46 LOME A R D S. 
interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a friendly 
and ineffectual mediation. His -fon Pepin, the heir of 
his power and virtues, affumed the office of champion of 
the Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince 
appears to have been prompted by the love of glory and 
religion. But the danger was on the banks of the Tiber, 
the fuccour on thofe of the Seine; and our fympathy is 
cold to the relation of diftant mifery. Amidtt the tears 
of the city, Stephen III. embraced the generous refolution 
of vifiting in perfon the courts of Lombardy and France, 
to deprecate the injuftice of his enemy, or to excite the 
pity and indignation of his friend. After Toothing the 
public defpair by litanies and orations, he undertook this 
laborious journey with the ambafladors of the French mo- 
starch and the 6reek emperor. The king of the Lom¬ 
bards was inexorable; 'but his threats could not filence 
the complaints, nor retard the fpeed, of the Roman pon¬ 
tiff, who traverfed the Pennine Alps, repofed in the abbey 
of St. Maurice, and haftened to grafp the right-hand of 
his proteftor, a band which was never lifted in vain, ei¬ 
ther in war or rriendlhip. Stephen was entertained as the 
vifible fuccelfor of the-apoftle; at the next affembly, the 
field of March or of May, (A. D. 754.) his injuries were 
expofed to a devoutand warlike nation; and he repaired the 
Alps, not as a fuppliant, but like a conqueror, at the head 
of a French army, which was led by the king in perfon. 
The Lombards, after a weak refiftance, obtained an igno¬ 
minious peace, and fwore to reftore the poffefiions, and to 
refpeft the fanftity, of the Roman church. But no fooner 
was Aftolphus delivered from the prefence of the French 
arms, than he forgot his promife, and relented his dil- 
grace. Rome was again encompaffed by his arms; and 
Stephen, apprehenlive of fatiguing the zeal of his tranfal- 
pine allies, enforced his complaint and requeft by an elo¬ 
quent letter in the name and perfon of St. Peter himfelf. 
The apoftle is made to allure his adoptive fons, the king, 
the clergy, and the nobles, of France, that, dead in the 
fiefn, hiTis lbill alive in the fpirit; that they now hear, 
and muff obey, the voice of the founder and guardian of 
the Roman church ; that the virgin, the angels, the faints, 
and the martyrs, and all the holt of heaven, unanimoully 
■urge the requell, and will confefs the obligation; that 
riches, victory, and paradile, will crown their pious 
enterprife; and that eternal damnation will be the penalty 
of their negleiff, if they fuffer his tomb, his temple, 
and his people, to fall into the hands of tire perfidious 
Lombards, The fecond expedition of Pepin was not iefs 
rapid and fortunate than the firft : St. Peter was fatislied, 
Jtome was again faved, and Aftolphus was taught the lef- 
fions of juftiee and fincerity by the fcourge of a foreign 
mafter. 
After this double chaftifement, the Lombards continued 
about twenty years in a ftate of languor and decay. But 
their minds were not yet humbled to their condition ; 
and, inftead of affedling the pacific virtues of the feeble, 
they peevilhly haraffed the Romans with a repetition of 
claims, invalions, and inroads, which they undertook with¬ 
out refiedlion, and terminated without glory. On one 
fide, their expiring monarchy was preffed by the zeal and 
prudence of pope Adrian I. on the other, by the genius, 
the fortune, and the greatnefs, of Charlemagne, the fon 
of Pepin. Thefe heroes of the church and ftate were 
united in public and domeftic friendlhip; and, while they 
trampled on the proftrale, they varnilhed their proceed¬ 
ings with the faifell colours of equity and moderation. 
The paffes of the Alps, and the walls of Pavia, were the 
only defence of the Lombards; the former were furprifed, 
the latter were invefted, by the fon of Pepin; and, after a 
blockade of two years, Deliderius, the laft of their native 
p, inces, furrendered his feeptre and his capital, (A.D. 
774.) to Charlemagne, who had married and repudiated his 
daughter. Gibbon , ch. xlv. xlix.—See the article France, 
vol. vii. p. 654. 
