Duchy of Benevento

2025-07-28T10:31:24Z

103.79.170.168:

{{Short description|Vassal of the Kingdom of the Lombards in present-day southern Italy from 577 to 774}}
{{for|a list of rulers of Benevento|List of Dukes and Princes of Benevento}}
{{Infobox former country
|native_name = {{native name|la|Ducatus Beneventi}}
|conventional_long_name = Duchy of Benevento
|status = [[Vassal state]] of the [[Kingdom of the Lombards]]
|empire = [[Kingdom of the Lombards]]
|government_type = [[Monarchy]]
|year_start = 577
|event_end =
|year_end = 774
|event1 = Frankish conquest of the Kingdom of the Lombards
|date_event1 = 774
|event2 =
|date_event2 =
|event3 =
|date_event3 =
|event4 =
|date_event4 =
|event5 =
|date_event5 =
|border_s1 = no
|image_coat = Lombard Calvary cross potent (transparent).png
|coa_size = 70px
|coat_alt = 
|symbol_type = Calvary [[cross potent]] motif was commonly minted on [[Lombard coinage of Benevento|coins]] by various princes
|symbol_type_article = 
|image_map = Duchy of Benevento It.svg
|image_map_caption = Lombard Duchy of Benevento in the eighth century
|capital = [[Benevento]]
|common_languages = {{ubl|[[Lombardic language|Lombardic]]|[[Vulgar Latin]]|[[Byzantine Greek]]}}
|religion = [[Chalcedonian Christianity]] {{small|(official)}}, [[Arianism]] {{small|(former)}}
|currency = [[Lombard coinage of Benevento|Solidus, tremissis, denarius]]
|leader1 = [[Zotto]] (first duke)
|leader2 = [[Arechis II of Benevento|Arechis II]] (last duke & first prince)
|leader3 =
|leader4 =
|year_leader1 = 571–591
|year_leader2 = 758–774
|year_leader3 =
|year_leader4 =
|title_leader = [[List of dukes and princes of Benevento|Duke]]
|today = [[Italy]]
|p1 = Byzantine Empire
|p2 = Kingdom of the Lombards
|s1 = Principality of Benevento
|s2 = Longobardia{{!}}Theme of Longobardia
}}

The '''Duchy of Benevento''' was the southernmost [[Lombards|Lombard]] duchy in the [[Italian Peninsula]] that was centered in [[Benevento]], a city in [[Southern Italy]]. Lombard dukes ruled Benevento from 571 to 774, when the [[Kingdom of the Lombards]] was conquered by the [[Francia|Kingdom of the Franks]]. Being cut off from the rest of the Lombard possessions by the [[pope|papal]] [[Duchy of Rome]], Benevento always had held some degree of independence. Only during the reigns of [[Grimoald, King of the Lombards|Grimoald]] (r. 662–671) and the kings from [[Liutprand the Lombard|Liutprand]] (r. 712–744) on was the duchy closely tied to the [[Kingdom of the Lombards]]. After the fall of the kingdom in 774, the duchy became the sole Lombard territory which continued to exist as a [[rump state]], maintaining its ''de facto'' independence for nearly 300 years as the [[Principality of Benevento]].

[[Paul the Deacon]] referred to Benevento as the "Samnite Duchy" (''Ducatum Samnitium'') after the region of [[Samnium]].{{sfnp|Hodgkin|1895|pp=68 and 76}}

==Foundation==
The circumstances surrounding the creation of the duchy are disputed. According to some scholars, Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of the [[Po Valley]]: the duchy by these accounts would have been founded in 571.{{sfnp|Hodgkin|1895|pp=71 and n1 73}} The Lombards may have entered later, around 590. Whatever the case, the first duke was [[Zotto]], a leader of a band of soldiers who descended the coast of [[Campania]]. Though at first independent, Zotto was eventually made to submit to the royal authority of the north. His successor was [[Arechis I of Benevento|Arechis]], his nephew, and the principle of hereditary succession guided the Beneventan duchy to the end.

The Lombard duchies, part of the loosely-knit Lombard kingdom, were essentially independent, in spite of their common roots and language, and law and religion similar to that of the north, and in spite of the Beneventan dukes' custom of taking to wife women from the royal family. A swathe of territory that owed allegiance to [[Rome]] or to [[Ravenna]] separated the dukes of Benevento from the kings at [[Pavia]]. Cultural autonomy followed naturally: a distinctive liturgical chant, the [[Beneventan chant]], developed in the church of Benevento: it was not entirely superseded by [[Gregorian chant]] until the 11th century. A unique [[Beneventan script]] was also developed for writing [[Latin language|Latin]]. The 8th-century writer [[Paul the Deacon]] arrived in Benevento in the retinue of a princess from Pavia, the duke's bride. Settled into the greatest of Beneventan monasteries, [[Monte Cassino]], he wrote first a history of Rome and then a history of the Lombards, the main source for the history of the duchy to that time as well.

