Cambridge Histories Online

Home , Ardo, Egica, Flavius Paulus, Fourth Council of Toledo, Gundemar, Sisebut

Cambridge Histories Online http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/histories/

The New Cambridge Medieval History Edited by Paul Fouracre Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917 Online ISBN: 9781139053938 Hardback ISBN: 9780521362917 Paperback ISBN: 9781107449060

Chapter 13 - The Catholic Visigothic kingdom pp. 346-370 Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge University Press chapter 13

THE CATHOLIC VISIGOTHIC KINGDOM

A. Barbero and M. I. Loring

With the abandonment of Arianism at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, there began a new phase in the evolution of the Visigothic kingdom. Religious unification facilitated the definitive rapprochement of the Gothic nobility and upper classes of Roman origin, and allowed the Catholic church, the principal repository of the old Roman culture, to acquire a growing prominence in the political life of the kingdom.1 This active political role was expressed principally through the series of national church councils in Toledo, the regal metropolis, initiated by that of 589.Inthese the church seemed to play the role of arbiter between the royal power and the high nobility, although a close reading of the conciliar acts reveals its tendency to act in solidarity with the secular nobility. Kings, on the other hand, only exceptionally made use of the councils in order to assert their authority and were generally obliged to negotiate in the face of the powerful secular nobility and church, this being one of the main causes of the weakness of centralised authority. Religious unification also made way for a progressive interpenetration of the spiritual and temporal spheres at every level of Visigothic life and society, in which the former shaped the whole dominant ideological structure.

religious unification In the spring of 586 King Leovigild (568–586) was succeeded by his son Rec- cared, who had for years been associated with the throne: according to the chronicler John of Biclaro, the succession took place without difﬁculties.2 In

1 For the ﬁrst steps in this direction, see Barbero and Loring, chapter 7 above. 2 The early years of Reccared’s reign are well known thanks to the Chronicon of John of Biclaro, which covers up to 590 and includes the acts of the Third Council of Toledo. Additional sources are Gregory, Hist., which ends in 591, the Historia Gothorum of Isidore of Seville, the correspondence of Pope Gregory the Great, and the Vita Patrum Emaritensium´ ,ahagiographic work on the bishops of the metropolitan see of Merida´ from 500 to 600. 346

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 347 the first year of his reign the new king sought an alliance with Gosuintha, his father’s widow, whom he adopted as his mother, and tried to broker a peace with the Frankish king, although Guntramn of Burgundy continued to maintain the bellicose tension along the Narbonensis frontier, which had been a feature of Leovigild’s reign. Simultaneously, he abandoned Arianism and converted to the Catholic faith, a decision proclaimed before an assembly of Arian clergy whom he urged to follow his example, and which, apart from any personal motives, was intended to complete the political achievements of his father by ensuring the support of the nobility of Roman origin and the Catholic church. The new religious orientation of the monarch, whilst in pursuit of the same objectives as his father, represented an about-turn in policy from the advocacy of religious union within the Arian creed, and it was not long before it pro- duced conspiracies and revolt: one led by the Arian bishop of Merida,´ Sunna, who counted on the support of various notable Visigoths, another, perhaps more serious, headed by the queen Gosuintha and the bishop Uldida, and a third directed by Athalocus, the Arian bishop of Narbonne. To the instability created by these revolts was added a Frankish offensive on Narbonne. After his conversion, Reccared had sent new embassies to the Frankish kings, communi- cating to them the change. He managed to conclude a treaty with Childebert of Austrasia, which included the marriage of Reccared to Childebert’s sister Clodosinda, granddaughter of the queen Gosuintha. However Guntramn of Burgundy refused to seal a peace and invaded Septimania in 589. The attack, which probably coincided with the pro-Arian revolt, was crushingly repelled by the dux of Lusitania, Claudius, who had repelled several Frankish incursions over a long period. The proposed marriage of Reccared and Clodosinda never took place since the monarch appears to have been married that same year to Bada, whose name suggests Visigothic origin. It was a marriage that responded to the new play of alliances established with the Gothic nobility and aimed at suffocating the revolts. Control over the internal situation and containment of the Frankish threat allowed Reccared to conclude his policy of religious unification, to which end he convened a great Synod in Toledo, which began sitting on 8 May 589.3 According to the acts of the council, sixty-three bishops participated, and an unspecified number of other clergy, abbots and Visigothic nobles. Presiding over the assembly were Leander, bishop of Seville, who had resided at Constantinople and was consequently familiar with the imperial conciliar

3 The main sources for its study are the acts of the council and information from John of Biclaro. The acts of this and other councils of the Visigothic church are in Concilios Visigoticos´ , ed. Vives (1963); a detailed study of this council in Orlandis and Ramos Lisson´ (1986), pp. 197–226; and also Orlandis (1991) and Abadal (1962–3).

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 348 a. barbero and m. i. loring tradition, and Eutropius, abbot of the monastery of Servitanum. The sessions were opened by Reccared himself, who presented the assembly with a written profession of faith. In it he expounded the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, condemned and anathematised Arius, and made adherence to the doctrine established by the first four ecumenical Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon obligatory. It was signed by both himself and Queen Bada. The royal intervention complete, the assembly rose, acclaiming God and the king. Later, eight bishops and an indeterminate number of clerics and Gothic dignitaries signed another profession of faith, in which Arianism was solemnly abjured. Then the assembly occupied itself with questions of clerical discipline and organisation, which were expressed in twenty-three canons. The acts included the royal edict confirming these regulations and raising them to the status of civil law, the subscriptions of the bishops present headed by that of the monarch himself, and finally a homily by Leander of Seville summarising what had taken place. During the proceedings only eight bishops abjured Arianism. The paucity of this number, together with the feeble showing of pro-Arian revolts put down prior to the council, seems to indicate that many had already followed the example of the king, who was baptised in 587, and that by the opening of the council Catholicism had already made considerable inroads. Although in 590 Reccared had to confront a further revolt led by Argimund, a dux provinciae and member of the cubiculum,John of Biclaro, who is the source of this information, does not link it to a pro-Arian reaction and in what followed there is nothing to suggest the survival of any Arian groups. The relative ease with which the Nicene creed was accepted is explained as much by the advanced stage of the acculturation between the Gothic nobility and the Roman world as by the strengthening of a monarchy which, despite its differences from Byzantium, represented itself as heir to the Empire. In this respect it is necessary to point out that when signing the acts of the council, Reccared adopted the name Flavius, the family name of the emperors of the Constantinian dynasty, which all Visigothic kings used from then on. In this way, the monarch presented himself as the political successor to the Roman, and especially to the Christian Roman, emperors. Likewise, John of Biclaro compared the Visigothic king to Constantine and Marcian, at whose instigation the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon had been held, and considered the Third Council of Toledo as successor to the grand synods of the Roman Empire. But both John of Biclaro and the acts of the Third Council rejected the canons of the Second Council of Constantinople convoked in 553 by Justinian. This council had taken decisions opposed by most of the western churches, among them those of Hispania, whose ecclesiastics would

