Duchy of Friuli
Encyclopedia
The Duchy of Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...

was one of the great territorial Lombard
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 duchies, the first to be established. It was an important buffer between the Lombard kingdom of Italy and the Slavs. Along with the duchies of Spoleto
Duchy of Spoleto
The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...

, Benevento
Duchy of Benevento
The Duchy and later Principality of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in medieval Italy, centred on Benevento, a city central in the Mezzogiorno. Owing to the Ducatus Romanus of the popes, which cut it off from the rest of Lombard Italy, Benevento was from the first practically...

 and Trent, the lords of Friuli often attempted to establish their independence from the royal authority seated at Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

.

The province of Friuli (Venetia) was the first province of Italy to be conquered by the Lombards under Alboin
Alboin
Alboin was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572...

 in 568. Before continuing on to penetrate Italy further, Alboin placed the government of the district under his nephew Gisulf I
Gisulf I of Friuli
Gisulf I was probably the first duke of Friuli , a nephew of Alboin, first king of the Lombards in Italy. Alboin appointed him duke around 569 after the Lombard conquest of the region, though some scholars believe he appointed Gisulf's father, his brother, Grasulf, duke.Before this, Gisulf had been...

, who was allowed to choose the faras or noble families with which he wished to settle the land. The original duchy was bound by the Carnic Alps
Carnic Alps
The Carnic Alps are a range of the Southern Limestone Alps in East Tyrol, Carinthia, South Tyrol and Friuli . They extend from east to west for about between the Gail River, a tributary of the Drava and the Tagliamento, forming the border between Austria and Italy.They are named after the Roman...

 and Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...

 to the north and east and was hardly accessible from those directions. It was bound by the Exarchate of Ravenna
Exarchate of Ravenna
The Exarchate of Ravenna or of Italy was a centre of Byzantine power in Italy, from the end of the 6th century to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the Lombards.-Introduction:...

 to the south, where it did not have a coastline until later, and by a plain that led to Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....

, a perfect access point for invaders, such as the Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

, Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...

, and later the Magyars. Its western border was originally undefined, until further conquests had established the Duchy of Ceneda
Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto is a city and comune situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the northeast of the Italian peninsula, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers.-Geography:...

, which lay beyond the Tagliamento river, between the Livenza and the Piave
Piave River
Piave is a river in north Italy. It begins in the Alps and flows southeast for into the Adriatic Sea near the city of Venice....

 Rivers. The original chief city in the province was the Roman Aquileia
Aquileia
Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...

, but the Lombard capital of Friuli was Forum Julii, modern Cividale del Friuli
Cividale del Friuli
-External links:*...

.

In 615, Concordia
Concordia Sagittaria
Concordia Sagittaria is a town and comune in the province of Venezia, Veneto, Italy.-History:The town was founded in 42 BC as Iulia Concordia by the Romans, where the Via Annia and the Via Postumia crossed each other...

 was conquered and in 642 Opitergium, as the dukes extended their authority southwards against the exarchate. In 663, Cividale was briefly captured by the Avars, but Grimoald I of Benevento
Grimoald I of Benevento
Grimoald I was duke of Benevento and king of the Lombards .Born probably before 610 to Duke Gisulf II of Friuli and the Bavarian princess Ramhilde, daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria, he succeeded his brother Radoald as duke of Benevento...

 retook it. After the Siege of Pavia
Siege of Pavia
The Siege or Battle of Pavia was fought in 773–774 in what is now northern Italy, near Ticinum , and resulted the victory of Franks under Charlemagne against the Lombards under king Desiderius.-Background:...

 in 774, Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

 allowed Hrodgaud
Hrodgaud of Friuli
Hrodgaud or Rodgand was the Duke of Friuli from 774 to 776. Probably he was already duke under Desiderius, even if some Frankish sources, such as the Einhardis annales, say that Charlemagne put him in power after the Siege of Pavia....

 to keep the duchy. When Hrodgaud rebelled and was killed in battle in 776
776
Year 776 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 776 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* April 14 – Charlemagne spends Easter in...

, Charlemagne replaced his with Macarius
Marcarius of Friuli
Marcarius was the Duke of Friuli from 776 to 787. He was the first Friulian duke appointed by Charlemagne after the rebellion of the Lombard Hrodgaud. He was probably not a Lombard...

. The duchy continued under Frankish rule until 828, when it was divided into counties and broken up. It would later be reformed into the March of Friuli
March of Friuli
The March of Friuli was a Carolingian frontier march against the Slavs and Avars in the ninth and tenth centuries. It was a successor to the Lombard Duchy of Friuli....

 in 846.

Sources

  • Paul the Deacon
    Paul the Deacon
    Paul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...

    . Historia Langobardorum. Translated by William Dudley Foulke. University of Pennsylvania: 1907.
  • Hodgkin, Thomas
    Thomas Hodgkin (historian)
    Thomas Hodgkin , British historian, son of John Hodgkin , barrister and Quaker minister, and Elizabeth Howard ....

    . Italy and her Invaders. Clarendon Press: 1895.
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