Kingdom of the Lombards

The Kingdom of the Lombards (regnum Langobardorum), later the Kingdom of (all) Italy (regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic-speaking people, on the Italian Peninsula between 568–69. The king was traditionally elected by the highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, and all attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The kingdom was divided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by the semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the level of each city. The capital of the kingdom and centre of its political life was Pavia.