Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards

The following work is a play inspired by the life of Rosamund, a Lombard queen who was the daughter of Cunimund, king of the Gepids, and wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards. She 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-East Roman alliance, and later against the Lombards and the 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.