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. S.P. Scott, 26th November, 2010,
5 obey.” 21 The limitation of royal authority therefore culminates in the striking fact that, as García Moreno puts it, “el rey visigodo se encontraba sometido al imperio de la Ley como los restantes súbditos.” 22
This edifying portrayal of Visigothic monarchs as sworn to the welfare of the people and compelled by law to uphold the collective benefit of the kingdom, however, dissipates once we move beyond the texts of the law codes, however, for there was another side to the issue. As Lear eloquently explains, “the king is under the law, but the king’s law, if right and just, must be obeyed.” 23 That kings did not depend on the councillors for all legislation granted them broad scope for action on a purely royal basis. Thus, while the ideology of the church councils is copiously preserved in the sources, its tenets, based on isidorian philosophy, were “un concepción erudite, sin fuerza viva en la sociedad hispano-goda” 24 that represented idealized perception and self-effacing propaganda, not reality.25 Instead, force and its successful management were the true arbiters of royal power, resulting in situations in which a king’s authority “was very great and often unchecked.” 26 This explains why Chindasuinth was never censured by a meeting of a Toledan council in his lifetime and why Wamba’s abuse of ecclesiastical appointments was not addressed until Ervig’s reign27—it took a king to call a council on a national scale, 28 and those kings excoriated by legislators were often those strong enough to forego the support won through such concessions. The irregular rhythm of the councils’ occurrence,29 and the fact that they often begin several years after the reigning king’s accession demonstrates their position as extraordinary events, perhaps relied upon once a king’s factional support had begun to wane. 30 Thus, while the councillors of Toledo IV and others helped to create a distinctive legal set of limitations on royal authority, both their meeting and their agenda
21 Forum Judicum, 2,1,2. 22 García Moreno, Historia de España, p.320. 23 Lear, ‘Public Law,’ p.4. 24 Orlandis, Época Visigoda, p.197. 25 Barnwell, Kings, Courtiers, & Imperium, p.61. 26 Collins, Early Mediaeval Spain, pp.108, 126. 27 Murphey, ‘Julian of Toledo,’ p.9. 28 Orlandis, Época Visigoda p.225. 29 Ibid., p.225. 30 In this respect they resemble the early parliaments of the later Middle Ages.
6 occurred according to the king’s will, and a strong sovereign, secure in his power, seemed capable of disregarding the stricter of their stipulations.
Given the very different goals of kings and councillors in the two categories above, it may come as a surprise to see both parties cooperating to enhance the prestige of the Visigothic crown through symbolic means. Despite the contributions of church legislation in this area, the great variety of symbolic expression produced by the kings (and inspired by Byzantium), nonetheless had a greater impact on the political and cultural landscape.
First among the Toledan councillors innovations was the articulation of sacral kingship found in Toledo IV’s depiction of Sisenand as the legitimate ruler, chosen by God.31 Such endorsement was probably sought to bolster support for a regime the Chronicle of 754 records as ascending to power “by means of a revolt.” 32 That the council would ignore the canons of its immediate predecessor in favour of Sisenand, despite his illegitimate accession, illustrates that council and king could find much of mutual benefit in cooperation, and confirms Collins’ judgement of the church as “a redoubtable supporter of kingship.” 33 This support continued throughout the seventh century, though the next phase in the increasing sacralization of kingship only surfaces explicitly in the Historia Wambae. The text, written by Bishop Julian of Toledo, describes the earliest phase of the reign of its namesake, including the hitherto unseen ceremony of royal unction. Telling of Wamba’s accession, Julian writes of how
“when he had arrived there [Toledo], where he was to receive the vexilla of holy unction, in the praetorian church…he stood resplendent in his regalia in front of the holy alter and, as the custom is, he recited the creed of the people. Next, on bended knees, the oil of blessing was poured onto his head by the hand of the blessed bishop…”34
31 García Moreno,Historia de España, p.324. 32 Chronicle of 754-Extracts, ed. and trans. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of early Mediaeval Spain, p.117, § 17. 33 Collins, Early Mediaeval Spain, p.121. 34 Historia Wambae 2-4, Corpus Christianorum, vol CXV, in Collins, Roger, ‘Julian of Toledo and the Education of Kings in Late Seventh-Century Spain,’ Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Mediaeval Spain, p.14.
