Charles Martel
Charles Martel was a Frankish statesman and military leader who as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. The son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida, Charles asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior, uncommonly...effective in battle". Much attention has been paid to his success in defeating an Arab raid in Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours. Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with a seminal role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism. At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons and Pepin.
The latter became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. Charles' grandson, extended the Frankish realms, became the first Emperor in the West since the fall of Rome. Charles, nicknamed "Martel", or "the Hammer", in chronicles, was the son of Pepin of Herstal and his second wife Alpaida, he had a brother named Childebrand, who became the Frankish dux of Burgundy. In older historiography, it was common to describe Charles as "illegitimate", but the dividing line between wives and concubines was not clear-cut in eighth-century Francia, it is that the accusation of "illegitimacy" derives from the desire of Pepin's first wife Plectrude to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's power. After the reign of Dagobert I the Merovingians ceded power to the Pippinid Mayors of the Palace, who ruled the Frankish realm of Austrasia in all but name, they controlled the royal treasury, dispensed patronage, granted land and privileges in the name of the figurehead king. Charles' father, Pepin of Herstal, was able to unite the Frankish realm by conquering Neustria and Burgundy.
He was the first to call himself Duke and Prince of the Franks, a title taken up by Charles. In December 714, Pepin of Herstal died. Prior to his death, he had, at his wife Plectrude's urging, designated Theudoald, his grandson by their late son Grimoald, his heir in the entire realm; this was opposed by the nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne, the city, intended to be her capital; this prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia, but not in Neustria. Pepin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who sought political independence from Austrasian control. In 715, Dagobert III named Ragenfrid mayor of their palace declaring political independence. On 26 September 715, Ragenfrid's Neustrians met the young Theudoald's forces at the Battle of Compiegne. Theudoald fled back to Cologne. Before the end of the year, Charles Martel had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of Austrasia.
That same year, Dagobert III died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II, the cloistered son of Childeric II, as king. In 716, Chilperic and Ragenfrid together led an army into Austrasia intent on seizing the Pippinid wealth at Cologne; the Neustrians allied with another invading force under Radbod, King of the Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne, still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men, or prepare, the result was the only defeat of his career; the Frisians held off Charles, while the king and his mayor besieged Plectrude at Cologne, where she bought them off with a substantial portion of Pepin's treasure. They withdrew. Charles retreated to the hills of the Eifel to gather men, train them. Having made the proper preparations, in April 716, he fell upon the triumphant army near Malmedy as it was returning to its own province. In the ensuing Battle of Amblève, Martel attacked. According to one source, he split his forces into several groups. Another suggests that while this was his intention, he decided, given the enemy's unpreparedness, this was not necessary.
In any event, the suddenness of the assault lead them to believe they were facing a much larger host. Many of the enemy fled and Martel's troops gathered the spoils of the camp. Martel's reputation increased as a result, he attracted more followers; this battle is considered by historians as the turning point in Charles's struggle. Richard Gerberding points out that up to this time, much of Martel's support was from his mother's kindred in the lands around Liege. After Amblève, he seems to have won the backing of the influential Willibrord, founder of the Abbey of Echternach; the abbey had been built on land donated by Plectrude's mother, Irmina of Oeren, but most of Willibrord's missionary work had been carried out in Frisia. In joining Chilperic and Ragenfrid, Radbod of Frisia sacked Utrecht, burning churches and killing many missionaries. Willibrord and his monks were forced to flee to Echternach. Gerberding suggests that Willibrord had decided that the chances of preserving his life's work were better with a successful field commander like Martel than with Plectrude in Cologne.
Willibrord subsequently baptized Martel's son Pepin. Gerberding suggests a date of Easter 716. Martel received support from Bishop Pepo of Verdun. Charles took time to prepare. By the following spring, Charles had attracted e
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area, part of Scythia at the time. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, by 430 the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders, causing many others to flee into Roman territory; the Huns under their King Attila made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, the Huns invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, in 452 they invaded Italy. After Attila's death in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao. Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighbouring populations to the south and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries.
Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century. In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were northern neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC. Since Guignes' time, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection; the issue remains controversial. Their relationships to other peoples known collectively as the Iranian Huns are disputed. Little is known about Hunnic culture and few archaeological remains have been conclusively associated with the Huns, they are believed to have used bronze cauldrons and to have performed artificial cranial deformation. No description exists of the Hunnic religion of the time of Attila, but practices such as divination are attested, the existence of shamans likely, it is known that the Huns had a language of their own, however only three words and personal names attest to it. Economically, they are known to have practiced a form of nomadic pastoralism.
