Lombard

“ It is a striking illustration of the superiority of institutions to climate, that the Lombard, even in Italy, continued [735] the same bold, restless, and resistless man of iron, which he had been in the barren plains of Prussia, or on the stormy shores of the Baltic. With all the luxuries of Italy to soften him, and even with all the fervours of an Italian sun to subdue him into indolence, he was still the warrior, the hunter, and the falconer. Leaving tillage to the degraded caste of the Italian, he trained horses for war and the chase, in the famous pastures bordering the Adriatic. ”

“ Loma, lō′ma, n. a lobe, flap, or fringe bordering the toe of a bird.
Lombard, lom′bard, n. an inhabitant of Lombardy in Italy: one of the Lombards or Langobardi, a Germanic tribe, which founded a kingdom in Lombardy (568) , overthrown by Charlemagne (774) : (obs.) a banker or money-lender, so called from the number of Lombard bankers in London.—adjs. Lom′bard, Lombar′dic.—Lombard architecture, the style used by the Lombards, derived from the base Roman style they found in the country, superseded by the Pointed Style imported from France (13th century) ”

“ Now if the Lombards, having ignominiously taken to Latin after their descent upon Italy, had had to wait for Hauptmann to provide them with a language, they had left certain more substantial traces of themselves in the valley of the Po. They died and were buried in state with their arms and utensils for the other world. So that, while one might well be in doubt whether an inscription was Lombard or not, an antiquary will tell you without fail whether a clasp, a spearhead or a sword is or is not the work of this conquering but too adaptable race. ”

“ But though the speech was Latin, the Lombard kept his old Teutonic name—Adelgiso, Astolfo, or the like, and handed it on to his son, softened, indeed, but with its northern form clearly traceable. Time went on, and the Lombardic kingdom was fused into the Holy Roman Empire. The towns remained self-governing, self-protecting old Roman municipalities; the Lombardic nobles, if they had a strong mountain fastness, lived like eagles in their nests and were the terror of all ”

“ What the Herr Professor said and continued to say as he drove a hard bargain with the peasant was but half the story. A glance at the runes had shown an awful double consonant, and, as if that were not enough, an appalling modified vowel. By a single word scratched by the untutored hand of a rude warrior the most ingenious linguistic hypothesis of our times was shattered beyond hope of repair. The spearhead was Lombard, and Lombard, dire reflection to one who had gained fame by maintaining the contrary, belonged to the West Germanic group of the Teutonic tongues. ”

“ The Lombards were still to the Italians a “foul and horrid” race. At length, invited by Pope Adrian I., Pippin’s son Charlemagne once more descended into Italy. As the Lombard kingdom began, so it ended, with a siege of Pavia. Desiderius, the last king, became a prisoner (774) , and the Lombard power perished. Charlemagne, with the title of king of the Franks and Lombards, became master of Italy, and in 800 the pope, who had crowned Pippin king of the Franks, claimed to bestow the Roman empire, and crowned his greater son emperor of the Romans (800) . ”

“ LOMBARD, DANIEL (1678–1746) , divine, born at Angers 10 April 1678, was the eldest son of the Rev. John Lombard (French protestant minister in Anjou, who left France through the revocation of the edict of Nantes, became minister in turn of several French churches in London, and died in 1721) and of Francisca, his wife. ”

“ Following close upon the fall of the Gothic kingdom came the Lombard invasion, which marks the most ill-starred period of Italian history. But little direct and contemporary testimony to historical facts has come down to us from the Lombards, but as their rule approached its end, a native historian arose who preserves the memory of foreign mastery, and ranks as the most distinguished writer of this early part of the middle ages in Italy. ”

“ But Lombard conquest was bungling and wasteful; when they had spoiled a city they proceeded to tear down its walls and raze it to the ground. Authari’s chief connexion with the fortunes of his people was an important, though an accidental one. ”

