The Edictum Rothari of 64 gives the gastalds—Lombard officials in charge of some portion of the royal demesne (a gastaldia or castaldia) with civil, martial, and judicial powers—the civil authority in the cities and the reeves the like authority in the countryside.

Territories are delimited under the Lombard dominion by giudicati or "judgments" among the several gastaldi.

Another subdivision of the Bulgars disappears into service under the Lombards, who settle them in the Molise region of southern Italy in the deserted area of Bovianum (modern Boiano, or Bojano), the ancient Samnite capital, which becomes a seat of a gastaldate.