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The Italy runestones are three or four Varangian runestones from 11th-century Sweden that tell of warriors who died in Langbarðaland ("Land of the Lombards "), the Old Norse name for south Italy . On these rune stones it is southern Italy that is referred to ( Langobardia ), but the Rundata project renders it rather anachronistically as Lombardy (see the translations of the individual stones, below).

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76-681: Tato (died 510) was an early 6th century king of the Lombards . He was the son of Claffo and a king of the Lething Dynasty . According to Procopius , the Lombards were subject and paid tribute to the Heruli during his reign. In 508, he fought with King Rodulf of the Heruli, who was slain. This was a devastating blow to the Heruli and augmented the power of the Lombards. According to Paul

152-665: 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

228-630: A Lombard Kingdom in north and central 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 rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula well into the eleventh century, when they were conquered by the Normans and added to

304-590: A betrayal, Thurisind made an alliance with the Kutrigurs who devastated Moesia before end of the armistice. The Langobard and Roman army joined together and defeated the Gepids in 551. In the battle, Audoin 's son, Alboin killed Thurisind 's son, Turismod . In 552, the Byzantines, aided by a large contingent of Foederati , notably Lombards, Heruls and Bulgars, defeated the last Ostrogoths led by Teia in

380-504: A champion of freedom. In 47, a struggle ensued amongst the Cherusci and they expelled their new leader, the nephew of Arminius, from their country. The Lombards appeared on the scene with sufficient power to control the destiny of the tribe that had been the leader in the struggle for independence thirty-eight years earlier, for they restored the deposed leader to sovereignty. To the south, in 166 Cassius Dio reported that just before

456-655: A cult of Odin, thus creating a conscious tribal tradition. Fröhlich inverts the order of events in Priester and states that with the Odin cult, the Lombards grew their beards in resemblance of the Odin of tradition and their new name reflected this. Bruckner remarks that the name of the Lombards stands in close relation to the worship of Odin, whose many names include "the Long-bearded" or "the Grey-bearded", and that

532-546: A policy of internal reconciliation and tried to reorganize royal administration. The dukes yielded half their estates for the maintenance of the king and his court in Pavia. On the foreign affairs side, Authari managed to thwart the dangerous alliance between the Byzantines and the Franks. Authari died in 591 and was succeeded by Agilulf , the duke of Turin , who also married Theodelinda in the same year. Agilulf successfully fought

608-650: A port in the northern languages ; consequently, Skiæren-Heal is the port of the Skiæren, a name well adapted to the port of Stockholm , in the Upplandske Skiæren, and the country may be justly called Scorung or Skiærunga. The legendary king Sceafa of Scandza was an ancient Lombardic king in Anglo-Saxon legend . The Old English poem Widsith , in a listing of famous kings and their countries, has Sceafa [weold] Longbeardum, so naming Sceafa as ruler of

684-479: Is a rune or other sign that cannot be identified. A series of three full stops ... shows that runes are assumed to have existed in the position, but have disappeared. The two dividing signs | | divide a rune into two Latin letters, because runemasters often carved a single rune instead of two consecutive ones. Angle brackets, < > , indicate that there is a sequence of runes that cannot be interpreted with certainty. Other special signs are þ and ð , where

760-514: Is better to maintain liberty by arms than to stain it by the payment of tribute." The Vandals prepared for war and consulted Godan (the god Odin ), who answered that he would give victory to those whom he would see first at sunrise. The Winnili were fewer in number and Gambara sought help from Frea (the goddess Frigg ), who advised that all Winnili women should tie their hair in front of their faces like beards and march in line with their husbands. At sunrise, Frea turned her husband's bed so that he

836-758: Is the seventh-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum ( Origin of the Lombard People ). The Origo Gentis Langobardorum tells the story of a small tribe called the Winnili dwelling in Northern Germany/Denmark zone (the Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani writes that the Winnili first dwelt near a river called Vindilicus on the extreme boundary of Gaul ). The Winnili were split into three groups and one part left their native land to seek foreign fields. The reason for

