#queen theodelinda

[thebeautifulbook]

THEODELINDA GOSPELS. (c.603)

Queen Theodelinda's Gospel Book Cover in Gold, Cameos, Enamels and Precious Stones, Ca 603

‘The book covers of Theodelinda are early medieval gold book covers dedicated by the queen Theodelinda to St. John the Baptist for a basilica which she founded between the sixth and seventh centuries at the Monza Cathedral in Monza, Italy. The book covers feature an inscription in which Theodelinda offers the book to the religious figure. Many scholars believe that the book covers, as well as the inscription were created in the early 7th century. The manuscript that the cover contained has been lost. Scholars regard the covers as an important example of Lombard metalwork, and they remain at Monza cathedral today. The book covers make part of a larger collection of objects gifted by the queen to the basilica she founded. ‘ Wikipedia

[lizabethstucker]

The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry

Subtitled "A New History of Medieval Europe".

4 out of 5.

The Middle Ages have long had a reputation for ignorance, superstition, violence, and disease, as well as being kicked off by the fall of the Roman Empire. Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, both medieval Europe historians, are taking a different view of both, starting with the premise that Rome never actually fell. Instead, Rome as an "empire" changed, but it had always been changing.

The authors have chosen to concentrate on the years between 430 CE and 1321. They start out with Galla Placidia, queen of the Visigoths, half-sister of a Roman Emperor, and later regent herself of the Wester Roman Empire, who restored a small chapel in Ravenna, Italy. It ends when Dante Alighieri visits the same chapel almost a thousand years later, possibly inspired to finish "Heaven", the last of his Divine Comedy trilogy.

They don't shy away from the influences, good and bad, of religion during the years they have cut out. We are also given a look at some of the powerful and ordinary women who influenced the history of the time: Galla Placidia, Theodora, Theodelinda, Ste. Foy (Saint Faith), and Eleanor of Aquitaine, among others mentioned within these pages. And how the lot of women became worse beginning in the 1500s.

As is said in the introduction, the period is good and bad, transparent and opaque. The world is made up of people and events that are influenced by the past and shape the future. That is, without a doubt, history in a nutshell. Change is constant, but sometimes we don't notice until considerable time has passed to look back on.

This is a perfect book for readers who aren't certain they would enjoy reading books on history, yet still works for those of us who enjoy them immensely. The way the authors have set this up, each chapter focuses on a small event in history which then widens out, with the various connections explained and explored. It would make a great "chapter-a-night" bedtime book as well.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.15 (before 1930)

221 – Liu Bei, Chinese warlord, proclaims himself emperor of Shu Han, the successor of the Han dynasty. 392 – Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne. 589 – King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence among the Lombard nobility. 756 – Abd al-Rahman I, the founder of the Arab dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries, becomes emir of Cordova, Spain. 1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. 1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury. 1602 – Cape Cod is sighted by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold. 1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made). 1648 – The Peace of Münster is ratified, by which Spain acknowledges Dutch sovereignty. 1791 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance. 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). 1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse. 1849 – The Sicilian revolution of 1848 is finally extinguished. 1850 – The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending "the existing differences" between Great Britain and Argentina. 1851 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia: Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley. 1891 – Pope Leo XIII defends workers' rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. 1905 – The city of Las Vegas is founded in Nevada, United States. 1911 – In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up. 1911 – More than 300 Chinese immigrants are killed in the Torreón massacre when the forces of the Mexican Revolution led by Emilio Madero take the city of Torreón from the Federales. 1918 – The Finnish Civil War ends when the Whites took over Fort Ino, a Russian coastal artillery base on the Karelian Isthmus, from Russian troops. 1919 – The Winnipeg general strike begins. By 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job. 1919 – Greek occupation of Smyrna. During the occupation, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks; those responsible are punished by Greek commander Aristides Stergiades. 1929 – A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123.