7 This passage clearly conveys the centrality of the rite, modelled on Old Testament practice, which the church may have revived for Visigothic use as early as Toledo IV. 35 This sacralization of kingship, seen both in canon law and in ritual could, imply a certain subordination to church leaders, however, this position was offset by these rulers’ new status as representative of God. 36 The councillors and the canons, therefore, aided the kings in their assertions of power by creating a theocratic foundation upon which they could express their authority through both text and ritual.
The ideological stance contributed by the Church, which perceived the Visigothic kings as both chosen by and “answerable…to God,” 37 however, represented only one channel through which monarchs might express their power. As we shall see, the Visigothic kings, through the patronage of literature and of architecture, together created a substantial corpus of material to communicate, symbolically, the elevated nature of their position. 38 It is the evidence of propaganda through Visigothic literature that historians today find easiest to access, for many of the best sources for kings in this period were, perhaps unsurprisingly, produced under their aegis. Both the History of the Goths, by Isidore of Seville, and the Historia Wambae fall into this category, as both emphasize the legitimacy of power and (in Isidore’s case) the moral integrity displayed by exemplary kings.39 These men, both of whom presided over Toledan councils, illustrate the close links between the church, the kings, and the flowering of Spanish culture. 40 Kings, however, acted not only as patrons of literature, but also as authors themselves. King Sisebut’s famous literary ventures, including a poem on eclipses and his Vita Desiderii, are infused by Sisebut’s sense of
35 Orlandis, Época Visigoda,p.199, García Moreno, Historia de España, p.324. 36 García Moreno, Historia de España p.324. 37 Collins, Early Mediaeval Spain, p.126. 38 Coins, ceremonial titles, and the regalia of the monarchy are all also exceptional examples of platforms of royal propaganda, however, literature and architecture present the most apropos examples for the present study; see García Moreno, Historia de España, p.322. 39 Collins, ‘Education of Kings,’ p.13. Compare Isidore’s descriptions of Leovigild, the last Arian king, and that of his son Reccared, pp.102-103, §§51-55. 40 Isidore presided over Toledo III and Julian over XII-XVI; Orlandis, Época Visigoda, pp.197, 226.
8 himself as a Catholic Christian king with a role much like that of Constantine the Great. 41 As such, they help to identify him as “an active collaborator in the Isidorian renaissance,” propagating “the Christian ideology of the ‘Catholic kings’ of Toledo.”42 This kind of active royal participation in the sphere of literate propaganda also characterizes the production of the Forum Judicum, published by Reccesuinth in 654.43 While the idea of Gothic kings as law givers is traced by Isidore in his History as far back as Euric, under whom “the Goths began to record their legal statutes in writing” 44 it is the later monumental code, neatly titled, that has earned its main architect, Chindasuinth, the epithet ‘the Visigothic Justinian’ by Lear. 45 And, despite the sense of limitation inherent in some parts of the Forum Judicum it nonetheless preserves a “despotic and absolute” sense of the king’s role in justice and in society.46 Texts, then, were important instruments through which the Visigothic kings conceived and propagated their visions of power with the aid not only of Christian themes—the teacher, the lawgiver—and writers, but also the conscious adoption of Byzantine modes.
These two themes, religious and imperial, also characterize the royal patronage of Visigothic architecture as exemplified by the creation of a new capital at Toledo. First established as the principle residence of kings by Leovigild, Toledo offered the kind of clean slate for building as that offered by the initial foundation of Constantinople.47 While not the only residence for the itinerant Visigoths, Toledo nonetheless developed after its foundation into the ceremonial, not simply geographic centre, of kingdom and kingship.48Such prominence was expressed through conspicuous building projects, like the construction by King Sisebut of the extramural basilica of
41 Jaques Fontaine, ‘King Sisebut’s Vita Desiderii and the political function of Visigothic Hagiography,’ in Edward James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: new approaches, p.97. 42 Fontaine, ‘Sisebut’s Vita Desiderii,’’ pp.97-98. 43 Lear, ‘Public Law,’ p.2. 44 Isidore, p.95 §35. 45 Lear, ‘Public Law,’p.2. 46 Lear, ‘Public Law,’ p.11. 47 Roger Collins, ‘Mérida and Toledo:550-585,” Law, Culture, and regionalism in Early mediaeval Spain, p.213; García Moreno, Historia de España, p. 322. 48 Collins, ‘Mérida and Toledo,’ p. 213, Collins, ‘Education of Kings’, p.18.
