Muslim Umayyad conquest of Spain

August 9, 2019 DavidCot 42:18 0 Comments

This is episode 20 called Muslim Umayyad conquest of Spain and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

Introduction to a new and complex era of the history of Spain, the Medieval Spain of Muslims and Christians
What was Pre-Islamic Arabia like
A brief history of the rise of Islam, from the reveleations of the Prophet Muhammad to the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates
Why the conquest of Spain was the logical step to follow after the conquest of North Africa and what was the Iberian Peninsula like before their conquest
Introduction to the main characters of the initial conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom: Tariq ibn Ziyad and Count Julian
How the Muslim forces of Tariq crushed the Visigothic army of Roderic in the Battle of Guadalete, and the betrayal of the brothers of former King Wittiza, Oppas and Sisebut
Why the weak military system was a cause of the abrupt fall of the Visigothic Kingdom
How Tariq ibn Ziyad took advantage of his victory and transformed the expedition from a large-scale raid to a full-scale invasion
The probably brief proclamation of Oppas as King and the fall of Toledo, that eliminated the possibility of a centrally organized resistance
Why Musa ibn Nusayr, governor of Ifriqiya, prepared a second expedition to Spain
The resistance of Mérida and the Treaty of Orihuela, as an example of the numerous treaties of capitulation signed between the Muslim conquerors and the Christian nobles, priests and towns
The Muslim conquest of the Ebro Valley, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia under Musa and Tariq
What was the strategy followed to conquer the Iberian Peninsula
The unhappy ending of Musa and Tariq
How was the success of the Muslim conquest interpreted by both Muslims and Christians
Reflection on the common motivations that all conquests have

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 20 called Muslim Umayyad conquest of Spain. In this episode you will learn about the background of Islam and the Umayyad Caliphate, and the events of the first three years of Muslim conquest of Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

This episode has a special importance because it’s the start of a new era of the history of Spain. As we will see in this episode, the abrupt fall of the Visigothic Kingdom caused by the Muslim conquest changed the paradigm. The religious unity of Spain was broken, I mean yeah not 100% of the population of the Visigothic Kingdom was Catholic, but the great majority was. After the Muslim conquest, there were more religious issues because the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths lived in the same Iberian Peninsula. Political unity, already weak in the late Visigothic Kingdom, disappeared, and several political entities emerged in Medieval Spain. That meant that borders were permeable and territories were constantly changing hands, and political division also explains the emergence of regional cultures and languages that still exist in modern Spain and Portugal. Spain under the Romans interacted extensively with both Europe and North Africa, under the Visigoths it was more connected with the West, while Muslim Spain interacted more with North Africa. Spain as a Catholic nation, heir of Rome and the Visigoths, almost disappeared. Instead, al-Andalus as a Muslim nation, descendant of both the Latin and Arab cultures, emerged.

Medieval Spain was a long, complex and dynamic period, so both you and I will require to pay attention to detail to avoid oversimplifying this period. Medieval Spain wasn’t just about Christians fighting Muslims, several times Christians and Muslims fought among themselves and they formed alliances with their religious nemesis. Until the 11^th century Muslim Spain was in a position of supremacy over the different Christian states, then between the 11^th and 13^th centuries the balance of power went back and forth, and after that only the Emirate of Granada remained, until its conquest in 1492 led by the Catholic Monarchs. Now, let’s start already with the background of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.

While the Visigothic Kingdom was in a state of chaos and infighting, divided between the supporters of King Roderic and Agila II, the rising Muslim Umayyad Caliphate had already finished the conquest of North Africa after a series of bloody and difficult campaigns. The war machine of the Arab empire was ready for a new campaign to spread the word of the Prophet Muhammad, and to seek for riches of course. But what are the origins of Islam and the secret behind the rapid success in its spreading?

First we need to understand the society of the birthplace of Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabia was a sparsely populated and preliterate place with a population of Semitic origin. There were both sedentary and nomadic Arabs, but Pre-Islamic Arabian society was in any case a tribal society. That means that it was a society organized in clans, and that explains the later conflicts among the Arab elite of the Umayyad Caliphate, such as the Qays-Yaman rivalry between northern and southern Arabians. In terms of political development, there weren’t any long-lasting and relevant Arab states before Islam, as political authority was at the hands of the chiefs of the tribes. You can imagine that the lack of political organization and tribal justice led to ceaseless warfare, that’s why Arab men were skilled warriors. This is similar to the case of the Mongols, whose political anarchy, tribal society and harsh living conditions transformed them into exceptional warriors.