[centrally-unplanned]

Medieval Studies Twitter is going through one of those just absolutely batshit, impossible to understand Drama Fights that involve 20-tweet long ‘apology’ threads where what is being apologized for is completely indiscernible. The heart of it is, to the best of my ability to determine, a rejected review of a new book on medieval European history that criticizes it for its centering of White voices. This review is absolutely precious, just wonderful, I am addict trying to quit culture war bullshit but a dose of this purity level is dragging me back in.

There is just so much to choose from, like the entire opening paragraph being about just first word of the book, but I’m gonna highlight this one:

While the book recognizes the existence of Indigenous peoples, it also reinforces the idea that they exist on the periphery of [Medieval] European history.

Buddy, pal, I am pretty sure they *literally* do exist on the periphery. I can’t possibly think of a definition of the word ‘periphery’ that wouldn’t include an area visited by at most one lost boat in a 1000 year span. This is “Hamilton is bad because it wasn’t about slavery” levels of intellectual myopia. The author is culture war perfected and then embodied in human form.

Edit: NOPE CAN’T NOT QUOTE THIS ONE:

Theodelinda, like women in subsequent chapters, is mentioned to exemplify how “queens were often the tip of the spear in Christian conversion efforts in this period” (53). Women who operated as Christian imperialists aren’t the progressive symbols that this book suggests.** Gabriele and Perry exclaim that, although she meets an unhappy demise, “Theodelinda matters” (54). This, I hope, is not a play on Black Lives Matters, but this does show how I, as a Black reader and scholar, might read a particular phrase (especially now) that feels trivializing or appropriative.

If anyone used the word ‘matters’ in their apology tweet they Done Fucked Up, we trademark law now ladies. I am in awe, how did he find that?? Amazing. Beautiful. 

[widvile-blog]

Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards (c.570-628)

[queenfredegund]

MEROVINGIAN REGINAE | Waldrada Regina (c. 530s-af. 570s)

Wife of Theodebald Rex to whom she did not bore any known child. She was the daughter of Waccho, later King of the Lombards, and probably of Austrigusa of the Gepids. She had also a younger sister, Wisigardis Regina, who later became the principal wife of her father-in-law, Theodebert I Rex. Her dates of birth and death are unknown.

“[...]  deinde duxit Austrigusam, filiam regis Gepidorum, de qua habuit filias duas : nimen uni Wisegarda, quam tradidit in matrimonium Theudiperto regi Francorum, quam ipse odio habens, uni ex suis, quae sociata est Cusupald, alio regi Francorum.

[Waccho] then married Austrigusa, daughter of the king of the Gepids, who gave him two daughters called one Wisegarda - given in marriage to the king of the Franks Theudepert -, the other Waldrada - married to Cusupald, another king of the Franks [...].”

Hist. Lang., I, 21. De morte Tatonis et regno Wachonis, et quomodo Wacho suavos superavit, et de uxoribus eius et filiabus, et de regno Waltari filii eius

Her wedding was not recorded in the sources, however we can make the assumption that she married Theodebald soon afterwards the death of his father, perhaps between 548/549. As Theodebald was still a young man, they were probably a very young couple and apparently bear no children together.

“Theodovaldus vero cum iam adultus esset, Vuldetradam duxit uxorem.

When he came to man’s estate Theudebald married Vuldetrada.”

DLH, IV, 9. De obitu Theudovaldo

After the death of Theodebald, in 555, died of a chronic illness, his lands were taken away by his great-uncle Chlothacar I Rex, as well as his widow. As a foreign princess, and a part of a political treaty, the question of her future as a widow was a crucial one, leading to her second marriage with Chlothacar, who probably wanted to keep a control onto her. However, the bishops complained about the sin of this union, as Chlothacar was the great-uncle of her deceased previous husband, and he eventualy chose to send her away.

