Lombards

“ All the Lombards—even the Milanese—acknowledged his rare courage, his constancy in misfortune—his generosity in conquest.
"An intimate conviction of the justice of his cause had often rendered him cruel, even to ferocity, against those who still resisted; but after victory he took vengeance only on senseless walls; and irritated as he had been by the people of Milan, Crema, and Tortona, and whatever blood he had shed during battle, he never sullied his triumph by odious punishments. ”

“ Political clubs and newspapers multiplied throughout Lombardy; and actors, authors, and editors joined in a pæan of courtly or fawning praise, to the new Scipio, Cæsar, Hannibal, and Jupiter.
There were other reasons why the Lombards should worship the young victor. Apart from the admiration which a gifted race ever feels for so fascinating a combination of youthful grace with intellectual power and martial prowess, they believed that this Italian hero would call the people to political activity, perchance even to national independence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ And lastly, the Lombards, who, at the time we have to deal with, were sternly indocile, gloomily imaginative,—of almost Norman energy, and differing from all the other western nations chiefly in this notable particular, that while the Celt is capable of bright wit and happy play, and the Norman, Saxon, and Frank all alike delight in caricature, the Lombards, like the Arabians, never jest. ”

“ That neither complaints nor rejoicings here at Milan, however, proceed from affectation, is a choice comfort: the Lombards possess the skill to please you without feigning; and so artless are their manners, you cannot even suspect them of insincerity. They have, perhaps for that very reason, few comedies, and fewer novels among them: for the worst of every man's character is already well known to the rest; but be his conduct what it will, the heart is commonly right enough—il luon cuor Lombardo is famed throughout all Italy, and nothing can become proverbial without an excellent reason. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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) ”

“ From the middle of the eighth century the Lombards, masters of a country where the great towns still contained much wealth, where the land had lost nothing of its fertility, where the example of the vanquished had taught the vanquishers the advantage of reviving some agricultural industry, excited the envy of their neighbours the Franks, who had conquered and oppressed the Gauls, who despised all occupation but war, and desired no wealth but what the sword could give. ”

“ Had the Lombards devoted themselves heart and hand to the material prosperity of their country,—educated their people, employed them in useful works, fostered their rising and most prosperous silk manufactories,—they would have attained to a weight and consideration in the Austrian Empire which would have enabled them not to solicit, but dictate the terms of their administration. ”

“ And the Lombards loaded with plunder departed again for Italy. And upon their departure Eunius, also named Mummulus, was summoned by the king and raised to the high office of patrician. When the Lombards made a second inroad into the Gauls and came as far as Mustiæ Calmes near the city of Embrun, Mummulus set his army in motion and came to that place with the Burgundians. He surrounded the Lombards with his army and made an abattis and attacked them in pathless woods, and killing many took a number of captives whom he sent to the king. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who were the Lombards?
The Lombards, or Longobardi, were, like the Franks, a nation of Germany; who, upon the decline of the Roman Empire, invaded Italy, and, taking the city of Ravenna, erected a kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ We no longer have to deal with a double nationality, with the northern conquerors and their southern victims, with the oppressed and their oppressors. In considering the development of the institutional life of the people, we need no longer seek for differences, but may assume the easier task of tracing similarities. In a word, we no longer speak of Lombards and of Romans, but describe all that remains of both by the new word Italians. ”

“ The kingdom of the Lombards lasted more than two hundred years, from Alboin (568) to the fall of Desiderius (774) —much longer than the preceding Teutonic kingdom of Theodoric and the Goths. But it differed from the other Teutonic conquests in Gaul, in Britain, in Spain. It was never complete in point of territory: there were always two, and almost to the last three, capitals—the Lombard one, Pavia; the Latin one, Rome; the Greek one, Ravenna; and the Lombards never could get access to the sea. And it never was complete over the subject race: it profoundly affected the Italians of the north ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the sixth century came the Lombards, and after destroying and devastating city and country as far south as Rome, and even beyond, finally settled in upper Italy now known from them as Lombardy. Several centuries later came the Normans from France and conquered Sicily and the southern extremity of the peninsula. All these peoples were of German origin, and being gradually merged with the conquered race, formed what we now call the Italian people. ”

“ 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 Lombards, at the outlet of the passes of the Alps, offered a vigorous resistance; but when the second army had penetrated into Italy by Mount St. Bernard, Didier, threatened in his rear, retired precipitately, and, driven from position to position, was obliged to go and shut himself up in Pavia, the strongest place in his kingdom, whither Charlemagne, having received on the march the submission of the principal counts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, came promptly to besiege him. ”

“ The Lombards were so exasperated over their King's death we dared not remain in Pavia or even in Lombardy; but, seizing the royal treasure and leaving Maria behind, we fled to Ravenna, where Longinus, Narses' successor, had his capitol. ”

“ If all this be true of the Teutonic nations in general, in the earlier stages of their development, particularly true is it of the Lombards, [4] a wild tribe of the Suevic stock, whose few appearances in history, previous to their invasion of Italy, are connected only with the fiercest strife and the rudest forms of barbarism. History seems to have proved that tradition has maligned the Vandal; the Goth can boast a ruler raised at the centre of Eastern civilization and refinement ”

“ Accordingly the country became so wealthy that Lombards came from the borders of Italy, bringing into the country untold gold and silver and precious stones, and made the King an offer to build and construct a city in the country on their own account, on Queensferry Hill or on an island near Cramond, if the King would see that they got the due and needful privileges and liberties. ”

“ The permanent treaty with the Lombards was finally signed on June 1183 at Constance. |Peace of Constance, 1183.| By it the Emperor granted to the cities of the Lombard league all the royal rights (regalia) which they ever had, or at that moment enjoyed. The cities were allowed to build fortifications, to continue their league, and make such other combinations as they wished. They had complete jurisdiction over their own members, could levy troops, coin money, and exercise practically all regalian rights. ”

“ There is a natural loyalty among the Lombards, which oppression can scarcely extinguish, or tyranny destroy; and, as I have said a thousand times, they pretend to love no one; they do love their rulers ”

“ At the time of Charlemagne, Lombardy was divided into five provinces: Neustria, Austrasia, Aemilia, Littoraria maris and Tuscia. Austrasia was the name given to eastern Lombardy, and Neustria that given to western Lombardy, the part last occupied by the Lombards. ”

“ The Lombards used, before the Normans, the alternate system of ground supports, cubic capitals, transverse arches, compound piers, crypts, and raised choirs, and their most striking feature of exterior decoration was the arched corbel table that made a continuous cornice. Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter says that diagonals were used in Lombardy early in the XI century as an expedient to economize wood, groin vaults being molded on a temporary wooden substructure, but as the Lombard never counterbutted his intersecting ribs, such vaults proved unsatisfactory and were given up after 1120. ”