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912-415: Is upside-down in the southern wall of the porch. Both fragments are partly in the soil which means that it is necessary to remove some soil in order to read the entire inscriptions. The larger part was known as early as Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) and it was also studied by Johan Peringskiöld during the national search for historic monuments (1667–84) and by Olof Celsius in 1727. However, the smaller part

988-580: The Avars and then to the Franks. Grimoald managed to regain control over the duchies and deflected the late attempt of the Byzantine emperor Constans II to conquer southern Italy. He also defeated the Franks. At Grimoald's death in 671 Perctarit returned and promoted tolerance between Arians and Catholics, but he could not defeat the Arian party, led by Arachi, duke of Trento , who submitted only to his son,

1064-572: The Battle of Taginae . In approximately 560, Audoin was succeeded by his son Alboin , a young and energetic leader who defeated the neighboring Gepidae and made them his subjects; in 566, he married Rosamund , daughter of the Gepid king Cunimund . In the same year, he made a pact with Khagan Bayan . Next year the Lombards and the Avars destroyed the Gepid kingdom in the Lombard–Gepid War ,

1140-525: The County of Sicily . In this period, the southern part of Italy still under Lombard domination was known to the Norse as Langbarðaland ('land of the Lombards'), as inscribed in the Norse runestones . Their legacy is also apparent in the name of the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. According to their traditions, the Lombards initially called themselves the Winnili . After a reported major victory against

1216-579: The Early Christian Church . Gradually, they adopted Roman or Romanized titles, names, and traditions, and partially converted to orthodoxy (in the seventh century), though not without a long series of religious and ethnic conflicts. By the time Paul the Deacon was writing, the Lombard language, dress and even hairstyles had nearly all disappeared in toto . The whole Lombard territory was divided into 36 duchies, whose leaders settled in

1292-885: The Elbe shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, next to the Chauci . Strabo states that the Lombards dwelt on both sides of the Elbe. He treats them as a branch of the Suebi , and states that: Now as for the tribe of the Suebi, it is the largest, for it extends from the Rhenus to the Albis; and a part of them even dwells on the far side of the Albis, as, for instance, the Hermondori and

1368-975: The Fittja stone and the Djulefors stone to refer to the Lombard migration from Sweden, whereas Celsius (1727) interpreted them in a strikingly different manner. He noted that the name Longobardia was not applied to Italy until after the destruction of the Kingdom of the Lombards in 774. He claimed that the kingdom had been taken over by Varangians from Byzantium in the 11th and 12th centuries, and noted that in Barbarossa 's campaign in Italy there were many Scandinavian warriors. The stones would have commemorated Swedish warriors who died in Barbarossa's war. This view

1444-518: The Historia between 787 and 796 he was a Catholic monk and devoted Christian . He thought the pagan stories of his people "silly" and "laughable". Paul explained that the name "Langobard" came from the length of their beards. A modern theory suggests that the name "Langobard" comes from Langbarðr , a name of Odin . Priester states that when the Winnili changed their name to "Lombards", they also changed their old agricultural fertility cult to

1520-639: The Lower Elbe as Langobardic . The burial sites are crematorial and are usually dated from the sixth century BC through the third century AD, so a settlement breakoff seems unlikely. The lands of the lower Elbe fall into the zone of the Jastorf Culture and became Elbe-Germanic , differing from the lands between Rhine , Weser , and the North Sea . Archaeological finds show that the Lombards were an agricultural people. Tacitus also counted

1596-578: The Marcomannic Wars , 6,000 Lombards and Obii (sometimes thought to be Ubii ) crossed the Danube and invaded Pannonia . The two tribes were defeated, whereupon they ceased their invasion and sent Ballomar, King of the Marcomanni, as ambassador to Aelius Bassus , who was then administering Pannonia. Peace was made and the two tribes returned to their homes, which in the case of the Lombards

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1672-562: The Ravenna Cosmography , Mauringa was the land east of the Elbe. The crossing into Mauringa was very difficult. The Assipitti (possibly the Usipetes ) denied them passage through their lands and a fight was arranged for the strongest man of each tribe. The Lombard was victorious, passage was granted, and the Lombards reached Mauringa. The Lombards departed from Mauringa and reached Golanda. Scholar Ludwig Schmidt thinks this

