Ferdulf or Fardulf, originally from the territories of Liguria, was the Duke of Friuli at some point between the reign of Cuninpert (688-700) and Aripert II (701-12).
No evidence associates his tenure with the year 705 alone or indeed to suggest that it was brief. Paul the Deacon described him as 'a man tricky and conceited' (Latin: homo lubricus et elatus) who had obtained the dukedom after the death of Duke Ado.
He was said to have desired "the glory of a victory over the Slavs".[1] He paid Slavs to invade his country in order to fend them off, but some of the Slav army raided the pastureland and carried off livestock as booty. Argait (whose name means 'cowardly, inert or worthless' in Langobardic), the local magistrate, or 'sculdahis', chased them, but could not overtake them. Subsequently, Ferdulf met Argait and asked what had become of the robbers. Argait indicated that they had fled. Ferdulf became enraged and was reported by Paul to have said 'when could you do anything bravely, you whose name, Argait, comes from the word coward.' Argait responded that neither of them should die 'until others know which of us is the greater coward'.
A few days later, the real Slav army that Ferdulf had paid arrived and took up a position on a hill. Ferdulf initially decided to challenge them on level ground, but Argait charged up the hill and, to avoid the label of coward, Ferdulf followed. The entire Lombard cavalry was killed and the Friulian nobility was decimated. Both Argait and Ferdulf died.
The conversation between Ferdulf and Argait is said by Paul to have been undertaken in 'vulgaria verba' and may indicate that Langobardic was still a spoken vernacular in the north-east of Italy. While Paul's source for this story is unknown, and he provides no further notice regarding Ferdulf, it is likely that it depends upon oral traditions that he may have encountered in Friuli.
References
edit- ^ Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum VI, xxiv
Sources
edit- Paul the Deacon. Historia Langobardorum. Translated by William Dudley Foulke. University of Pennsylvania: 1907.
- Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and her Invaders. Clarendon Press: 1895.
- Gasparri, Stefano. i Duchi Longobardi, Rome, 1978.
- Capo, Lidia. Paolo Diacono: Storia dei Longobardi, Vicenza, 1992.