Were the Visigothic kings or their councillors more influential in defining kingship in the seventh century? Written for: The Gothic and Frankish Kingdoms 500-700 December, 2010 By Marissa Smit 1 The Iberian peninsula of the seventh century was a hothouse of cultural change, fostering a panoply of developments across politics, religion and culture in a unique manifestation of the transition from late Antique to early Mediaeval society. Outstanding in this far-reaching process were the Visigothic kings who, ruling from their capitol Toledo, exerted a powerful influence over the development of their nation. At their side, however, stand the bishops and palatines that met in the national church councils of Toledo and presided over a prolific, and at times defiant body of churchmen and the canon laws that governed them. Together, these two powers defined many aspects of hispano-gothic life, from codifying the treatment of the lowliest thief or penitent to shaping the character of the highest office of the realm— the kingship. Ruling a vast and heterogeneous territory, the Visigothic kings were required to direct their armies during war, maintain the balance of power between the regional nobilities, and direct relations both with the turbulent Franks and the Byzantines. For the most part they did so, and without the support and long-term focus provided by a legitimate royal dynasty. Instead, their rule both benefitted from and suffered the restrictions of the laws of the Toledan councils that acted as a broker of political support between the kings and their magnates. Yet which partner in this century-long process had the upper hand in creating the vibrant if somewhat contradictory kingship of the Visigoths? This essay will argue, from a consideration of three aspects of Visigothic kingship—the succession to, the limits and the symbols of royal power—that while the Toledan councillors dominated the ideology of all three aspects, and wielded practical control of the succession, it was the kings themselves who both set the boundaries of their authority and determined its expression. The method of succession was, as José Orlandis has described it, one of “dos temas fundamentales de Derecho público,” and as such was quickly regulated by canon law. 1 The political ideal of election thus established, while never dominant, nonetheless received support in practice from social trends that maintained the king-making privileges of the magnates whom the law had already empowered. Election, perhaps a vestige of pre-migration Germanic tradition and almost certainly a reflection of 1 José Orlandis, Historia de España 4: Época Visigoda (409-711), (Madrid, 1987), p.196. 2 Roman imperial practice2 had been common among the Goths before the seventh century. Only in the council now referred to as Toledo III (589), however, did legislators codify the practice and settle the power of election in the hands of prominent figures both secular and ecclesiastic—the palatines and bishops. 3 Subsequent councils (up to Toledo VIII in 653,) refined this law, requiring candidates to come from noble native (hispano-gothic) stock and forbidding the seizure of power through intrigue or violent coups d’états. 4 By the middle of the century, then, the Toledan councils had laid down sharply defined laws on the legitimate methods of succession by which all aspiring monarchs were required to abide. Looking not at the legal, but at the political history of the period, however, reveals the gulf between the above ideal and subsequent reality. Only two, or less conservatively, three gothic monarchs—among them the well-documented Wamba—underwent the process of election by the elite as stipulated by Toledo III in over a century of kingship.5 Far more prevalent was the designation of an heir by a living monarch, the process that, for example, raised Liuva II to power in 601 after the death of his father Reccared and also elevated Egica following the reign of Ervig at the close of the century in 687. 6 Should we thus deem not only the canons, but also the councillors as essentially ineffectual in this area? Roger Collins’ work on the period suggests not, for while designation might indicate dynastic ambition (as in the case of Liuva or Sisebut’s short-lived son Reccared II) 7 the choice might also be foisted on a ruler by political circumstance. Wamba’s retirement provides a good example. Himself one of the few kings elected by his peers, Wamba designated Ervig as his successor after an illness prompted Bishop Julian of Toledo to enlist him as a penitent whilst 2 Luis A. García Moreno, Historia De España Visigoda, (2nd ed., Madrid, 1998), p.323. 3 Orlandis, Época Visigoda, p.197. 4 Orlandis, Época Visigoda, p.197; García Moreno, Historia de España, pp.317-319. 5 Orlandis, Época Visigoda, p.197. 