Paul the Deacon in the context of "Adaloald"

The Lombards, Longobards or Langobards (Latin: Langobardi) were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774 AD. They had previously settled in the Middle Danube in the 5th century, near what is now Austria, Slovenia and Hungary. Their previous homeland was in the north, near present day Hamburg. Roman-era historians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD mention the Lombards as one of the Suebian peoples, and report them living on the Lower Elbe already in the early 1st century. Their legacy is apparent in Lombardy, northern Italy, the region deriving its name from them.

There are no contemporary accounts of the Lombards in the 3rd or 4th century, or for most of the 5th century, which is when they reappear, near the Danube river far to the south. Legendary accounts of the Lombard migration are found in several early medieval texts, the oldest being the Origo Gentis Langobardorum (Origin of the Lombard People). There are two other notable later adaptions, the Chronicon Gothanum and the more scholarly History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon, written between 787 and 796 AD, which contain more information. All three describe the Lombards as a people who moved to the Danube from somewhere near the North Sea. The details, however, differ until they enter "Rugiland" soon after Odoacer's defeat in 487/488 AD of the Rugii, who had a kingdom near what is now Vienna.

The kings of the Lombards or reges Langobardorum (singular rex Langobardorum) were the monarchs of the Lombard people from the early 6th century until the Lombardic identity became lost in the 9th and 10th centuries. After 774, the kings were not Lombards, but Franks. From the 12th century, the votive crown and reliquary known as the Iron Crown (Corona Ferrea) retrospectively became a symbol of their rule, though it was never used by Lombard kings.

The primary sources for the Lombard kings before the Frankish conquest are the anonymous 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum and the 8th-century Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon. The earliest kings (the pre-Lethings) listed in the Origo are almost certainly legendary. They purportedly reigned during the Migration Period. The first ruler attested independently of Lombard tradition is Tato.

The first plague pandemic was the first historically recorded Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Also called the early medieval pandemic, it began with the Plague of Justinian in 541 and continued until 750 or 767. At least fifteen to eighteen major waves of plague following the Justinianic plague have been identified from historical records. The pandemic affected the Mediterranean Basin most severely and most frequently, but also infected the Near East and Northern Europe, and potentially East Asia as well. The Roman emperor Justinian I's name is sometimes applied to the whole series of plague epidemics in late antiquity.

The pandemic is best known from its first and last outbreaks: the Justinianic Plague of 541–549, described by the contemporary Roman historian Procopius, and the late 8th century plague of Naples described by Neapolitan historian John the Deacon in the following century (distinct from the Naples Plague of the 17th century, during the second plague pandemic). Other accounts from contemporaries of the pandemic are included in the texts of Evagrius Scholasticus, John of Ephesus, Gregory of Tours, Paul the Deacon, and Theophanes the Confessor; most seem to have believed plague was a divine punishment for human misdeeds.

The History of the Lombards or the History of the Langobards (Latin: Historia Langobardorum) is the chief work by Paul the Deacon, written in the late 8th century. This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate no later than 796, maybe at Montecassino.

The history covers the story of the Lombards from their mythical origins to the death of King Liutprand in 743, and contains much information about the Eastern Roman empire, the Franks, and others. The story is told from the point of view of a Lombard patriot and is especially valuable for its treatment of the relations between the Franks and the Lombards. As his primary sources, Paul used the document called the Origo gentis Langobardorum, the Liber pontificalis, the lost history of Secundus of Trent, and the lost annals of Benevento; he also made free use of works by Bede, Gregory of Tours, and Isidore of Seville.

The Duchy of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in the Italian Peninsula that was centered in Benevento, a city in Southern Italy. Lombard dukes ruled Benevento from 571 to 774, when the Kingdom of the Lombards was conquered by the Kingdom of the Franks. Being cut off from the rest of the Lombard possessions by the papal Duchy of Rome, Benevento always had held some degree of independence. Only during the reigns of Grimoald (r. 662–671) and the kings from Liutprand (r. 712–744) on was the duchy closely tied to the Kingdom of the Lombards. After the fall of the kingdom in 774, the duchy became the sole Lombard territory which continued to exist as a rump state, maintaining its de facto independence for nearly 300 years as the Principality of Benevento.

Paul the Deacon referred to Benevento as the "Samnite Duchy" (Ducatum Samnitium) after the region of Samnium.