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626-652] and allowed Catholic service in a church of John the Baptist at Pavia.

The alliance which Agilulf had formed with the Avars was dissolved. They invaded Italy and killed Gisulf, duke of Friuli, with nearly the whole of his army; his widow perfidiously surrendered Cividale which was entirely burnt down and the open country was devastated, the Lombards offering resistance only in the fortified castles at the frontier, till the Avars turned back to Pannonia after their raid. No help was to be expected for Friuli at that time from the weak kingdom; but at last Gisulf's sons escaped from the Avars, and the two eldest, Taso and Cacco, took the reins of government into their hands. While the power of the Avars was decreasing, the young dukes in alliance with Bavarians and Alemans fought successfully against the Slavs, and during Arioald's reign penetrated victoriously into the valleys of the Alps perhaps as far as Windisch-Matrei and the valley of the Gail, and obliged the Slavs to pay tribute. But, following the intention of Arioald, it is said, the exarch quietly removed Taso and Cacco, and their uncle Grasulf was nominated duke of Friuli while the two younger sons of Gisulf, Radoald and Grimoald, appealed to the protection of the mighty duke Arichis of Benevento.

After Arioald's death the nobles in the kingdom elected the duke Rothari of Brescia, an ardent Arian, who was connected with the former dynasty by his marriage with the widowed queen Gundeberga. Nevertheless his policy (unlike that of his predecessors in the last twenty years) was decidedly hostile to the Romans, though he tolerated the gradual establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in the Lombard kingdom. He sought to keep order in all internal matters and to raise the king's authority over the nobles, and to this purpose war against the imperials, which had rested during two decades, was taken up again, in order to strengthen the king's royal domain by new conquests. He passed the Apennines and conquered the coast between Luna and the Frankish boundary; he did not instal dukes here but kept the conquered land under direct royal administration, so that the greater part of the west of Italy was royal. He destroyed Oderzo in the east, the last remnant of Roman power on the Venetian mainland, and slew the imperials in a bloody battle on the borders of the Scultenna not far from the central seat of Roman dominion; he concluded a suspension of hostilities shortly before his death (652). His son Rodoald followed him, but was killed after a few months' reign.

More famous even than by his victorious enterprises and by the saga that attaches itself to the name of "King Rother," Rothari was the first legislator of the Lombards. Up to that time, the Lombards, like all barbarian nations, had been ruled by customary laws, handed down to them verbally by their ancestors. Rothari ordered them to be written down, published as Edictus after having consulted his nobles, and confirmed according to Lombard custom by an assembly of warriors at Pavia