v23_0923 - PRINCIPALITY OF BENEVENTO, ARECHIS II Triens

PRINCIPALITY OF BENEVENTO, ARECHIS II

(774-787)

"The Duke of Benevento Arichis II refused to submit to Charlemagne; in 774 he took the title of prince, thus asserting his full sovereignty. The former Duchy of Benevento became the last refuge of the Lombard nation and its traditions. The principality Benevento, divided into two in 848 - 849 (Bevenvent and Salerno), then into three in 981 (with the separation of Capua and Benevento) continued for almost three centuries to undergo alternate Frankish and Byzantine political influences, but without Benevento was given to the Pope in 1051, Capua was taken by the Normans in 1058, Salerno in 1077, but Lombard law continued to be applied in most of the Midday throughout the Middle Ages Finally, symbolically, the capture of Rome by the Italians and the end of the Papal States in 1870 can be considered as the last posthumous victory of the Lombards who, in spite of themselves, had given rise, in the 8th century, to the formation of a papal territory in central Italy". (cf. The Lombards, the last barbarians of the Roman world by Jean-Pierre Martin, research director at the CNRS).