Lombards

Examples of Lombards in the following topics:

• First Romanesque Architecture

  • The style can be attributed to great architectural activity by groups of Lombard teachers and stonemasons working in the Catalan territory during the first quarter of the 11th century.
  • The First Romanesque style, also known as Lombard Romanesque style, is characterized by thick walls, lack of sculpture, and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches known as a Lombard band.
  • For example, Abott Oliba ordered an extension to the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll in 1032 mirroring the First Romanesque characteristics of two frontal towers, a cruise with seven apses, and Lombard ornamentation of blind arches and vertical strips.

• The Rise of Charlemagne

  • The first of these conquering campaigns was against the Lombards; Charlemagne came out victorious and won the Lombard lands to the north of Italy.
  • Charlemagne and his uncle Bernard crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to Pavia, which they then besieged.
  • After the pope granted Charlemagne the title of patrician, he returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering.
  • In return for their lives, the Lombards conceded and opened the gates in early summer.

• Charlemagne's Reforms

  • Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Moorish Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia.
  • The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon from York; Theodulf, a Visigoth, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Lombard; Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Italians; and Angilbert, Angilram, Einhard, and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.

• The Development of Papal Supremacy

  • As the leading civil official of the empire in Rome, he was compelled to take over the civil administration of the cities and negotiate for the protection of Rome itself with the Lombard invaders threatening it.
  • Another part of this phase occurred in the 8th century, after the rise of the new religion of Islam had weakened the Byzantine Empire and the Lombards had renewed their pressure in Italy.

• Charles Martel and Pepin the Short

  • Pope Gregory III, whose realm was being menaced by the Lombards, offered Charles the Roman consulship in exchange for becoming the defender of the Holy See, but Charles declined.
  • Pepin also intervened in favor of the papacy of Stephen II against the Lombards in Italy.

• The Catholic Church

  • During this period the Visigoths and Lombards moved away from Arianism toward Catholicism.

• Intellectual Life

  • Scholars such as Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Peter Lombard (d. 1164) introduced Aristotelian logic into theology.

• The Great Schism of 1054

  • After Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, saved Rome from a Lombard attack, Pope Leo III (not to be confused with the Byzantine Leo III) declared him the new Roman Emperor in 800 CE since a woman (Irene) could not be emperor.

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  • The first migrations of peoples were made by Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii, Jutes and Franks; they were later pushed westwards by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars.

• Justinian and Theodora

  • Soon a new Germanic tribe, the Lombards, came in and conquered most of Italy, though Rome, Naples, and Ravenna remained isolated pockets of Byzantine control.