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 349 be some of its fiercest opponents.4 The independent attitude of Hispanic prelates to the religious policy of the Eastern Empire doubtless facilitated the Visigothic monarch’s acceptance of Nicaean Catholicism, his definitive renunciation of Arianism, and the presentation of himself as a champion of orthodoxy. From the Third Council of Toledo onwards, the state, as much as Visigothic society, existed within parameters characterised by an interpenetration of the spiritual and temporal at all levels of life. Hence Reccared, in one of his addresses to the conciliar assembly, pointed to the obligation of a prince to concern himself not just with temporal matters but also with spiritual ones. In turn, in the laudes they addressed to the king, the ecclesiastics extolled Reccared’s apostolic labours, indicating that by them he had merited earthly and eternal glory. The canons were consonant with these theoretical principles: they did not regulate solely liturgical and organisational questions, but also matters which were not strictly ecclesiastical. The well-known canon 18 established yearly provincial synods to be convoked by the metropolitans, adapted the old canon law of two annual meetings, and laid down that district governors (iudices locorum) and those responsible for tax revenue (actores fiscalium patrimoniorum) had to submit themselves to the scrutiny of the bishops, who could deny communion to functionaries who had not acted properly. The second half of Reccared’s reign is not as well documented. Isidore wrote that he fought the Byzantines and Basques, but minimised the importance of these conflicts, comparing them to the games of the arena. The hostile activ- ities of the Basques must have been limited to plundering, but the Byzantine offensives must have been greater in scope. It is possible that they managed to recover some of the territories conquered by Leovigild. We know from an inscription from Cartagena, capital of the Byzantine province, that around 589– 590 Byzantines and Visigoths found themselves at war, since it mentions that the patrician Comenciolus, magister militum Spaniae, had been sent by Mauri- cius to struggle against the hostes barbaros.5 Reccared furthermore requested Pope Gregory the Great, with whom both Leander of Seville and the king himself had followed the process of the conversion, to work closely with the Byzantines in order to obtain a copy of the treaty agreed between them and the Visigoths at the time of the conquest. The pope advised Reccared against this, possibly because the Byzantine possessions recorded in the treaty were of greater extent than they were in the time of Reccared. In contrast to his father Leovigild, Reccared maintained good relations with the nobility,to whom, according to John of Biclaro, at the beginning of his reign

4 Barbero de Aguilera (1987), pp. 123–44. 5 The text of the inscription is in Vives (1969), pp. 125–6.

visigothic monarchy and the end of byzantine dominion in the peninsula In the period between the assassination of Witteric in 610 and the dethronement of Svinthila in 631, there were several kings.7 The most signiﬁcant accomplish- ment of their reigns was the destruction of Byzantine power in the Peninsula. These monarchs knew how to capitalise on the crisis in which the Empire found itself as a result of the Persian war, and the Byzantines were ﬁnally expelled from Spain.8 Other constants were the struggles against a people known as the Astures and the Basques. Despite some successes against them, these people

6 LV xiii.1–2.407–8. 7 For this period we continue to rely on the Historia Gothorum of Isidore of Seville, which closes with the reign of Suinthila; this information is complemented by the Frankish Chronicle of Fredegar, which contains some evidence about theVisigothic kingdom, and the Chronicle of 754, written by a Visigothic cleric under Muslim domination, known as the Mozarabic Chronicle. There are also the acts of several provincial synods and letters of the king Sisebut. 8 On Byzantium in the seventh century, see Louth, chapter 11 above.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 351 were not crushed and they remained the enemies of the Visigoths until the end of the kingdom of Toledo. This period is also marked by struggles for the throne: regicides and dethronements took place with alarming frequency. Although at this time no general synod was held at Toledo, the church continued to intervene in civil life through its provincial synods, and kings continued to act in religious matters. The most significant example of the latter was the decision, made by King Gundemar (610–612)incommon agreement with the bishops of the kingdom, to transfer the regional religious capital of the province Carthaginensis to Toledo. In reality, Toledohad come to function as a metropolitan see in relation to the province of Carpetana or Celtiberia, which seems to have broken away from Carthaginensis. Now, Toledo became the ecclesiastical capital of all the churches of Carthaginensis, snatching the primacy from Cartagena that was still under Byzantine control, and it was thus an affirmation of the Visigothic monarchy’s authority in relation to the Empire. The metropolitan of Toledo, as bishop of the royal city, was transformed into the foremost ecclesiastic of the Visigothic church and his authority stretched across the whole kingdom. This was established by the sixth canon of the Twelfth Council of Toledo in 681, amongst whose acts Gundemar’s decree has been preserved. On the death of Gundemar, Sisebut (612–621) ascended the throne. He was aprominent man of letters, and some of his letters, poems and a hagiographic work, the Vita Sancti Desiderii, have survived. He enjoyed a reputation as areligious man; his correspondence shows him attempting to convert the king of the Lombards to Catholicism. His religious views were manifest above all in his laws against the Jews.9 Anti-Jewish legislation had ancient roots in Roman law. The regulations collected in canon 14 of the Third Council of Toledo, prohibiting Jews from entering into mixed marriages, purchasing Christian slaves or holding public office, had done no more than reproduce rules contained in the Codex Theodosianus, and later adapted for the Breviarium Alarici.Reccared had reinforced conciliar regulations with a law that obliged Jews who circumcised Christian slaves to free them without compensation. Sisebut went further, forbidding them ownership of Christian slaves, something Justinian had also done, and obliging them to sell or free them unreservedly, without the recourse to obsequium, that is, residual control over them. He also commanded that the donations made by his predecessors be confiscated from the Jews, reiterated the ancient prohibition of mixed marriages, and condemned to death, with consequent confiscation of goods, Hebrews who converted Christians, at the same time punishing Christians who embraced Judaism with various penalties.

9 LV xii.2.13 and 14,pp.407–8, 418–20.

This anti-Jewish legislation marginalised Hebrews in social, economic and political relations, which must have indirectly provoked numerous conversions. Isidore pointed out, not without criticism, that Sisebut forced many Jews to convert to the Catholic faith, a fact that was the object of condemnation at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633. Owing to the conflation of religious and political principles, apparent from an analysis of the Third Council of Toledo, Jews outside the fides owed to God were excluded from the fides owed to the king, and in this sense they constituted not just a religious but also a political problem. Hence the importance that civil legislation, as much as conciliar canons, gave to what was perceived as the Jewish problem, as well as to those who converted from Judaism. The number of these converts continued to grow as a result of the continuing efforts of ecclesiastics and monarchs to eradicate the Jewish religion. Sisebut was also an outstanding warrior. During his reign several military campaigns were undertaken against the Byzantines and the semi-independent peoples of the peninsula. According to Isidore, Sisebut won victories against the Byzantines, managing to occupy some of their cities, Malaga´ among them. This we can see from the acts of a provincial council held in Seville in 619.Defeat led the Byzantine governor, the patrician Caesarius, to seek peace. Although Sisebut’s correspondence with Caesarius does not give significant details of the treaty that followed, it is believed that Byzantine territories were limited to the city of Cartagena and some other points along the coast. Among the semi- independent peoples against whom Sisebut sent his generals, Isidore mentions the Roccones,apeople whom the Sueves had already fought and who were now conquered by the dux Suinthila, and the Astures, who were overcome by the general Requila after they had risen in revolt. It seems likely that it was a conspiracy that ended the brilliant reign of Sisebut, for Isidore claimed that the king may have been poisoned. His son and successor, the young prince Reccared II, died a few days after ascending the throne. Finally, Suinthila (621–631) ascended the throne, a seasoned dux provinciae and an experienced general. At the beginning of his reign he personally undertook a campaign against the Basques who, according to Isidore, were devastating Tarraconensis with their raids. Once defeated, they were made to build the city of Ologicus (Olite) for the Goths. Suinthila, like Leovigild before him who founded Victoriacum (Vitoria), then ordered the construction of this fortress in Basque territory to limit Basque raids on regions near the Ebro valley. Behind the continual wars against Astures and Basques lay differences in social organisation between them and Hispano-Gothic society. The Basques and Astures still retained features of their tribal past, and although defeated on occasion by Gothic monarchs, they were never wholly dominated.10 The

