Duke (Lombard)
Encyclopedia
Among the Lombards
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...

, the duke
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

or dux
Dux
Dux is Latin for leader and later for Duke and its variant forms ....

was the man who act as political and military commander of a set of "military families" (the Fara), irrespective of any territorial appropriation.

Etymology

It is not known the proper term of the Lombard language to indicate the figure of the duke; also the oldest Lombard historiographical sources(the anonymous Origo gentis Langobardorum
Origo Gentis Langobardorum
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum is a short 7th century account offering a founding myth of the Lombard people. The first part visions the origin and naming of the Lombards, and the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit , which helps date the original writing of...

and Historia Langobardorum of Paul Deacon
Paul Deacon
Paul Deacon is a retired rugby league footballer. He previously played for Bradford Bulls from 1998 until joining his hometown club Wigan Warriors in 2010...

) were written in Latin. The Latin word dux
Dux
Dux is Latin for leader and later for Duke and its variant forms ....

was adopted to designate a political figure and military that had no exact equivalent in the classical world, thus redefining the concept of "duke" in a form that would then know further developments in later centuries.

History

The figure of the Duke emerged between the 4th century and 5th centuries, when the German people had settled between the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

 and the current northern Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

. At that time, the Lombards were nomads and arranged in homogeneous groups and compact families originate from the same noble clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...

, able to organize themselves into quotas with military functions: the Fare. The Dukes were the leaders of the Fare. They were honored warriors of that office for the dynastic ties and the valor shown in war, then rewarded by the king. In the figure of the Lombard Duke are then mixed military elements, noble, sacral (invested by the king, attended his "charisma"), political, judicial and administrative. In the assembly of the people in arms ( "Gairethinx
Gairethinx
The gairethinx was a Lombard ceremony in which edicts and laws were affirmed by the army. It may have involved the entire army banging their spears on their shields. It may have been a much quieter event....

"), the dukes had a prominent role, and were decisive in the election of the same king.

Once in Italy, the ducal institution gradually became a link with the territory, but always subordinate to the political-military status of the Duke. Since the first city conquered by 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, Cividale, in any militarily significant urban center was installed a duke, with a mandate to lead the Lombards Warriors settled in nearby areas "in Fara" against any enemy threats. From that first settlement, the duke establishment, had however a dual character: on the one hand, the Duke was a commander of an army, the other was the head of a fraction of the people ( "gens"), and therefore subject to the expectations and traditions (management of power, military activity, the division of wealth) of the people themselves. The Duke was then given a royal investiture and a political-military nature, but at the same time also carries a unique conception of power as an element-guarantor of a particular social structure (that of the Fara). The coexistence of these two opposing factors characterize all the existence of the Lombard Kingdom, in constant tension between the centralizing impulses of sovereign power and aspirations for autonomy of the Dukes; over the centuries was witnessed the transition from a greater Ducal independence (so that for the ten years of the so-called Rule of the Dukes
Rule of the Dukes
The Rule of the Dukes was an interregnum in the Lombard Kingdom of Italy during which Italy was ruled by the Lombard dukes of the old Roman provinces and urban centres...

, 574 to 584, they ruled as absolute monarchs in their seats) to a growing assertion of central power, but without their aspirations for autonomy completely settled.

With the defeat of the Lombard kingdom (774
774
Year 774 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 774 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 :* Charlemagne conquers the kingdom of the...

) by the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 of 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...

, the figure of the Lombard Duke was replaced by the Frankish count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

; however, the Duchy of 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...

remained outside the Carolingian Empire, and maintained a substantial degree of autonomy.
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