{{Short description, Dynasty of Lombard kings The Lethings ( it, Letingi) were a dynasty of Lombard kings ruling in the 5th and 6th centuries until 546. They were the first Lombard royal dynasty and represent the emergence of the Lombard rulership out of obscurity and into history. The Lethings were elected by an assembly of warriors. They took their dynastic name from Lethuc, the first known Lombard king. When Lethuc died and was replaced by Aldihoc, the Lombards took a step towards institutional stability. Under the Lethings, too, the Lombards, who had thitherto wandered around northern Europe, migrated south to the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...

and

Pannonia Pannonia (, ) was a province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located in the territory that is now wes ...

. In 510, the reigning Lething,

Tato Tato (died 510) was an early 6th century king of the Lombards. He was the son of Claffo and a king of the Lething Dynasty. According to Procopius, the Lombards were subject and paid tribute to the Heruli during his reign. In 508, he fought with ...

, was displaced by his nephew,

Wacho Wacho (also Waccho; probably from ''Waldchis'') was king of the Lombards before they entered Italy from an unknown date (perhaps c. 510) until his death in 539. His father was Unichis. Wacho usurped the throne by assassinating (or having assass ...

, and thereafter until 546 a cadet branch of the original house ruled. Under the last dynasts, the Lombards became a power in terms of their threat to the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

on par with the

Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the large Gothic populations who ...

and

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

. The Lething were displaced when the child ruler Walthari was killed by his regent,

Audoin Alduin ( Langobardic: ''Aldwin'' or ''Hildwin'', ; also called Auduin or Audoin) was king of the Lombards from 547 to 560. Life Audoin was of the Gausi, a prominent Lombard ruling clan, and according to the ''Historia Langobardorum'', the so ...

, who then assumed the throne, inaugurating the Gausi dynasty. The Lething lineage did not die out, however, as Waldrada, a daughter of Wacho, had married Garibald I of Bavaria, and fostered a daughter,

Theodelinda Theodelinda also spelled ''Theudelinde'' ( 570–628 AD), was a queen of the Lombards by marriage to two consecutive Lombard rulers, Autari and then Agilulf, and regent of Lombardia during the minority of her son Adaloald, and co-regent when h ...

, who married

Authari Authari (c. 550 – 5 September 590) was king of the Lombards from 584 to his death. He was considered as the first Lombard king to have adopted some level of "Roman-ness" and introduced policies that led to drastic changes particularly in th ...

and became Queen of the Lombards. Her descendants were the Bavarian dynasty, a cadet branch of the Agilolfings, themselves Frankish.

Sources

*Jarnut, Jörg. ''Storia dei Longobardi''. Turin: Einaudi, 2002. *Rovagnati, Sergio. ''I Longobardi''. Milan: Xenia, 2003. Medieval royal families Lombard families