6 Isidore of Seville, History of the Kings of the Goths, ed. and trans. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of early Mediaeval Spain, p.104 § 57; Roger Collins, ‘Julian of Toledo and the Education of Kings in Late Seventh-Century Spain,’ Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Mediaeval Spain, p.16. 7 Isidore p. 106, § 61. 3 unconscious. 8 As he was thus barred from kingship upon recovering, Wamba’s choice of Ervig should hardly be viewed as the independent act of a man in the prime of his power. 9 A little later, Ervig himself seems to suffer a repeat of history and nominated his own successor, Egica, under pressure.10 These cases, combined with the swift disposal of enthroned minors, indicates that the magnates represented a considerable check on the king’s will, so that in the years following the death of Alaric in 531 no single family monopolized the kinship for more than two consecutive generations.11 That this influence was, by the end of the century, exercised through the “useful constitutional fiction” 12of designation has been interpreted by Collins as demonstrative of a consensus “amongst the more powerful men in the kingdom that greater political stability and enhanced central authority were in their interest.” 13 Whether this was in a strict sense true is difficult to assess, although it seems clear that the hispano-gothic aristocracy had begun to practice a subtler breed of politics than the expeditious assassination that claimed ten out of the eighteen kings who ruled before 610. 14 The Toledan canons, growing increasingly strict from the third to the eight councils, probably influenced the succession both as an initial instigator and later manifestation of these attitudes. Thus, while the preferred method of king- making set out by these canons did not enjoy consistent application, the social class the law had invested with the power of choice nonetheless acted as a significant force throughout the century, tempering the wills of the kings with that of the councillors. As in the case of the succession, the Toledan councils were keen to pass legislation aimed at mitigating the abuse of power and imposing limits on the authority of even legitimately elected monarchs. Yet while a highly sophisticated ideology arose around the restraint of power in canon law, the practical exercise of royal authority depended 8 Francis X. Murphey, ‘Julian of Toledo and the Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain,’ Speculum 27 no.1 (1952), pp. 1-2. 9 Collins, ‘Education of Kings,’ p.16. 10 Ibid., p.16. 11 García Moreno, Historia de España, p.323. 12 Collins, ‘Education of Kings,’ p.16 13 Ibid., p.20. 14 P.S. Barnwell, Kings, Courtiers, & Imperium: The Barbarian West, 565-725, (London, 1997), p.11. 4 far more upon the individual abilities of a sovereign than upon the decisions taken by the councillors. The watershed moment in the development of a ‘constitutional’ concept of Visigothic kingship occurred at Toledo IV, during the reign of Sisenand, the 75th canon of which Orlandis desribes as “la ley fundamental de la Monarquía católica.” 15 It has earned such a reputation for significance among historians for expressing the sentiment, recapitulated in the Forum Judicum, that “it should be the duty of every monarch to pay more attention to the safety of his subjects than to his own personal advantage.” 16 Continuing in this vein, the councillors of Toledo VIII (653), drew a stark distinction between the king’s personal property, which he might pass on or gift out freely, and the estates of the crown that he was in no way entitled to alienate. 17 Most historians see this law as a direct response to the plundering, abusive rule of Chindasuinth directly before,18 but they also deserve consideration in the broader context of royal excess and conciliar legislation. Other measures were, for example, adopted to protect family members, bureaucrats, and supporters of earlier kings from the very real practice of retribution against them by the throne’s new incumbent.19 Later, under Ervig, the Toledo XIII council forced the concession of an aristocrat’s right to open trial if accused of a public offence, probably to redress Wamba’s perceived severity in this area. 20 This tit-for-tat attitude in the limitation of royal prerogatives illustrates the dynamic relationship that existed between both parties, and highlights the primary importance of consent in Visigothic politics. Thus, while one strong king could willingly afford a high level of aristocratic dissatisfaction, the kingship as a whole could not. This simple fact explains why Reccesuinth, in the Forum Judicum pledged “to give temperate laws to ourselves and to our subjects; laws such as we and our successors, and the whole body of the people, may readily 15 Orlandis, Época Visigoda, p.144. 16 The Visigothic Code (Forum Judicum), ed.