What They Don’t Teach You in School About Vikings

Normans in Italy/Wars of the Lombards

History Time (2020)

Film Review

The Lombards were a Germanic tribe from East of the Rhine that migrated to southern Italy shortly after the Goths, Vandals and Visigoths occupied northern Italy and Spain. During the mid 6th century, the Lombards served as mercenaries under Attila the Hun, and the Byzantine Emperor Justinian hired them to drive the Ostrogoths out of Italy. They were allowed to settle the land previously held by the Ostrogoths (throughout most of Italy) but were never as unified as the Franks in France or the Visigoths in Spain. They adopted the Latin language and much of the infrastructure surviving from the Western Roman Empire.

Charlemagne conquered northern Italy for the Holy Roman Empire in 800, and the Byzantine Empire conquered and settled southern Italy in the early 11th century. Although Capua retained its independence, Lombardy, Salerno and became self-governing principalities under under Byzantine rule. Beginning in the 11th century, a Viking (Norman) campaign in southern Italy and Sicily gradually brought these territories under Norman rule.

Following the fall of Rome, the Byzantine Empire frequently hired Norman knights and foot soldiers as mercenaries. During their invasion of Southern Italy, Sicily and England the Normans incorporated innovative Byzantine military technology not previously seen in Europe. See Byzantine Influence on Norman Weapons

Timeline of Norman invasions:

8th century AD – Viking raids on England, Scotland, Ireland and France (as well as other parts of northern European begin.

791 AD – Vikings (aka Normans) begin major assaults  on west coast of Normandy, establishing the Viking Duchy of Normandy in 911

861 AD – Viking invaders seize and settle Novgorod in northern Russia

885 AD – Norman invaders launch attack on Paris

1040 AD – Holy Roman Empire troops supported by Norman mercenaries and Lombard rebels march against the Byzantine army in Padua. Skirmishes between Lombard rebels, at times aided by Norman mercenaries, and Byzantine forces continue intermittently.

1053 AD – Battle of Civitat results in Norman victory over coalition of Byzantine troops and troops representing, leaving the Normans in control of Lombardy.*

1061 AD – Viking princes Roger and Robert Giscard first invade Sicily and consolide their control of the Island in 1090 AD (see What You Never Learned About in School: The Normn Conquest of Sicily).

1066-1671 AD – the Norman prince William the Conqueror invades and conquers England.