Arabia was a patriarchal society, where women had no social status of any kind and where men could marry as many women as they wanted. Alcoholism and addiction to gambling were common problems among Arab men, that’s why alcohol and gambling were later banned by Islamic laws. As the Arabs lived in a desertic environment, they were used to travel to migrate to places with better living conditions, and they were used to carry out caravan trade. Slavery was a common economic institution in Pre-Islamic Arabia, and the wealthiest and most powerful Arabs were slave traders, merchants and moneylenders. On the religious side, most Arabs were polytheist pagans who venerated various deities and spirits, although there were also some Jews and Christians, as well as a few followers of Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism. So, religiously, Pre-Islamic Arabia was as much of a mess as politically. I think these social, political and economic conditions help us understand better the characteristics of Islam.

Now let’s overview the origins and rise of Islam. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was a caravan trader and a member of a leading family of the city of Mecca in western Arabia. According to Islamic tradition, in 610 he started having revelations from God through the archangel Gabriel, who required him to preach a monotheistic religion to his fellow Arabs. While Muhammad was undertaking his mission, he had new revelations on ethical doctrines, laws and social rules that needed to be observed by his followers, the Muslims, that means ‘those who have surrendered to God and his Prophet’. Sharia, or Islamic law, touches every aspect of life, from slavery to women rights, and at the heart of the Prophet’s preaching lay the Five Pillars of Islam: there’s only one God, believers must pray five times a day at stipulated times, fast during the hours of daylight in the month of Ramadan, make pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and distribute a portion of their personal income to the poor.

Muhammad’s religious message threatened the very pillars of the tribal Arab society, because it had a universalist message of equality, as God didn’t care about race nor about the material wealth of believers. Note that the egalitarian message was only applied to the male Muslims, but it was still an improvement from the previous order. In fact, Islam condemned practices of Pre-Islamic Arabia such as female infanticide, usury, alcohol and gambling, or the exploitation of the poor and slaves. Because of his revolutionary message, which was similar to that of other prophets such as Jesus or Mani, the Prophet faced opposition soon enough. Muhammad and his followers had to move to Medina, where he solved an inter-tribal conflict. Thanks to Medina’s strategic position, Muhammad blocked the commercial trade route between Yemen in southern Arabia and the Byzantine Empire. Mecca depended on that trade, so after years of failed attempts to overrun the Muslims of Medina the tribes of Mecca surrendered and embraced Islam.

Before the death of the Prophet, Muslim forces managed to conquer the majority of the Arabian Peninsula in two years, following the conquest of Mecca. Even though he named a successor, at the death of Muhammad there was a succession problem. A group followed the successor that the Prophet had appointed, who would become the Shias, and others supported another candidate, who would become the Sunni. The Sunni assumed political power and started what became known as the Rashidun Caliphate. The crisis of leadership caused the apostasy of many recently converted tribes, but the rebellion was suppressed. The Muslim schism between Sunnis and Shias was kind of put on pause for about twenty years, and during that time the Rashidun Caliphate rapidly expanded and spread Islam. The Caliphate launched a simultaneous attack on both the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, two empires that were exhausted after years of war against each other. If the two empires hadn’t fought during almost 30 years, the most likely scenario is that Islam wouldn’t have expanded as much as it did.

But the Arabs, united for the first time under Islam, swiftly invaded the Byzantine provinces of Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. As for the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire, it required many bloody campaigns and repression to conquer, but the Islamic Caliphate had conquered it by the 650s. But then a civil war erupted in the Caliphate, between those who supported a cousin of Muhammad and those who supported the cousin of the previous caliph, who had been murdered. This civil war permanently divided the Muslims between Shia and Sunni Muslims. The cousin of the previous caliph, that was seen as the legitimate caliph by Sunni Muslims, won the civil war and replaced the Rashidun with the Umayyad Caliphate in 661, with the capital in Damascus.

