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Helmichis

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Helmichis (fl. 572[1]) was a Lombard noble who killed his king, Alboin, in 572 and unsuccessfully attempted to usurp his throne. These events took place in the context of a migration started in 568 by the Lombards, a Germanic people, from Pannonia (modern Hungary) to Byzantine-held Italy. The invasion was guided by Alboin, and was successful, meeting with only minor opposition.

In 572 Alboin settled himself in Verona, interrupting his chain of conquests. This made him vulnerable to the ambitions of other prominent Lombards, such as Helmichis, who was Alboin's foster-brother and arms-bearer. He is first mentioned by the contemporary chronicler Marius of Avenches, but our most detailed account of his endeavours derives from Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum.

According to the available sources Alboin's Queen, Rosamund, did not oppose Helmichis's plan to remove the King. After Alboin's death, Helmichis attempted to gain the throne. He married Rosamund to legitimize his position as new king but immediately faced stiff opposition from his fellow Lombards. Rather than going to war, Helmichis, Rosamund and their followers escaped to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy where they were received with all honours by the authorities.

According to Paul, once in Ravenna Rosamund was persuaded by the Byzantine prefect Longinus to kill Helmichis, so she could be free to marry the prefect. Rosamund proceeded to poison Helmichis, but the latter, having understood what his wife had done to him, forced her too to drink the cup, so that both of them died. After their deaths, Longinus dispatched Helmichis' forces to Constantinople, while the remaining Lombards had already found a new king in Cleph.

Early Sources

The Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI - IX, the MGH volume that contains all the most relevant Lombard narrative texts[2]

Among the early medieval sources available there are six that mention Helmichis by name.[1] Of these, the only contemporary one that has arrived down to us is Marius of Avenches' Chronica, written in the 580s. Marius was bishop of Aventicum, a town located in the western Alps in the Frankish Kingdom of Burgundy.[3] Due to Aventicum's limited distance from the Italian peninsula, the chronicler had easy access to information regarding northern Italy. For this reason, according to historian Roger Collins, his work, while short, should be considered reliable when it comes to Italian matters.[4]

The remaining sources all come from Italy and were all written in later centuries. Two of these were written in the 7th century, the Continuatio Havniensis Prosperi and the Origo Gentis Langobardorum, both anonymous. The Continuatio is a chronicle written around 625 that has reached us in a single manuscript. As its name suggests, it is a continuation of the 5th century chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. Derived in a considerable measure from Isidore's Chronica Majora, it blames the Romans for their incapacity to defend Italy from foreign invaders, and praises the Lombards for defending the country from the Franks.[5] This is the earliest work to have transmitted to us the name of Rosamund, the queen of the Lombards who plays a central role in Helmichis' attested biography.[6]

The other 7th century work, the Origo, is a brief prose history of the the Lombards that is essentially an annotated kinglist apart from the description of the founding myth of the Lombard nation that stands at the work's beginning.[7] As for the date of the Origo's composition, Giorgio Ausenda believes it was written around 643 as a prologue for the Edictum Rothari and continued to be updated till 671.[8] The motivations that move the text are, according to Walter Pohl, mostly political: it serves to consolidate the national identity through insisting on a shared history.[9] Apart from the origin myth the only more detailed account is the one concerning the death of Alboin, and thus Helmichis.[10]

For the events surrounding 572 the most exhaustive source available is Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum, a history of the Lombard nation up to 744. The book was finished in the last two decades of the 8th century, after the Lombard Kingdom had been conquered by the Franks in 774.[11][12] Due to the apparent presence in the work of many fragments preserved from Lombard oral tradition, Paul's work has been often interpreted as a tribute to a vanishing culture.[13] Among these otherwise lost traditions stands the tale of Alboin's death. According to Herwig Wolfram, what Paul deals with is an example of how nationally vital events were personalized to make them easier to preserve in the collective memory.[14]

Even later than the Historia Langobardorum, but possibly using earlier lost sources, are the last two primary source to speak about Helmichis, that is the anonymous Historia Langobardorum Codicis Gothani and the Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis written by Andreas Agnellus.[15] As for the first, it is a brief christianizing version of the Origo that was made in the first decade of the 9th century from a Carolingian point of view.[16] The second text comes in the 830s from the pen of a priest from Ravenna who intends to present a history of the bishops who have held the see of Ravenna through the ages.[17] Agnellus' passage on Alboin and Rosamund is mostly derived from Paul and little else.[18]

