LOMBARDS, a German people of the Suevie family, not very numerous, but of dis tinguished valor, who played an important part in the early history of Europe. The name is derived from Longobardi, or Langobardi, a Latinized form in use since the 12th c., and was formerly supposed to have been given with reference to the long beards of this people; but it is tIONY derived rather from a word parta, or barte, which signifies a battle-axe. About the 4th c. they seem to have begun to leave their original seats (on the lower Elbe, where the Romans seem to have come first in contact with them about the beginning of the Christian era), and to have fought their way southward and east I ward till they came into close contact with the eastern Roman empire on the Danube, adopted an Arian form of Christianity, and after having been for some time tributary to the Heruli, raised themselves upon the ruins of their power, and of that of the Gepidre, shortly after the middle of the 6th c., to the position of masters of Pannonia, and became one of the most wealthy and powerful nations in that part of the world. Under their king Alboin (q.v.), they invaded and conquered the n. and center of Italy (568-69). The more complete tritunph of the Lombards was promoted by the aceession of strength which they received from other tribes following them over the Alps—Bulgarians, Sarma tians, Pannonians, Norici, Memanni, Suevi, Gepidte, and Saxons—for the numbers of the Lombards themselves were never very great.
The Lombards, after the example of the Romans themselves in the conquests of former times, were for the most part contented with a third of the land or of ita fruits. (hie of their kings, Authari (584-90), assumed the title of Flavius, which had been borne by sonic of the later Roman einperors, and asserted the usual claims of a Roman ruler; while the administration of the Lombard kingdom was soon so superior to that which then prevailed in other parts of Italy that to many the change of masters was a positive relief from unjust and severe exactions. While the higher nobility, however, in general retained some portion of their former wealth and greatness, the possessors of small properties became fewer in number, and sunk into the class of mere cultivators, to whom it was comparatively indifferent whether they acknowledged a Roman or a Lombard superior. The rights of the municipal corporations also, although acknowl
edged, were gradually abridged, partly through the encroachments of the Lombard dukes, and partly through those of the higher clergy, till few relics of their ancient self government remained. These few, however, were the germs from which, at a subse quent period, the liberties of the independent Italian cities were developed.
The conversion of the Arian Lombards to the orthodox faith was brought about by the policy of Gregory the great and the zeal of Theodolinda, wife of Authari, and subse quently of his successor, Agilulf (590-615).
Theodolinda persuaded Agilulf to restore a portion of their property and dignities to the Catholic clergy, and to have his own son baptized according to the Catholic rites. She also built the magnificent basilica of St. John the baptist at Monza, near Milan, in. which in subsequent times was kept the Lombard crown, called the iron crown (q.v.). The Lombards were ere long fully united to the Roman Catholic church. The contests of the dukes prevented the firm consolidation of the kingdom, or any very considerable .extensiou of its boundaries. The edict of the Lombard king, Rothari (638-54), declar ing the laws of the Lombards, promulgated Nov. 22, 643, is memorable, as having become the foundation of constitutional law in the Germanic kingdoms of the middle ages. It was revised and extended by subsequent Lombard kings, but subsisted in force for several centuries after the Lombard kingdom had passed away. The Lombards, however, gradually became more and more assimilated to the former inhabitants of the land of which they had made themselves lords; their rudeness was exchanged for refine ment, and the Latin langusyre prevailed over the German, which they had brought with them from the other side ofbthe Alps. But of the original Lombard language little is known, nothing remaining to attest its certainly German character except a few words and names, the very ballads in which the stories of Lombard heroes were recorded hav ing only come down to us in Latin versions.