Editing Alboin (section)

== Assassination ==

=== Earliest narratives ===
{| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5"
| style="text-align: left;" | "When his wife Chlotsinda died, Albin married another wife whose father he had killed a short time before. For this reason, the woman always hated her husband and awaited an opportunity to avenge the wrong done to her father, and so it happened that she fell in love with one of the household slaves and poisoned her husband. When he died she went off with the slave but they were overtaken and put to death together."<ref>Gregory 1916, p. 95</ref>
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| style="text-align: left;" | '''''Gregory of Tours'''''<br> Historia Francorum, Book II, Ch. 41
|}

Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.<ref name="DBI"/>

It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on 28 June 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by [[Marius Aventicensis|Marius of Aventicum]] in his ''Chronica'', written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version, the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called [[Helmichis|Hilmegis]] (Paul's Helmechis),<ref>Martindale 1992, ''s.v. Hilmegis'', p. 599</ref> with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. [[Roger Collins]] describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.<ref name="PLRE3"/><ref name="DBI"/><ref>Collins 1991, pp. 187–188</ref><ref>Jarnut 1995, pp. 31–32</ref>

Also contemporary is [[Gregory of Tours]]' account presented in the ''Historia Francorum'', and echoed by the later [[Chronicle of Fredegar|Fredegar]]. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the ''Historia'' and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".<ref name="WG392">Goffart 1988, p. 392</ref>

=== Skull cup ===
Elements present in Marius' account are echoed in Paul's ''[[Historia Langobardorum]]'', which also contains distinctive features. One of the best-known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the [[skull cup]]. In Paul, the events that led to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast, Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father". This reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.<ref name="HS84"/><ref name="SG1921">Gasparri 1990, pp. 19–21</ref><ref name="HW291">Wolfram 1997, p. 291</ref><ref name="WG391392">Goffart 1988, pp. 391–392</ref>
[[File:School of Rubens - Alboin and Rosamunde.jpg|thumb|alt=Painting of a banquet with many participants in which a bearded man points to a woman with a cup while a seated woman looks the scene|The fatal banquet as painted by [[Peter Paul Rubens]] in 1615]]
The tale has been often dismissed as a fable and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason, he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king [[Ratchis]]. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples and, in particular, among the Lombards' neighbours, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a [[shamanism|shamanistic]] ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.<ref name="HS84"/><ref name="SG1921"/><ref name="WG391392"/>

The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the promised land, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites [[original sin]] and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.<ref name="HS84"/><ref name="WG391392"/>

=== Death ===
[[File:Assassination of Alboin.jpg|thumb|alt=A painting with two men and a woman, in which one man pointing a spear against the other one who is holding a stooge, with the women is holding a sword|Alboin is killed by Peredeo while Rosamund steals his sword, in a 19th-century painting by [[Charles Landseer]]]]
In her plan to kill her husband Rosamund found an ally in Helmichis, the king's foster brother and ''[[spatharios|spatharius]]'' (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king's ''[[cubicularius]]'' (bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on 28 June, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him.<ref name="PLRE3"/><ref name="HW291"/><ref name="JJ32">Jarnut 1995, p. 32</ref> Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.<ref name="WG392"/>

Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the ''Origo'' had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the [[Latin language|Latin]] word ''perditus'', meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.<ref name="WG393">Goffart 1988, p. 393</ref>

Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elbe to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and [[History of Bavaria|Bavarian]]s celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.<ref name="DBI"/><ref name="SG20"/><ref>Wolfram 1997, p. 285</ref>