Roman court historian Velleius Paterculus recorded the Lombards between AD 9 and 16 near the Lower Elbe. Strabo wrote about them around 20 AD placing them on the eastern side of the river after Roman pressure forced them from their western lands.
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum tells how Winnili women tied their hair before their faces like beards to trick Odin into giving them victory. Isidore of Seville stated in the seventh century that the name came because men never cut their beards while Paul the Deacon wrote this story between 787 and 796 AD.
King Alboin led his people into northeastern Italy in the spring of 568 fearing aggressive Avars. They left Pannonia with wives children and all goods according to Paul the Deacon and Forum Iulii fell in 569 creating the first Lombard duchy under Gisulf.
A genetic study published in Nature Communications in September 2018 found strong similarities between Italian and Central European Lombards. A 2024 paper modeled the Lombards best by a Jutlandic Iron Age source consistent with origins in northern Germany showing paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b.
Rothari issued the Edictum Rothari in 643 establishing laws in Latin for the kingdom. The document references terms such as braida for suburban meadow and fara for fundamental social units while smallholders owned more than half the land in Lombard Italy according to surviving diplomas.