The Lombards Invade and Carve Italy Into Duchies
A new Germanic kingdom takes the north while leaving Rome, Ravenna, and the south to others
Quick facts
- Invasion begins
- 568 CE, under King Alboin
- Administrative units
- 36 duchies
- Kingdom ends
- 774 CE, defeated by Charlemagne
- Legacy place name
- Modern region of Lombardy
What happened
In 568 CE, only fifteen years after Byzantium finished destroying the Ostrogothic kingdom, King Alboin led the Lombards out of Pannonia and into northern Italy. By 572 CE Alboin had conquered most of the peninsula, ruling first from Verona and then from Pavia, and he organized the new kingdom into 36 territories called duchies, each governed by a duke reporting directly to the king. Lombard control never extended over the whole peninsula: Byzantine forces held Ravenna, Rome remained under the pope's growing authority, and southern duchies such as Benevento operated with substantial independence. The kingdom lasted just over two centuries until 774 CE, when the Frankish king Charlemagne broke his alliance with the Lombard king Desiderius, defeated him in battle, and seized Lombard territory, ending Lombard rule in Italy.
Why it matters
The Lombard invasion permanently fractured Italy into competing zones of control between Lombard dukes, the Byzantine-held coastal enclaves, and an increasingly independent papacy in Rome, a three-way division that shaped Italian politics for centuries afterward. The Lombard name itself survives today in the northern Italian region of Lombardy.
How we know
The Lombard invasion and conquest are recorded by the 8th-century Lombard historian Paul the Deacon in his History of the Lombards, written from within the kingdom's own tradition, and corroborated by Frankish chronicles describing Charlemagne's 774 CE campaign that ended Lombard rule.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Lombards · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Donation of Constantine · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Part of a timelineHistory of Italy27 events · A peninsula that fractured into rival kingdoms and city-states after Rome fell, then spent thirteen centuries putting itself back together as one countryView all →