1748-626: 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 Audoin's successor Alboin eventually destroyed

1824-606: The Vandals in the first century, they changed their name to Lombards . The name Winnili is generally translated as 'the wolves', related to the Proto-Germanic root *wulfaz 'wolf'. The name Lombard was reportedly derived from the distinctively long beards of the Lombards. It is probably a compound of the Proto-Germanic elements * langaz (long) and * bardaz (beard). According to their own legends,

1900-761: The Younger Futhark , and two of them are found in Uppland and one or two in Södermanland . The memorials are probably raised in memory of members of the Varangian Guard , the elite guard of the Byzantine Emperor , and they probably died while fighting in southern Italy against the local Lombard principalities or the invading Normans . Many of their brothers-in-arms are remembered on the 28 Greece runestones most of which are found in

1976-408: The Deacon , the war started because Tato's daughter Rumetrada murdered Rodulf's brother. Tato was murdered by his nephew Wacho in 510. This biography of a member of a European royal house is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lombards The Lombards ( / ˈ l ɒ m b ər d z , - b ɑːr d z , ˈ l ʌ m -/ ) or Longobards ( Latin : Longobardi ) were

2052-534: The Dukes ") during which the dukes did not elect any king, a period regarded as a time of violence and disorder. In 586, threatened by a Frankish invasion, the dukes elected Cleph's son, Authari , as king. In 589, he married Theodelinda , daughter of Garibald I of Bavaria , the Duke of Bavaria . The Catholic Theodelinda was a friend of Pope Gregory I and pushed for Christianization. In the meantime, Authari embarked on

2128-546: The Gepids in 567. The Lombards also settled in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary). Near Szólád , archaeologists have unearthed burial sites of Lombard men and women buried together as families, unusual among Germanic peoples at the time. Contemporary traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and a possible migrant from France. Following Alboin's victory over the Gepids, he led his people into northeastern Italy , which had become severely depopulated and devastated after

2204-500: The Langobardi; and at the present time these latter, at least, have, to the last man, been driven in flight out of their country into the land on the far side of the river. Consistent with this, Suetonius wrote that Roman general Nero Claudius Drusus defeated a large force of Germans and drove some "to the farther side of the Albis (Elbe)" river. The German archaeologist Willi Wegewitz defined several Iron Age burial sites at

2280-844: The Lombard given name Ansegranus ("he with the beard of the gods") shows that the Lombards had this idea of their chief deity. The same Old Norse root Barth or Barði, meaning "beard", is shared with the Heaðobards mentioned in both Beowulf and in Widsith , where they conflict with the Danes . They were possibly a branch of the Langobards . Alternatively, some etymological sources suggest an Old High German root, barta, meaning "axe" (and related to English halberd), while Edward Gibbon puts forth an alternative suggestion which argues that: ...Börde (or Börd) still signifies "a fertile plain by

2356-546: The Lombards as a remote and aggressive Suebian tribe, listing them between the Semnones on the Elbe, and the Nerthus -worshipping tribes whose land of rivers and forest stretched to the sea. Writing in the late first century AD, he described the Langobardi in his Germania saying that "their scanty numbers are a distinction" because "surrounded by a host of most powerful tribes, they are safe, not by submitting, but by daring

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2432-505: The Lombards occurred between AD 9 and 16, by the Roman court historian Velleius Paterculus , who accompanied a Roman expedition as prefect of the cavalry. Paterculus says that under Tiberius the "power of the Langobardi was broken, a race surpassing even the Germans in savagery". From the combined testimony of Strabo (AD 20) and Tacitus (AD 117), the Lombards dwelt near the mouth of

2508-656: The Lombards or Winnili lived originally in the Vinuiloth (Vinovilith) mentioned by Jordanes , in his masterpiece Getica , to the north of Uppsala , Sweden. Scoringa was near the province of Uppland , so just north of Östergötland . The footnote then explains the etymology of the name Scoringa: The shores of Uppland and Östergötland are covered with small rocks and rocky islands , which are called in German Schæren and in Swedish Skiaeren. Heal signifies

