This volume presents the analysis, English translation, and critical edition of the Latin text of The Little History of the Lombards of Benevento, thus offering an important contribution for a better understanding of early medieval southern Italian (and Mediterranean) history. In the 840s, having passed the danger of subjugation by Charlemagne, southern Italy’s Lombards experienced a bloody civil war that put an end to their unity and turned southern Italy into the playground of several competing powers: Lombard lords, the Neapolitans, the Frankish and the Byzantine Empires, the Muslims, and, sometimes, even the papacy. At the end of the ninth century, the Cassinese monk Erchempert composed a chronicle about this period that blamed the southern Lombard leaders for the terrible crisis of southern Italy. It was Erchempert’s desire that future generations could learn from the folly of their forbearers, and his chronicle has since become the most relevant source for southern Italy between the 770s and the 880s. The book will appeal to scholars and students of chronicles, Lombards, Franks, Byzantines, and Muslims in early medieval Italy, as well as all those interested in medieval Europe.

This book offers a survey of the history and archaeology of the Longobards (known until recently as the Lombards), one of the many barbarian tribes who exploited the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Lombard has been called the "Lilac Village" since the late 1920s when William R. Plum, affectionately known as the "Colonel," bestowed his world-renowned lilac collection to the village for use as its first public park. Colonel Plum's 2.5-acre estate was known as Lilacia and began in 1911 after a trip to the Lemoine Lilac Gardens in France. By the time Plum passed away in 1927, he had amassed over 200 varieties of lilacs and had the largest collection of French hybrids in the world. Jens Jensen, the famous landscape architect, designed a public space out of Plum's lilac collection with winding paths of native limestone, tulips by the thousands, and a lily pond in the park. The first community-wide Lilac Festival was held in May of 1930, unveiling Jensen's Lilacia and including a Lilac Queen and Court, a pageant, parade, and wide variety of events and festivities celebrating the village's new park.

Here presented for the first time in English are the law codes of the Lombard kings who ruled Italy from the sixth to the eighth centuries. The documents afford unparalleled insight into the structure and values of Germanic society.

This book re-evaluates the impact of war in creating early medieval Italy. Through a complete reassessment of contemporary and later sources, it rewrites the history of the first decades of Lombard rule, demonstrating that the impact of warfare went far beyond battles and invasions.

History of the Lombards, by Paul the Deacon (c. 720-c. 799), is among the most important and oldest accounts of the Germanic nation. The book preserves many ancient myths and popular traditions and draws from sources that are now lost. The history traces the changing fortunes of the Lombards, the last of the migratory Germanic peoples to enter the western part of the old Roman Empire, from their first appearance in the West in the sixth century to the middle of the eighth century. The popularity of Paul the Deacon's book has endured over the centuries and, although there have been numerous translations and editions, this remains the only one in English.