ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the different scholarly opinions held on the issue of Lombard Arianism. It briefly discusses the sources attesting the diffusion of Arian belief and worship in the Lombard Kingdom in Italy. In Giampiero Bognetti's opinion Arianism was only marginally rooted in Lombard society, contrary to the Goths under Theoderic, for whom the Ravenna Papyri suggests the total interdependence of Gothic ethnic identity and Arian belief. The religious preferences of Lombard rulers were, however, purely individual and never affected their political decisions. While King Alboin and his army have been predominantly pagan by the time of their invasion, his successors alternatively adopted policies in favour of Arianism and Catholicism thereby revealing the peaceful coexistence of different faiths and disproving the existence of Arian and Catholic factions among the Lombard aristocracy as outlined by Bognetti. The evidence for the religious preferences of the Lombards is indeed rather ambiguous, even contradictory, because they could be members of the different Christian communities.