Background and assassination

A painting with two men and a woman, in which one man pointing a spear against the other one who is holding a stooge, with the women is holding a sword
Alboin is killed by Peredeo while Rosamund steals his sword, in a 19th-century painting by Charles Landseer

The Lombards, a Germanic people settled in Pannonia (modern Hungary), under the guidance of their king Alboin moved war against the neighboring people of the Gepids in 567. In the decisive battle Alboin killed the Gepids' king Cunimund and made prisoner the king's daughter, Rosamund. Eventually, he married her to guarantee the loyalty of the surviving Gepids.[19][20] The following year the Lombards left their homeland and migrated to Italy, a territory then held by the Byzantine Empire. In 569 Alboin took Mediolanum (Milan), the capital of northern Italy, and by 570 he had assumed control of most of northern Italy. The Byzantine forces entrenched themselves in the strategic town of Ticinum (Pavia), that was taken only after a long siege. Even before taking Ticinum, the Lombards crossed the Apennines and invaded Tuscia. After the fall of Ticinum Alboin chose as capital for his new kingdom Verona, a town that had been previously a headquarters of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric. In this town Alboin was assassinated in 572 and it is in these circumstances that Helmichis' name is first heard of.[21][22]

As previously mentioned, the oldest authour to speak about Helmichis is the contemporary chronicler Marius of Avenches. In his account he mentions that "Alboin was killed by his followers, that is Hilmaegis with the rest, his wife agreeing to it".[23] Marius continues by adding that after having killed the king Helmichis married his widow and tried unsuccessfully to gain the throne. His attempt failed and he was forced to escape together with his wife, the royal treasure and the troops that had sided with him in the coup.[24] This account has strong similarities with what is told in the Origo.[25] The Origo will in its turn become a direct source for the Historia Langobardorum.[11]

A black-and-white engraving showing a woman with a skull and a man in the background
Rosamund, as viewed by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Frederick Sandys

Most details available are, as mentioned, in the Historia Langobardorum. Alboin by settling himself in Verona and temporarily interrupting his chain of conquests had weakened his position among his people as a charismatic warrior-king.[26] The first one to take advantage of this was Rosamund, that could count on the support in her enterprise on the Gepids warriors present in the town in her search for an opportunity to revenge herself for the death of her father. To obtain this goal she persuaded Helmichis, spatharius (arms bearer) and foster brother of the king, and also head of a personal armed following in Verona,[26] to enter in a plot to eliminate Alboin and replace him on the throne. Helmichis persuaded Rosamund to include in the plot Peredeo, described simply as "a very strong man" by Paul, who is seduced through a trick by the Queen and forced to consent to become the material executor of the regicide.[1][27]

This story is partly in conflict with what is told by the Origo, where Peredeo acts as an instigator and not as the murderer. On a similar vein to the Origo is the account of Peredeo contained in the Historia Langobardorum Codicis Gothani, where it is added that Peredeo was Alboin's "chamber-guard", hinting that in the original version of the story Peredeo's role may just have been to let the real assassin in,[27] that in Agnellus' account is, as it had been in Marius',[28] Helmichis; but it may be that is this history the intent is primarily to obtain a more straightforward and coherent narrative by reducing the number of actors in the story, beginning with Peredeo.[29] The disappearance of the latter also means that the nature of Helmichis changes: while in Paul Helmichis is "the efficient conspirator and killer", with Agnellus he is a victim of a ruthless and domineering queen.[30]

It may be that Agnellus' narrative better reflects Lombard oral tradition than Paul's. According to historian Paolo Delogu's interpretation Paul's narrative represents a late deformation of the Germanic myths and rituals contained in the oral tradition. In a telling consistent with Germanic tradition it would be Helmichis who was seduced by the queen, and by sleeping with him Rosamund would pass magically to the king's prospective murderer Alboin's royal charisma. A symbol of this passage of powers would be in the passage, told by Paul, of when the assassin comes in to kill him: his inability to draw the sword represents here his loss of power.[31]

After the king's death on June 28, 572, Helmichis married Rosamund and claimed the Lombard throne in Verona.[1] The marriage was important for Helmichis since it legitimized his rule, as judging from Lombard history royal prerogatives could be inherited by marrying the king's widow. Also for Helmichis the marriage was a guarantee of the loyalty of the Gepids present in the army, who sided with the queen since she was Cunimund's daughter.[32][33]