2584-517: The Lombards originated in Northern Germany/Denmark zone including modern-day Denmark. The Germanic origins of the Lombards is supported by genetic, anthropological, archaeological and earlier literary evidence. A legendary account of Lombard origins, history, and practices is the Historia Langobardorum ( History of the Lombards ) of Paul the Deacon , written in the eighth century. Paul's chief source for Lombard origins, however,

2660-495: The Lombards, who could retain their own laws. Rothari's son Rodoald succeeded him in 652, still very young, and was killed by his opponents. At the death of King Aripert I in 661, the kingdom was split between his children Perctarit , who set his capital in Milan, and Godepert , who reigned from Pavia ( Ticinum ). Perctarit was overthrown by Grimoald , son of Gisulf, duke of Friuli and Benevento since 647. Perctarit fled to

2736-565: The Lombards. From the second century onwards, many of the Germanic tribes recorded as active during the Principate started to unite into bigger tribal unions, such as the Franks , Alamanni , Bavarii , and Saxons . The Lombards are not mentioned at first, perhaps because they were not initially on the border of Rome, or perhaps because they were subjected to a larger tribal union, like

2812-566: The Lombards. Similarities between Langobardic and Gothic migration traditions have been noted among scholars. These early migration legends suggest that a major shifting of tribes occurred sometime between the first and second century BC, which would coincide with the time that the Teutoni and Cimbri left their homelands in Northern Germany and migrated through central Germany, eventually invading Roman Italy. The first mention of

2888-842: The Normans in Southern Italy during the mid-11th century. It is likely that Holmi, who is mentioned on two stones, took part in these battles as a member of the Byzantine Emperor's elite unit, the Varangian Guard since they use a name based on the Greek name for the region. Below follows a presentation of the Italy Runestones, organised according to location. The transcriptions from runic inscriptions into standardised Old Norse are in Old East Norse (OEN),

2964-449: The Pope, who was supporting the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento against him, and entered Rome in 772, the first Lombard king to do so. But when Pope Hadrian I called for help from the powerful Frankish king Charlemagne , Desiderius was defeated at Susa and besieged in Pavia , while his son Adelchis was forced to open the gates of Verona to Frankish troops. Desiderius surrendered in 774, and Charlemagne, in an utterly novel decision, took

3040-463: The Saxons. It is, however, highly probable that, when the bulk of the Lombards migrated, a considerable part remained behind and afterwards became absorbed by the Saxon tribes in the Elbe region, while the emigrants alone retained the name of Lombards. However, the Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani states that the Lombards were subjected by the Saxons around 300 but rose up against them under their first king, Agelmund, who ruled for 30 years. In

3116-455: The Swedish and Danish dialect, to facilitate comparison with the inscriptions, while the English translation provided by Rundata give the names in the standard dialect, Old West Norse (OWN), the Icelandic and Norwegian dialect. There is a long-standing practice to write transliterations of the runes into Latin characters with boldface and transcribe the text into a normalized form of the language with italic type . This practice exists because

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3192-416: The above-mentioned Suebic territories, east of the Angrivarii on the Weser , and south of the Chauci on the coast, probably indicating a Lombard expansion from the Elbe to the Rhine. This double mention has been interpreted as an editorial error by Gudmund Schütte, in his analysis of Ptolemy. However, the Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani also mentions Patespruna ( Paderborn ) in connection with

3268-565: The allies halved the prize of war and the nomads settled in Transylvania . In the spring of 568, Alboin, now fearing the aggressive Avars, led the Lombard migration into Italy , which he planned for years. According to the History of the Lombards, "Then the Langobards, having left Pannonia , hastened to take possession of Italy with their wives and children and all their goods." The Avars have agreed to shelter them if they wish to come back. Various other peoples who either voluntarily joined or were subjects of King Alboin were also part of

