Lombards

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

A German people, settled at the beginning of our era about the lower Elbe. In the 5th century we find them in Moravia, and a century later established, a powerful people, between the Adriatic and the Danube. They invaded Italy in 568, and in three years had mastered the North, but abandoning their Arian faith they gradually became Italianised, and after the overthrow of their dynasty by Charlemagne in 774 they became merged in the Italians. From the 13th century Italian merchants, known as Lombards, from Lucca, Florence, Venice, and Genoa, traded under much odium, largely in England as wool-dealers and bankers, whence the name Lombard Street.