==Expansion==
[[Image:Church tower of Santa Sofia, Benevento 04.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Map of Duchy of Benevento on the church tower of Santa Sofia]]
Under Zotto's successors, the duchy was expanded against the [[Byzantine Empire]]. Arechis, himself from the duchy of [[Friuli]], captured [[Capua]] and [[Crotone]], and sacked Byzantine [[Amalfi]], but was unable to capture [[Naples]]. After his reign, Byzantine holdings in southern Italy were reduced to Naples, Amalfi, [[Gaeta]], [[Sorrento]], [[Calabria]], and the maritime cities of [[Apulia]] ([[Bari]], [[Brindisi]], [[Otranto]], etc.). In 662, Duke [[Grimoald I of Benevento|Grimoald I]] (duke since 647), went north to aid the King [[Godepert]] against his brother, the co-king [[Perctarit]], and instead killed the former, forced the latter into exile, and captured Pavia. As king of the Lombards, he tried to reinstate [[Arianism]] over the [[Catholicism]] of the late king [[Aripert I]]. However, Arianism was disappearing even in the duchy, as was the distinction between the ethnic Lombard population and the Latin- and Greek-speaking one. In 663, the city itself was besieged by the Byzantines during the failed attempt of [[Constans II (Byzantine Empire)|Constans II]], who had disembarked at [[Taranto]], to recover southern Italy. Duke [[Romuald I of Benevento|Romuald I]] defended the city bravely, however, and the Emperor, also fearing the arrival of Romuald's father, King Grimoald, retired to Naples. However, Romuald intercepted part of the Roman army at [[Forino]], between [[Avellino]] and Salerno, and destroyed it. A peace between the Duchy and the Eastern Empire was signed in 680.

In the following decades, Benevento conquered some territories from the Byzantines, but the main enemy of the duchy was now the northern Lombard kingdom itself. King [[Liutprand the Lombard|Liutprand]] intervened several times to impose a candidate of his own on the ducal throne. His successor, [[Ratchis]], declared the [[Duchy of Spoleto|duchies of Spoleto]] and Benevento foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.

==Secundum Ticinum==
In 758, king [[Desiderius]] briefly captured Spoleto and Benevento, but with [[Charlemagne]]'s conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774, [[Arechis II of Benevento|Arechis II]] tried to claim the royal dignity and make Benevento a ''secundum Ticinum'': a second [[Pavia]] (the old Lombard capital). Seeing that this was impractical and would draw Frankish attention to himself, he opted instead for the title of ''[[princeps]]'' (prince). In 787, he was forced by Charlemagne's siege of Salerno to submit to Frankish suzerainty.

==Citations==
{{reflist}}

==References==
{{Refbegin|indent=yes}}
*{{cite book |last1=Everett |first1=N. |title=Literacy in Lombard Italy, c.568-744 |date=2003 |location=Cambridge}}
*{{cite book|author-link=Thomas Hodgkin (historian)|last=Hodgkin|first=Thomas|title=Italy and her Invaders|url=https://archive.org/details/italyandherinva03hodggoog|publisher=[[Clarendon Press]]|year=1895}}
*{{cite book |last1=Krueger |first1=Hilmar C. |editor1-last=Setton |editor1-first=Kenneth Meyer |editor2-last=Baldwin |editor2-first=Marshall W. |editor1-link=A History of the Crusades: The First Hundred Years, Vol.1 |title=The Italian Cities and the Arabs before 1095 |date=1955 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania}}
{{refend}}

===General references===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes}}
*[[Duff Cooper|Cooper, Duff]], ''Talleyrand'' (Frankfurt: 1982, {{ISBN|3-458-32097-0}}).
*{{cite book|author-link=H. M. Gwatkin|last=Gwatkin|first=H. M.|editor=J. P. Whitney|title=The Cambridge Medieval History: Volume III|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1926|display-editors=etal}}
*{{cite book|author-link=John Julius Norwich|last=Norwich|first=John Julius|title=The Normans in Sicily|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]|year=1970}}
*{{cite book|author-link=Charles Oman|last=Oman|first=Charles|title=The Dark Ages 476-918|location=[[London]]|publisher=Rivingtons|year=1914}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.alleanzacattolica.org/idis_dpf/voci/b_ducato_benevento.htm Ducato (570 ca.-774) et Principato di Benevento (774-1077)] {{in lang|it}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081006002703/http://www.longobardidelsud.it/ I Longobardi del Sud] {{in lang|it}}
{{Former monarchies Italian peninsula}}{{Campania}}{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Duchy of Benevento| ]]
[[Category:Benevento]]
[[Category:States and territories established in the 6th century]]
[[Category:Kingdom of the Lombards]]
[[Category:Lombards]]
[[Category:Former duchies]]
[[Category:Former monarchies of Europe]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in the 1050s]]

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Duchy of Benevento