ABSTRACT
The years of Lombard rule in Italy offer a contrast to those of the Ostrogoths. The horror of the Italian provincial and bishops as Gregory the Great for the ‘foul and leprous Lombards’ was probably inspired by the original fighting fierceness of the Lombards and by the long misery of a protracted and piecemeal conquest. The Lombards who entered Italy in 568 under Alboin’s leadership were not numerous: they were accompanied by numbers of Saxon and Bulgar auxiliaries. The stream of east Mediterranean and African refugees to Italy after the Arab conquests increased the Byzantine influence, particularly as regards ecclesiastical art and liturgy. In the Lombard settlements there was no system of ‘thirding’ or of conquerors hospitati on Roman landowners, as with the Ostrogoths. The Lombard art and art-forms survive rather in stone buildings and marble sculpture, capitals and altar slabs, than in metal work.
