How History Has Mistreated the Langobardi

Check any standard reference on the history of the Lombards and you’ll most likely find very few facts about their origins but much speculation — speculation which, when considered carefully, makes very little sense.

Traditionally the Lombard tribal name is said to derive from Langobardi and supposedly means “long beards”. An old story relates that when the various German tribes had all been given names, the forefathers of the Langobardi had been overlooked. Frea, who had for some reason taken a special liking to them, had the women of the tribe tie their hair in front of their faces and stand before Odin’s bed as he slept and when he awoke Odin supposedly asked, “Who are these longbeards?”

Unfortunately, we have no historical record of the Lombards’ language (called Lombardic to distinguish it from the Italian/Romance Lombard dialects/languages that take their names from Lombardy, the region in northern Italy named for the tribe that conquered the peninsula). If that isn’t confusing enough, all historical documents that approach the historical period of the Lombard kings were written after their time and in the Italian language, so the names have all been changed, although we don’t know how much they changed due to the influence of the Lombards’ stay in Italy and how much due to the ineptitude of their biographers.

The earliest mention of the Langobardi is in Strabo’s Geographica. The Greek historian lived during the 1st Century BCE and 1st Century CE. We do not know the source of Strabo’s knowledge of the German tribes, nor how accurate or inaccurate his statements are. His biographers make no attempt to connect Strabo with the Germanic world. His knowledge was second-hand at best, but he is believed to have made extensive notes that have long since been lost. All that aside, he only mentions the Langobardi one time, placing them between the Elbe and Oder rivers with the Hermunduri.

Strabo’s identification of the Hermunduri and Langobardi with the Suevi/Suebi — a large confederation of tribes — should not be mistaken for a confirmation of a close kinship between the Langobardi and the western tribes. Tacitus, writing about 100 years after Strabo (and probably using Strabo as a source), included among the Suebian tribes: the Semnones; the Langobardi; seven tribes of Jutland and Holstein (southern Denmark and northern Germany) comprising the Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Varini, Eudoses, Saurini, and Nuitones; the Hermunduri (on the Elbe); three Danubian tribes comprising the Naristi, Marcomanni, and the Quadi; the Marsigni and Buri; five Lugii tribes near the Vistula comprising the Harii, Helveconae, Manimi, Helisii, and the Naharvali; tribes along the Baltic shore comprising the Gothones, Rugii, and Lemovii; and “all the Suiones” of Scandinavia.

Scholars generally accept that Tacitus’ Suebia is a region, not a nation or true confederation of tribes; and while there were undoubtedly cultural practices shared by most if not all of these tribes clearly their languages diverged (at least in later centuries) to produce the East and North Germanic language families from which later came Gothic, Norse, Danish, (portions of) English, and others. So the Langobardi tribe does not have to possess a particular affinity for West Germanic.

Caesar was the first Roman writer to mention the Suebi but he knew or recorded little of their tribal names and traditions; he viewed them as a militaristic nation who organized their communities into cantons which each contributed 1,000 men every year for raids into Gaul and wars with western tribes. Cassius Dio, writing a generation after Caesar, says that the Suebi were once called Celts (like the Gauls). Nero Claudius Drusus, like Julius Caesar before, fought western German tribes who formed an alliance with the Suebi but after an initial victory he withdrew his forces.

Suetonius claims to have defeated a large force of Germans and drove some “to the farther side of the Albis (Elbe)” river. It is conceivable that these refugees from Suetonius’ campaign were the Langobardi mentioned by Strabo not long after. Pliny the Elder wrote a “History of the German Wars” which has now been lost, and which may have served as Tacitus’ primary source of information on the Suebi.

It is now generally accepted, based at least in part on Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, that the Langobardi originally came from Scandinavia. The handful of historical references to them do not contradict this statement but neither do they provide much support. The Langobardi of the 1st century BCE and 1st Century CE could certainly have been in close contact with the northern tribes that are associated with the historical Danes, Angles, and Swedes. The problem with Paul the Deacon (himself a descendant of Lombards) is that he wrote his history in the 8th Century CE (probably between the years 787 and 796).

A somewhat older and more mythical account, the anonymous Origo Gentis Langobardorum, was probably written toward the end of the 7th Century CE. However, it seems to be rather fanciful and the names even for ancient Germanic leaders do not follow attested historical forms. The language of the document is Latin so the language of the Langobardi had long since been forgotten.

