As was customary among the Lombards, Alboin took the crown after an election by the tribe's freemen, who traditionally selected the king from the dead sovereign's clan.

Some time before 568, Alboin's first wife Chlothsind died, and after his victory against Cunimund Alboin married Rosamund, to establish a bond with the remaining Gepids.

Following this victory, Alboin decided to lead his people to Italy, which had become severely depopulated after the long Gothic War ( 535 – 554 ) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom there.

The country was so ravaged by war that any return to normal life proved impossible, and only three years after his death most of the country was conquered by Alboin of the Lombards, who absorbed the remaining Ostrogothic population.

In this way the tale links first to Saxon England of Alfred the Great, then to the Lombard Alboin of St. Benedict's time, the Baltic Sea in Old Norse days, Ireland at the time of the Tuatha Dé's coming ( 600 years after the Flood ), prehistoric North in the Ice Age, a ' Galdor story ' of Third Age Middle-earth, and finally the Fall of Gil-galad, before recounting the prime legend of the Downfall of Númenor / Atlantis and the Bending of the World.

However, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when already a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death.

At the siege of Milan by the Lombard Alboin, the Bishop Honoratus ( 568 ) sought refuge in Genoa, with a great number of his clergy ,, and at his death the Milanese at Genoa elected to succeed him Laurentius II, while Fronto ( elected at Milan ) was not recognized.

Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Catholic.

* Alboin succeeds his father Audoin as king of the Lombards.

During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572.

Cunimund attempted to prevent the two armies joining up by moving against the Lombards and clashing with Alboin somewhere between the Tibiscus and Danube rivers.

Jörg Jarnut proposes 100, 000 – 150, 000 as an approximation ; Wilfried Menghen in Die Langobarden estimates 150, 000 to 200, 000 ; while Stefano Gasparri cautiously judges the peoples united by Alboin to be somewhere between 100, 000 and 300, 000.

Alboin ( 530s – June 28, 572 ) was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572.

In 560 a new, energetic king emerged: Alboin, who defeated the neighboring Gepidae, made them his subjects, and, in 566, married the daughter of their king Cunimund, Rosamund .< BR > In the spring of 568, King Alboin led the Lombard migration into Italy :< BR >

Thus in 565 or 566 Justinian's successor Justin II sent his son-in-law Baduarius as magister militum ( field commander ) to lead a Byzantine army against Alboin in support of Cunimund, ending in the Lombards ' complete defeat.

The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied.

The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's reduced ability to defend its territory in the wake of the Gothic War.

After gathering a large coalition of peoples, Alboin crossed the Julian Alps in 568, entering an almost undefended Italy.

During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves.

Alboin was assassinated on June 28, 572, in a coup d ' état instigated by the Byzantines.

It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier.

Alboin was probably born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and his wife, Rodelinda.

Alboin took as his first wife the Catholic Chlothsind, daughter of the Frankish King Chlothar.

Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids.

After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table, Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king and have him donate his weapons, as was customary.

The cause of the conflict is uncertain, as the sources are divided ; the Lombard Paul the Deacon accuses the Gepids, while the Byzantine historian Menander Protector places the blame on Alboin, an interpretation favoured by historian Walter Pohl.

An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund, that Alboin proceeded then to marry.

Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Alboin made an alliance in 566 with the Avars under Bayan I, at the expense of some tough conditions ; the Avars demanded a tenth of the Lombards ' cattle, half of the war booty, and on the war's conclusion all of the lands held by the Gepids.

In 567 the allies made their final move against Cunimund, with Alboin invading the Gepids ' lands from the northwest while Bayan attacked from the northeast.

The Gepids were defeated in the ensuing battle, their king slain by Alboin, and Cunimund's daughter Rosamund taken captive, according to references in the Origo.

Despite his success against the Gepids, Alboin had failed to greatly increase his power, and was now faced with a much stronger threat from the Avars.

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