10 Barbero and Vigil (1974), pp. 51–67.

the sacralisation of royalty and institutional development It is necessary to place Suinthila’s deposition in the context of the tensions between the nobility and the king in defending their respective interests. As has been seen, the system of association with the throne, a formula inspired by late Roman and contemporary Byzantine models, was not enough to put an end to violent deposition. The latter not only undermined royal authority but also endangered the stability of the kingdom, by exposing it to interfer- ence from traditionally hostile forces, like those of the Frankish kings. In the reigns that followed the ousting of Suinthila, the political scene was dominated by conciliar activity, which sought a way out of this conﬂict between nobility and monarchy, by strengthening the institution of monarchy and reg- ulating the process of accession to the throne. The church, far from acting as arbiter, achieved this conjointly with the nobility and through these councils

11 Vallego Girves´ (1993), p. 307.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 354 a. barbero and m. i. loring reinforced its own role as well as that of the nobility in the running of the kingdom. The first of these councils was convened by Sisenand (631–636), with the object of legitimating his accession to the throne. Isidore of Seville was the key figure at this, the Fourth Council of Toledo held in 633, and the political and religious doctrine developed there can be attributed to him. Despite the fact that one of the objectives of the council was to legitimate Sisenand’s seizure of power, it attempted at the same time to avoid further acts of violence, which might endanger the kings and the stability of the Gothic kingdom. Canon 75 began by recalling the sacred character of the oath of loyalty sworn to the king, and that he who broke this accord with the king equally broke faith with God in whose name the promise was made. It decreed that whoever violated their oath would be excommunicated. Likewise, it insisted on the sacred nature of royalty and the divinely elected status of the monarch, in the light of which no one should make an attempt on his life: nolite tangere Christos meos, the fathers remembered. It was also prescribed that kings should die peacefully and that their successors should be chosen by the nobility and bishops, an elective principle developed by later councils. This council had important consequences for the life of the Visigothic church and kingdom, through its institution of national councils. Although the series of general councils was initiated during the Third Council of Toledo, it was the fathers of the Fourth Council who decided that the meetings should be held on a regular basis, differentiating them from the provincial ones and indicating that they would have to meet to consider questions of faith or matters common to all the churches. These councils met on eleven occasions, always convened by the kings, who besides calling upon the bishops to correct abuses in the field of discipline and dogma, also submitted to the deliberation of the assembly, in the so-called tomus regius, all those questions considered of significance in the government of the kingdom.12 The work of these councils was in this sense not limited to ecclesiastical questions, but extended to questions of political interest in conformity with the theoretical principles, which defended a harmonious unity between spiritual and temporal power, already apparent at the Third Council of Toledo. During the brief reign of Chintila (636–639) two Toledan councils were held, the Fifth and Sixth. At the Fifth Council, held at the beginning of the

12 The series of Toledan Councils began with III in 589 and terminated with XVIII in 702.However IX and XI had a provincial character and XIV concerned itself solely with theological matters. The acts from XVIII are not extant; the acts of these councils are one of the principal sources of information on the Visigoth kingdom of Toledo. On the Toledan Councils cf. Abadal (1962–3), pp. 69–93, and Orlandis and Ramos-Lisson´ (1986); acts ed. Vives (1963).

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 355 reign in 636, the subjects of public interest tackled at the previous Council were almost the only things dealt with. The canons, on the one hand, insisting on the inviolable character of the person of kings, prohibited attempts on their lives and attacks on their descendants or goods, and on the other hand, with the object of avoiding further conspiracies, proscribed excommunication for those who during the life of a king intrigued concerning the succession. To reinforce this, they declared it obligatory for future councils to read canon 75 of the Fourth Council, which had dealt with these questions for the first time. They also established that kings had to be chosen from the Gothic nobility, and heirs to the throne were not allowed to deprive the fideles regum of goods received from princes or acquired justly in recognition of their fidelity. Twoyears later, at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 638, these issues were again raised and it was decided that the fideles regum could not be dispossessed of public posts and that they not only could keep goods received from princes, but also transmit them to their descendants unless they failed to provide fidele obsequium et sincerum servitium,broke their oath of fidelity to the monarch or failed to carry out their functions. The fathers present concluded that it was more just still that the churches of God keep goods conceded by princes to the church permanently in their dominion, since they were the nourishment of the poor. The Synod also insisted again on the inviolable nature of the king, his descendants and goods, setting down that anyone making an attempt on his life ought to be avenged by his successor, who would otherwise be a party to the crime. Finally, in relation to the succession, further restrictions were added to ways in which the throne might be obtained. No one could become king if he had seized the throne by force, had been tonsured in a religious habit or shamefully shaved, or were of servile or foreign origin. The reigns of Sisenand and Chintila represent a milestone in the institutional political development of the Visigothic kingdom. Subsequent Toledan Councils reinforced the institution of monarchy, through the sacralisation of the royal person: it is probable that the practice of anointing kings was insti- tuted for the first time at the Fourth Council of Toledo. Royal unction was a ritual act, conferring divinely elected status, which, inspired by biblical prece- dents, the Visigothic ecclesiastics adopted. It also reinforced the cohesion of the kingdom, by sacralising in turn the link which tied subject to king through the oath of fidelity. Possibly of Germanic origin, the oath was seen as a highly important addition to the ancient obligations not to conspire against the king and the patria of the Goths. More positive aspects were developed: i.e. the fideles regum were also obliged to defend the life and interests of the king and kingdom.13

13 On the content and scope of the oath of ﬁdelity, Barbero and Vigil (1978), pp. 126–54.

In parallel, these synods gave religious backing to the participation of the nobility and church in the government of the realm and strengthened their fiscal rights. They favoured an elective system, which entrusted the election of the king jointly to the church and nobility, and they confirmed the rights of the fideles regum to receive properties and hold offices in recognition of their fidelity. It is important to underline that the fides or fidelitas,which united subjects and king (including clerics), was an expression of a tie of personal dependency that not only entailed obligations towards the king and the kingdom, but also implied responsibilities on the part of the monarch to the fideles regum. Despite the precautions taken in the previous councils to avoid accession to the throne by force, another, fortunately bloodless, plot soon followed. According to Fredegar, King Chintila proposed his son as his successor before his death. The young Tulgawas elected king, but in the third year of his reign he was deposed and tonsured as a cleric, which in accordance with the prescription of the Fourth Council of Toledo disqualified him definitively from kingship. In his place the noble Chindasuinth was promoted to command of the realm by numerous Gothic ‘senators’ and a large part of the people.