“ The last Lombard king, Desiderius (died about 780) , cultivated the society of scholars, and his daughter learned by heart "the golden maxims of philosophy and the gems of poetry." Each advance of the Lombards in civilization was a gain to the Latins, who, especially in the country where they worked on farms, were little better than serfs. The two races drew together slowly. The conversion of the Lombards from Arian to Catholic Christianity (600-700) diminished the distance between them. Intermarriage must soon have begun ”

“ After the accession of George I, Lombard was made chaplain to the Princess of Wales, and on 24 Feb. 1717-18 he was instituted to the rectory of Lanteglos with Advent in Cornwall. This living he held until his death, but for a large part of that time he was non-resident. Many stories were current in the county of his learning and simplicity, and he is said to have remained throughout life a foreigner to English customs. ”

“ From the Elbe they wandered to the Danube, and there encountered the Gepidæ, a branch of the Goths. The Lombards subdued this tribe, after a contest of thirty years.
By this victory Alboin, the young Lombard King, rose to great power and fame. His beauty and renown were sung by German peasants even in the days of Charlemagne. His name "crossed the Alps and fell, with a foreboding sound, upon the startled ears of the Italians," and toward Italy he turned for conquest. From Scythia and Germany adventurous youth flocked to his standard. ”

“ The Lombard Kings were constantly threatening Rome and Ravenna. ♦Ravenna taken by the Lombards. c. 753.♦ Rome never fell into their hands, but in the middle of the eighth century Ravenna was taken, and with it the district specially known as the Exarchate was annexed to the Lombard dominion. But this greatest extent of the Lombard power caused its overthrow: for it led to a chain of events which, as we shall presently see, ended in transferring not only the Lombard kingdom, but the Imperial crown of the West to the hands of the Franks. ”

“ There was inevitable antagonism between Lombardy and the Holy Roman Empire. The league of Lombard cities embodied the revolt of trade against the feudal system, of merchants against uncertain and excessive taxes, of burghers against foreign princes, in short, general discontent with an outgrown political system.
Barbarossa's war with the Lombard cities lasted for twenty-five years, and for convenience may be divided into two periods,—the period before the cities had learnt the lesson of union and the period after. ”

“ Effects of the Carolingian Conquest.—To Italy the overthrow of the Lombard kings was the loss of its last chance of independence and unity. To the Lombards the conquest was the destruction of their legal and social supremacy. Henceforth they were equally with the Italians the subjects of the Frank kings. The Carolingian kings expressly recognized the Roman law, and allowed all who would be counted Romans to “profess” it. ”

“ The strength of the Lombard kingdom was thus reduced. The Lombards more and more learned the arts of civilized life from the Romans, and shared in the trading and industrial pursuits of the cities. Their gradual conversion to Catholic Christianity brought the two peoples still nearer together. It was within half a century of the Lombard conquest that Gregory I. (Gregory the Great) held the papal office (590-604) .
AFTER JUSTINIAN.—During the century and a half that followed the death of Justinian, the history of the Byzantine court and empire is an almost unbroken tale of crime and degeneracy. ”

“ THE COMMUNES OF LOMBARDY FROM THE VI. TO THE X. CENTURY. PART I. THE LOMBARD CONQUEST AND ITS RESULTS. Before tracing the beginnings of renewed municipal life in Northern Italy, we must consider the conditions of land and people, which first rendered possible and then fostered the spirit of local independence of which such beginnings were the natural expression. To do this we must commence our researches with the first domination of the Lombards in the country. ”

“ Caieta, Salernum, and Beneventum became independent under other Lombard princes; Pandulf's descendants kept only Capua.
From the eighth century to the coming of the Normans in the eleventh, the Lombards are a great factor in Southern Italy. They formed a powerful aristocracy and spread, beyond the borders of their states, all over the South. But had completely lost all trace of their Teutonic descent, except in their laws and customs. They were Latin Catholics, and spoke, or at any rate wrote, always Latin. ”

