History of the Lombards PDF

Preview

Summary

These notes are from Fact and Fiction in the Middle Ages with Stefan Vander Elst....

Description

History of the Lombards ●

●

● ●

●

●

Tribes managed to establish themselves successfully within the formal borders of the Roman empire ○ Tribes that created kingdoms survive to the present day ○ Others were less successful ■ Some made kingdoms that were destroyed after a few decades--powerful neighbors ■ Some tribes established kingdoms that no longer exist ○ Tribe: everyone who wanted to come along and fight on the same side ■ Travelled around and took in new people ■ Romans: had no real interest in staying where they were ■ Took in runaway slaves as long as they would fight ● Germanic peoples (origins were outside of borders of empire) were continuously reshaped in attitudes ● Constantly adding new members/growing if successful ● Eventually, these tribes for peoples of very disparate origin needed some things to tie them together ● Needed a couple of things that developed over a number of years ○ Have to have a code of laws ○ History of these people--description of a past that everybody shares and everybody can tie themselves to→ almost all of this history is nonsense (like the Ecclesiastical history) ○ Shaping of a people is a dynamic process→ fused together through the same law and national myth ● Longobards because they had long beards--#basic ○ Saxons are from a particular knife they liked to use--the Sax ○ Francs--old “free people” or named after Francisco, which is a throwing ax ○ Shallow names Their kingdom lasted for 200 years ○ Constantly wanted to reconquer its previous possessions ○ Established dominion over most of Italy ■ Eventually destroyed by the Francs and the Charlomayne Codified their laws 1643 ○ Edict of Rothar (king of the time) established a standardized law for the Lombards History ○ Written in the same time, Origin of the Langobard People ○ Tried to establish themselves as a people, wrote laws and tried to come up with a history Paul the Deacon ○ Written after the fall of the Lombard kingdom 1777-1796 ○ History of people that has lost its independence ○ Descendant of a powerful warrior ○ Family is distinct ■ Paul is educated ■ The court is a culturally astute place--good place to be educated ■ Became the secretary ■ Asked to continue a particular history for her--starts writing the early 760s ■ When Francs invade Lombardia and end it he’s like 54 ○ Brother fights for Lombard independence--led an unsuccessful revolt and was captured ■ Paul goes to the land of the Francs to plead his brother’s place--you know he has been to the land of the Francs when he talks about shadows Remarkable because Paul didn’t have very much to work with ○ For the rest, he has to speak to random people--collecting stories of his own people ■ Oral mythology of the longobards

Wants to rally around this shared history→ affects how he represents his own history ● Some of these same processes are still being used today Origin of the Lombards ○ Bk 1 Chapter 1: the North not where it’s at ■ Enormous amount of people originate from there and move away as quickly as they can ● Cold, seas are scary, Barbarians--nasty ● Whey would he say the place of origin for the Lombards is so terrible? ○ Why would they ever move away when they are never beaten in battle? Because it sucks→ by telling that the north is so rough, he ties it in with Roman prejudice ○ Further you are from civilization the tougher you are ○ They are a hardy people that moves because it’s not really nice there ○ They also left because of chance/they lost a bet ■ NOT TRUE--they lost ■ (7): Biblical story--David and Goliath, unnamed man overthrowing the far more powerful warrior ● How many people do the Langobards have? ○ Set out on a journey that will last forever: Moses and Aron, lots of origin myths by Germanic peoples ■ For generations led by two men--echoes of the Israelites ○ Paul appropriates some stuff ● How does he define these Lombards? Key words & terms ○ Fighting in enemies superior in numbers→  cooler to be the underdog/rebel than evil empire--and they won ○ Youth→ Shakespeare uses this to motivate troops ■ No matter how big the army, the emphasis is on the few ■ Befits an idea of self; you are few, young, energetic ○ Smart ○ Terminology of why they are unwilling to yield to the vandals? Why do they fight? ■ (19): glory of freedom ● Language of freedom is associated with Langobards ● They go around freeing people→ force of liberty in a world of slavery ● Freedom is more important than a world of subjection ● Live free or DIE ● But… they aren’t against slavery at all ○ Paul presents these people as above all for liberty ● As they move away from the fatherland, they develop this identity--they are david ○ They are successful because they fight for the right reasons ○ Shaping of a national identity ● Continuous narrative of growth ○ As they go forward, they are established as a disparate group ○ Established political consolidation Lamissio: strange story to include, why describe the terrible young life of this hero ○ Mean prostitute Langobard lady tried to kill her 7 children, King finds one of the babies in the river ○ Reminiscent of Moses→ baby in the basket, taken in by kings ○ Echo the greatness of the people ○ Travel through lands of neighboring tribes, travel through rivers ■ As they are victorious, they grow (29-30) Bulgarians ■

