Paul the Deacon

Born sometime in the 720s, Paul entered the Benedictine order and spent his life between the scriptorium and the cloister, eventually settling at Monte Cassino. He earned his suffix Cassinensis from that monastery's ancient citadel. As a scribe and historian, he devoted himself to documenting the Lombards — the people whose migration and rule had shaped the Italian peninsula for two centuries. His work preserved a narrative that would otherwise have dissolved into fragments and rumor. He died on April 13th in one of four possible years at the close of the eighth century: 796, 797, 798, or 799.