AD 774

Siege of Pavia (773–774)

Charlemagne captures Pavia and becomes king of the Lombards

The victorious king did not abolish his enemy's crown. He set its title beside his own.

June 774, after nine months outside Pavia

Charlemagne had besieged Pavia since September 773. He returned from an Easter visit to Rome and captured the Lombard capital in June 774.

The Royal Frankish Annals report that he seized King Desiderius, his wife, a daughter and the palace treasure. Lombards from Italy's cities then submitted to Charles and the Franks.

The exact day of the surrender is not consistently reported; the first surviving document calling Charlemagne king of the Franks and Lombards is dated 5 June 774.

The kingdom kept its name

Desiderius was removed from power and sent into Frankish captivity, while his son Adelchis escaped to Constantinople.

Charlemagne retained the Lombard kingdom as a recognizable political unit rather than erasing it into Francia, and much of the existing Lombard administration initially stayed in place.

Several Lombard officeholders kept their posts; one of them, Hrodgaud of Friuli, rebelled in 776.

The Easter document

During Easter at Rome, on 6 April 774, Charlemagne and Pope Adrian I discussed papal territorial claims and drew up a document restating promises attributed to Pepin's agreement at Quierzy.

That list survives through the papal Liber Pontificalis, and historians dispute whether it represented enforceable sovereignty, future promises, papal patrimonial claims, or a later expansion of the record. Maritime Venetia remained within the Byzantine sphere, and Frankish conquest of Istria is usually dated around 788.

Becoming king of the Lombards did not make Charlemagne a Roman emperor; that coronation came in 800.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 0774-06.

What the sources leave uncertain

The sources securely place Pavia's capitulation in June 774, but the exact day of surrender is not consistently reported. The first surviving use of Charlemagne's double title is dated 5 June.
The title-as-listed combines at least two phases: Charlemagne's Easter visit and papal agreement at Rome, followed by Pavia's fall in June.
The extensive territorial list attributed to the Easter agreement survives through the papal Liber Pontificalis. Historians dispute whether it represented enforceable sovereignty, future promises, papal patrimonial claims, or later expansion of the record.
The political consolidation of Carolingian Italy was a process, not a single-day transfer of every Lombard or Byzantine territory.