Editing Lombards (section)

===Social structure===

====Migration Period society====
During their stay at the mouth of the Elbe, the Lombards came into contact with other western Germanic populations, such as the Saxons and the [[Frisians]]. From these populations, which had long been in contact with the [[Celts]] (especially the Saxons), they adopted a rigid social organization into castes, rarely present in other Germanic peoples.<ref>{{harvnb|Cardini|2019|p=82}}</ref>

The Lombard kings can be traced back as early as c. 380 and thus to the beginning of the [[Migration Period|Great Migration]]. Kingship developed among the Germanic peoples when the unity of a single military command was found necessary. Schmidt believed that the Germanic tribes were divided into [[canton (country subdivision)|cantons]] and that the earliest government was a general assembly that selected canton chiefs and war leaders in times of conflict. All such figures were probably selected from a caste of nobility. As a result of the wars of their wanderings, royal power developed such that the king became the representative of the people, but the influence of the people on the government did not fully disappear.<ref>{{harvnb|Schmidt|2018|pp=76–77}}</ref> Paul the Deacon gives an account of the Lombard tribal structure during the migration:
<blockquote>
... in order that they might increase the number of their warriors, [the Lombards] confer liberty upon many whom they deliver from the yoke of bondage, and that the freedom of these may be regarded as established, they confirm it in their accustomed way by an arrow, uttering certain words of their country in confirmation of the fact.
</blockquote>
Complete emancipation appears to have been granted only among the Franks and the Lombards.<ref>{{harvnb|Schmidt|2018|p=47}}</ref>

====Society of the Catholic kingdom====
{{See also|Duke (Lombard)}}
Lombard society was divided into classes comparable to those found in the other Germanic successor states of Rome, [[Frankish Empire|Frankish Gaul]] and [[Hispania|Spain]] under the [[Visigoths]]. There was a noble class, a class of free persons beneath them, a class of unfree non-slaves (serfs), and finally slaves. The aristocracy itself was poorer, more urbanised, and less landed than elsewhere. Aside from the richest and most powerful of the dukes and the king himself, Lombard noblemen tended to live in cities (unlike their Frankish counterparts) and hold little more than twice as much in land as the merchant class (a far cry from provincial Frankish aristocrats who held vast swathes of land, hundreds of times larger than those beneath his status). The aristocracy by the eighth century was highly dependent on the king for means of income related especially to judicial duties: many Lombard nobles are referred to in contemporary documents as ''iudices'' (judges) even when their offices had important military and legislative functions as well.

The freemen of the Lombard kingdom were far more numerous than in Frankish lands, especially in the eighth century, when they are almost invisible in surviving documentary evidence. Smallholders, owner-cultivators, and rentiers are the most numerous types of person in surviving diplomata for the Lombard kingdom. They may have owned more than half of the land in Lombard Italy. The freemen were ''exercitales'' and ''viri devoti'', that is, soldiers and "devoted men" (a military term like "retainers"); they formed the [[Conscription#Medieval levies|levy]] of the Lombard army, and they were sometimes, if infrequently, called to serve, though this seems not to have been their preference. The small landed class, however, lacked the political influence necessary with the king (and the dukes) to control the politics and legislation of the kingdom. The aristocracy was more thoroughly powerful politically if not economically in Italy than in contemporary Gaul and Spain.
[[File:BRONZETTO.jpg|thumb|Lombard warrior, bronze statue, eighth century, [[Pavia Civic Museums]]]]

The urbanisation of Lombard Italy was characterised by the {{lang|it|città ad isole}} (or "city as islands"). It appears from archaeology that the great cities of Lombard Italy—[[Pavia]], [[Lucca]], [[Siena]], [[Arezzo]], [[Milan]]—were themselves formed of small urban cores within the old Roman city walls. The cities of the Roman Empire had been partially destroyed in the series of wars of the fifth and sixth centuries. Many sectors were left in ruins and ancient monuments became fields of grass used as pastures for animals, thus the [[Roman Forum]] became the ''Campo Vaccino'', the field of cows. The portions of the cities that remained intact were small, modest, contained a cathedral or major church (often sumptuously decorated), and a few public buildings and townhouses of the aristocracy. Few buildings of importance were stone, most were wood. In the end, the inhabited parts of the cities were separated from one another by stretches of pasture even within the city walls.

====Lombard states====
* Lombard state on the Carpathians (sixth century)
* Lombard state in Pannonia (sixth century)
* [[Kingdom of Italy (Lombard)|Kingdom of Italy]] and [[List of kings of the Lombards]]
* [[Principality of Benevento]] and [[List of dukes and princes of Benevento]]
* [[Principality of Salerno]] and [[List of princes of Salerno]]
* [[Principality of Capua]] and [[List of princes of Capua]]