the reigns of chindasuinth and reccesuinth The reigns of Chindasuinth and his son Reccesuinth cover a long period (642– 672) during which both carried out extensive legislative work culminating in the promulgation of the Liber Iudiciorum,agreat compilation of law initiated by Chindasuinth and completed by Reccesuinth in 654.14 The new Code incorporated numerous laws described as antiquae. These were mostly revisions from the Code of Leovigild, with some from Reccared and Sisebut. A good number were new laws by Chindasuinth and Reccesuinth, although some of these had been taken with minor modiﬁcations from the old laws of the Breviarium Alarici.15 The new Code superseded all earlier law not included in it, especially the Roman laws from the Breviarium Alarici. The Liber Iudiciorum cannot however be considered a code that was Germanic in character, given that it was conceived within a Roman juridical tradition, and employs the concepts

14 The Liber Iudiciorum was published by Zeumer (1902) together with other Visigothic codes under the title Lex Visigothorum.Visigothic legislation has been the subject for a long time of a polemic between the partisans arguing for its territorial character, cf. Garc´ıa Gallo (1942–43) and (1974) and D’Ors (1956), and those distinguishing an earlier phase characterised by the national status of law from a second involving its territorial scope, inaugurated by the Liber Iudiciorum,cf. Thompson (1969), pp. 57–8, King (1972), pp. 6–18, and Perez´ Prendes (1991), pp. 71–8. 15 The ninety-nine laws of Chindasuinth and eighty-seven of Reccesuinth constitute one important source of information for these two reigns, to which can be added that provided by the conciliar acts and to a lesser extent by Fredegar and the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 357 of Roman law, only exceptionally applying principles from Germanic law.16 Its promulgation responded to the need to adjust the mass of laws, accumulated over two centuries, to prevailing social conditions. Old laws, which no longer had any social relevance, were changed. Among the laws of Reccesuinth it is worth noting the rigour of those against the Jews, in which the celebration of Passover and other rites such as circumcision were proscribed. In the next reigns new laws were incorporated into the Liber, and under Ervig a new revised version was published. The laws of the Liber Iudiciorum reveal that a considerable proportion of the Hispano-Gothic population continued living in slavery, and that freedmen were numerous given the frequency with which they appear, but there is no mention of tenant farmers. This silence, when the existence of coloni is attested from a conciliar source of 619, has been linked to a deterioration in the situation of tenant farmers who, besides being tied to the land, were bound to their dominus in such a way that legislators ended up disregarding the slight distinction existing between them and slaves, including them all in the category of servi.17 This interpretation is consonant with the evolution of the condition of freedmen, whose dependence in relation to the manumitter saw itself progressively reinforced and was eventually perpetuated beyond the lifetime of the manumitter and freedman, being passed on to their respective descendants. This strengthening of the bonds of dependence also stretched to the free in patrocinio, who as freedmen received goods from their patroni,over which they had limited powers of disposition, lending services in exchange. Their dependence also tended to be hereditary.18 From this it emerges that the ties of dependence of persons in slavery or servitude, who for the most part worked on the agrarian estates of their lords, were reinforced to the benefit of a minority of domini vel patroni.19 The pre-eminence of this social group was expressed in the juridical field, Visigothic legislation differentiating between nobles and simple free men when it came to the determination of punishment and monetary compensation, always higher for the maiores and capable of resulting in the loss of liberty in the case of the humiliores. The legislation included in the Liber Iudiciorum also reflected innovations in the field of territorial administration, characterised by a definitive superseding of the old distinction between military and civil administration, along the same

16 Zeumer (1944), p. 81. 17 King (1972), p. 161. 18 Barbero de Aguilera and Vigil (1978), pp. 22–33. 19 In current historiography, the hypothesis that the regime of slavery was strengthened under the barbarian monarchs, and certainly the slaves did not disappear, has arisen. In our opinion, however, the reduction to servitude of the free peasant population through relations of patronage was more signiﬁcant, cf. Loring and Fuentes (1998).

lines as was occurring in Byzantium.20 Thus, by the time of Chindasuinth’s reign, the duces provinciae had added to their old military powers others of a juridical kind, displacing the old rectores, who are no longer mentioned. At alower level, this evolution had begun earlier. The comes civitatis had been assuming military, judicial and financial powers since their appearance at the time of the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse, powers that had been growing anyway as the old Roman magistracies disappeared, although the defensor civitatis is mentioned as late as the reign of Reccesuinth. Subordinate to the comes were two other government agents, the vicarius comitis and thiufadus. The latter was originally the chief of a military unit of a thousand men, and like the dux augmented his sphere of action with juridical competencies. It is possible that by this time the duces and thiufadi also had financial responsibilities, although they are not mentioned until a 683 decree annulling the tributes of Ervig. Some duces appear already to have held the office of comes cubiculariorum and other court posts, such as comes scanciarum, offices related to the private estate of the monarch, no doubt destined to resolve the problem of maintaining an army.21 Also innovatory were the important powers dependants or slaves of the king, servi fiscales, came to exercise as administrators of the resources of the fisc and royal estates, which even included responsibilities for certain services of the officium palatinum (an administrative organ made up of different departments in the service of the king and central administration of the kingdom) at whose head were magnates with the title comes. The kings found in this a solution to their need to rely on a loyal bureaucracy with which to balance noble power. The acts of the Thirteenth Council of Toledo of 683, which attempted to put an end to the monopolisation of these functions by slaves and freedmen, testify to this. The solution was very similar to that put into practice in Byzantium, where the cubiculum was increasingly powerful at the expense of other services of the central administration, precisely because it was staffed by slaves and eunuchs. The government of Chindasuinth (642–653) was hard and energetic. Accord- ing to Fredegar, he suppressed the nobility, ordering the execution of 200 primates and 500 mediocres, exiling others, and handing over their wives and daughters, together with their patrimony to his fideles. Chindasuinth provided himself with legal means to carry out his policies, strengthening royal power and, in the second year of his reign, he promulgated a law against fugitives and those accused of high treason and conspiracy.22 It made those who took part in attempts against the government of the king and Goth people liable to the

