Milan, for example, down-trodden by Pavia, still remained the major See of Lombardy.

Aquileia, though a desert, had her patriarch, while Cividale, established as a fortress to coerce the neighboring Roman towns, was ecclesiastically but a village.
At this epoch a third power emerged in Italy.

Berengar had given the cities permission to inclose themselves with walls in order to repel the invasions of the Huns.[1] Otho respected their right of self-defense, and from the date of his coronation the history of the free burghs begins in Italy.

It is at first closely connected with the changes wrought by the extinction of the kingdom of Pavia, by the exaltation of the clergy, and by the dislocation of the previous system of feud-holding, which followed upon Otho's determination to remodel the country in the interest of the German Empire.

The Regno was abolished.
The ancient landmarks of nobility were altered and confused.