●

●

●

● ●

●

●

○ L are victorious, defeat more people, repeat ○ Always defeating and growing (51) made a drinking goblet out of a decapitated head One thing that all of these conflicts had in common? Who started them? ○ They started these conflicts!!! ○ The Langobards never started anything--blaming the other people ■ They are just defending themselves against aggression ■ But they always finish them (32) Rugii land ○ As they eventually go from moving around to places ever further south, they always move into territory that had been abandoned by others ○ They moved there because no one was there anyways (they definitely drove out the native inhabitants) ○ This also happens in Northern Italy ■ This part of italy has been emptied out by a disease (56-58) ● People would leave before even burying their relatives because the disease was so bad ● Within Italy alone, everything South of the Alps is empty/depopulated ■ (60) Paul goes out of his way to tell you that the Langobards didn’t forcibly displace anybody else ■ Eventually when the Roman plague struck all of Northern Italy, they are invited by someone else to come South--not replacing anybody ● This is not true; there were always tribe that had lived there forever that they replaced ○ Like how Bede says the Britons were sinful and had it coming ○ Their own people did something terrible but they minimize it by saying they had it coming ○ Make the terrible things there people had done look better ■ They fight for the right reason As people grow more powerful, their history becomes one of the monarchs ○ (41-43) Alboin ■ Not only a war hero, but he also stares down the Gepidae people ● Audoin is a great king, guides his people where they need to go ○ (49-51) Audoin--Edwin ■ People are marrying each other, extending network of power throughout Europe ● No longer tribes that travel back and forth ○ King’s mountain ■ End of their travels ● Over the period of their exodus, they have proven themselves victorious ● Narrative shifts from an exodus narrative to establishment

Discussion 2 ● Paul the Deacon ○ A chronicle of his own people: the Lombards--Germanic tribe that travelled throughout Europe in search of a place where they could settle ○ Writes this history in a critical time: slightly more than 10 years after their kingdom was destroyed by the Francs ○ Lombards, with leader, are standing on a mountain on what will be their future home in Italy ● Book 2 and 3 ○ Construction of a kingdom ○ Alboin (the king) moves into Italy with people alongside him ■ 61: invites a bunch of Saxons to enter, many peoples with him ■ 80: brought many people from lots of places ● Illustrates how tribal barriers were more flexible in this period than later on→ harder to become a Catalan later on

○ You become a member of that tribe if you are willing to fight with them 98: saxons break away and leave again ● How do you change from an army on the move into a settled population→ how do you make sure that people in these diffuse armies are happy enough to stick together ● How do you turn an exodus into something that survives ■ Why does Paul the Deacon highlight this ● Protecting rear guard--political organization as a continuing conquest ● Giself is a warlord, he has an army of his own, would have been a leader of one of these bands: what to do in order to keep the structure of this group to keep going ● Origins of the Dukes (leaders) of Paul’s history--these people control their own small subgroups/cities→ they will eventually all hold their own cities ● Paul’s etymology: all etymological descriptions are wrong ○ Why does he describe Italy for this long? ■ Ownership→ to the Lombards ■ Describes all the parts that the Lombards have conquered--Lombardy ■ Political union that has existed for hundreds of years ■ How much of this text is hope for the future? ● In describing Italy as Lombardy ○ (79): who are Lombards fighting here? Why do they conquer everything except for cities on the shore of the sea? ■ Lombards invade italy, conquer places from Eastern Roman Empire ■ Paul never mentions Romans here, at all ■ They don’t conquer the cities on the sea shore because those forces could be resupplied by the Roman fleet→ so they wouldn’t fall ○ Why does he never mention the fact that he is fighting with the Romans? ■ They wanted to think of themselves as roman! ■ He says nothing but good things about Narcis and Belisarius ■ Goes out of his way to praise the Romans again and again ● Consequently, he removes the Romans from this story of conquest ● They are just in the background, not physically fighting them every step of the way ○ What do the Romans represent in this story? ■ Not the Francs, who are the enemies ■ Rosamund & Albion: when she kills her husband she runs to the Romans Women; female betrayal ○ Rosamund betrays and kills the victorious Alboin, the one who brought his people to Italy ○ 34: war begins because of betrayal of a woman--the drapery where someone hides behind and kills him ○ 110: Sophia, first-world empire--attempted to carry on against him ■ Don’t have too many female characters in these early chapters ○ Alboin is brutally murdered, rules for a little while and dies Rule of the Dukes ○ 86: heads of warbands, settled on particular cities ■ They don’t have a king, just dukes! ■ They bring great territorial expansion ■ But, most of the Romans who weren’t killed were enslaved ● Burning down churches, killing of priests ■ Paul is a deacon--the people were not Christian ● Lombards hadn’t been Christianized by Alboin either ● Idea that this period under the dukes is one of territorial expansion and of chaos and misery ○ They start a war that has only been recently been completed when Paul writes ○ These guys start the war with the Francs--Alboin did not do that ○ But when dukes come to power, they are the ones who poke the bear ■