20 We do not share the opinion of Thompson (1969), p. 216, who considers these innovations the result of political measures to deprive the Hispano-Romans of their political power. Cf. the detailed study of the Visigothic kingdom’s administration in Garc´ıa Moreno (1974a). 21 Barbero and Vigil (1978), pp. 84–5. 22 LV ii.1.8,pp.53–7.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 359 death penalty and confiscation of properties. The rigour of the law was such that, in the case of reprieve, the king could only commute the death penalty to blinding and the restitution of a twentieth part of the confiscated goods. Furthermore, to the end of ensuring greater observance of the law, important dignitaries, lay as well as ecclesiastical, were made to swear a special oath. Two years later in 646, Chindasuinth convened the Seventh Council of Toledo where the seriousness of these actions was discussed and it was set down that clergymen committing such offences would be punished by excommunication and removal from office. The pain of excommunication was similarly extended to include laymen. It also insisted on the obligation of clerics to keep the fidelity owed to the king, reminding them of their obligation to respect the promises sworn and not to break them by consenting to the proclamation of another monarch. Chindasuinth was a king who, because of his rigour, was treated harshly by his contemporaries. Hence, Eugenius of Toledo composed a poem about him, whose epitaph described him as impious, unjust and immoral. However, he had friendships with other prominent clerics, like the Saragossan Braulio, by whom he was advised in political affairs such as that of his son’s association with the throne, and who was his collaborator in legislative matters. Besides his legislative work, it is necessary to attribute to this monarch the reorganisation of the exchequer, which no doubt benefited from the confiscations he made from the nobility, and probably from greater efficiency in tax collection. During his reign the law and weight of coinage improved in comparison to earlier times, evidence of this reorganisation.23 Chindasuinth, in keeping with his policy of strengthening royal power, associated his son with the throne in 649,yet another attempt to establish a royal dynasty. In fact Reccesuinth did succeed him on his death in 653, although the succession was far from being peaceful. A Visigoth noble, Froya, tried to seize the throne and in alliance with the Basques led an expedition into the Ebro valley, laying siege to Saragossa.24 The reign of Reccesuinth (653–672) signified a change in the relationship of the nobility and church to royal power. In the first months of his reign, the new king single-handedly convoked the Seventh Council of Toledo,held in December 653, whose principal task was to revise the politics of his father. This council was attended by the majority of the bishops, and next to them, for the first time (if we except the Gothic nobles who abjured Arianism at the Third Council), a group of abbots and lay magnates from the officium palatinum.Their presence, habitual thenceforward, was an innovation that gave still greater cohesion to the proceedings of the church and nobility. In accordance with its task of revision, the council discussed the possibility

23 Grierson (1979), xii,p.86. 24 On the succession of Chindasuinth, cf. Orlandis (1977), pp. 168–9.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 360 a. barbero and m. i. loring of reducing the sentences for those accused of high treason according to the law against expatriates and traitors. After long argument mercy prevailed over the inconveniencies of breaches of an oath made in the name of God. Then the conditions, which all good governors must fulfil, were discussed. It was specified that the accession to the throne ought to be elective, and effected by the bishops and court magnates in Toledo, or wherever the king had died. Finally, the conciliar assembly functioned as a high tribunal and issued a decree in which, after voicing strong criticism of the greed of princes, it went on to make a distinction between goods acquired by Chindasuinth after ascending the throne and those which he had possessed before, through inheritance or legitimate acquisition. According to the decision of the assembly, the latter would pass to his descendants, but the former could only be possessed by Reccesuinth as royal patrimony, ‘in such a way that everyone may receive that which is justly owed him, and the rest may be employed according to the will of the prince for the relief of his subjects’.25 These latter measures were crucial for the interests of the nobility and church, who were concerned as much to put an end to the excessive exaltation of one family and prevent the royal dignity from being perpetuated down one lin- eage, as to guarantee their own access to the enjoyment of properties from the fisc, which were ‘justly owed’ to them, and counterbalance the fealty which was established by the fifth and sixth Councils of Toledo. Another law of Reccesuinth’s, promulgated at the council, strengthened the regulations of the conciliar assembly, making guarantees so that henceforward nobody could be arbitrarily deprived of their goods by princes, and fixing formulas by which abusive confiscations could be restored. Furthermore, coinciding with the conciliar decree, the law also established that all goods acquired by the king since the reign of Suinthila, if they had not been disposed of by testament, ought to pass into the royal patrimony and be at the disposition of the successors to the throne.

wamba, ervig and military reforms The reign of Wamba (672–680), successor of Reccesuinth, is one of the best known of all the kings of Visigothic Spain, thanks to the Historia Wambae, written by the Toledan bishop Julian, who was the king’s contemporary. The Historia begins with the election of Wamba, which took place on the day of Reccesuinth’s death, at Gerticos,´ a small place about 190 kilometres from the royal city. Wamba did not receive royal unction until nineteen days later in

25 ‘ita ut iuste sibi debita quique percipat, et de reliquis ad remedia subiectorum...principis voluntas exerceat’, Vives (1963), p. 292.

Toledo. The anointing, the first for which there is evidence, although it can be inferred from the language of Julian that the ritual was already known, was performed by the metropolitan, Quirico. That year Wamba had to face an uprising in Septimania headed by Ilderic, comes of Nˆımes. Wamba sent the dux Paul to suppress it, but he in turn rebelled, taking with him an important sector of the nobility of Tarraconensis.Paul made a pact with Ilderic and his followers, and proclaimed himself king in Narbonne. He was anointed and wrote a letter to Wamba, entitling himself Flavius Paulus unctus rex orientalis.Hethen sought new allies amongst the traditional enemies of the Visigoths, such as the Franks and Basques.26 At that time Wamba was fighting the Basques, whom he subdued after a rapid campaign, obliging them to accept a peace with a hand-over of hostages and payment of tributes. Later the king made for Gaul and, after subjugating the cities of Barcelona and Gerona in Tarraconensis, divided his army into three with the objective of crossing the Pyrenees by three different passes, and occupying the fortresses guarding them. In Narbonensis,hereunited the army, took Narbonne and other cities, and finally occupied Nˆımes, where Paul had taken refuge, and where he gave himself up. The victorious campaign did not end in the execution of the rebels but, granting the petition of the bishop of Narbonne for clemency for himself and the others implicated, Wamba pardoned them. When the king returned to Toledo and made his triumphal entry, Paul and his accomplices were led into the city in triumph, and paraded through the streets in public ignominy. As a result of the rebellion, and a little after his victory over Paul, Wamba promulgated a law proposing a reorganisation of the army.27 Tw o parts can be distinguished: one treating attacks coming from the outside and the other, internal rebellions. In the first part it was laid down that bishops, clerics of whatever degree, military chiefs, the dux, comes, thiufadus, uicarius and gardingus, and anyone from the territory where the attack had taken place, or neighbour- ing territories within a 160 kilometre radius, had to help in the defence of the realm once the dux, comes, thiufadus or uicarius had made the danger known.28 They were all obliged to arrive with all their forces. If they did not fulfil this obligation, and damage was done and captives taken in the provinces in question,

26 For the Frankish involvement in the revolt, Fouracre, chapter 14 below. 27 LV ix.2.8,pp.370–3.Onthis law and the later one of Ervig, cf. Barbero and Vigil (1978), pp. 140–50, and Perez´ Sanchez´ (1989), pp. 155–74. 28 The gardingos, according to Sanchez´ Albornoz (1974), i,pp.77–88,were armed clients of the royal retinue derived from the Germanic comitatus, similar to the Merovingian antrustiones; although here they appear to be endowed with military command. The sources, however, do not allow us to relate them to the rest of those responsible for administration: Wamba’s law does not cite them together with the other dignitaries entrusted with the carrying out of the call to arms.

