Ethnogenesis
History
Who Were the Longobards?
The Longobards — the "Long Beards" of their own origin legends — first appear in Roman sources as a small tribe along the lower Elbe, far from the Mediterranean world they would eventually dominate. Their early history is obscure, preserved mainly in later legends that told of migration from Scandinavia, divine favor from Wodan, and a queen who named her people by tricking the god into looking upon their warriors at dawn, their women standing beside them with hair combed across their faces like beards. Whatever the truth behind such tales, the Longobards proved survivors in a brutal age.
By the sixth century they had pushed southeast into Pannonia (modern Hungary), serving as Byzantine foederati and absorbing remnants of other peoples — Gepids, Bulgars, Saxons who joined their migration. When Alboin led them into Italy in 568 CE, the Longobards were no longer a single tribe but a military confederation, hardened by generations of warfare and ready to exploit the exhaustion that Justinian's Gothic Wars had inflicted on the peninsula.
Homeland and Way of Life
Longobard Italy was never a unified kingdom in the modern sense. The conquerors established a patchwork of duchies — Friuli and Spoleto in the north and center, Benevento in the south — that acknowledged royal authority from Pavia but often acted independently. Between these Longobard territories, Byzantine enclaves persisted: Ravenna, Rome, Naples, and the southern coasts. Italy became a checkerboard of competing powers, with Longobard dukes, Byzantine governors, and papal diplomats maneuvering constantly for advantage.
The Longobards settled as a military aristocracy, seizing Roman estates and reducing many provincial landowners to subordinate status. Yet unlike the Goths, they showed less interest in preserving Roman administrative traditions — at least initially. Early Longobard Italy was rough, decentralized, and violent. Gradually, however, the conquerors absorbed Italian ways. They converted from Arianism to Catholic Christianity, adopted Latin as their written language, and developed sophisticated law codes that blended Germanic custom with Roman legal concepts. By the eighth century, Longobard nobles were founding monasteries, patronizing artists, and living in ways their Elbe-dwelling ancestors would barely recognize.
Warfare, Power, and Limits
Longobard military strength rested on heavy cavalry — armored lancers who formed the core of royal and ducal armies. Free Longobard warriors owed military service and equipped themselves according to wealth; the richest fought mounted with lance, sword, and mail, while poorer men served as infantry with spear and shield. This created effective strike forces but limited armies in size. The Longobards could defeat Byzantine field armies and raid papal territory but struggled to reduce fortified cities or maintain long sieges.
Their political fragmentation proved equally limiting. The great dukes of Spoleto and Benevento pursued their own agendas, sometimes allying with Byzantines or popes against their own kings. Royal assassinations were common; several kings died violently at the hands of rivals or disgruntled nobles. This instability prevented the Longobards from ever completing their conquest of Italy — Rome and Ravenna remained tantalizingly close but permanently out of reach, and papal appeals to Frankish protectors would eventually doom the kingdom entirely.
Beliefs, Customs, and Society
The Longobards arrived in Italy as Arians, their Christianity tinged with older Germanic practices that horrified Catholic observers. Queen Theodelinda, a Bavarian Catholic princess, began the long process of conversion that would culminate in the mid-seventh century. Monasteries became crucial institutions, and Longobard nobles competed in founding religious houses that served as family power bases, burial sites, and centers of literacy. The monastery of Bobbio, founded by the Irish missionary Columbanus with royal support, became one of medieval Europe's great libraries.
Longobard law, codified under King Rothari in 643 and expanded by later rulers, reveals a society transitioning from tribal customs to territorial governance. Blood-feuds gave way to regulated compensation; women gained property rights unusual for the early medieval period; freed slaves occupied a recognized intermediate status. The laws also show Roman influence creeping in — written contracts, witnesses, formal procedures that would have puzzled Longobards of the Elbe. Society stratified into nobles, free warriors, semi-free aldii, and slaves, but mobility between ranks remained possible through military service or royal favor.
Contacts, Conflicts, and Legacy
The Longobards existed in permanent tension with their neighbors. Byzantine emperors never accepted the loss of Italy and periodically attempted reconquest. The papacy — trapped between Longobard pressure from the north and Byzantine neglect from the east — developed independent diplomacy, playing Longobards against Byzantines while seeking Frankish protection. Longobard kings dreamed of capturing Rome, but each advance triggered papal appeals across the Alps that would eventually bring Frankish armies south.
The end came in 774 when Charlemagne besieged Pavia and took the Lombard crown for himself. The northern kingdom disappeared into the Carolingian empire, though the southern Duchy of Benevento survived as an independent Longobard state until the Norman conquests of the eleventh century. The Longobard legacy persisted in Italian law, in the regional identity of Lombardy, in the architecture of churches they founded, and in the papal states that emerged partly in reaction to Longobard pressure — a political creation that would shape Italian history for a millennium.
Abilities
In Glory of Civilizations, the Longobards combine military flexibility with religious expansion as tools of settlement. Substituting cloth for weapons during recruitment reflects their pragmatic approach to equipping diverse warrior bands during their long migrations. Gaining peasants through religious spread captures how Longobard Christianity became intertwined with colonization, monasteries anchoring new settlements across Italy. The ability to explore provinces through religious spread suggests missionary activity pushing into frontier regions, while their free choice of Christianity represents the relatively smooth conversion that distinguished Longobard religious history from bloodier transitions elsewhere.
Longobards I
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FAQ
How do I spread religion into an unexplored province?
The same way you spread into an explored province without enemy control. You can use the Quick Spread rule — simply pay 1 mead, and the spread is automatically successful. The province is then explored as part of the same action.
Can I use the cloth-for-weapon substitution multiple times in one turn?
Yes. If you place action cubes on a recruitment area again and perform another recruit action, you may substitute cloth for weapon again. The ability applies each time you recruit.
During my first Reform action, can I choose both a government form and change my religion?
No. During your first Reform action you may only choose a government form. You already have a religion — Christianity, which you chose as a free action — so there is no religion to change during that first Reform.