According to the Codex Gothanus the Langobardi were conquered by the Saxons around the year 300 but overthrew their conquerors under their king Agelmund. A Danish variant of the name, Hagelmund, is attested. Similarities between Gothic and Langobardic migration legends have been noted among scholars. These early migration traditions — of whole peoples leaving Scandinavia and moving into central Europe — suggest that a major shifting of tribes occurred sometime around the year 100 BCE, which would be around the time that the Cimbri and Teutoni left their homelands in Denmark and migrated through Gaul, eventually attacking Italy.

At this point, if the Langobardi already had the name by which we know them today, one must ask if it didn’t signify something other than the meanings assigned to them by recent scholarship. The idea that the tribe was named for wearing long beards seems nonsensical (although the Old English name for the Langobardi is Longbeardan or Longbeardas — but these could reflect the myth rather than the actual original meaning if it arose from something other than “beard”). The Old Norse words for “beard” wre skegg and grǫn. Some etymological sources suggest barth as an Old Norse cognate for Old English beard. A Gothic form, bards, is also attested but there is a reconstructed Gothic word, bards, which may mean (possibly figuratively) “giant”. The Indo-European root ‘bhardha’ means “beard”.

Some sources suggest an Old High German root, barta, meaning “axe” (and related to English halberd); but Edward Gibbon notes an alternative suggestion put forth, which argues that

…Börde (or Börd) still signifies “a fertile plain by the side of a river,” and a district near Magdeburg is still called the lange Börde. According to this view Langobardi would signify “inhabitants of the long bord of the river;” and traces of their name are supposed still to occur in such names as Bardengau and Bardewick in the neighborhood of the Elbe. Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., vol. ii. p. 119 — S.

NOTE: Bardengau and Bardewick are only mentioned in documents from about the 800s onward. But the linguistic arguments shed little light on the history of the tribe, much less provide convincing evidence of where the name came from. German archaeologist and historian Willi Wegewitz (1898-1996) excavated numerous cemeteries in the Elbe region of Lower Saxony (near Hamburg, Lüneburg, and Stade) and he added to the confusion by identifying many Jastorf Culture (7th Century BCE – 2nd Century CE) burial sites with the Langobardi. Wegewitz did not find any linguistic markers but he showed there was contiguous settlement by a single culture in the area.

If Wegewitz’ conclusions are correct, then it seems unlikely that the Langobardi were a Scandinavian tribe, although several possible explanations come to mind which could resolve the apparent conflict in facts:

• Wegewitz could have been wrong and he misattributed non-Langobardi burials to the historical tribe
• The Langobardi could have absorbed a Scandinavian tribe, adopting their traditions and possibly some of their language
• A branch of the Langobardi could have migrated north and returned a few centuries later (presumably after having maintained contact with the ancestral group)
• A royal family could have arrived from Scandinavia and assumed a prominent position among the Germanic peoples living in the area of the Langobardi
• Several peoples from different regions merged together in this area (and the Jastorf Culture has been described in those terms)

There is, in fact, historical precedent for each of the first four possibilities and insufficient data for us to determine which (if any) of these propositions might explain the conflict between sources on the Langobardi. One etymological proposition yet to be put forth is that the name may incorporate a version of Old Norse Barði, a type of high-prowed ship — or denoting a prominent feature of land (a promontory). Barði was adopted into Norman French bardeau. (Curiously, Barði is also an Icelandic name for girls and means “bearded” according to numerous Baby Name Websites.)

Although Old Norse Barði may be a figurative use of a word for “beard” to describe a wood construction technique, there is little historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that the Langobardi could have been named for longboats (Viking longships first appeared after 800 CE). Tacitus says that the Suiones used long boats to navigate the Baltic Sea.

The entire linguistic game may be a waste of time, however. Raymond Wilson Chambers writes, in Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend:

49. Heafto-Beardna. It has been frequently argued that the true name of the Langobardi was Bardi, and that hence the Heaftobeardan are identical with the Lombards, the epithet being varied precisely as we get sometimes Dene, sometimes Gar-Dene, or Hring-Dene. (So Ettmiiller (j) 20; Heyne’s Beowulf; Wiilcker, Kl. Dicht. 121 ; Bremer in Pauls Grdr. ( 2 ) in, 949.) In support of this has been urged (1) the use of Bardi for Langobardi, in Paul the Deacon and other writers in touch with Lombard tradition. But this use of Bardi for Langobardi is almost limited to Latin verse. It is first found in the epitaph on Droctulf , who was a contemporary of Alboin : an epitaph obviously written by a Roman, not a Lombard (see SS. Rerum Langobardicarum in M.G.H., Hannoverse, 1878, p. 102). The form Bardi is used in several epitaphs written in much later times by Paul the Deacon and others (see id. p. 22, on Arichis, apparently by Paul ; p. 23 on Paul himself