they were to be punished. The bishops and other high-ranking clergy had to pay compensation from their own estates for the damage caused, or be exiled, whilst lower-ranking clergy and laymen of whatever degree lost their capacity to make legal depositions, and were consigned to servitude and left at the mercy of the royal will, their properties being confiscated to compensate those who had lost out. In the second case, of internal rebellion, the penalty was equally harsh for lay people and bishops: confiscation of goods and exile. The text of this law testifies to a phenomenon of undoubted significance: that the Visigothic army in the last decades of the seventh century had still not completely lost its public character, given that it was regulated by laws deter- mining the authority of military chiefs, in whose hands official announcements lay. It was made up of troops of diverse origin, both public and private. The military chiefs of the Visigothic kingdom could hold permanent troops under orders, and increase their forces with men recruited from the huge estates, which were their personal property or possessed by means of their office. In addition to these armies were the armed retinues of churchmen, recruited in the same way, and those of great landowners who did not hold public office. The reign of Wamba was brusquely interrupted in October 680 by a plot, which was carried out bloodlessly and by apparently legal means. According to the acts of the Twelfth Council of Toledo celebrated several months later, the king, being seriously ill, had in the presence of important palace dignitaries received absolution and with it the religious habit and tonsure. In accordance with the prescription of the Sixth Council of Toledo this disqualified him from continuing to occupy the throne. Apparently Wamba also signed documents, examined in detail by the conciliar assembly, in which he chose Ervig as his successor and requested the metropolitan of Toledo, Julian, to anoint him without delay. However, an Asturian chronicle from the end of the ninth century relates that Wamba was drugged and the conspirators tonsured him and dressed him in a religious habit, thus leaving him obliged to renounce public life and live as a monk until the end of his days. This version of the deposition of Wamba seems the more plausible, since in its second canon the fathers present at the Twelfth Council of Toledo discussed those who had received penance when unconscious, declaring, in clear allusion to the king Wamba, that ‘those who in whatever way they received penance, may never return to put on the military insignia’.29 The deposition of Wamba must be related to the serious consequences his law on military obligations had for the church and nobility. His successor Ervig (680–687) set about revising the law at the beginning of his reign, although

29 ‘hos qui qualibet sorte poenitentiam susceperint ne ulterius ad militare cinculum redeant’, Vives (1963), p. 389.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 363 the task was complicated and it took two conciliar assemblies before it was effected, beginning with the Twelfth Council of Toledo, held in 681.30 The conciliar assembly agreed to restore to those who had lost their rights as a consequence of the law discussed above, their ancient dignity and capacity to take out private actions. Likewise it lifted the excommunication of those who had worked against the king or patria and had been pardoned by the new monarch. Two years later the Thirteenth Council of Toledo completed these measures and resolved to return, to those who had taken part in the conspiracy of Paul and even those who since the time of the king Chintila had been tainted with this infamy, the right to take out private actions; it was also agreed to return confiscated goods, provided that they had not been granted to someone else, or ceded causa stipendii.Inthe second canon those present, petitioning on behalf of those who had lost dignity because of unjust accusations or confessions elicited under royal pressure, established that from then on ecclesiastics and nobles would enjoy procedural guarantees and could only be tried publicly before tribunals made up of people of the same estate. This canon makes evident the antagonism between the church and nobility on the one side and royal power on the other; it presents kings as the instigators of fraudulent trials and accuses them of using physical violence against nobles and clerics to prove their guilt. It transformed those guilty of acting against the kingdom into innocent victims. Ervig made further concessions to the church and nobility. The Council’s third canon sanctioned a royal decree concerning the remitting of tributes, in which payments from the first year of his reign still owing to the public purse were written off, with the exception of tributes already collected but still not handed over to the fisc by the gatherers. It included the pain of excommunication for whoever contravened the concession. The attention the Council paid to this decree, not only dedicating one of its canons to it but also incorporating it in its acts, seems to indicate that the church and nobility were the main beneficiaries of this fiscal amnesty. The Council in its sixth canon also tried to impose limits to the development of a patrimonial bureaucracy on the part of kings. Henceforth, only freedmen and servi fiscales could hold court posts or administer properties of the fisc or the king, and not other slaves and freedmen, with the end of avoiding their becoming lofty, and being transformed in this way into ‘the executioners of their masters’. Ervig not only rectified the policies of Wamba through the Councils, but also used civil legislation to promulgate a new law concerning the army.31 The legislator complained that those obliged to go to war with their serfs, took

30 The conciliar acts and laws of Ervig are the main sources of evidence for this reign. 31 LV ix.2.9,pp.374–9.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 364 a. barbero and m. i. loring with them not even the twentieth part of them, and established a series of rules which obliged the entire people to answer the royal call, joining the king’s army or that of duces or comites on the day indicated. The law specified that everyone must come, Goths and Romans, free and freedmen, and also the servi fiscales, bringing with them a tenth part of their serfs armed at their expense. In the event of non-compliance, a dux, comes or gardingus was to be deprived of his goods and exiled. The thiufadi and other lesser functionaries were to be shaved, to be condemned to two hundred lashes, and to pay a quantity of gold, a sanction whose non-completion would lead to perpetual enslavement. This law has points of contact with that of Wamba, but it tones down the exigencies of the punishments provided for non-completion. Noticeable is the exclusion of ecclesiastics from those who were obliged to go to war. Another innovation was the different punishments laid down, according to whether the person belonged to a higher or lower rank in the administration and army: the only ones now reduced to slavery were those of inferior status and that only in the case of their non-payment of the pecuniary compensation demanded. Finally, whereas in the time of Wamba one had to assist the army with all available forces, the law of Ervig only demanded a tenth part of the serfs. All these modifications did not alter the half-public, half-private character that the army had had at least since the reign of Wamba. It continued to be made up for the most part of private delegations, although the king did not renounce his rights of official notification and direction, whether in person or through his generals. The legislative work of Ervig was not limited to the promulgation of new laws, for he also undertook a new revised edition of the Liber Iudiciorum, which was published on 21 October 681,ayear into his reign. Among the laws issued and collected by Ervig in the new Code, those promulgated against the Jews are notable. These laws, which were presented by Ervig at the Twelfth Council of Toledo and approved by the assembly in their eighth canon, were extremely harsh, surpassing even the rigour of previous legislation. In fact Judaism as a religion was prohibited, Jews were given a year to convert, and the prohibition of the Passover and other rites such as circumcision was reiterated. As a result of these measures, although future civil and canon legislation would continue to refer to Jews, it dealt only with those who had converted to Christianity.

egica and the attempt to establish dynastic succession Before his death in the middle of November 687,Ervig designated his son-in- law Egica, who was married to his daughter Cixilo, as his successor, thus passing over his own male children. The succession seems to have arisen from an agreement with a powerful noble faction, since six months later, in