They do not seem to have had a unified government when they entered Europe, but rather to have developed a unified tribal leadership in the course of their wars with the Romans. The Huns ruled over a variety of peoples, who spoke various languages and some of whom maintained their own rulers, their main military technique was mounted archery. The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire; the memory of the Huns lived on in various Christian saints' lives, where the Huns play the roles of antagonists, as well as in Germanic heroic legend, where the Huns are variously antagonists or allies to the Germanic main figures. In Hungary, a legend developed based on medieval chronicles that the Hungarians, the Székely ethnic group in particular, are descended from the Huns. However, mainstream scholarship dismisses a close connection between the Huns. Modern culture associates the Huns with extreme cruelty and barbarism; the origins of the Huns and their links to other steppe people remain uncertain: scholars agree that they originated in Central Asia but disagree on the specifics of their origins.
Classical sources assert that they appeared in Europe around 370. Most Roman writers' attempts to elucidate the origins of the Huns equated them with earlier steppe peoples. Roman writers repeated a tale that the Huns had entered the domain of the Goths while they were pursuing a wild stag, or else one of their cows that had gotten loose, across the Kerch Strait into Crimea. Discovering the land good, they attacked the Goths. Jordanes' Getica relates that the Goths held the Huns to be offspring of "unclean spirits" and Gothic witches. Since Joseph de Guignes in the 18th century, modern historians have associated the Huns who appeared on the borders of Europe in the 4th century AD with the Xiongnu who had invaded China from the territory of present-day Mongolia between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD. Due to the devastating defeat by the Chinese Han dynasty, the northern branch of the Xiongnu had retreated north-westward. Scholars discussed the relationship between the Xungnu, the Huns, a number of people in central Asia were known as or came to be identified with the name "Hun" or "Iranian Huns", the Chionites, the Kidarites, the Hephthalites being the most prominent.
Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen was the first to challenge the traditional approach, based on the study of written sources, to emphasize the importance of archaeological research. Since Maenchen-Helfen's work, the identification of the Xiongnu as the Huns' ancestors has become controversial. Additionally, several scholars have questioned the identification of the "Iranian Huns" with the European Huns. Walter Pohl cautions that none of the great confederations of steppe warriors was ethnically homogenous, the same name was used by different groups for reasons of prestige, or by outsiders to describe their lifestyle or geographic origin, it is therefore futile to speculate about identity or blood relationships between Hiung-nu, Attila's Huns, for instance. All we can safely say is that the name Huns, in
Main (river)
The Main is a river in Germany. With a length of 525 kilometres, it is the longest right tributary of the Rhine, it is the longest river lying in Germany. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the mainspring of the Main River flows through the German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. Its basin competes with the Danube for water; the Main begins near Kulmbach in Franconia at the joining of its two headstreams, the Red Main and the White Main. The Red Main originates in the Franconian Jura mountain range, 50 km in length, runs through Creussen and Bayreuth; the White Main originates in the mountains of the Fichtelgebirge. In its upper and middle section, the Main runs through the valleys of the German Highlands, its lower section crosses the Lower Main Lowlands to Wiesbaden. Major tributaries of the Main are the Regnitz, the Franconian Saale, the Tauber, the Nidda; the name "Main" derives from the Latin Moenus or Menus. It is not related to the name of the city Mainz; the Main is navigable for shipping from its mouth at the Rhine close to Mainz for 396 km to Bamberg.
Since 1992, the Main has been connected to the Danube via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the regulated Altmühl river. The Main has been canalized with 34 large locks to allow CEMT class V vessels to navigate the total length of the river; the 16 locks in the adjacent Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the Danube itself are of the same dimensions. There are 34 dams and locks along the 380 km navigable portion of the Main, from the confluence with the Regnitz near Bamberg, to the Rhine. No.: Number of the lock. Name: Name of the lock. Location: City or town where the lock is located. Year built: Year when the lock was put into operation. Main-km: Location on the Main, measured from the 0 km stone in Mainz-Kostheim; the reference point is the center of the lock group. Distance between locks: length in km of impoundment. Altitude: height in meters above mean sea level of the upper water at normal levels. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Lock length: Usable length of the lock chamber in meters. Lock width: Usable width of the lock chamber in meters.
