Lombards

The Lombards (ˈlɒmbərdz,_-bɑːrdz,_ˈlʌm-) or Longobards (Longobardi) were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the History of the Lombards (written between 787 and 796) that the Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili, who dwelt in northern Germany before migrating to seek new lands. Earlier Roman-era historians wrote of the Lombards in the first century AD as being one of the Suebian peoples, also from what is now northern Germany, near the Elbe river. They migrated south, and by the end of the fifth century, the Lombards had moved into the area roughly coinciding with modern Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube. Here they subdued the Heruls and later fought frequent wars with the Gepids. The Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, and his successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids in 567. The Lombards settled in modern-day Hungary in Pannonia. Archaeologists have unearthed burial sites in the area of Szólád of Lombard men and women buried together as families, a practice that was uncommon for Germanic peoples at the time. Traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and of a woman whose skull suggests French ancestry, possibly indicating that migrations into the Lombard territory occurred from Greece and France. Following Alboin's victory over the Gepids, he led his people into North Eastern Italy, which had become severely depopulated and devastated after the long Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569, they had conquered all of northern Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central and southern Italy.