3344-407: The disagreements between the Pope and Byzantium concerning the reverence of icons , he annexed the Exarchate of Ravenna and the duchy of Rome . He also helped the Frankish marshal Charles Martel drive back the Arabs . The Slavs were defeated in the Battle of Lavariano , when they tried to conquer the Friulian Plain in 720. Liutprand's successor Aistulf conquered Ravenna for the Lombards for

3420-446: The exodus was probably overpopulation . The departing people were led by Gambara and her sons Ybor and Aio and arrived in the lands of Scoringa , perhaps the Baltic coast or the Bardengau on the banks of the Elbe . Scoringa was ruled by the Vandals and their chieftains, the brothers Ambri and Assi, who granted the Winnili a choice between tribute or war. The Winnili were young and brave and refused to pay tribute, saying "It

3496-488: The first Lombard duchy, which he entrusted to his nephew Gisulf . Soon Vicenza , Verona and Brescia fell into Germanic hands. In the summer of 569, the Lombards conquered the main Roman centre of northern Italy , Milan . The area was then recovering from the terrible Gothic Wars , and the small Byzantine army left for its defence could do almost nothing. Longinus, the Exarch sent to Italy by Emperor Justin II , could only defend coastal cities that could be supplied by

3572-402: The first one is the thorn letter which represents a voiceless dental fricative as th in English thing . The second letter is eth which stands for a voiced dental fricative as th in English them . The ʀ sign represents the yr rune . Every runic inscription is shown with its ID code that is used in scholarly literature to refer to the inscription, and it is only obligatory to give

3648-446: The first time but had to relinquish it when he was subsequently defeated by the king of the Franks, Pippin III , who was called by the Pope. After the death of Aistulf, Ratchis attempted to become king of Lombardy, but he was deposed by Desiderius , duke of Tuscany , the last Lombard to rule as king. Desiderius managed to take Ravenna definitively, ending the Byzantine presence in northern Italy. He decided to reopen struggles against

3724-429: The first two parts of it. The first part is one or two letters that represent the area where the runic inscription appears, e.g. U for the Uppland , Sö for Södermanland and DR for Denmark . The second part represents the order in which the inscription is presented in the official national publications (e.g. Sveriges runinskrifter ). Thus U 133 means that the runestone was the 133rd runic inscription in Uppland that

3800-422: The increasing power of the Franks. In response, the kings tried to centralize power over time, but they definitively lost control over Spoleto and Benevento in the attempt. In 572, Alboin was murdered in Verona in a plot led by his wife, Rosamund, who later fled to Ravenna . His successor, Cleph , was also assassinated, after a ruthless reign of 18 months. His death began an interregnum of years (the " Rule of

3876-441: The land to the west of the Soča River, namely the Gorizia Hills and the Venetian Slovenia . A new ethnic border was established that has lasted for over 1200 years up until the present time. The Lombard reign began to recover only with Liutprand the Lombard (king from 712), son of Ansprand and successor of the brutal Aripert II . He managed to regain a certain control over Spoleto and Benevento, and, taking advantage of

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3952-475: 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. They established

4028-413: The main cities. The king ruled over them and administered the land through emissaries called gastaldi . This subdivision, however, together with the independent indocility of the duchies, deprived the kingdom of unity, making it weak even when compared to the Byzantines, especially since these had begun to recover from the initial invasion. This weakness became even more evident when the Lombards had to face

4104-438: The migration. Whence, even until today, we call the villages in which they dwell Gepidan , Bulgarian , Sarmatian , Pannonian , Suabian , Norican , or by other names of this kind." At least 20,000 Saxon warriors, old allies of the Lombards, and their families joined them in their new migration. The first important city to fall was Forum Iulii ( Cividale del Friuli ) in northeastern Italy , in 569. There, Alboin created

4180-412: The most energetic of all Lombard kings. He extended his dominions, conquering Liguria in 643 and the remaining part of the Byzantine territories of inner Veneto , including the Roman city of Opitergium ( Oderzo ). Rothari also made the famous edict bearing his name, the Edictum Rothari , which established the laws and the customs of his people in Latin : the edict did not apply to the tributaries of