Failure

"Helmegis then, upon the death of his king, attempted to usurp his kingdom, but he could not at all do this, because the Langobards, grieving greatly for the king's death, strove to make way with him. And straightway Rosemund sent word to Longinus, prefect of Ravenna, that he should quickly send a ship to fetch them. Longinus, delighted by such a message, speedily sent a ship in which Helmegis with Rosemund his wife embarked, fleeing at night."[34]
Paul the Deacon
Historia Langobardorum, Book II, Ch. 29

Behind the coup were almost certainly the Byzantines who had every interest in removing a dangerous enemy and replacing him with somebody if not from a pro-Byzantine faction at least less actively aggressive.[35] Gian Piero Bognetti advances a few hypotheses on the reason that may have motivated Helmichis in his coup: he could have found a reason either through a family link with the Lethings, the Lombard royal dynasty that had been dispossessed by Alboin's father Audoin, or alternatively he may have been related through Amalafrid to the Amali, the leading dynasty of the Goths. Helmichis was able to obtain readily the support of the Lombards in Verona, and probably he hoped to sway to his side all the warriors and Lombard dukes by having under his control Alboin's only child, Albsuinda, as well as hoping in Byzantine help in buying the dukes economically.[36]

Helmichis' coup ultimately failed because it met strong opposition from the many Lombards who wanted to continue the war against the Byzantines and confront the regicides.[37] Faced with the eventuality of going to war at overwhelming odds, Helmichis asked for help from the Byzantines. The Praetorian prefect Longinus permitted him to avoid a land route possibly held by hostile forces, shipping him instead through the Po to Byzantine-held Ravenna, together with his wife, his Lombard and Gepid troops, the royal treasure and Albsuinda.[1][35][33] Bognetti believes that Longinus may have planned to make the Lombards weaker by depriving them of any legitimate heir. To this could be added that because of the ongoing war it was hard to gather an assembly of all the warriors to formally elect a new king. This plan was brought to nothing by the troops stationed in Ticinum that elected their duke Cleph king with in mind to continue Alboin's agressive policy.[37] Wolfram argues instead that Cleph was elected in Ticinum when Helmichis was still making his bid in Verona.[32]

Death

a manuscript miniature with the bust of an armoured man holding a standard in one hand and a sceptre in the other
A miniature of Longinus, the Byzantine official said by Paul to be behind's Helmichis' death

Once in Ravenna Helmichis and Rosamund became rapidly estranged. According to Paul, Longinus persuaded Rosamund to remove her husband so that he could marry her. To obtain this she mad him drink a cup full of poison; but before dying, Helmichis understood what his wife has done and forced her to drink the cup too, thus both dying.[1][33][38] According to Wolfram, there may be some historical truth in Longinus' proposal to Rosamund, as it was possible to achieve Lombard kingship by marrying the queen, while the story of the two lovers end is not historical but legendary.[32] The mutual murder as told by Agnellus is instead discussed by Joaquin Martinez Pizarro: he sees Helmichis last action as a symbol of how the natural hierarchy of sexes is at last restored, after the queen's actions have unnaturally modified the correct equilibrium.[30]

Longinus at this point sent to Constantinople, the Empire's capital, the royal treasure and Albsuinda together with Helmichis' forces that were to become Byzantine mercenaries.[39] This was a common Byzantine strategy already applied previously with the Ostrogoths, by which large national contingents were relocated to be used in other theatres.[24] These are believed to be the same 60,000 Lombards that are attested by John of Ephesus being active in Syria in 575 against the Persians.[37] As for Albsuinda, the Byzantine diplomacy probably thought to use her as a political tool to impose on the Lombards a pro-Byzantine king.[40] According to Agnellus, once Longinus' actions came to the attention of the emperor Justin II they were greatly praised. As a result, the emperor gave his official lavish gifts.[41]