9 St. Leocadia, or the commemorative inscriptions erected around the city by Wamba.49 These permanent monuments were complemented by ceremonies and functions to be performed exclusively within this royal space, like that of unction, described above. In that case, Wamba had travelled nineteen days from his place of election (Gerticos) in order to be seen receiving the holy oil in the praetorian church of Saints Peter and Paul.50 Secondly, and perhaps most obviously in this context, Toledo became the permanent home of the national councils that so captured the imagination of the Chronicle of 754.51 The Visigothic kings therefore used Toledo as a canvas upon which to inscribe the glory of their reign, beginning with imperial aspirations and continuing with the staging of councils and other elaborate functions.
In this essay, we have seen how the Toledan councils of the seventh century dominated the legal and ideological creation of Visigothic kingship into an institution favoured by God and beholden to the people, embroidered with the ritual of biblical tradition and constrained by the will of the councillors through canon law. We have also seen, however, that kings did not passively don the role cut out for them. Demonstrating their power through brutal retributions as well as through magnificent building works, the Visigothic kings exercised a practical authority far less restrained than bishops and palatines would have wished. This dynamic interaction between king and council deserves to take its place alongside other grand processes of the period—imperialization, sacralization, even, perhaps, proto- feudalization. For if, as García Moreno diagnoses, “las relaciónes monarquía-nobleza” were “eje ya de toda la vida política del Estado visigodo,” 52 it was the Toledan councils, called by kings and arbitrated by the great men, who oversaw the meeting of these forces and drove them forward.
49 Orlandis, p.133, Murphy, p.19. 50 Collins, ‘Julian,’ p.14. 51 See especially §23 for an exuberant description of Toledo VII; Chronicle of 754, p.119, §23. 52 García Moreno, Historia de España, p.157.
10 Bibliography
Primary Sources
Chronicle of 754-Extracts, ed. and trans. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of early Mediaeval Spain, pp.116-131.
Historia Wambae 2-4, Corpus Christianorum, vol CXV, in Collins, Roger, ‘Julian of Toledo and the Education of Kings in Late Seventh-Century Spain,’ Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Mediaeval Spain, pp.13-15.
Isidore of Seville, History of the Kings of the Goths, ed. and trans. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of early Mediaeval Spain, pp.80-109.
The Visigothic Code (Forum Judicum), ed. S.P. Scott, 26th November, 2010,
Secondary Sources
Barnwell, P.S., Kings, Courtiers, & Imperium: The Barbarian West, 565-725, (London, 1997).
Collins, Roger, Early Mediaeval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400-1000, (2nd ed., Houndmills, UK, 1995).
Collins, Roger, ‘Julian of Toledo and the Education of Kings in Late Seventh- Century Spain,’ Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Mediaeval Spain, pp.1-22.
Collins, Roger, ‘Mérida and Toledo:550-585,” Law, Culture, and regionalism in Early mediaeval Spain, pp.189-220.
Fontaine, Jaques, ‘King Sisebut’s Vita Desiderii and the political function of Visigothic Hagiography,’ in Edward James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: new approaches, pp.93-129.
García Moreno, Luis A., Historia De España Visigoda, (2nd ed., Madrid, 1998).
Lear, Floyd Seyward, ‘The Public Law of the Visigothic Code,’ Speculum 26, no.1 (1951), pp.1-23.
Murphy, Francis X., ‘Julian of Toledo and the Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain,’ Speculum 27 no.1 (1952), pp.1-27.
Orlandis, José, Historia de España 4: Época Visigoda (409-711), (Madrid, 1987).
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