“ The posterity of the first conquerors struck a deeper root into the soil, which, by every motive of interest and honour, they were bound to defend. A Lombard was born the soldier of his king and his duke; and the civil assemblies of the nation displayed the banners, and assumed the appellation of a regular army. Of this army, the pay and the rewards were drawn from the conquered provinces; and the distribution, which was not effected till after the death of Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of injustice and rapine.
Many of the most wealthy Italians were slain or banished ”

“ With this in mind, let us first examine the office whose functions it is at once the most difficult and the most important for us to understand in all its bearings—that of the Judex. We must consider it not only in the relation which it bears to the higher grade of officers, the Lombard duke and the Frankish count, but also in its relation with the lower officials who severally enjoyed more or less of the powers attached to its possession, namely, the gastald, the sculdahis, the scabino, and even the rural counts and the bishop. ”

“ From the 13th century Italian merchants, known as Lombards, from Lucca, Florence, Venice, and Genoa, traded under much odium, largely in England as wool-dealers and bankers, whence the name Lombard Street.
Lombardy (3,982) , an inland territory of Northern Italy between the Alps and the Po, Piedmont, and Venetia. In the N. are Alpine mountains and valleys rich in pasturage; in the S. a very fertile, well irrigated plain, which produces cereals, rice, and sub-tropical plants. The culture of the silkworm is extensive; there are textile and hardware manufactures. ”

“ What is of the greatest importance to us, however, in bringing out the relations of the cities to the rest of the community in Lombard and Frankish times, is the position of the judex as duke and as count within his own judiciaria, that is, within the civitas of which he was both lord and judge. ”

“ From this time it was ruled by its own kings till 961, when it was annexed to the German empire. Out of the wrecks of the old independent kingdom now [288] arose a number of independent duchies, as Friuli, Mantua, Susa, Piedmont, etc., and soon afterwards the republics of Venice, Genoa, Milan, and Pavia, etc. The Lombard cities declared themselves independent towards the commencement of the 12th century, and in 1167 were joined by their less powerful neighbors in the “first Lombard league,” for the maintenance of their liberties against Frederic Barbarossa, whom they severely defeated in 1176. ”

“ The road lies through a richly cultivated country: the immense plain around us is bounded to the north by the mountains of the Tyrol, amongst which we seemed to have lost ourselves for an age, so refreshing, so new, so enchanting, is the wide expanse of fertile Lombardy, opening before our eyes. ”

“ Of the other classes, the privileged class, with the exception of the clergy, fell of course with the government which supported it, and the common people possessed no individuality, no power, and hardly any rights. Such, then, was the condition of the towns at the time of the Lombard invasion, a condition of such abasement and such degradation as literally to have no history; a condition which indeed can truthfully be said to merit none.
History tells the story of every great nation on the face of the earth in three short words, growth, supremacy, decline. ”

“ When we reach in Lombard history the period when the power of the native kings was first overthrown by foreign arms, we are no longer confronted by many of the problems which necessarily formed an important part of the earlier portions of our investigation. I mean the problems which arise in a state of society where the mass of individuals forming it is made up of two elements, a conquering, dominant one, and a conquered, subject one. ”

“ In the period of great confusion in all relations of property which ensued from the Lombard military system of small independent landholders and a few great overlords, with a nominal royal ownership of title, and before the feudal system was established, with its iron rules in regular working order, constant inequalities of wealth and consequent changes in the relative positions of individuals were sure to ensue. In practice if not in theory, might makes right in such a state of society. The weaker goes to the wall, and the stronger gains in strength by his downfall. ”

“ The Lombards who, after they had occupied the lands and cities of Upper Italy, still went on sending forth furious bands to plunder and destroy where they did not care to stay, never were able to overcome the mingled fear and scorn and loathing of the Italians. They adapted themselves very quickly indeed to many Italian fashions. Within thirty years of the invasions, Authari took the imperial title of Flavius, even while his bands were leading Italian captives in leash like dogs under the walls of Rome, and under the eyes of Pope Gregory ”