gastald

…either a duke or a gastald governed each city and its territory; the difference seems to have been principally one of status. In the southern duchies, local rulers were all gastalds. These officials were in charge of the local law courts, led the city army, and administered the royal lands…

…completely; many of the remoter gastalds were independent-minded and resentful of Beneventan power. Two of the early 9th-century princes were murdered in aristocratic plots—Grimoald IV in 817 and Sicard in 839. The second of these plots sparked a 10-year civil war that resulted, in 849, in the creation of two…