Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/226

198 higher culture. It is certain that regard was paid to the connexion between the fara (clan) in every settlement, but on the other hand it was just the manorial and municipal settlement which entirely destroyed the connexion within the fara, so that the rest of the original clan-organisation soon disappeared. Two of the duchies were somewhat different in origin and organisation from those of the north of Italy, the "great duchies" of Spoleto and Benevento. They did not go back to the time of conquest in common, but were founded by independent enterprises of Lombard bands, who had severed from the great mass under command of their chiefs and invaded the land on their own account. They were much larger in extent than one civitas, so that here the civitas forms a subdivision of the duchy.

In the year 575 or 576 the patrician Baduarius, son-in-law to the Emperor Justin, and his army were entirely beaten by the Lombards. They approached Ravenna, the duke Faroald even occupied for a time Classis, its port, destroyed the Petra Pertusa,, which defended the Via Flaminia, and thereby forced the passage of the Apennines. Faroald occupied Nursia, Spoleto, and other towns and installed an Arian bishop in Spoleto, which was now the centre of his duchy. Another duke, Zotto, who with his partly heathen bands inundated the province of Samnium and spread terror all around, settled down in Benevento. The connexion between Ravenna and Rome was interrupted at times; even Rome was besieged in the year 579, but the Lombards were obliged to give up the siege as well as that of Naples two years later, because Roman walls, kept in good condition and provided with a sufficient number of defenders, were impregnable to them. During the next years the two dukedoms took a still wider range, limited only by Rome with its surroundings and by Byzantine seaport-towns, which could not be taken from the land side. During the kingless time Benevento and Spoleto grew so strong that they were able to keep up their independence.

In the north of Italy too the incoherent government of the dukes did not permit any uniform action. Even in Alboin's time various troops had detached themselves and pillaged in Gaul, but upon the whole these adventurers had no success against Mummolus, commander-in-chief of the Burgundian king Guntram. The Saxons, who did not want to assimilate with the Lombards and intended to make their way home through the land of the Franks, were likewise beaten in the following years.

But these bands had shewn the way into the neighbouring kingdom to the dukes of North Italy. Some of these marched into the upper valley of the Rhone and were beaten by the Burgundians near Bex (574) and no better did they fare next year, as they were repulsed by Mummolus, after having laid waste the land between the Rhone, the Isere and the Alps. At this time Susa and Aosta, the most important passage over the West Alps, seem to have fallen into the hands of the Franks,