Regarding the Lombards who remained in Italy, Cleph kept the throne for only 18 months before being assassinated by a slave. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom.[42]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Martindale 1992, s.v. Hilmegis, p. 599
  2. ^ Jarnut 2003, p. 409
  3. ^ Goffart 2006, p. 254
  4. ^ Collins 1991, p. 187
  5. ^ Muhlberger 1998, p. 96
  6. ^ Goffart 1988, p. 391
  7. ^ Pohl 2000, p. 15
  8. ^ Ausenda 2003, p. 34
  9. ^ Pohl 2000, p. 16
  10. ^ Braciotti 1998, p. 8
  11. ^ a b Deliyannis 2010, p. 203
  12. ^ Pizarro 2003, p. 70
  13. ^ Pizarro 2003, pp. 72-73
  14. ^ Wolfram 1997, p. 292
  15. ^ Capo 1992, p. 452
  16. ^ Pohl 2000, p. 21
  17. ^ Sot 2003, p. 104
  18. ^ Pizarro 1995, p. 131
  19. ^ Jarnut 1995, p. 22
  20. ^ Bognetti 1968, pp. 27-28
  21. ^ Jarnut 1995, pp. 29-30
  22. ^ Martindale 1992, s.v. Alboin, pp. 38-40
  23. ^ Paul 1907, p. 83n
  24. ^ a b Collins 1991, pp. 187-188
  25. ^ Bullough 1991, p. 107
  26. ^ a b Delogu 2003, p. 16
  27. ^ a b Pizarro 1995, p. 128
  28. ^ Goffart 1988, pp. 391-392
  29. ^ Pizarro 1995, p. 132
  30. ^ a b Pizarro 1995, p. 133
  31. ^ Delogu 2003, pp. 16-17
  32. ^ a b c Wolfram 1997, pp. 291-292
  33. ^ a b c Jarnut 1995, p. 32
  34. ^ Paul 1907, p. 84
  35. ^ a b Wolfram 1997, pp. 291 – 292
  36. ^ Bognetti 1966, pp. 73-74
  37. ^ a b c Bognetti 1966, p. 74
  38. ^ Pizarro 1995, p. 127
  39. ^ Delogu 2003, pp. 16-17
  40. ^ Bognetti 1968, pp. 28-29
  41. ^ Capo 1992, p. 454
  42. ^ Wickham 1989, pp. 31-32

References

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  • Template:It icon Bognetti, Gian Piero. "S. Maria Foris Portas di Castelseprio e la Storia Religiosa dei Longobardi", L'età longobarda - II. Milan: Giuffrè, 1948 [1966], pp. 11-511.
  • Template:It icon Bognetti, Gian Piero. "I rapporti etico-politici fra Oriente e Occidente dalsecolo V al secolo VIII", L'età longobarda - IV. Milan: Giuffrè, 1955 [1968], pp. 3-65.
  • Template:It icon Bracciotti, Annalisa. "Premessa", Origo gentis Langobardorum: introduzione, testo critico, commento. Annalisa Bracciotti (ed.). Rome: Herder, 1998, pp. 1-22. ISBN 8885876323.
  • Bullough, Donald A.. Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991, ISBN 0719033543.
  • Template:It icon Capo, Lidia. "Commento" in Paul the Deacon, Storia dei Longobardi. Lidia Capo (ed.). Milan: Mondadori, 1992, pp. 369-612. ISBN 8804330104.
  • Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe 300 – 1000. London: Macmillan, 1991, ISBN 0-333-36825-8.
  • Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf. Ravenna in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-83672-2.
  • Delogu, Paolo. "Il regno longobardo", Longobardi e Bizantini. Paolo Delogu, André Guillou & Gherardo Ortalli (eds.). Turin: UTET, 1980 [2003], pp. 1-216. ISBN 88-02-03510-5.
  • Goffart, Walter. The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-691-05514-9.
  • Goffart, Walter. Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8122-3939-3.
  • Template:It icon Jarnut, Jörg. Storia dei Longobardi. Turin: Einaudi, 1982 [1995], ISBN 88-06-13658-5.
  • Jarnut, Jörg. "Gens, rex and regnum of the Lombards", Regna and Gentes: The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World. Hans-Wener Goetz, Jörg Jarnut & Walter Pohl (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 409-427. ISBN 90-04-12528-8.
  • Martindale, John R. (ed.), Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire - Volume III: A.D. 527 – 641, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0521201605.
  • Muhlberger, Steven. "War, Warlords, and Christian Historians from the Fifth to the Seventh Century", After Rome's fall: narrators and sources of early medieval history. Alexander C. Murray (ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, pp. 83-98. ISBN 9780802007797.
  • Paul the Deacon. History of the Langobards. William Dudley Foulke (translator). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1907.
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  • Pizarro, Joaquin Martinez. "Ethnic and National History ca. 500 - 1000", Historiography in the Middle Ages. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (ed.). Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 43-87. ISBN 90-04-11881-0.
  • Pohl, Walter. "Memory, identity and power in Lombard Italy", The uses of the past in the early Middle Ages. Yitzhak Hen & Matthew Innes (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 9-28. ISBN 9780521639989.
  • Sot, Michel. "Local and Institutional History (300 - 1000)", Historiography in the Middle Ages. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (ed.). Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 89-114. ISBN 90-04-11881-0.
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  • Wolfram, Herwig. The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990 [1997], ISBN 0-520-24490-7.
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