May 688,Egica convened the Fifteenth Council of Toledo with the object of freeing him from compromises with the family of his father-in-law, something echoed in Asturian chronicles from the end of the ninth century which links Egica and the family of Wamba. Egica, in the tomus which he presented to the Fifteenth Council, stated that he found himself bound to two oaths whose clauses were mutually contradictory. On the occasion of his marriage to Cixilo Ervig had made him swear, by which he was obliged to protect the children of the king, but as a condition of his election as king Ervig had also made him swear to act with justice towards the peoples entrusted to him. According to Egica, Ervig’s family had benefited from the abuses and unjust confiscations Ervig had made as king. The assembly believed that it was certainly impossible to complete both promises without committing perjury, so it found that the second oath ought to prevail because its content was fuller, qualifying it by saying that this did not license Egica to leave the royal family unprotected, and protecting them did not prevent him from making legal claims against them. Behind this problem and Egica’s fear of violating his oaths, what was really at stake was the destination of properties proceeding from the confiscations made by Ervig, which had passed to his descendants. The new monarch was now trying to take back this property from his in-laws, in order to weaken their position and prevent them from raising themselves as rivals. In 693,Egica brought together a new Council at Toledo, the Sixteenth, whose acts inform us that a significant rebellion had occurred a little before. It had been led by Bishop Sisbert, who had succeeded Julian as bishop of Toledo, and who, according to the acts, had attempted to deprive Egica of the throne and kill him. The conciliar assembly, acting as a high court, condemned Sisbert and removed him from office. Then those present again took up the doctrine of the inviolability of the royal person, in his quality as the anointed and elect of God, insisting on the obligation to respect the oath of fidelity to the king. They decreed harsh penalties for those accused of high treason, strengthening the rigour of those already prescribed by the old canons. That is to say, removal from office and exile for clerics, and for lay persons, reduction to slavery under the fisc, deprivation from office, and confiscation of property (which was to be taken by the king). Excommunication was an additional punishment. Tw o more of Egica’s laws can be related to this plot.32 In one, oaths made to persons other than the king, or those made in the courts, were punishable by the penalties associated with high treason. The other was designed to regulate the way in which the oath of fidelity was taken: the members of the officium palatinum were required to take it personally before the king, and other free

32 LV ii.5.19,pp.118–20 and ii.1.7,pp.52ff.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 366 a. barbero and m. i. loring men before functionaries called discussores iuramenti, who travelled through the kingdom to this end. Both the members of the officium palatinum and other free men who evaded this obligation without justification were to be deprived of their properties, and their persons left to the disposition of the king. These laws confirm that the fideles regum were not just a restricted group, commended personally to the king (a deep-rooted interpretation in the historiography of the Visigoths), but included all of his subjects. In 694, another Council was held in Toledo, the Seventeenth, whose preoc- cupation was the Jewish question. In the tomus he addressed to the council, the king denounced a supposed plot of the Jews, alleging that, in collusion with Hebrews overseas, they were conspiring together against the Christian people. It also affirmed that despite his benevolence towards them, which had led him to restore Christian slaves to those who had been deprived of them (because of their infidelity), the Jews, under cover of their promise of sincere conversion, continued practising their rites and ceremonies. Finally he asked the assembly for a firm decision as to what he should do with their persons and goods. The conciliar assemblies ratified the royal accusations and in the eleventh canon agreed that Jews were to be deprived of all their goods and, together with their women and children, be reduced to slavery, and dispersed throughout all the provinces of Hispania, unable to recover their status as free men whilst they persisted in their infidelity. The king could give their Christian slaves letters of freedom and award them part of their former masters’ goods. Finally children of seven years and up were to be separated from their parents in order to be educated as Christians. The Jews of Gothic Gaul (Narbonensis)were excluded from these measures, owing to the depopulation suffered in the province as aresult of the plague, but they did have to assist the dux there, with their goods. The story of the supposed Jewish conspiracy against Christianity in general, and the Gothic kingdom in particular, cannot be accepted as having any histor- ical basis, although the reference to the Hebrews overseas may allude to eastern and northern parts of Africa conquered by the Muslims, where Jews enjoyed greater tolerance. The content of this canon represents the culmination of the comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation of the Visigothic kings. It is worth pointing out that the serious measures decreed at the Seventeenth Council were directed at converts rather than against Jews as such, for the text affirms that ‘they had sullied the tunic of the Faith received from the Holy Mother Church at their baptism’.33 In an epoch when it was difficult to demarcate the boundaries of the religious and the political, where the faith owed to God was conflated with that owed to the king, those who did not participate in the

33 ‘tunicam ﬁdei, qua eos per undam baptismatis induit sancta mater ecclesia maculaverint’, Vives (1963), p. 535.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 The Catholic Visigothic kingdom 367 dominant religion began to be marginalised by their religious beliefs and ended up being accused of wanting to seize the throne and kingdom for themselves. Another matter of interest dealt with by the Seventeenth Council was the protection of the wife and descendants of the king, already tackled at the previous Council where protection and aid had been decreed for the royal family, with the objective of preventing violence against their persons or the seizure of their goods. Forcing them to take the tonsure and religious habit was forbidden, and in addition an obligation to say prayers for the royal family daily, in every church in the kingdom, was imposed. The Seventeenth Council developed these measures, including the queen, Cixilo, in the persons of the royal family who had to be protected, and extending more fully the measures concerning the question of the properties of royal offspring. The children of the king, provided that they were not found guilty in court cases, ought to possess without disturbance that which they had received through hereditary succession, by gift from their fathers or by just acquisition, and should also possess the right to dispose of these goods freely. Finally, if they were left unprotected, the bishops were obliged to offer them help. All these guarantees, made by the Councils in order to protect the descendants of kings, were a new element directed towards strengthening the position of a family at the head of the nobility and also to ensure that the highest dignity, the crown, would not pass outside it. In the reign of Ervig, the Thirteenth Council had been the first to give this kind of guarantee, and although called into question by Egica and in part unfulfilled, this did not stop him from attaining analogous benefits for his own family. In order to strengthen the dynastic principle, Egica also resorted to the recog- nised practice of associating a member of the royal family with the throne, in this case his son Witiza, who, as the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 relates, reigned alongside him from 698.Anentry in the list of kings known as the Chronica Regum Visigothorum tells us that in an extension to the previous practices of association, Witiza was also anointed during his father’s lifetime at the end of the year 700.Unction made Witiza’s association to the throne something more than a co-regency or simple attempt to ensure the son succeeded the father, because it transformed the king into a sacred figure. He was de facto a king, chosen by God for the kingdom by means of the ritual act of unction, doubtless carried out by order of his co-regent and predecessor. By this act the gratia Dei through which royal power emanated was perpetuated in a hereditary form through the bloodline.

witiza, roderic and the end of the visigoth kingdom Information about the reign of Witiza (698/702–710)isscarce and the ﬁgure of this monarch is obscured by legendary stories from a later period, which

