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.

Meanwhile, the prince Gisulf I of Salerno began using the title Langobardorum gentis princeps around mid-century, but the ideal of a united Lombard principality was realised only in December 977, when Gisulf died and his domains were inherited by Pandulf Ironhead, who temporarily held almost all Italy south of Rome and brought the Lombards into alliance with the Holy Roman Empire.

Monaco was recaptured by the Romans during the reign of Justinian in the mid 6th century and was held until its capture by the Lombards in the 7th century.

Although Classis was retaken in 728, fighting continued between Byzantine forces and the Lombards until 729, when Gregory brokered a deal between Liutprand and the Byzantine exarch, Eutychius, bringing about a temporary ceasing of hostilities that held until Gregory ’ s death.

After the fall of Rome, Apulia was held successively by the Goths, the Lombards and, from the 6th century onwards, the Byzantines.

When the Lombards invaded Italy in 568, the Bishop of Milan fled and held his seat in Genoa.

According to the most widely held theory, the city was founded by the Lombards before the 8th century as a fortified camp on the slope of the hill where the castle stands.

After Rome the high valley preserved traditions of autonomy, reinforced by its seasonal isolation, though it was loosely held in turns by the Goths and the Lombards, then by the Burgundian kings in the 5th century, followed by the Franks, who overran the Burgundian kingdom in 534.

Vienne was a target during the Migrations Period: it was taken by the Burgundians in 438, re-taken by the Romans and held for 35 years, by the Franks in 534, sacked by the Lombards in 558, and by the Moors in 737.

In 768, Antipope Constantine II was held prisoner in this monastery, before being killed by the Lombards.

They planned to continue towards Konya, but the Lombards, whose rabble outnumbered all the other contingents, were determined to march north to Niksar where Bohemond I of Antioch was being held captive by the Danishmends.

) which were mainly the coastal cities in the Italian peninsula since the Lombards held the advantage in the hinterland.

In 753, the Lombards under their king Aistulf ( also known as Astolfo ) had conquered the Exarchate of Ravenna, the main seat of Byzantine government in Italy, whose Patriarch held territorial power as the representative of the Eastern Roman Emperor, independent of the Pope of Rome.

The peace with the Lombards held for the rest of his administration.

The Lombardy region in Italy, which includes the cities of Brescia, Bergamo, Milan and the old capital Pavia, is a reminder of the presence of the Lombards.

The Lombards, under King Rothari, finally captured Genoa and other Ligurian cities in about 643.

The Lombards financed the maintenance and defence of the section of road through their territories as a trading route to the north from Rome, avoiding enemy-held cities such as Florence.

In his first year Romanus recovered the cities of Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza, Altinum, and Mantua from the Lombards.

Krešimir III tried to restore the Dalmatian cities and had some success until 1018, when he was defeated by Venice allied with the Lombards.

The name Imola was first used in the 7th century by the Lombards, who applied it to the fortress ( the present Castellaccio, the construction of which is attributed to the Lombard Clefi ), whence the name passed to the city itself.

Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens between the Third and Fifth Centuries, but recovered its strength and importance.

In western Europe Arianism, which had been taught by Ulfilas, the Arian missionary to the Germanic tribes, was dominant among the Goths and Lombards ( and, significantly for the late Empire, the Vandals ); but it ceased to be the mainstream belief by the 8th century.

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

This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids.

Additionally, the Lombards would have known of the weakness of Byzantine Italy, which had endured a number of problems after being retaken from the Goths.

Nevertheless the Lombards viewed Italy as a rich land which promised great booty, assets Alboin used to gather together a horde which included not only Lombards but many other peoples of the region, including Heruli, Suebi, Gepids, Thuringii, Bulgars, Sarmatians, the remaining Romans and a few Ostrogoths.

Neil Christie considers 150, 000 to be a realistic size, a number which would make the Lombards a more numerous force than the Ostrogoths on the eve of their invasion of Italy.

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.

According to Ptolemy, the Suebic Lombards settled south of the Sugambri, but also remained at the Elbe, between the Chauci and the Suebi, which indicates a Lombard expansion.

Peace was made and the two tribes returned to their homes, which in the case of the Lombards were the lands of the lower Elbe.

In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto, which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into the 12th century.

Rothari also made the famous edict bearing his name, the Edictum Rothari, which established the laws and the customs of his people in Latin: the edict did not apply to the tributaries of the Lombards, who could retain their own laws.

The first expansion of papal rule outside of Rome came in 728 with the Donation of Sutri, which in turn was substantially increased in 754, when the Frankish ruler Pippin the Younger gave to the pope the land from his conquest of the Lombards.

Roman Catholic tradition asserts that then and there Pepin executed in writing a promise to give to the Church certain territories that were to be wrested from the Lombards, and which would be referred to later as the Papal States.

In 718 he restored Monte Cassino, which had not recovered from an attack by the Lombards in 584, and he intervened in a dispute at the Monastery of St. Vincent on the Volturno over the deposition of the abbot.

His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, and by the ongoing advance of the Lombards, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of Charles Martel.

He also refortified Centumcellae, and purchased off Thrasimund II of Spoleto the fortress of Gallese along the Via Flaminia, which had been taken by the Lombards, interrupting Rome ’ s communications with the exarch at Ravenna.

Although Italy's dominance as a centre of manuscript production began to decline, especially after the Gothic War ( 535 – 554 ) and the invasions by the Lombards, its manuscripts — and more important, the scripts in which they were written — were distributed across Europe.

Afterwards, the city formed the centre of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna until the invasion of the Franks in 751, after which it became the seat of the Kingdom of the Lombards.

In the second half of the 6th century it was chosen as seat for one of the 36 Duchies in which the Lombards divided Italy.

When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the Duchy of Rome was completely cut off from the Byzantine Empire, of which it was theoretically still a part.