4256-467: The old lands of the Burgundes . In Vurgundaib, the Lombards were stormed in camp by " Bulgars " (probably Huns ) and were defeated; King Agelmund was killed and Laimicho was made king. He was in his youth and desired to avenge the slaughter of Agelmund. The Lombards themselves were probably made subjects of the Huns after the defeat but rose up and defeated them with great slaughter, gaining great booty and confidence as they "became bolder in undertaking

4332-414: The perils of war". Tacitus also noted that the Lombards were subjects of Marobod the King of the Marcomanni , who was allied with Rome when Arminius and his allies won the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. However, after the outbreak of war between Arminius and Marobod in 17 AD the Lombards and Semnones switched to the alliance of Arminius. They detested Marobod's title of king, and saw Arminius as

4408-404: The philo-Catholic Cunincpert . The Lombards engaged in fierce battles with Slavic peoples during these years: from 623 to 626 the Lombards unsuccessfully attacked the Carantanians , and, in 663–64, the Slavs raided the Vipava Valley and the Friuli . Religious strife and the Slavic raids remained a source of struggle in the following years. In 705, the Friuli Lombards were defeated and lost

4484-401: The powerful Byzantine fleet. Pavia fell after a siege of three years, in 572, becoming the first capital city of the new Lombard kingdom of Italy. In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto , which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into

4560-428: The rebel dukes of northern Italy, conquering Padua in 601, Cremona and Mantua in 603, and forcing the Exarch of Ravenna to pay tribute. Agilulf died in 616; Theodelinda reigned alone until 628 when she was succeeded by Adaloald . Arioald , the head of the Arian opposition who had married Theodelinda's daughter Gundeperga, later deposed Adaloald. Arioald was succeeded by Rothari , regarded by many authorities as

4636-438: The same lady in memory of her son. Runestone U 133 ( location ) is in style Pr3 , part of the more general Urnes style . The stone has been split into two parts that are walled into the southern exterior wall of Täby church, near the ground. The larger fragment, which was originally the upper part of the runestone, is in the western wall of the old porch which is constructed at the church's southern side. The smaller fragment

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4712-500: The same part of Sweden. The young men who applied for a position in the Varangian guard were not uncouth roughnecks, as in the traditional stereotype, but instead, it appears that they were usually fit and well-raised young warriors who were skilled in weapons. They were the kind of warriors who were welcome as the elite troops of the Byzantine Emperor, and whom the rulers of Kievan Rus' requested from Scandinavia when they were under threat. Johan Peringskiöld (d. 1720) considered

4788-399: The second half of the fourth century, the Lombards left their homes, probably due to bad harvests, and embarked on their migration. The migration route of the Lombards in 489, from their homeland to " Rugiland ", encompassed several places: Scoringa (believed to be their land on the Elbe shores), Mauringa , Golanda , Anthaib , Banthaib , and Vurgundaib ( Burgundaib ). According to

4864-439: The side of a river," and a district near Magdeburg is still called the lange Börde. According to this view Langobardi would signify "inhabitants of the long bord of the river;" and traces of their name are supposed still to occur in such names as Bardengau and Bardewick in the neighborhood of the Elbe. According to the Gallaecian Christian priest , historian and theologian Paulus Orosius (translated by Daines Barrington ),

4940-535: The smaller one is 0.45 m (1 ft 6 in) tall and 1.23 m (4 ft 0 in) wide. It probably formed a twin monument together with U 141 on the estate of Fittja, before it was moved to the church to be used as building material in the mid-15th century. Both this runestone and U 141 are identified by von Friesen and Erik Brate as the production of the runemaster Fot . They were commissioned by Guðlaug in memory of her son Holmi who had died in Langbarðaland . Peterson (2002) identifies Guðlaug with

5016-478: The title "King of the Lombards". Before then the Germanic kingdoms had frequently conquered each other, but none had adopted the title of King of another people. Charlemagne took part of the Lombard territory to create the Papal States . The Lombardy region in Italy, which includes the cities of Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, and the old capital Pavia, is a reminder of the presence of the Lombards. Italy runestones The rune stones are engraved in Old Norse with

