Duchy of Benevento Ducatus Beneventi (Latin) | |||||||||||||
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| 577–774 | |||||||||||||
.png) Calvarycross potent motif was commonly minted oncoins by various princes | |||||||||||||
 Lombard Duchy of Benevento in the eighth century | |||||||||||||
| Status | Vassal state of theKingdom of the Lombards | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Benevento | ||||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||||
| Religion | Chalcedonian Christianity(official),Arianism(former) | ||||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||
| Duke | |||||||||||||
• 571–591 | Zotto(first duke) | ||||||||||||
• 758–774 | Arechis II(last duke & first prince) | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
• Established | 577 | ||||||||||||
• Frankish conquest of the Kingdom of the Lombards | 774 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 774 | ||||||||||||
| Currency | Solidus, tremissis, denarius | ||||||||||||
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| Today part of | Italy | ||||||||||||
TheDuchy of Benevento was the southernmostLombard duchy in theItalian Peninsula that was centered inBenevento, a city inSouthern Italy. Lombard dukes ruled Benevento from 571 to 774, when theKingdom of the Lombards was conquered by theKingdom of the Franks. Being cut off from the rest of the Lombard possessions by thepapalDuchy of Rome, Benevento always had held some degree of independence. Only during the reigns ofGrimoald (r. 662–671) and the kings fromLiutprand (r. 712–744) on was the duchy closely tied to theKingdom of the Lombards. After the fall of the kingdom in 774, the duchy became the sole Lombard territory which continued to exist as arump state, maintaining itsde facto independence for nearly 300 years as thePrincipality of Benevento.
Paul the Deacon referred to Benevento as the "Samnite Duchy" (Ducatum Samnitium) after the region ofSamnium.[1]
The circumstances surrounding the creation of the duchy are disputed. According to some scholars, Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of thePo Valley: the duchy by these accounts would have been founded in 571.[2] The Lombards may have entered later, around 590. Whatever the case, the first duke wasZotto, a leader of a band of soldiers who descended the coast ofCampania. Though at first independent, Zotto was eventually made to submit to the royal authority of the north. His successor wasArechis, his nephew, and the principle of hereditary succession guided the Beneventan duchy to the end.
The Lombard duchies, part of the loosely-knit Lombard kingdom, were essentially independent, in spite of their common roots and language, and law and religion similar to that of the north, and in spite of the Beneventan dukes' custom of taking to wife women from the royal family. A swathe of territory that owed allegiance toRome or toRavenna separated the dukes of Benevento from the kings atPavia. Cultural autonomy followed naturally: a distinctive liturgical chant, theBeneventan chant, developed in the church of Benevento: it was not entirely superseded byGregorian chant until the 11th century. A uniqueBeneventan script was also developed for writingLatin. The 8th-century writerPaul the Deacon arrived in Benevento in the retinue of a princess from Pavia, the duke's bride. Settled into the greatest of Beneventan monasteries,Monte Cassino, he wrote first a history of Rome and then a history of the Lombards, the main source for the history of the duchy to that time as well.
Under Zotto's successors, the duchy was expanded against theByzantine Empire. Arechis, himself from the duchy ofFriuli, capturedCapua andCrotone, and sacked ByzantineAmalfi, but was unable to captureNaples. After his reign, Byzantine holdings in southern Italy were reduced to Naples, Amalfi,Gaeta,Sorrento,Calabria, and the maritime cities ofApulia (Bari,Brindisi,Otranto, etc.). In 662, DukeGrimoald I (duke since 647), went north to aid the KingGodepert against his brother, the co-kingPerctarit, and instead killed the former, forced the latter into exile, and captured Pavia. As king of the Lombards, he tried to reinstateArianism over theCatholicism of the late kingAripert I. However, Arianism was disappearing even in the duchy, as was the distinction between the ethnic Lombard population and the Latin- and Greek-speaking one. In 663, the city itself was besieged by the Byzantines during the failed attempt ofConstans II, who had disembarked atTaranto, to recover southern Italy. DukeRomuald I defended the city bravely, however, and the Emperor, also fearing the arrival of Romuald's father, King Grimoald, retired to Naples. However, Romuald intercepted part of the Roman army atForino, betweenAvellino and Salerno, and destroyed it. A peace between the Duchy and the Eastern Empire was signed in 680.
In the following decades, Benevento conquered some territories from the Byzantines, but the main enemy of the duchy was now the northern Lombard kingdom itself. KingLiutprand intervened several times to impose a candidate of his own on the ducal throne. His successor,Ratchis, declared theduchies of Spoleto and Benevento foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.
In 758, kingDesiderius briefly captured Spoleto and Benevento, but withCharlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774,Arechis II tried to claim the royal dignity and make Benevento asecundum Ticinum: a secondPavia (the old Lombard capital). Seeing that this was impractical and would draw Frankish attention to himself, he opted instead for the title ofprinceps (prince). In 787, he was forced by Charlemagne's siege of Salerno to submit to Frankish suzerainty.
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