ABSTRACT
In the time of Gregory the Great the Lombard's had seized the papal lands in the north, and Lombard conquests down the center of the peninsula menaced the papal lands in middle Italy. Perhaps this danger as much as their Arianism, caused the deep papal resentment against the Lombard's and persuaded the popes to remain on good terms with the Byzantine Empire, on which they relied for military support against the Lombard's. The new Lombard King Aistulf revived Liutprand's ambitious plans to unify Italy, and again the Lombard's menaced both the Byzantine dominions and those of the papacy. By the end of the century the Lombard's had become well Romanized: they were no longer barbarians. The authority of the Empire was weak except in south Italy, and apparently it was Gregory IPs bold design to deny imperial authority entirely and to make the quasi-temporal papal power in Central Italy a real temporal power.
