Longobardia

Longobardia (, also variously Λογγιβαρδία, Longibardia and Λαγουβαρδία, Lagoubardia) was a Byzantine term for the territories controlled by the Lombards in the Italian Peninsula. In the ninth and tenth centuries, it was also the name of a Byzantine military-civilian province (or thema) known as the Theme of Longobardia located in southeastern Italy.

==History== left|thumb|Part of an 18th-century map according to De Administrando Imperio, from the time of [[Constantine VII]] The term was traditionally used for the Lombard possessions, with the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor distinguishing between "Great Longobardia" (Greek: Μεγάλη Λογγοβαρδία; Latin: Longobardia major), namely the Kingdom of the Lombards in northern Italy, and "Lesser Longobardia" (Latin: Longobardia minor), which comprised southern Italy, with the Lombard duchies of Benevento, Spoleto, Salerno and Capua, the Byzantine possessions, and the city-states (Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi) under Byzantine suzerainty.