Editing Alboin (section)

=== Foundation of the Duchy of Friuli ===
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| style="text-align: left;" | "When Alboin without any hindrance had thence entered the territories of Venetia [...] – that is, the limits of the city or rather of the fortress of Forum Julii (Cividale) – he began to consider to whom he should especially commit the first of the provinces that he had taken. [...] he determined [...] to put over the city of Forum Julii and over its whole district, his nephew Gisulf [...] This Gisulf announced that he would not first undertake the government of the city and people unless Alboin would give him the "faras", that is, the families or stocks of the Langobards that he himself wished to choose. And this was done"<ref>Paul 1907, pp. 64–66</ref>
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| style="text-align: left;" | '''''Paul the Deacon'''''<br> Historia Langobardorum, Book II, Ch. 9
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The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops (''[[Late Roman army#Limitanei|milities limitanei]]''). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in [[Friuli]] "without any hindrance".<ref>Christie 1998, pp. 73, 76</ref>

The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was [[Cividale del Friuli|Forum Iulii]] (Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local ''magister militum''.<ref name="DBI"/> Alboin chose this walled town close to the frontier to be capital of the [[Duchy of Friuli]] and made his nephew and [[shield bearer]], [[Gisulf I of Friuli|Gisulf]], [[Duke (Lombard)|duke]] of the region, with the specific duty of defending the borders from Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those ''[[Fara (Lombard)|farae]]'', or clans, that he preferred.<ref name="JJ30"/><ref>Christie 1998, pp. 93–94</ref><ref name="HW2878">Wolfram 1997, pp. 287–288</ref>

Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the ''[[comes]] [[civitas|civitatis]]'' (city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count (''comes'') to duke (''dux'') and from county (''comitatus'') to duchy (''ducatus'') also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy.<ref name="HW2878"/> The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.<ref>Christie 1998, p. 77</ref>