●

●

●

●

●

■ They invade the kingdom of the Franks ■ Described as the “wrath of god” ○ 94: pagan lombards are here to bring this wrath ■ Series of conflicts that last throughout the remainder of this book ■ As Paul describes it, the invasions do not work out well ● Lots of defeats ■ Way more to say about the wars against Franks than wars against Romans ● This continues for most of the manuscript Turns history of Lombard settlement to history of Lombard warfare: why? ○ Maybe they will eventually defeat these enemies ○ The arc could have been one where this last conquest was just another step in a 3-century long conflict ○ Wars of Dukes are absolute failure; they always lose ■ Why emphasize these losses? Why not focus on victories? ● Because they are Dukes--Paul is a highbred monarchist, he thinks that the best way of organizing a structure is to have a monarchy ○ Election of Othari as a king is the logical thing to do ○ 113: no thefts, no robberies, everyone is happy ■ The moment they elect the king, everything goes back to peace ■ The king is a figure of unity --everybody is happy again (115) ○ 118: Droktol? Didn’t play along with this ■ If you don’t fall in line, you are always a foreigner anyways--always in the background ■ The way the war against Francs is described immediately changes ● Stops being offensive and becomes defensive ○ Francs invade and Langobards drive them back ■ Why is it that the Francs always win? Because they are fighting for their freedom ● The king unites all of the disparate dukes ● Becomes a successful war for freedom ● Can’t lose under a monarch ● Always the thought toward the future in Paul’s writing So he suggests that all things go better under a king--a country needs a king in order to flourish ○ And right now, when he writes, they do not have one ○ A history and a hope for the future ■ People are not only proud of their Lombard heritage but also with a hope that things can go back to the way they were ○ 137: Othari going to see the girl he was going to marry ■ Paul includes parts that likely didn’t happen and skips over stuff that did happen ● Why introduce this love storyish? ● He would have still married her even if she wasn’t a love match ● Sense of continuity to the throne… idealizing him? Making him a romance lover? ○ The woman was a very devout Catholic, and spent a lot of time trying to get her husbands to convert--Why is this not mentioned? ■ Because right now, everyone in Europe is slowly becoming Christian except for the Lombards--how does Paul talk in glowing terms about a people who go around burning churches and killing priests? How do you praise this people and while at the same time knowing that they aren’t Christian ● He talks about it as little as possible ● Doesn’t ever talk about religious observances of Lombards at this time He is writing a history of the Langobards in a time when they lost a war ○ Extremely almost nostalgic/optimistic development story of this tribe

○

○

Eventually, as they build these structures into a monarchy that will always defend them against outside aggressors ■ Not just a history, but also a hope for the future Wants a unity so that they could fight for their future again ■ Get back what was lost ■ History can be a political tract as well ● Paul is a valuable source for the history of the Lombard kingdom ○ Can’t mistake the fact that he says a great many things that happen to be true ○ This is also a plan for the resurgence of that people ■ But they didn’t have a future ■ Plan for unity never occurred For the Exam: Determine the themes of each text Essays 2 hours to email answers...