HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

72 JOAQUÍN MARTÍNEZ PIZARROis the fact that, on the rare occasions when Paul refers to the non-Lombard inhabitants of Italy, he makes it very plain that for themthe coming of his people has been an unqualified disaster. In thekingless years after Alboin’s death, under the power of the Lombarddukes “many of the noble Romans were killed for love of gain” and“the churches were sacked, the priests killed, the cities ruined, thepeople who had grown up like crops annihilated” (II.32). He commentslater on a letter of Gregory the Great concerning the Lombardsthat they “indeed were unbelievers and were stealing everything”(IV.29). Writing in a Monte Cassino that he knew had been pillagedand left vacant by the Lombards (IV.17), Paul hardly will havehad an unqualified sense of his people’s achievement in Italy or anunwavering dislike of a foreign invader who had come to defend theinterests of the church.There is a strong possibility that Paul, after the fall of the Lombardkingdom (cf. V.6: “Ante Langobardorum perditionem”), may haveplaced his hopes for the persistence and national survival of theLombards on Benevento, where he wrote the HL. Friuli and Beneventoreceive a disproportionate amount of attention in comparison to otherregions of Lombard Italy. Paul’s portrait of Grimoald I, the Friulanprince who became duke of Benevento and then ruler of the Lombards,stands at the center of his narrative, and this king was the ancestorof Grimoald III, duke of Benevento while Paul wrote the HL andson of the same Duchess Adalperga for whom he had composed hisHistoria Romana many years before. 91 It can be argued that in tracingthe history of his people Paul had in mind Grimoald III andhis court as a possible audience. References to Liutprand’s collaborationwith Charles Martel (VI.54) and to his great care to keeppeace with the Franks (VI.58; final words of the HL) can be readas suggesting a conciliatory policy to be followed with the new mastersof Italy.Of great importance in the study of the HL is its enduring reputationas a storehouse of Lombard oral traditions. Many famousstories, among others those of how the Lombards acquired theirname, of how Alboin received his arms from the Gepid king Turisind,whose son he recently had slain in battle, and of how Alboin as kingof the Lombards came to be murdered at the instigation of his wife,91Krüger (1981).