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Updated: May 9, 2025
We find Pepin attempting to gain his end by negotiation with Aistulf, but all to no purpose, and probably in March 755 the Franks set out with the pope at their head to march into Italy to curb and chastise the Lombard.
A few months after all this was accomplished, in December 756, Aistulf, "that follower of the devil," as the pope called him, died. Every state that is nearing dissolution is the prey of civil discord. So it was with the Lombards. Ratchis, who had more than seven years before become a monk, claimed the throne; so did Desiderius, "mildest of men."
We know nothing of this tremendous affair; we do not know whether the great imperial city, full of all the strange wonder of Byzantium, and heavy with the destiny of Europe, was taken suddenly by assault or after a long siege. We know only that it fell, and that Aistulf was master there in the year of our Lord 751. A sort of silence followed that fall. In 752 Pope Zacharias died.
Now Ravenna had certainly been governed by her archbishop ever since Pepin in 754 had forced Aistulf to place the keys of the city upon the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.
A treaty was made in which he agreed "to restore" Ravenna and divers other cities, and to attempt nothing in the future against Rome and the Holy See. This having been decided, the pope took leave of Pepin, who returned to France, and went on his way to Rome. The pope had won and had really established the Holy See as the heir of the empire; but Aistulf was by no means done with.
Thus Ravenna, the impregnable city, was taken by stratagem and willingly; never again to pass out of Roman hands till Aistulf the Lombard in 752 seized it for a few years and thus caused Pepin to cross the Alps to vindicate the Roman name.
In 751 when Ravenna fell into the hands of the Lombards Aistulf established himself there, but it might seem that the place had suffered grievously in the wars, and it was probably little more than a mighty ruin when, in 784, Charlemagne obtained permission from the pope to strip it of its marbles and its ornaments and to carry them off to Aix-la-Chapelle.
His mission on behalf of the empire was naturally entirely fruitless, and early in November the pope left Pavia with the hardly won consent of Aistulf to cross the Alps by the Great S. Bernard a difficult and dangerous business at that time of year and to meet the Frankish king at S. Maurice in the valley of the Rhone. In the latter he was disappointed.
Liutprand was an old man; perhaps he was not hard to persuade, for he was on the eve of his death, which came to him in 744. His successor Hildeprand reigned for six months and was deposed. Ratchis became king, a pious man who made truce with the pope, and in 749 abdicated and entered a monastery. Aistulf was chosen king, and at once turned his thoughts to Ravenna.
We see evidences of this change, this levelling up and levelling down, all through the military code of Liutprand, and in the later one of Aistulf can even more distinctly trace its progress; and without entering into further detail, we can definitely state that, by the time we are now considering, all traces of distinct race-origin had disappeared in the mass of the people, and the only safe distinction that we can draw is to say that among the families of the dukes and greater nobles, the Lombard stock was preserved comparatively pure, and that the serf population was, generally speaking, of Roman descent.
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