Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter

The intervention of Frankish power in Italy initially had no other effect in the area from which the Papal States developed than that the local authorities, which emerged during the 7th and 8th centuries, were left to their own devices, free from oversight by imperial authority and threats from hostile neighbors. It was only the conflicts they waged against each other that repeatedly invited Frankish interference and prepared the way for the new supremacy that found its expression in the new empire, albeit in such a way that the legal consequences of the newly created sovereignty were only drawn in the following decades. The situation was different from the outset in the Lombard part of Italy. The Lombard monarchy, which alone expressed the unity of the Lombard state, was not destroyed by the Frankish king but rather taken over; the transfer of possession occurred in much the same way as with a piece of property changing hands; indeed, the power that belonged to the monarchy largely depended on its land ownership.

The Verlag der Wissenschaften publishes historical literature by well-known and lesser-known scholarly authors. This makes works that have long been out of print accessible again to interested readers. This book on the history of Italy in the Middle Ages is an unaltered, high-quality reprint of the original edition from 1908. The present third volume depicts Italy and Frankish rule.