly the whole of his army; his widow perfidiously surrendered Cividale which was entirely burnt down and the open country was devastated, the Lombards offering resistance only in the fortified castles at the frontier, till the Avars turned back to Pannonia after their raid. No help was to be expected for Friuli at that time from the weak kingdom; but at last Gisulf's sons escaped from the Avars, and the two eldest, Taso and Cacco, took the reins of government into their hands. While the power of the Avars was decreasing, the young dukes in alliance with Bavarians and Alemans fought successfully against the Slavs, and during Arioald's reign penetrated victoriously into the valleys of the Alps perhaps as far as Windisch-Matrei and the valley of the Gail, and obliged the Slavs to pay tribute. But, following the intention of Arioald, it is said, the exarch quietly removed Taso and Cacco, and their uncle Grasulf was nominated duke of Friuli while the two younger sons of Gisulf, Radoald and Grimoald, appealed to the protection of the mighty duke Arichis of Benevento. After Arioald's death the nobles in the kingdom elected the duke Rothari of Brescia, an ardent Arian, who was connected with the former dynasty by his marriage with the widowed queen Gundeberga. Nevertheless his policy (unlike that of his predecessors in the last twenty years) was decidedly hostile to the Romans, though he tolerated the gradual establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in the Lombard kingdom. He sought to keep order in all internal matters and to raise the king's authority over the nobles, and to this purpose war against the imperials, which had rested during two decades, was taken up again, in order to strengthen the king's royal domain by new conquests. He passed the Apennines and conquered the coast between Luna and the Frankish boundary; he did not instal dukes here but kept the conquered land under direct royal administration, so that the greater part of the west of Italy was royal. He destroyed Oderzo in the east, the last remnant of Roman power on the Venetian mainland, and slew the imperials in a bloody battle on the borders of the Scultenna not far from the central seat of Roman dominion; he concluded a suspension of hostilities shortly before his death (652). His son Rodoald followed him, but was killed after a few months' reign. More famous even than by his victorious enterprises and by the saga that attaches itself to the name of "King Rother," Rothari was the first legislator of the Lombards. Up to that time, the Lombards, like all barbarian nations, had been ruled by customary laws, handed down to them verbally by their ancestors. Rothari ordered them to be written down, published as Edictus after having consulted his nobles, and confirmed according to Lombard custom by an assembly of warriors at Pavia 204 Rothari [643-662 (22 Nov. 643). Of course it was a territorial law, for only the Lombard, who alone was "fulc-free," was subject to Lombard law in the Lombard State, and the fact of its being written down shewed clearly enough that the Lombard State placed itself in the same line with the respublica (the Empire) and the other acknowledged States as perfectly equal to them. When Rothari declares the law should protect the poor against the oppressions of the mighty, we can find therein part of the means he employed to keep order in internal matters. The kingdom was not only protected by some of the laws of the Edictus but also shewed its power by the fact of issuing legal regulations for the whole country, which, if not at once, were at all events after a short time accepted irrevocably from Benevento to Cividale. Its matter is essentially German law, but in the supplements which Rothari's successors added, we can trace alien influence; and, moreover, the form is naturally influenced by Roman patterns. Comparative science of law has proved that Lombard law had the greatest likeness to Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian law - a proof that the Lombards preserved their law unchanged in essential matters since their departure from the lower Elbe. The Edictus is systematically arranged, and treats of crimes against king, state, or man, especially compensations for bodily injuries, law of inheritance and family right, and manumission, then obligations and real estate, crimes against property, oath, and bail. It can well be called the best juridical codification of barbarian law. The successor of Rothari's son was Aripert, the son of that duke Gundoald of Asti, who had come from Bavaria with his sister Theodelinda. During the nine years of his reign he, as a Catholic, carried on the traditions of Theodelinda, in opposition to Rothari. He built a Catholic church at Pavia and favoured the Catholic hierarchy, although the assertion of a poem which celebrates the merits of his dynasty about the year 700, that "the good and pious king" abolished the Arian heresy, is probably exaggerated. The bishop of Pavia was converted to Catholicism. A change of policy took place only after his death (661), when his two young sons Godepert in Pavia and Perctarit in Milan, to whom he had left the government, fell out, and Godepert claimed the help of the mighty duke Grimoald of Benevento against his brother. After the death of Arichis, and his son Ajo, who had perished in a battle against Slav pirates near Sipontum (662), the two sons of Gisulf of Friuli, Radoald and Grimoald, attained the dignity of dukedom consecutively, and energetically maintained their power in several battles against the imperialists. Grimoald, duke of Benevento since 657, now marched into North Italy by the east side of the Apennines against the centre of the Lombard realm, while his subordinate, the count of Capua, marched through Spoleto and Tuscia and joined the duke by Piacenza. Assisted by the treachery of the duke Garibald of Turin, Grimoald seized the reins of government |