5092-489: The toils of war." During the reign of King Claffo , the Langobards occupied parts of modern-day Upper and Lower Austria and converted to Arian Christianity . In 505 the Herulians attacked and defeated them, obliging them to pay tax and withdraw to Northern Bohemia . In 508, King Rodulf sent his brother to the Lombard court to collect tribute and extend the truce; however, he was stabbed by Rometrud, sister of King Tato . Rodulf personally led his forces against Tato, but

5168-480: The twelfth century. Wherever they went, they were joined by the Ostrogothic population, which was allowed to live peacefully in Italy with their Rugian allies under Roman sovereignty. The Byzantines managed to retain control of the area of Ravenna and Rome, linked by a thin corridor running through Perugia . When they entered Italy, some Lombards retained their native form of paganism , while some were Arian Christians. Hence they did not enjoy good relations with

5244-736: The two forms of rendering a runic text have to be kept distinct. By not only showing the original inscription, but also transliterating, transcribing and translating, scholars present the analysis in a way that allows the reader to follow their interpretation of the runes. Every step presents challenges, but most Younger Futhark inscriptions are considered easy to interpret. In transliterations, * , : , × , ' and + represent common word dividers . Parentheses, ( ) , represent damaged runes that cannot be identified with certainty, and square brackets, [ ] , represent sequences of runes that have been lost, but can be identified thanks to early descriptions by scholars. A short hyphen, - , indicates that there

5320-404: Was also espoused by Brocman (1762) who considered Holmi to have died in the 12th century for either the Byzantine Emperor or ruler of the Holy Roman Empire . Von Friesen (1913) noted that it is not Lombardy in northern Italy that is intended but Langobardia in southern Italy, which was ruled by the Byzantine Emperor during the 11th century. The Greeks had to fight several battles against

5396-417: Was ambushed and killed from a hill. In the 540s, Audoin (ruled 546–560) led the Lombards across the Danube once more into Pannonia . Thurisind , King of the Gepids attempted to expel them, and both peoples asked for help from the Byzantines. Justinian I sent his army against the Gepids; however, it was routed on the way by the Herulians and the sides signed a two-year truce. Revenging what he felt as

5472-573: Was documented in Sveriges runinskrifter . If the inscription was documented later than the official publication, it is listed according to the publication where it was first described, e.g. Sö Fv1954;22 , where Sö represents Södermanland, Fv stands for the annual publication Fornvännen , 1954 is the year of the issue of Fornvännen and 22 is the page in the publication. There are two rune stones in Uppland that mention Italy. They were raised by

5548-459: Was facing east, and woke him. So Godan spotted the Winnili first and asked, "Who are these long-beards?," and Frea replied, "My lord, thou hast given them the name, now give them also the victory." From that moment onwards, the Winnili were known as the Longbeards (Latinised as Langobardi , Italianised as Longobardi , and Anglicized as Langobards or Lombards ). When Paul the Deacon wrote

5624-616: Was further east, perhaps on the right bank of the Oder . Schmidt considers the name the equivalent of Gotland , meaning simply "good land". This theory is highly plausible; Paul the Deacon mentions the Lombards crossing a river, and they could have reached Rugiland from the Upper Oder area via the Moravian Gate . Moving out of Golanda, the Lombards passed through Anthaib and Banthaib until they reached Vurgundaib, believed to be

5700-493: Was not noticed by scholars until 1857, when it was documented by Richard Dybeck , who initially believed that the parts did not belong together. He corrected this interpretation in his Sverikes runurkunder (1865) where he made a depiction of how they would have looked before they were split. The fragments are in reddish granite and larger part measures 1.02 m (3 ft 4 in) in height and 0.86 m (2 ft 10 in)–1 m (3 ft 3 in) in width, while

5776-695: Was the lands of the lower Elbe. In the mid-second century, the Lombards supposedly appeared in the Rhineland , because according to Claudius Ptolemy , the Suebic Lombards lived "below" the Bructeri and Sugambri , and between these and the Tencteri . To their east stretching northwards to the central Elbe are the Suebi Angili . But Ptolemy also mentions the "Laccobardi" to the north of

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