Somewhere up between the Aller and the Oder there had been settled, from some unknown period, a people of wild and uncultivated habits, who had occasionally appeared in small detachments in the various gatherings of barbarians who had forced their way into the South. Following the irresistible impulse which seems to impel all the settlers in the North, they traversed the regions already occupied by the Heruleans and the Gepides, and paused, as all previous invasions had done, on the outer boundary of the Danube. These were the Longobards or Lombards, so called from the spears, bardi, with which they were armed; and not long they required to wait till a favourable opportunity occurred for them to cross the stream. In the hurried levies of Narses some of them had offered their services, and had been present at the victory over Totila the Goth. They returned, in all probability, to their companions, and soon the hearts of the whole tribe were set upon the conquest of the beautiful region their countrymen had seen. If they hesitated to undertake so long an expedition, two incidents occurred which made it indispensable. Flying in wild fury and dismay from the face of a pursuing enemy, the Avars, themselves a ferocious Asiatic horde which had terrified the Eastern Empire, came and joined themselves to the Lombards. With united forces, all their tents, and wives and children, their horses and cattle, this dreadful alliance began their progress to Italy. The other incident was, that in revenge for the injustice of his master, and dreading his further malice, Narses himself invited their assistance. Alboin, the Lombard king, was chief of the expedition. He had been refused the hand of Rosamund, the daughter of Cunimond, chief of the Gepides. He poured the combined armies of Lombards and Avars upon the unfortunate tribe, slew the king with his own hand, and, according to the inhuman fashion of his race, formed his drinking-cup of his enemy’s skull. He married Rosamund, and pursued his victorious career. He crossed the Julian Alps, made himself master of Milan and the dependent territories, and was lifted on the shield as King of Italy. At a festival in honour of his successes, he forced his favourite wine-goblet into the hands of his wife. She recognised the fearful vessel, and shuddered while she put her lips to the brim. But hatred took possession of her heart. She promised her hand and throne to Kilmich, one of her attendants, if he would take vengeance on the tyrant who had offered her so intolerable a wrong. The attendant was won by the bride, and slew Alboin. But justice pursued the murderers. They were discovered, and fled to Ravenna, where the Exarch held his court. Saved thus from human retribution, Rosamund brought her fate upon herself. Captivated with the prospect of marrying the Exarch, she presented a poisoned cup to Kilmich, now become her husband, as he came from the bath. The effect was immediate, and the agonies he felt told him too surely the author of his death. |A.D. 575.|He just lived long enough to stab the wretched woman with his dagger, and this frightful domestic tragedy was brought to a close.
Alboin had divided his dominion into many little states and dukedoms. A kind of anarchy succeeded the strong government of the remorseless and clear-sighted king, and enemies began to arise in different directions. The Franks from the south of France began to cross the Alps. The Greek settlements began to menace the Lombards from the South. Internal disunion was quelled by the public danger, and Antharis, the son of Cleph, was nominated king. To strengthen himself against the orthodox Franks, he professed himself a Christian and joined the Arian communion. With the aid of his co-religionists he repelled the invaders, and had time, in the intervals of their assaults, to extend his conquests to the south of the peninsula. There he overthrew the settlements which owned the Empire of the East; and coming to the extreme end of Italy, the savage ruler pushed his war-horse into the water as deep as it would go, and, standing up in his stirrups, threw forward his javelin with all his strength, saying, “That is the boundary of the Lombard power.” Unhappily for the unity of that distracted land, the warrior’s boast was unfounded, and it has continued ever since a prey to discord and division. |A.D. 591.|Another kingdom, however, was added to the roll of European states; and this was the last settlement permanently made on the old Roman territory.
The Lombards were a less civilized horde than any of their predecessors. The Ostrogoths had rapidly assimilated themselves to the people who surrounded them, but the Lombards looked with haughty disdain on the population they had subdued. By portioning the country among the chiefs of the expedition, they commenced the first experiment on a great scale of what afterwards expanded into the feudal system. There were among them, as among the other northern settlers, an elective king and an hereditary nobility, owing suit and service to their chief, and exacting the same from their dependants; and already we see the working of this similarity of constitution in the diffusion throughout the whole of Europe of the monarchical and aristocratic principle, which is still the characteristic of most of our modern states. From this century some authors date the origin of what are called the “Middle Ages,” forming the great and obscure gulf between ancient and modern times. Others, indeed, wish to fix the commencement of the Middle Ages at a much earlier date—even so far back as the reign of Constantine. They found this inclination on the fact that to him we are indebted for the settlement of barbarians within the empire, and the institution of a titled nobility dependent on the crown. But many things were needed besides these to constitute the state of manners and polity which we recognise as those of the Middle Ages, and above them all the establishment of the monarchical principle in ecclesiastical government, and the recognition of a sovereign priest. This was now close at hand, and its approach was heralded by many appearances.
How, indeed, could the Church deprive itself of the organization which it saw so powerful and so successful in civil affairs? A machinery was all ready to produce an exact copy of the forms of temporal administration. There were bishops to be analogous to the great feudataries of the crown; priests and rectors to represent the smaller freeholders dependent on the greater barons; but where was the monarch by whom the whole system was to be combined and all the links of the great chain held together by a point of central union? The want of this had been so felt, that we might naturally have expected a claim to universal superiority to have long ere this been made by a Pope of Rome, the ancient seat of the temporal power. But with his residence perpetually a prey to fresh inroads, a heretical king merely granting him toleration and protection, the pretension would have been too absurd during the troubles of Italy, and it was not advanced for several years. The necessity of the case, however, was such, that a voice was heard from another quarter calling for universal obedience, and this was uttered by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Rome, we must remember, had by this time lost a great portion of her ancient fame. It was reserved for this wonderful city to rise again into all her former grandeur, by the restoration of learning and the knowledge of what she had been. At this period all that was known of her by the ignorant barbarians was, that she was a fresh-repaired and half-peopled town, which had been sacked and ruined five times within a century, that her inhabitants were collected from all parts of the world, and that she was liable to a repetition of her former misfortunes. They knew nothing of the great men who had raised her to such pre-eminence. She had sunk even from being the capital of Italy, and could therefore make no intelligible claim to be considered the capital of the world. Constantinople, on the other hand, which, by our system of education, we are taught to look upon as a very modern creation compared with the Rome of the old heroic ages of the kings and consuls, was at that period a magnificent metropolis, which had been the seat of government for three hundred years. The majesty of the Roman name had transferred itself to that new locality, and nothing was more natural than that the Patriarch of the city of Constantine, which had been imperial from its origin, and had never been defiled by the presence of a Pagan temple, should claim for himself and his see a pre-eminence both in power and holiness. Accordingly, a demand was made in 588 for the recognition throughout the Christian world of the universal headship of the bishopric of Constantinople. But at that time there was a bishop of Rome, whom his successors have gratefully dignified with the epithet of Great, who stood up in defence, not of his own see only, but of all the bishoprics in Europe. Gregory published, in answer to the audacious claim of the Eastern patriarch, a vigorous protest, in which these remarkable words occur:—“This I declare with confidence, that whoso designates himself Universal Priest, or, in the pride of his heart, consents to be so named—he is the forerunner of Antichrist.” It was therefore to Rome, on the broad ground of the Christian