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Downloaded from Cambridge Histories Online by IP 150.214.205.85 on Wed Jul 09 18:35:49 BST 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.015 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2014 368 a. barbero and m. i. loring attributed to him a reputation for lechery, through which he corrupted the bishops and the people and provoked the wrath of God. As had become usual amongst the later Visigothic kings, at the beginning of his reign, and on his own initiative, Witiza lifted the condemnations hanging over members of the Gothic nobility persecuted by his predecessor. According to the Mozarabic Chronicle he returned to them their dignities and lands. Those pardoned by Witiza and returned to royal favour were those who had participated in the rebellion of Sisbert. The action of Witiza in favour of nobility persecuted by his father probably took place during the Eighteenth Council of Toledo, held at the beginning of his reign, but from which no acts have been conserved. The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 contains an obscure passage in which it says that in the year 701 Egica and Witiza left their palace, moving from place to place in Spain, as a result of a disaster or calamity previously mentioned by the chronicler. This information has been linked with the revolt of a certain Seniofred, who minted coins in Toledo in the last years of the seventh century. It is more likely that Seniofred jointly led the revolt of 693–694 with the bishop Sisbert, since its epicentre was Toledo, and the chronicler refers to the plague, the only general calamity recorded by him during the reign of Egica. According to the acts of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo the epidemic devastated the province of Narbonensis around 694 and it is likely that from here it extended south of the Pyrenees and that its devastating effects lasted into 701.Alaw about fugitive slaves, promulgated by Egica soon before his death at the end of 702,proves that the king had abandoned Toledo, as it is dated in the city of Cordoba.´ 34 The Mozarabic Chronicle gives some information about the brief joint reign of the two princes, that is, between 698 and 702.Itnarrates that the comes Teodemir victoriously repulsed an attack by the Byzantines which had come from the sea, information related to the struggles between Byzantines and Muslims in North Africa which led to the loss of Carthage in 698. The end of Witiza’s reign is not well understood since there is no explicit evidence about his death or about the circumstances that surrounded the succession. Sufficient is known, however, to affirm that it was difficult and not peaceful. The Mozarabic Chronicle claims that, while Witiza ascended the throne on the death of his father in conditions of complete tranquillity, Roderic’s succession in 711 was accompanied by widespread disorder. We also know from Christian and Muslim sources that Witiza’s children attempted to keep the kingdom along with the enormous landed fortune to which they were heirs. On the other hand the Continuatio Soriensis of the Chronica Regum Visigothorum includes two people following Witiza, Achila and Ardo, the first reigning for three years and the second for seven. Coins from Tarragona and

34 LV ix.1.21.

Narbonne minted in Achila’s name have encouraged speculation that he may have been a son of Witiza, but this identification does not fit in with the information that Witiza’s family collaborated with the Muslims and readily accepted Islamic dominion. In the light of these indications there can be no doubt that the disappearance of Witiza at the head of the kingdom, presumably owing to natural causes, opened a period of civil war to which the Mozarabic Chronicle unequivocally alluded, in its comment about Roderic’s tumultuous seizure of the kingdom and also in the comment that at the moment of the Muslim invasion the kingdom was submerged in a civil war, intestino furore confligetur. It was in the context of intervention in this civil war that the Muslim invasion occurred. The intervention of foreign forces in order to support a pretender to the crown had occurred on other occasions, but this time it would have profound consequences for the Visigothic kingdom. The Arabs, who after expelling the Byzantines and conquering the Berber tribes during the last third of the seventh century had established themselves in north-western Africa, saw in the civil war the opportunity to invade the Peninsula. In July 710 a small incursion took place under the command of one Tarif and in the following spring Tariqibn Ziyad, a freedman Berber client of Musa ibn Nusayr, governor of Ifriqiya, crossed to Spain with a large contingent of troops. The king of Toledo, Roderic, was fighting in the north against the Basques when he was informed of the disembarcation of the Muslim army, which was made up mainly of Berber troops from North Africa, and after reuniting his army he marched south. The definitive encounter took place, according to Muslim sources, in the Wadi Lakka,atoponym that has been identified with either the river Guadalete or the Barate, both in the province of Cadiz.´ There, according to the Mozarabic Chronicle, Roderic was betrayed by his troops who sided with his rival for the throne and the king was defeated and killed in the battle. As we have seen, the Visigothic army was largely composed of private retinues, from which its structural weakness derived, and which was used by the Islamic forces to their own advantage. The latter, according to the Mozarabic Chronicle, also killed Roderic’s rivals. Tariq then marched on Toledo, and occupied the royal city with, according to the Mozarabic Chronicle, the positive collaboration of the bishop of Seville Oppa, who was Witiza’s brother. The role that the Chronicle attributes to Oppa is decisive, in keeping with the narrative’s stress on the way in which the civil war had facilitated the Muslim victories. It is also a major argument in favour of showing that Witiza and his family were responsible for the arrival of the invaders, since he appears to have collaborated with them from the first. The rapid intervention against Toledo reveals that from early on, even from their disembarcation, the Muslims were attempting to seize the kingdom. The

Mozarabic Chronicle tells us that some of the nobility of the royal city were executed and that its bishop Sindered abandoned Toledo and the Peninsula, in order to flee to Rome. The execution of nobiles viros after the taking of the city, something that did not recur in the conquest of other cities, and the flight or exile of its metropolitan, have been understood as part of a strategy aimed at preventing the election of a new king capable of coordinating organised resistance. In this way the Islamic armies then had only to confront pockets of local resistance.35 As a result of the success of Tariq, the governor of Ifriqiya, Musa, arrived personally in the Peninsula with his son ‘Abd al-‘Aziz at the head of a new Arab and Berber army in the summer of 712.Itremained until 714, when Musa and Tariq left the Peninsula and marched to Damascus, where Musa had been recalled by the caliph, leaving ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in charge of the troops and government of the Peninsula. By then only north-western regions of Tarraconensis and Narbonensis had escaped Islamic rule, and here Ardo had succeeded Achila, and reigned for seven years. A seven-year reign for Achila corresponds with the information in the Mozarabic Chronicle which says that Val´ı al-Hurr governed all Spain, both citerior and ulterior, between 716 and 719. This rapid conquest culminated in the occupation of Narbonensis between 721 and 725. In conclusion, the end of the Visigothic monarchy was a consequence of diverse but related factors. One should cite in the first place the political factors, the most important of which was without doubt the strength of Islamic expansion. But to this must be added the civil war which followed the death of Witiza. The fideles regum had a great autonomy of action which belies the apparently centralized structure of the state. This meant that the invaders could reach concrete agreements with the duces and comites of the different provinces who, doubtless, were more interested in keeping their positions than in fighting for the defence of the kingdom of Toledo. Another factor in the disintegration may be revealed by Egica’s law against fugitive slaves, a widespread problem which reflected hostility to the dominant social order and indifference to its political vicissitudes. This was true of slaves and doubtless also of the freedmen and free, especially the large numbers under patronage, whose close links of dependence imply their servility. Finally, the Jewish minority could not but view in a positive light whatever change of dominant politico-religious regime took place.36

35 Garc´ıa Moreno (1989), p. 189. 36 SeeToch, chapter 20 below, for the view that there is no evidence for a large-scale Jewish presence in Spain at any time during the Visigothic period.