The Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy had used …
Years: 714 - 714
The Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy had used so many Roman governmental institutions that it can most easily be analyzed as if it were part of the late Roman imperial system.
Lombard rule has marked much more of a break, without doubt.
But exactly how much the Lombard states owe to the Roman past and how much to Germanic traditions is still an ongoing debate.
The basic notion of the kingdom as a political system had been a Germanic concept in large part, for the legitimacy of the king rests on his direct relationship with the free Lombard people in arms—the exercitales, or arimanni, who form the basis of the Lombard army.
This concept leaves little room for Romans, who indeed largely disappear from the evidence, even when documents increase again in the eighth century; it is likely that any Romans who wished to remain politically important in the Lombard kingdom had to become “Lombardized.” It is even in dispute, for that matter, how many such Romans there were; Paul the Deacon, for instance, claimed that the Roman aristocracy were largely killed in the first generation of the Lombard invasion.
But this is certainly an exaggeration, because the Lombards have adopted too many customs from the Romans for the latter to have been reduced entirely to subjection.
Some Roman aristocratic families must have survived among the Lombards, as is suggested, for example, by the name of a royal protégé and founder of a monastery in Pavia in 714, Senator, son of Albinus.
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Years: 714 - 714
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