Alboin

(d. 572)

   According to Paul the Deacon, Alboin was the tenth of the Lombard kings (r. 560/561-574) and the first to rule in Italy. A successful warrior, who defeated a number of rival peoples, including the Gepids, he was also a successful diplomat and enjoyed good relations with the Franks, even marrying a daughter of one of the Merovingian kings. Alboin also enjoyed fairly good relations with the bishops of Italy, even though he and his people were pagans and Arians and the bishops and people of Italy Catholic. Although neither he nor his successors ruled a united Italy, Alboin laid the foundation for an important kingdom in Italy, which survived until it was absorbed by Charlemagne in 774.

   Alboin, according to Paul the Deacon, was "a man fitted for wars and energehz in all things" (49). And he spent much of his career after succeeding his father Audoin in 560/561 in waging wars. Alboin ascended the throne in traditional Lombard fashion - by election. As proved to be the case throughout Lombard history, Alboin was elected by his people, who usually chose the heir of the former king. He had distinguished himself already during the reign of his father, when he led the Lombards in battle against the Gepids and, according to tradition, killed the Gepid king. Three years after the battle, in 555, Alboin was rewarded with marriage to the daughter of the Merovingian king Chlotar I (r. 511-561), and he maintained good relations with the Franks ever after.

   Upon succeeding his father, Alboin led the Lombards against the Gepids and into Italy. His struggles with the Gepids were not always successful, and in 565 he lost a battle against them. Two years later, after forging an alliance with the Avars, Alboin destroyed the Gepids. In the battle, Alboin killed the king and made a drinking cup of his skull, and also seized and married the king's daughter, Rosamund. In 568, according to tradition, Alboin accepted an invitation from the general Narses, who felt slighted by the emperor Justin II, to invade Italy. In thanks for their help, Alboin arranged a treaty with the Avars that gave them control of the old Lombard homeland.

   See also

   Arianism; Avars; Charlemagne; Franks; Justinian; Lombards; Merovingian Dynasty; Narses; Ostrogoths; Paul the Deacon; Totila

   Bibliography

 ♦ Paul the Deacon. History of the Lombards. Trans. William Dudley Foulke. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974.

 ♦ Christie, Neil. The Lombards: The Ancient Langobards. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

 ♦ Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993.

 ♦ Wolfram, Herwig. The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. Trans. Thomas J. Dunlap. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.