Most of the dams along the Main have turbines for power generation. No.: Number of the dam. Name: Name of the dam. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Power: Maximum power generation capacity in megawatts. Turbines: Type and number of turbines. Operator: Operator of the hydroelectric plant. Tributaries from source to mouth: Around Frankfurt are several large inland ports; because the river is rather narrow on many of the upper reaches, navigation with larger vessels and push convoys requires great skill. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the Main passes the following towns and cities: Burgkunstadt, Bad Staffelstein, Eltmann, Haßfurt, Volkach, Marktbreit, Karlstadt, Gemünden, Marktheidenfeld, Miltenberg, Erlenbach/Main, Seligenstadt, Hanau, Hattersheim, Flörsheim, Rüsselsheim. The river has gained enormous importance as a vital part of European "Corridor VII", the inland waterway link from the North Sea to the Black Sea. In a historical and political sense, the Main line is referred to as the northern border of Southern Germany, with its predominantly Catholic population.
The river marked the southern border of the North German Federation, established in 1867 under Prussian leadership as the predecessor of the German Empire. The river course corresponds with the Speyer line isogloss between Central and Upper German dialects, sometimes mocked as Weißwurstäquator; the Main-Radweg is a major German bicycle path running along the Main River. It is 600 kilometres long and was the first long-distance bicycle path to be awarded 5 stars by the General German Bicycle Club ADFC in 2008, it starts from either Creußen or Bischofsgrün and ends in Mainz. Roman camp at Marktbreit Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Main und Meer - Porträt eines Flusses. Exhibition Catalogue to the Bayerische Landesausstellung 2013. WBG. ISBN 978-3-534-00010-4. Main River Website on the River Main by the Tourist Board of Franconia. "Main". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. "Main". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914. There is literature about Main in the Hessian Bibliography Water levels of Bavarian rivers Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Süd Main Cycleway Historical map of the Main confluence at Steinenhausen from BayernAtlas
Sudetes
The Sudetes are a mountain range in Central Europe. They are the highest part of Bohemian Massif. Stretches from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest, to the Głubczyce plateau in Poland and to the Ostrava Basin and Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with a some characteristics proper of high mountains, its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps. In the west, Sudetes border with the Elbe Sandstone Mountains; the westernmost point of the Sudetes lies in the Dresden Heath, the westernmost part of the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands, in Dresden. In the east of the Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains; the Sudetes' highest mountain is Mount Sněžka/Śnieżka, the highest mountain of the Czech Republic and Silesia, in the Krkonoše/Karkonosze Mountains, lying on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland.
Mount Praděd in the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains is the highest mountain of Moravia. Lusatia's highest point lies on Mount Smrk/Smrek in the Jizera Mountains, the Sudetes' highest mountain in Germany, the country's highest mountain east of the River Elbe, is Mount Lausche/Luž in the Zittau Mountains, the highest part of the Lusatian Mountains; the most notable rivers rising in the Sudetes are Elbe, Spree, Morava, Bóbr, Lusatian Neisse, Eastern Neisse and Kwisa. The highest parts of the Sudetes are protected by national parks; the Sudeten Germans as well as the Sudetenland are named after the Sudetes. The name Sudetes is derived from Sudeti montes, a Latinization of the name Soudeta ore used in the Geographia by the Greco-Roman writer Ptolemy c. AD 150 for a range of mountains in Germania in the general region of the modern Czech republic. There is no consensus about which mountains he meant, he could for example have intended the Ore Mountains, joining the modern Sudetes to their west, or the Bohemian Forest (although this is considered to be equivalent to Ptolemy's Gabreta forest.
The modern Sudetes are Ptolemy's Askiburgion mountains. Ptolemy wrote "Σούδητα" in Greek, a neuter plural. Latin mons, however, is a masculine, hence Sudeti; the Latin version, the modern geographical identification, is to be a scholastic innovation, as it is not attested in classical Latin literature. The meaning of the name is not known. In one hypothetical derivation, it means Mountains of Wild Boars, relying on Indo-European *su-, "pig". A better etymology is from Latin sudis, plural sudes, "spines", which can be used of spiny fish or spiny terrain; the Sudetes are divided into: Eastern Sudetes in the Czech Republic and Poland Oderské vrchy Hrubý Jeseník Mountains with Mt. Praděd, 1,491 m Opawskie Mountains Golden Mountains Śnieżnik Mountains Hanušovická vrchovina Central Sudetes, in the Czech Republic and Poland Orlické Mountains with Mt. Velká Deštná, 1,115 m Bystrzyckie Mountains Bardzkie Mountains Table Mountains Owl Mountains Krucze Mountains Stone Mountains Waldenburg Mountains Ślęża massif Western Sudetes, in Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge Jizera Mountains Kaczawskie Mountains Krkonoše with Mt. Sněžka, 1,603 m Lusatian Mountains Rudawy Janowickie Lusatian Highlands Sudeten ForelandHigh Sudetes is together name for the Krkonoše, Hrubý Jeseník and Śnieżnik mountain ranges.