Thus ended the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, 
after they had poffeffed that country for 206 years. Un¬ 
der the dominion of a foreign king, but in the poffefiion 
of their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, 
rather than the fubjetts, of the Franks; who derived their 
blood, and manners and language, from the fame Ger¬ 
manic origin. 
During a period of two hundred years Italy had been 
divided between the kingdom of the Lombards and the 
exarchate of Ravenna. From Pavia, the royal feat, the 
kingdom of the Lombards was extended to the call, the 
north, and the weft, as far as the confines of the Ay^^ 
the Bavarians, and the Frank .5 °.t A lift tafia andBur- 
gurpjy. It. ! ':7 language of modern geography, it is now 
represented by the Terra Firma of the Venetian terri¬ 
tory, Tyrol, the Milanefe, Piedmont, the coalt of Genoa, 
Mantua, Parma, Modena, Tufcany, and a large portion 
of the eccleliaftical ftate from Perugia to the Adriatic,, 
The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum, 
Survived the monarchy, and propagated the name, of the 
Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near 
500 years over the greatell part of the prefent kingdom of 
Naples. In procefs of time, the difpofition and manners 
of the Lombards underwent a very important change. So 
rapid, indeed, was the influence of Climate and example, 
that the Lombards of the fourth generation furveyed with 
curiofity and affright the portraits of their favage forefa- 
thers. The government of the Lombards was an elective 
monarchy ; and the public revenues arole from the produce 
of land and the profits of juftiee. The Lombards were at 
firft a cruel and barbarous people; but diverting themfelves, 
by degrees, of their native ferocity and barbarity, efpeci- 
ally after they had embraced the Chriftian religion, they 
governed with fuch equity and mildnefs, that moft other 
nations envied the happinels of thofe who lived under 
their adminiftration. 
As they had no other kingdom nor dominions, Italy 
became their own country ; whence the natives eiteerned 
their kings as their natural princes, not thinking them¬ 
felves governed, much lefs kept in llavery, by a foreign 
nation, as it happened to them afterwards, when, by fre¬ 
quent changes, they groaned under the heavy yoke, fome- 
times of one nation, and fometimes of another. “Under 
the government of the Lombards,” fays Pauius Diaco- 
nus, “ no violence was committed, no one unjuitly difpof- 
lelfed of his property, hone opprefied with taxes ; theft, 
robberies, murder, and adultery, were leldoin heard of; 
every one went, without the leaft apprehenlion of danger, 
whither he pleafed.” And indeed their many wholelome 
laws, reftraining and feverely punilhing all forts of crimes ; 
the magnificent churches, and rich monafteries, with which 
they filled that part of Italy which was fubject to them 
the many bilhoprics which they erected; the towns and 
cities which they either built or repaired, in moft pro¬ 
vinces of Italy ; their generality even to the bilhop of 
Rome, their avowed enemy; and, finally, the great num¬ 
ber of perfons among them, whofe fnffity and eminent 
virtues have been acknowledged by the popes themfelves; 
mult convince every impartial reader, that the Lombards 
were not fuch a favage, barbarous, and inhuman, nation, 
as they are deferibed by fome of the popes, elpecially by 
Adrian, the chief author of the ruin of their kingdom. 
They were the only power in Italy capable of defeating 
the ambitious views of the bilhops of Some; and hence 
arole the inveterate hatred which the popes bore them, 
and could not help betraying in all their writings. But 
their laws are convincing proofs of their juftiee, humanity, 
and wildom,and, at the lame time, a full confutation of the 
many calumnies, with which the popes, and their parti- 
fans, have endeavoured to afperfe them. Their laws were 
found fo juft and equitable, that they were retained in 
Italy, and obferved fome ages after their kingdom was at 
an end. 
LOM'BAkDY, a country in the northern part of Italy, 
very much correfponding with the Cifalpine Gaul of the 
Romans. It derived its name from the Lombards, (fee 
the preceding article,) who founded the kingdom in the 
v ~ middle 
