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700-738] second battle, took prisoner Liutpert, who had again advanced against Pavia, and sent the duke Rothari of Bergamo, who aspired to the throne, into exile to Turin, where he was killed after a few days. Now Ansprand was also obliged to leave his refuge on Lake Como and fly to the duke Teutpert of Bavaria. Liutpert was killed, Ansprand's eldest son blinded, his wife and daughter mutilated, and only his youngest son Liutprand spared. So the family of Godepert ruined the race of Perctarit. But no change of policy took place. King Aripert II was peaceable and friendly towards the Romans, and even gave back to the pope the patrimony in the Cottian Alps. He was dethroned in winter 712, when Ansprand came back to Italy, after nine years of exile, with a Bavarian army. Aripert fled to Pavia and was drowned when trying to swim through the Ticino, burdened with all his treasures. Ansprand was acknowleged as king but only reigned for three months; but on his death-bed he was told that the Lombards had raised his son Liutprand upon the buckler and thereby legitimated his own usurpation as well. He died 13 June 712.

Though Liutprand did not reverse the Lombard State's development during the last hundred and fifty years, he favoured Roman influence within his realm in every way. He left no doubt concerning his orthodoxy and attachment to the Roman faith, while nobody surpassed his generosity towards churches and monasteries, but he still followed the glorious traditions of the victorious kings which had been interrupted after Grimoald, and strictly kept in view his aim of uniting Italy under the Lombard kingdom, although he chose various ways of approaching it in the course of his reign. For this reason he was opposed by the Roman Empire and the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, who had been nearly independent during the Bavarian dynasty's reign. Mixed up in quarrels about the Bavarian throne through his affinity with the dukes of Bavaria, he advanced the Lombard boundaries to Mais near Meran; for the rest the northern frontier was well defended by his friendship with the Frankish Charles Martel, whose son Pepin he had adopted by shaving of the hair according to an old custom, and to whom he had even brought help against the Saracens in Provence (737-738). In domestic politics he continued his predecessor's legislation, endeavoured to protect his subjects against denial of legal help, and intervened with great energy in administration and jurisdiction by the royal court of justice in Pavia and by special missi. His aim was naturally to replace the loose structure of the Lombard State by a series of officials ruled by the king, and one of his most efficient means was to give the preference to the Gasindi, and another was to instal relations and other fideles in all duchies and bishoprics. His ideal of kingship, which is evident in his laws, already shews a great difference from that of the former Lombard kings and is strongly influenced by Roman and ecclesiastical interpretations.