Eximio dudum Bardorum stemmate gentis ;

the epitaph on Queen Ansa, attributed to Paul ; other epitaphs, 235, 238, 429). It has not, I think, been noted that Langobardi is a word Mquod versu dicere non

50 Swa ic geondferde fela fremdra londa

In such wise I fared through many strange lands throughout this wide est, and which had to be mutilated before it could be got into a hexameter. The use of Bardi for Langobardi in verse proves, then, nothing at all. The only early instances I can find of Bardus for Langobardus in prose are cohors Bardica in the late 9th century Erchemperti Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum (SS. Eer. Lango. 262), and Bardan \>one beorh for the Apennines in Alfred’s Orosius (cf. Icel. Munbard, and Mons Bardonis in Otho of Frisingen).

Again, it has been pointed out (2) that men of Bardengau and Bardewik on the Elbe are repeatedly called Bardi in the Chronica Sclavorum of Helmold : but, granting that these men of Bardewik were a remnant of the old Lombard stock, it seems perilous to argue, from the form of their name in the 12th century, as to the form of the Lombard name, and consequent Lombard affinities, in the sixth century. Moreover, it does not seem clear how the Bardi remaining behind in Bardowyk could have been neighbours and foes of the Danes : still less could the main body of the Lombards, who since A.D. 168 were on the borders of the Roman Empire, by the Danube. If then we are to equate the Heathobeardan and the Lombards, we must adopt the suggestion of Bugge (H.D. 159-163) that a body of the Lombards was left behind on the Baltic coast. But there is nothing to show that this was the case. Any evidence leading us to identify the Heathobeardan and the Langobardi is therefore entirely wanting, though of course the two nations may have been originally connected (cf. Binz in P.B.B. xx, 174 ; Holler, V.E. 29). Miillenhoff (Beovulf, 29, 32, followed by Much in P.B.B. xvn, 201; Heinzel, A.f.d.A. xvi, 271) suggested that the Heathobeardan are rather to be identified with the Heruli (for whom see note to 1. 87). Certainly the name wiring is most appropriate to the Heruli, who were essentially sea-robbers : and they are the only people whom we know to have had a blood feud with the Danes in the early ages. They were expelled from their territory by the Danes, according to Jordanes. But, as the Heruli are first heard of ravaging the Roman Empire in the second half of the third century, it has been thought that their expulsion from their homes by the Danes probably dates about A.D. 250 (Bremer in Pauls Grdr. (g) in, 834) ; whilst the wars of Danes and Heathobeardan can be dated with some certainty about A.D. 500. Yet since the Heruli who are met with in the Roman historians about the end of the fifth and the early sixth century are still heathen, they had probably only recently arrived from the North (Zeuss, 479), and it may have been these sixth century Heruli, rather than the pirates of the third century, whose influx into the Empire was due to their having been displaced by the Danes. This would agree well with the chronology of Beowulf.

It seems probable that the Heathobeardan are personified in the hero Hothbrodd (see Introduction, pp. 81-2) and since he is localized by the Helgi lays on the south shore of the Baltic, and since this suits the data of Beowulf and of Widsith well, we may perhaps regard this as the seat of the Heatho beardan. More than this cannot be said, and evidence for identification with any historic tribe, Langobardi or Heruli, is insufficient, though early kinship with the Langobardi is probable enough. See also Olrik, Heltedigtning, 21, 22 ; Sarrazin in Engl. Stud. XLII, 11.

d of Heaftobeardna added in MS. over line : cf. the spelling in Beowulf, 2037, 2067 ; Heaftabearna, Heaftobearna.

NOTE: Some emphasis has been omitted.

At the end of the day, despite numerous attempts to explain who the Langobardi were and where they properly fit into the history of Europe’s peoples, we are left with many questions. Their language was so submerged into the Italian language as to be entirely lost. A very small number of names have survived, at least some in Latinized forms. We cannot be sure of which of the core dialects their language belonged to, nor of which original groupings of ancient peoples gave rise to them. We don’t even know if they were a cohesive tribe or an amalgam of smaller tribes or clans. They are anomalous and in some ways perhaps even anachronistic. Perhaps their own name for themselves was originally something else.

We can be certain that future generations will continue to seek answers to the myriad of questions. Perhaps one day DNA studies of populations in Italy, Lower Saxony, and perhaps Scandinavia will enlighten us further on the movements and connections of the Langobardi. Meanwhile, take whatever you read with a grain of salt, for it surely needs a little more seasoning.