The Umayyad Caliphate continued the rapid military expansion of Islamic forces. It’s important to note though that the rapid conquests didn’t mean that the conquered peoples massively converted to Islam. Massive conversions took decades or even centuries depending on the region, and that was the situation during both the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates. The situation of having a Muslim Arab elite ruling over a population that was predominantly non-Muslim caused more and more tensions as the caliphate expanded, and the Arab discrimination against those non-Arab Muslims also caused social tensions, because the message of the Prophet included the condemnation of racial discrimination. In terms of expansion, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered modern Pakistan and Afghanistan, Armenia, the Caucasus, North Africa, Central Asia and, of course, the Iberian Peninsula.

For the history of Spain, the conquest that matters as a previous step to the conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom was that of Maghreb in North Africa. The Arabs defeated the Byzantine armies without any major setback, and they founded the city of Kairouan, which would become the capital of the province of Ifriqiya, the renamed Byzantine province of Africa. In 698 Carthage fell and was destroyed, and the Byzantine Empire lost forever all North African territories, territories that were key grain suppliers for the empire. It was a blow from which the Eastern Roman Empire never recovered.

The Byzantine armies were barely an impediment to Arab expansion, but the Berber tribes of the interior regions were a whole different thing. The Berbers of modern Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco blocked any Arab attempt to advance beyond the coasts of Tunisia, until between 703 and 708 Maghreb was conquered and the Umayyad Caliphate gained control over all the North African coast, except for Ceuta. At this point, they were very close to Spain itself and the Muslim forces were waiting for their chance to attack. By 711, the North African province of Ifriqiya was pacified enough for an expedition to be launched into Spain.

In many ways, the conquest of Spain was the logical and necessary step to follow after the conquest of North Africa. Most Umayyad soldiers served in the hope of booty and lands through more conquests, which were beneficial for both Arabs and Berbers, even though the distribution of benefits was asymmetrical. If no new opportunities of conquest appeared, the tribes and groups might fight each other and lead to the disintegration of the caliphate. Luckily, Spain offered the kind of opportunity needed to keep united and expanding the Umayyad Caliphate. For Arab and Berber standards, the Iberian Peninsula was a fertile and wealthy land. The population of Spain in the late Visigothic period has been estimated to be less than 5 million, far from the 6 or 7 million of the 5^th century, as plagues and famines reduced the population of the Iberian Peninsula. We can imagine a very empty landscape, with self-sufficient small towns and large estates, and a kingdom that again had a very weak control over the poor and mountainous north, where the Asturians, Cantabrians and Basques lived. Such was the land the Muslim armies conquered.

But before that, let me address the question of how Islamicised were the conquerors of Spain. In the 630s, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered areas that were predominantly Arab or Semitic, so it was relatively easy to integrate them. The captured non-Muslims were enslaved, and slaves could only be liberated if they embraced Islam and became perpetual clients of the tribe of their previous master. If they converted, they received a share of the spoils of war, although that share was lower than that of the Arabs. That’s how the ranks of the conquerors could continue to grow, as was the case of Musa ibn Nusayr, the governor of Ifriqiya during the conquest of Spain, who was the grandson of an enslaved Syrian Arab. This system worked until the Arabs overextended so much that they became a tiny minority, and their racial discrimination against non-Arabs became unacceptable by their subjects. The overextension was already obvious when the Muslim forces started the conquest of Spain. The bulk of the invading army of Spain was Berber, an ethnic group that had just submitted to Islamic rule and that was far from being truly Islamicised and Arabicized.

The governor of Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusayr, appointed his Berber client Tariq ibn Ziyad to rule the Moroccan city of Tangier and to raid Spain. The first step to do so was to conquer Ceuta, a key North African city to control the Strait of Gibraltar. Ceuta was then part of the Visigothic Kingdom, and its governor was a man remembered in Spanish historiography as Don Julián. The historicity of this character has been long a matter of debate among historians. Legend says that Julian collaborated with the Muslims because the King of the Visigoths Roderic had raped his daughter. This tale of betrayal and personal revenge is almost for sure fictional, with the aim to moralize and to explain why the Visigothic Kingdom fell. But it’s very likely that Count Julian existed, I mean, collaborators with foreign invading powers aren’t something new in history. Now let me explain the part of the story that is more plausible. Tariq and Julian arranged an agreement that confirmed the authority of Julian over Ceuta, and the Muslims probably promised him new estates. In exchange, Julian provided ships, a harbor, and intelligence and logistical support. Julian had no choice but to accept this deal, I mean Ceuta would have been put under Muslim control with or without his collaboration, so from an individual point of view better to collaborate and keep his position and wealth.

