Algernon Charles Swinburne

Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards Algernon Charles Swinburne

Rosamund (fl. 572) was the daughter of Cunimund, king of the Gepids, and wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards. Rosamund was born into a kingdom in crisis, as the Gepid people had been fighting a losing battle against the Lombards since 546, firstly within the context of a Lombardic-Byzantine alliance, and later against the Lombards and the Turkic Avar nomads. These wars had taken the lives of not only her grandfather king Thurisind, but also her uncle, Thurismund, both of which served to establish a long standing hatred of the Lombards in her father, Cunimund, which he passed down to her. In the English language, the story would also be considered a tragedy, albeit more often neglected than in the Italian tradition, but would be treated by the pre-Raphaelite poet Algernon Charles Swinburne in his 1899 work Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards.