Alboin became king of the Germanic
Lombards in the first half of the 560s and, although he is less well known than
the Franks and the Eastern Romans, Alboin was a major player in the late 6th
century. Warfare would be the area in which this Lombard king excelled, but he
also knew his way around diplomacy. Alboin managed to gain a prestigious
marriage to the Frankish princess, Clothsind, daughter of King Chlotar (d. 561)
of the Franks. He also was able to maintain a working relationship with the
disruptive Avars.
The Lombards had a bitter
rivalry with a people known as the Gepids, or Gepidae, who lived around the
region of Hungary. In command of the Gepids at that time was a certain King
Cunimund, who had the powerful, but unenthusiastic, support of the emperors of
Constantinople. For convoluted and obscure reasons, war soon broke out between
Alboin and Cunimund around 566. The conflict seems to have played out in two wars,
or perhaps two phases of a single war. In the first war or phase, the Lombards
gained an advantage against the Gepids, but the threat of an intervention from Emperor
Justin II of Constantinople (r. 565-578) brought the two sides to a truce.
By this point, the Lombard
king’s first wife, Clothsind, had died and a marriage between Alboin and
Cunimund’s daughter, Rosamund, was floated as a means to keep the peace. Yet,
the proposal was refused and Alboin may have even kidnapped Rosamund. The subsequent
second phase, or second war, was much more destructive—King Alboin called in
the Avars to assist him in the war, whereas the ineffective emperor, Justin II,
provided little help to the Gepids. Whatever the actual reasons and timeline of
the war, all accounts of the conflict between the Lombards and Gepids ended in
the same bloody conclusion: King Cunimund was slain and his kingdom was
conquered by 567. Sources differ on which army, the Lombards or the Avars,
finally killed the king of the Gepids, but Alboin eventually obtained a
gruesome souvenir from the person of the late King Cunimund. The 8th-century
writer, Paul the Deacon, claimed it was the Lombards who dealt the fatal blow
and wrote, “Alboin killed Cunimund, and made out of his head, which he carried
off, a drinking goblet” (History of the
Lombards, Book I, chapter 27). This skull goblet apparently became
something of a Lombard national heirloom, for Paul the Deacon claimed to have
seen it with his own eyes: “Lest this should seem impossible to anyone, I speak
the truth in Christ. I saw king Ratchis holding this cup in his hand on a
certain festal day to show it to his guests” (History of the Lombards, Book II, chapter 28).
With the Gepids defeated,
Rosamund, the daughter of the slain king, fell into the hands of Alboin.
Despite his killing of her father and turning his head into a cup, King Alboin
made the questionable decision to force Rosamund to be his bride. Amazingly,
the awkward newlyweds were able to coexist for several years—this was likely
made easier by the distraction caused by the huge expedition that was
undertaken by King Alboin and his people not long after the marriage. In 568,
the Lombard king and his followers packed their bags and invaded Italy en
masse. The forces of the aforementioned ineffective emperor, Justin II, were
not prepared to face Alboin’s invasion, and, by 572, the Lombards had conquered
much of Italy. The Lombard king settled his court in the city of Verona, and it
was there that Rosamund finally reached her breaking point. Paul the Deacon
described the alleged moment that threw the couple’s strained coexistence out
of balance:
“While he [King Alboin] sat
in merriment at a banquet at Verona longer than was proper, with the cup which
he had made of the head of his father-in-law, king Cunimund, he ordered it to
be given to the queen to drink wine, and he invited her to drink merrily with
her father…. Then Rosemund, when she heard the thing, conceived in her heart
deep anguish she could not restrain, and straightway she burned to revenge the death
of her father by the murder of her husband, and presently she formed a plan
with Helmechis who was the king’s squire” (History
of the Lombards, Book II, chapter 28).
As the final line of the
lengthy quote hints, Rosamund had some supporters and sympathizers in the court
at Verona who were willing to conspire with her against the king. The sources
differ on exactly which method she chose, but they all end in Alboin’s death.
Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594), in his History
of the Franks, claimed that Rosamund and a servant gave the king a fatal
dose of poison. Paul the Deacon, however, painted a more gruesome scene.
According to Paul’s account, Rosamund sabotaged Alboin’s sword and let in an
assassin while the king slept. Alboin, however, woke up before the assassin
could strike. He grasped his sword, but, because of Rosamund’s sabotage, could
not draw the blade from its sheath. Alboin then grabbed a foot-stool as a last
resort and fended off the assassin’s attacks for a time before he was
ultimately dealt a death blow and succumbed to the wound.
Although Gregory of Tours and
Paul the Deacon disagreed of the method of Albion’s death, they both concurred
that the king was indeed killed around 572 and that Rosamund was the ringleader
of the conspiracy. Curiously, they also believed that Rosamund was romantically
involved with one or more of her conspirators. According to Paul the Deacon,
Rosamund and the aforementioned Helmechis were later married and attempted to
lay claim to the kingdom of the Lombards. When this move was rejected by the
Lombard nobles, Rosamund and her new husband fled to Ravenna—they brought with
them Albusinda, a daughter of the late King Alboin by his first wife, and they
also took as much of the Lombard treasury as they could carry. Their choice of
Constantinople-controlled Ravenna as their sanctuary has led many scholars to
believe that the assassination of King Alboin had imperial backing.
Unfortunately, Rosamund and
Helmechis did not live happily ever after. Both Gregory of Tours and Paul the
Deacon claimed that the two met unnatural ends, yet, as before, their accounts
differed on the fine details of their demise. In Gregory’s telling of events,
Rosamund and her accomplice were captured and executed by an unnamed foe, but
the Lombards are inferred from the context the passage. Paul the Deacon,
however, claimed that Rosamund and Helmechis eventually poisoned each other,
and Constantinople seized Princess Albusinda and the Lombard treasury after
their deaths.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Rosamund
forced to drink from the skull of her father, by Pietro della Vecchia (1602
1603–1678), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
Sources:
- The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.
- https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044037773413;view=1up;seq=137
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alboin
- https://www.ancient.eu/Alboin/
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/justin-ii-byzantine-emperor
- https://www.livius.org/articles/person/justin-ii/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Justin-II
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