Theodelinda

Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards, (died 628) was the daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria.

She was married first in 588 to Authari, King of the Lombards, son of King Kleph, and when he died, was allowed to pick (as her next husband, Agilulf) his successor. She thereafter exerted much influence in restoring Athanasian Christianity (that is to say, the ancestor of modern Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) to a position of primacy in Italy against its rival, Arian Christianity. With a stable base in Italy thereafter, the Papacy could begin subduing those it regarded as heretics elsewhere.