The Sudetes comprise larger basins like the Jelenia Góra and the Kłodzko Valley. The highest mountains, those located along the Czech-Polish border have annual precipitations around 1500 mm; the Stołowe Mountains that reach 919 m have precipitations ranging from 750 mm at lower locations to 920 mm in the upper parts with July being the rainiest month. Snow cover at the Stołowe Mountains last 70 to 95 days depending on altitude. Settlement and clearance has left forest pockets in the foothills with dense and continuous forest being found in the upper parts of the mountains. Due to logging in the last centuries little remains of the broad-leaf trees like beech, sycamore and littleleaf linden that were once common in the Sudetes. Instead Norway spruce was planted in their place in the early 19th century, in some places amounting to monocultures. To provide more space for spruce plantations various peatlands were drained in the 19th and 20th century; some spruce plantations have suffered severe damage as the seeds used came from lowland specimens that were not adapted to mountain conditions.
Silver fir grow in the Sudetes being more widespread in past times, before clearance since the Late Middle Ages and subsequent industrial pollution reduced the stands. Many arctic-alpine and alpine vascular plants have a disjunct distribution being notably absent from the central Sudetes despite suitable habitats; this is the result a warm period during the Holocene which wiped out cold-adapted vascular plants in the medium-sized mountains of the central Sudetes where there was no higher ground that could serve as
Fulda
Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany. In 1990, the town hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. In 744 Saint Sturm, a disciple of Saint Boniface, founded the Benedictine monastery of Fulda as one of Boniface's outposts in the reorganization of the church in Germany, it served as a base from which missionaries could accompany Charlemagne's armies in their political and military campaigns to conquer and convert pagan Saxony. The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia, the son of Charles Martel; the support of the Mayors of the Palace, of the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's success. Fulda received support from many of the leading families of the Carolingian world. Sturm, whose tenure as abbot lasted from 747 until 779, was most related to the Agilolfing dukes of Bavaria. Fulda received large and constant donations from the Etichonids, a leading family in Alsace, from the Conradines, predecessors of the Salian Holy Roman Emperors.
Under Sturm, the donations Fulda received from these and other important families helped in the establishment of daughter-houses near Fulda. After his martyrdom by the Frisians, the relics of Saint Boniface were brought back to Fulda; because of the stature this afforded the monastery, the donations increased, Fulda could establish daughter-houses further away, for example in Hamelin. Meanwhile, Saint Lullus, successor of Boniface as archbishop of Mainz, tried to absorb the abbey into his archbishopric, but failed; this was one reason that he founded Hersfeld Abbey — to limit the attempts of the enlargement of Fulda. Between 790 and 819 the community rebuilt the main monastery church to more fittingly house the relics, they based their new basilica on the original 4th-century Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, using the transept and crypt plan of that great pilgrimage church to frame their own saint as the "Apostle to the Germans"; the crypt of the original abbey church still holds those relics, but the church itself has been subsumed into a Baroque renovation.
A small, 9th-century chapel remains standing within walking distance of the church, as do the foundations of a women's abbey. Rabanus Maurus served as abbot at Fulda from 822 to 842. Prince-abbot Balthasar von Dernbach adopted a policy of counterreformation. In 1571 he called in the Jesuits to found a college, he insisted. Whereas his predecessors had tolerated Protestantism, resulting in most of the citizenry of Fulda and a large portion of the principality's countryside professing Lutheranism, Balthasar ordered his subjects either to return to the Catholic faith or leave his territories; the foundation of the abbey Fulda and its territory originated with an Imperial grant, the sovereign principality therefore was subject only to the German emperor. Fulda became a bishopric in 1752 and the prince-abbots were given the additional title of prince-bishop; the prince-abbots ruled Fulda and the surrounding region until the bishopric was forcibly dissolved by Napoleon I in 1802. The city went through a baroque building campaign in the 18th century, resulting in the current “Baroque City” status.
