I get asked this question occasionally at events – usually as the followup to “What are you? You don’t really look like a Viking or an Anglo-Saxon and your shoes are weird.” The shortest answer I can usually provide is, “well, they were sort of like the Angles or Saxons of Italy.” The rest of this post is the long answer.
In the centuries that followed the decline of Roman control in much of Europe, many Germanic-speaking groups were on the move (as well as people from the steppes to the east, but that’s a whole other post). Groups like the Goths are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia, while the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes left the northern coast of continental Europe for Britain. Most of this was going on from the late 4th through the 5th century CE, and the Langobards (also referred to as Lombards) were fairly late to the party. Early medieval historical accounts, like that of Paul the Deacon (a cleric of Langobard descent writing in the late 8th century CE) give a mythological origin that may be somewhere in southernmost Sweden, and the archaeological record shows a pretty clear trail of evidence from the southern part of the Jutland Peninsula (modern-day Denmark/Germany) south to the Carpathian Basin in Hungary.
Although now disputed, the sources have traditionally give 568 CE as the “magic moment” when the Langobards entered what is now northeastern Italy from the Roman province of Pannonia (including parts of modern-day Austria and Hungary). The exact year might be up for grabs, and recent scholarship also indicates that it was more complex than a single invasion event or “arriving in the promised land.” The Italian peninsula had already been invaded by the Goths and suffered through the Plague of Justinian a generation prior, and some experts suggest that the Langobards were actually invited as part of the ongoing political machinations within the Byzantine Empire. Paul the Deacon himself notes that the Langobards brought a number of other people with them as well, and – the idea of distinct “tribes” or ethnic groups within the larger body of migrating Germanic-language peoples by this point is also far more essentialist than it needs to be. The short version is that, in the second half of the 6th century CE, people who called themselves Langobards entered Italy and established a kingdom there that would last for about 200 years until it was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne in 774 CE.
So why the interest in the Langobards? For one, I like the idea of helping to portray one of the less common groups represented in the SCA. My great-grandmother on my Italian side was named Ermelinda, also the name of the wife of one of the Langobard kings, but I don’t lay any claim to that heritage. What I do enjoy is the way Langobard material culture reflected the intersection of late Roman and Germanic arts and culture. I also enjoy the challenge of researching a time period with less surviving evidence – there’s no fully-dressed bog body or clear and undisputed artistic depiction to go by. Chronologically, my target period is right on the cusp of many changes, from shoe and tunic construction to religion. So no, I’m not a Viking – I’m a few centuries and a lot of miles away. My shoes look weird because there’s not much evidence for turnshoes by 600 CE. My SCA name is in Latin because the Langobards quickly adopted it as a bureaucratic language (relying on the existing Roman system). Anyway, I’m certainly no expert on Langobard history and culture, but I’m always trying to learn more and happy to share what I do know.
farolfvs me fecit 