The kingdom of the Lombards, called by Romans Regnum Langobardorum and by the Lombards themselves simply Langbardaland, is in need of a uniform law, in order to make a single nation of the Germanic peoples (Lombards, Gepids, and Heruli) that had entered Italy under Alboin.
The laws, however, do not secure their political unity.
The territorial splits of the duchies, caused by individual factions, restrain the attempted consolidations of the king.
Cleph reigns for eighteen months before meeting the same fate as his predecessor, and in 574 the Lombards break up into local duchies, with no king at all.
The Lombard monarchy ceases to exist, and various dukes divide the Lombard territories.
Constantinople seems to have been partially responsible for this too; the empire does not have the military capacity to drive the invaders back, and it is easier for the Greeks to divide the Lombard leadership and buy some of them into the imperial camp.
Faroald and Zotto had in 570 conquered lands of the central and southern Apennines to create …
