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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Historians consider this the decisive factor in convincing Alboin to undertake a migration, even though there are indications that before the war with the Gepids a decision was maturing to leave for Italy, a country thousands of Lombards had seen in the 550s when hired by the Byzantines to fight in the Gothic War.

The Vipava Valley, through which Alboin led the Lombards into ItalyAs a precautionary move Alboin strengthened his alliance with the Avars, signing what Paul calls a foedus perpetuum (" perpetual treaty ") and what is referred to in the 9th-century Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani as a pactum et foedus amicitiae (" pact and treaty of friendship "), adding that the treaty was put down on paper.

In 568, the Lombard leader Alboin invaded Italy, and founded an independent kingdom which in 774 was overthrown by Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800.

Alboin was murdered in 572 in Verona by a plot led by his wife, Rosamund, who later fled to Ravenna.

His monastic name was Alboin.

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 569, it was taken by Alboin, King of the Lombards, in whose kingdom it was, in a sense, the second most important city.

There, Alboin himself was killed by his own wife in 572.

He was succeeded by Desiderius as king of the Lombards and by Alboin as duke of Spoleto.

Bishop Honoratus of Milan fled the city when it was besieged by the Lombard Alboin in 568.

The city was chosen as first capital of the newly formed Lombard Kingdom, then granted by Alboin to his nephew Gisulf as the capital of a Lombard Duchy of Friuli.

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.

It was in the critical winter of 566-567 that the Avars, stuck in what is now eastern Germany, were sent feelers by Alboin, the strong ruler of the Lombards and brother-in-law of Sigebert, who sought an alliance to crush his old enemies the Gepids.

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.

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

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.

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.

* April 1 – King Alboin leads the Lombards into Italy ; refugees fleeing from them go on to found Venice.

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

* Alboin ( 568 – 572 )

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.

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.

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.

The precise size of the heterogeneous group gathered by Alboin is impossible to know, and many different estimates have been made.

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.

The skull-cup allegation may also have some history in relation with other Germanic tribes and Eurasian nomads, such as the Scythians and Pechenegs, and the vivid example of the Lombard Alboin, made notorious by Paul the Deacon's History.

* Invasion by the Lombards of northern Italy under Alboin.

Alboin, the duchy of Benevento and Liutprand, that of Spoleto were coaxed by Pope Stephen to commend themselves to the Franks and thus separate themselves again from monarchy.

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

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.

Alboin came to the throne after the death of his father, sometime between 560 and 565.

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.

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.

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.