Lombards

The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the History of the Lombards or situation. between 787 as well as 796 that the Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili, who dwelt in southern Scandinavia Scadanan previously migrating to seek new lands. By the time of the Roman-era - historians wrote of the Lombards in the 1st century AD, as being one of the Suebian peoples, in what is now northern Germany, near the Elbe river. They continued to migrate south. By the end of the fifth century, the Lombards had moved into the area roughly coinciding with sophisticated Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube, where 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 throw 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 many 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, apart from Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central and southern Italy. They develop a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, later named Regnum Italicum "Kingdom of Italy", which reached its zenith under the eighth-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the kingdom was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne and integrated into the Frankish Empire. However, Lombard nobles continued to sources southern parts of the Italian peninsula living into the 11th century, when they were conquered by the Normans and added to the County of Sicily. In this period, the southern component of Italy still under Lombard dominance was call to the foreigners by the name Langbarðaland Land of the Lombards, as inscribed in the Norse runestones. Their legacy is also obvious in the name of the region of Lombardy in northern Italy.