An inevitable end? The collapse of the Lombard kingdom facing the Franks and the papacy

Abstract

According to the Italian historiography, from Alessandro Manzoni (1822) to the two major Italian historians who studied the Lombards at the middle of the twentieth century, Gian Piero Bognetti and Ottorino Bertolini, the Lombards remained always separated from the Roman population, of which the pope was the natural leader; the Lombards, too, became very late Catholics, in time, though, to experience the "drama" of having to fight against the pope, whose supreme spiritual authority the Lombards themselves at that point recognized. Consequently, the fall of the independent kingdom by the hands of the Franks would be logical and inevitable. This is an old and outdated position: the end of the independent Lombard kingdom wasn’t inevitable. At the time of the Frankish conquest, the kingdom was politically solid inward, in economic growth and very dynamic outward. During the reigns of Liutprand, Ratchis and Aistulf (712-757), the kingdom exercised its hegemony over the whole Italy. In this period no strong elements of internal weakness emerged. Therefore, the defeat of 774 was substantially caused by external factors, ie the alliance between the Franks and the papacy. However, the attitude of the popes against the Lombard kingdom was not always hostile. Things changed only with Stephen II, because of two simultaneous events occurring in 751: the royal anointing of Pepin in the Frankish kingdom and the conquest of the Exarchate by Aistulf. Italian political balance broke and caused the decisive rapprochement between Rome and the Franks. But there were still many uncertainties, as proved, for example, by Charlemagne’s marriage with a daughter of Desiderius. Carloman’s death in 771 and, the following year, the election of the new pope Adrian I caused the repudiation of the Lombard bride by Charlemagne, his descent into Italy in 773, and the capture of Pavia the year after: Desiderius was exiled in France and Charlemagne became rex Langobardorum. The very rapid epilogue of the story of the kingdom, however, depended on contingent factors: to the last, the story could take a different direction. Rather different was the situation on the military front. In fact the Lombard army was not quite able to compete with the Frankish one, accustomed to the seasonal war and to the looting along the borders of the kingdom. This fact alone explains the rapid defeat of the Lombard at the Clusae against the Franks. The structures of the Lombard kingdom were not at all upset by the Frankish conquest. Already around 780, the Italian capitularia mention the Lombards counts alongside the Frankish ones; in the same period the Lombards fit into the vassals’ files. All this indicates a transition without any major shocks from the old system, previous to the 774, to the next Frankish rule.