“Ipse vero valde infirmatus, a cinctura deorsum se iudecare non poterat. Qui paulatim decidens, septimo regni sui anno mortuos est, regnumque eius Chlothacharius rex accepit, copulans Vuldotradam, uxorem eius, stratui suo. Sed increpitus a sacerdotibus, reliquit eam, dans ei Garivaldum ducem [...].

[Theudebald] had a stroke and could not move from the waist downwards. He gradually became worse and died in the seventh year of his reign. King Lothar took over his kingdom; he also began to have intercourse with his widow Vuldetrada, but he stopped when the bishops complained and he handed her over to Garivald, Duke of Bavaria.”

DLH, IV, 9. De obitu Theudovaldo

He then married her to one of his followers, the Dux Baioariorum Garibald, by whom she finally had a posterity, especially a daughter, Theodelinda, who later became queen of the Lombards by marrying Authari, then Agilulf. 

“Ago rex Langobardorum accepit uxorem Grimoaldi et Gundoaldi germanam noem Teudelendae ex genere Francorum, quem Childebertus habuera disponsatam.

Agilulf, king of the Lombards, took for wife a sister of Grimoald and Gondoald named Theodelinda, Frankish by birth, who had been engaged to Childebert.”

Chron, IV, 36. De Agone Regis, eius Regina Teudelinde

Her fate after that is unknown.

[venicepearl]

Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, marries Agilulf, duke of Turin (detail) - Zavattari

[havelockv3tinari]

Monza Cathedral (part 9/9   ) The Duomo of Monza (Italian: Duomo di Monza) often known in English as Monza Cathedral is the main religious building of Monza, in northern Italy. Unlike most duomos it is not in fact a cathedral, as Monza has always been part of the Diocese of Milan, but is in the charge of an archpriest who has the right to certain episcopal vestments including the mitre and the ring. The church is also known as the Basilica of San Giovanni Battista from its dedication to John the Baptist. he basilica, which would in essence have been completed by 603 when heir to the Lombard throne Adaloald was baptised here by Secundus of Non, is believed to have been commissioned towards the end of the sixth century by the Lombard Queen of Italy, Theodelinda, as a royal chapel to serve the nearby palace. According to the legend she had made a vow to build a church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and when riding along the banks of the Lambro River, she was halted by a dove who told her Modo (Latin for "now"), to which she replied Etiam ("yes"). Monza itself was initially known as Modoetia. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monza_Cathedral http://www.duomomonza.it/en/ #sculpture #architecture #art #zabytki #buildings #silence #bnw #duomodimonza #insta_bw #Monza #duomo #elevation #church #blackandwhite #bnw_captures  #bw #history #cathedral #R_A_D #medieval #cathedrals #italy #italia #blackandwhitephotography #lombardia (w: Duomo di Monza) https://www.instagram.com/p/Byo4zDXoxcc/?igshid=o6qdmm5rp0gb

[rosefest]

Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

[bookingvacation]

Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

[travelmgznbg]

Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

[balkanholiday]

Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.15

221 – Liu Bei, Chinese warlord, proclaims himself emperor of Shu Han, the successor of the Han dynasty. 392 – Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne. 589 – King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence among the Lombard nobility. 756 – Abd al-Rahman I, the founder of the Arab dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries, becomes emir of Cordova, Spain. 1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. 1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury. 1602 – Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold. 1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made). 1648 – The Peace of Münster is ratified, by which Spain acknowledges Dutch sovereignty. 1791 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance. 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). 1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse. 1849 – The Sicilian revolution of 1848 is finally extinguished. 1850 – The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending "the existing differences" between Great Britain and Argentina. 1851 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia: Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley. 1891 – Pope Leo XIII defends workers' rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. 1905 – Las Vegas founded in Nevada. 1911 – In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up. 1911 – More than 300 Chinese immigrants are killed in the Torreón massacre when the forces of the Mexican Revolution led by Emilio Madero take the city of Torreón from the Federales. 1918 – The Finnish Civil War was ended, when the Whites took over Fort Ino, a Russian coastal artillery base on the Karelian Isthmus, from the Russian troops. 1919 – The Winnipeg general strike begins. By 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job. 1919 – Greek occupation of Smyrna. During the occupation, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks; those responsible are punished by Greek commander Aristides Stergiades. 1929 – A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123. 1932 – In an attempted coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is assassinated. 1933 – All military aviation organizations within or under the control of the RLM of Germany were officially merged in a covert manner to form its Wehrmacht military's air arm, the Luftwaffe. 1940 – USS Sailfish is recommissioned. It was originally the USS Squalus. 1940 – World War II: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation. 1940 – Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant. 1941 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft. 1941 – Joe DiMaggio begins a 56-game hitting streak. 1942 – World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law. 1943 – Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International). 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia. 1948 – Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. 1957 – At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple. 1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone. 1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals. 1972 – The Ryukyu Islands, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control. 1974 – Ma'alot massacre: Members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack and take hostages at an Israeli school; a total of 31 people are killed, including 22 schoolchildren. 1988 – Soviet–Afghan War: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdraw 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. 1991 – Édith Cresson becomes France's first female Prime Minister. 1997 – The United States government acknowledges the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans. 1997 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-84 to dock with the Russian space station Mir. 2004 – Arsenal F.C. go an entire league campaign unbeaten in the English Premier League, joining Preston North End F.C with the right to claim the title "The Invincibles". 2008 – California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional. 2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo. 2013 – An upsurge in violence in Iraq leaves more than 389 people dead over three days.

[atozholidays]

Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

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Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.

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Lombards as the last great wave

Old histories see the Lombards as the last great wave of barbarian hordes swooping down into Italy, but they were far more normal in Roman terms. Relocated in Italy, seizing the high ground, cowing their neighbors into grudging submission (for there was no one from whom to expect rescue), they promptly subsided. Their great leader Alboin, who had won the war against the Gepids and then led his forces into Italy, was overthrown and murdered in 572 at the hand of his wife Rosamund and a henchman, and his successor Clef lasted barely a year. For another ten years, the Lombards in Italy made do without a single leader. You could draw a map to show for every square foot of Italy at that time whether Lombards or Romans claimed suzerainty there, but over considerable stretches of country local lords held sway and the patterns we saw already under the rule of Theoderic’s successors grew stronger. A few landlords and a few soldiers could give a valley a semblance of government, whatever its notional relationship to some ruler elsewhere might be. Many of those landlords, moreover, were newcomers, military figures of sometimes ambiguous provenance, who had settled in Italy on vacant lands— sometimes forcibly vacated, of course—after Justinian’s great debilitating wars. If no one thought of them either as warlords or as barbarians, they were still men to be reckoned with in their petty domains, and were for the most part left undisturbed by more ambitious rulers elsewhere, who had enough to do just to maintain their own pretense of power.

Philo-Roman and Catholic queen

The best—not truest—yarns about them come from a writer more than a century later: Paul the Deacon. Admiring frescoes in the church at Monza, just north of Milan, commissioned by a very philo-Roman and Catholic queen of the Lombards, Theodelinda, Paul created what was for a long time the standard picture of the Lombards: “They exposed their forehead and shaved all the way round to the neck, while their hair, combed down on either side of the head to the level of the mouth, was parted at the centre. Their clothing was roomy, mainly made of linen, like the Anglo-Saxons wear, decorated with broad bands woven in various colours. Their boots were open at the big toe, held in place by interwoven leather thongs. Later on they began to use thigh boots, over which they put woollen greaves when out riding, in Roman fashion.” Theodelinda had been the queen of Authari; when he died in 590, she chose to call Agilulf to the throne as her spouse. While he reigned she undertook to advance the cause of Nicene Christianity, winning Pope Gregory’s friendship and flattery. In the treasure house of the cathedral at Monza there survives today a splendidly detailed small-scale gilded silver sculpture of a mother hen and its chicks, probably a gift from Gregory to her.