Duchy of Benevento

Duchy Of Benevento

The Duchy and later Principality of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in medieval Italy, centred on Benevento, a city central in the Mezzogiorno. Owing to the Ducatus Romanus ("Duchy of Rome") of the popes, which cut it off from the rest of Lombard Italy, Benevento was from the first practically independent. Only during the reigns of Grimoald I of Benevento and the kings from Liutprand on was the duchy closely tied to the kingdom. After the fall of the kingdom, however, alone of Lombard territories it remained as a rump state, and maintained its de facto independence against all comers for nearly three hundred years, though it was divided after 849.

Paul the Deacon refers to Benevento as the "Samnite duchy" after the ancient Italic inhabitants of the area which gave their name to the region Samnium.