This included a remodeling of the Stadtschloss by Johann Dientzenhofer. The city parish church, St. Blasius, was built between 1771–85. In 1764 a porcelain factory was started in Fulda under Prince-Bishop, Prince-Abbot Heinrich von Bibra, but shortly after his death it was closed down in 1789 by his successor, Prince-Bishop, Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Harstall; the city was given to Prince William Frederick of Orange-Nassau in 1803, was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1806, in 1809 to the Principality of Frankfurt. After the Congress of Vienna of 1814–15, most of the territory went to the Electorate of Hesse, which Prussia annexed in 1866. Fulda lends its name to the Fulda Gap, a traditional east-west invasion route used by Napoleon I and others. During the Cold War, it was presumed to be an invasion route for any conventional war between NATO and Soviet forces. Downs Barracks in Fulda was the headquarters of the American 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment replaced by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.
The cavalry had as many as 3,000 soldiers from the end of World War II until 1993. Not all of those soldiers were in Fulda proper, but scattered over observation posts and in the cities of Bad Kissingen and Bad Hersfeld; the strategic importance of this region led to a large United States– and Soviet military presence. Cuno Raabe:1946–1956 Alfred Dregger: 1956–1970 Wolfgang Hamberger: 1970–1998 Alois Rhiel: 1998–2003 Gerhard Möller: 2003–2015 Heiko Wingenfeld: 2015– Fulda station is a transport hub and interchange point between local and long distance traffic of the German railway network, is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 2 station, it is on the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway. Fulda is on the Bundesautobahn 7. Bundesautobahn 66 starts at the interchange with the BAB 7
Alboin
Alboin was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572, he had a lasting effect on the Pannonian Basin. The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbors, the Gepids; the Gepids gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's reduced ability to defend its territory in the wake of the Gothic War. After gathering a large coalition of peoples, Alboin crossed the Julian Alps in 568, entering an undefended Italy, he took control of most of Venetia and Liguria.
In 569, unopposed, he took Milan. Pavia offered stiff resistance however, was taken only after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army began to manifest themselves. Alboin was assassinated on June 572, in a coup d'état instigated by the Byzantines, it was organized by the king's foster brother, with the support of Alboin's wife, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier. The coup failed in the face of opposition from a majority of the Lombards, who elected Cleph as Alboin's successor, forcing Helmichis and Rosamund to flee to Ravenna under imperial protection. Alboin's death deprived the Lombards of the only leader who could have kept the newborn Germanic entity together, the last in the line of hero-kings who had led the Lombards through their migrations from the vale of the Elbe to Italy. For many centuries following his death Alboin's heroism and his success in battle were celebrated in Saxon and Bavarian epic poetry.
The Lombards under King Wacho had migrated towards the east into Pannonia, taking advantage of the difficulties facing the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy following the death of its founder, Theodoric, in 526. Wacho's death in about 540 brought his son Walthari to the throne, but, as the latter was still a minor, the kingdom was governed in his stead by Alboin's father, Audoin, of the Gausian clan. Seven years Walthari died, giving Audoin the opportunity to crown himself and overthrow the reigning Lethings. Alboin was born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and his wife, Rodelinda, she may have been the niece of King Theodoric and betrothed to Audoin through the mediation of Emperor Justinian. Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Christian. Alboin took as his first wife the Christian Chlothsind, daughter of the Frankish King Chlothar; this marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids.
The new Frankish alliance was important because of the Franks' known hostility to the Byzantine empire, providing the Lombards with more than one option. However, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death. Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids. At the Battle of Asfeld, he killed Turismod, son of the Gepid king Thurisind, in a victory that resulted in the Emperor Justinian's intervention to maintain equilibrium between the rival regional powers. After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table, Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king and have him donate his weapons, as was customary. For this initiation, he went to the court of Thurisind, where the Gepid king gave him Turismod's arms. Walter Goffart believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, is sceptical that it can be dismissed as a typical topos of an epic poem.
Alboin came to the throne after the death of his father, sometime between 560 and 565. As was customary among the Lombards, Alboin took the crown after an election by the tribe's freemen, who traditionally selected the king from the dead sovereign's clan. Shortly afterwards, in 565, a new war erupted with the Gepids, now led by Thurisind's son; the cause of the conflict is uncertain. An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund, that Alboin proceeded to marry; the tale is treated with scepticism by Walter Goffart, who observes that it conflicts with the Origo Gentis Langobardorum, where she was captured only after the death of her father. The Gepids obtained the support of
