Kingdom of the Lombards, Tremissis

The Lombards, who migrated via Hungary to northern Italy in 568, founded the Lombard Kingdom with the capital of Pavia. The realm comprised northern Italy as well as some parts of central and southern Italy. The Lombard kings had coins issued after the model of the Byzantine tremisses. In time, the coin designs became coarser, however, and the inscriptions degenerated into meaningless strings of letters. Many Lombard coins are therefore difficult to assign – like this tremissis that was probably minted in the late 7th century.