With the assistance of Count Julian, Tariq sent a commander named Tarif to make a reconnaissance raid in the southern coast of Spain in 710. Maybe in Tarif’s expedition the Muslims also consolidated some alliances with the locals, using the network of contacts of Julian. After the reconnaissance raid, Tariq thought that the prospects of a successful attack were good, but he wasn’t thinking about a full-scale invasion to conquer the entire Visigothic Kingdom, as it later happened. Anyway, Tariq prepared a force of between 7,000 and 12,000 men, who were mostly Berbers, and the Muslim army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in April 711, landing at the rock that still bears the name of Tariq, Gibraltar. The invading army occupied without resistance the surrounding areas, including Algeciras and Medina Sidonia, therefore the Muslims gained control of the communications between the two shores of the strait.

News of those attacks reached King Roderic, who was then occupied fighting the Basques in the north, although it wasn’t until summer that Roderic was able to lead his army south to expel the Muslims. The army of Roderic was likely larger than that of Tariq, we are talking about maybe 20,000 men, and in mid-July the armies of Tariq and Roderic met somewhere near a river of the province of Cádiz. The battle became known as the Battle of Guadalete, and this battle marked the future of the Iberian Peninsula for the following centuries. The brothers of former king Wittiza, Oppas and Sisebut, accompanied Roderic with hidden intentions. The brothers of Wittiza had the duty to lead the flanks of the Visigothic army, maybe because Roderic wanted to reconcile with the faction that supported Wittiza. However, Oppas and Sisebut had other plans. When they had to charge against the army of Tariq, the soldiers in the flanks defected and abandoned the battlefield. King Roderic was left with only his loyal supporters, and now they had a numerical disadvantage. It’s not like Oppas and Sisebut had made an alliance with the Muslims, instead the brothers of Wittiza thought that the Muslims would defeat Roderic, raid southern Spain and then leave. What neither the Muslim nor Christian forces expected was the crushing defeat that the Visigoths suffered in the Battle of Guadalete. King Roderic himself was killed and Visigothic losses were very high. The situation was very similar to that of 507 when the Franks defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Vouillé and killed the King of the Visigoths. The key difference was that this time the Visigoths had no ally such as the Ostrogoths to back them in this critical moment. In a single battle, the fate of the Visigothic Kingdom was sealed.

Another reason why Visigothic Spain fell quickly after the Battle of Guadalete was its military system. As in the rest of post-Roman Germanic kingdoms of Europe, there was no standing army in the Visigothic Kingdom. The nobles brought their clients and subordinates in response to royal summons, and the king rewarded them with legal concessions, new estates, or gold and silver. The weakness of this system that functioned during the Middle Ages in Europe is obvious: the bulk of the troops are loyal to their lords, not necessarily the monarchy, which is exactly what happened with the betrayal of the brothers of Wittiza. At the time military disaster meant the dispersal of the supporters of the previous king, who had to elect a new king in Toledo. The problem, as we will soon see, was that Toledo quickly fell after the Battle of Guadalete, which left the Visigothic Kingdom in chaos and eliminated the possibility of a centrally organized resistance. For those well versed in English history, this situation may remind you to that of the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

The unexpectedly crushing victory of Tariq ibn Ziyad changed the objective of the expedition, from a large-scale raid to a full-scale invasion. Like other Muslim invasions, the idea to transform a raid into an invasion didn’t start as a result of the initiative of the Caliph al-Walid or even the governor Musa ibn Nusayr. It looks like it was entirely Tariq’s idea. All of Spain laid open to Muslim conquest, so, in the aftermath of the Battle of Guadalete, Tariq moved quickly to take advantage of his victory. He split his army, moving the main army under him to the capital of the kingdom, Toledo, while dispatching a smaller army to Cordoba. In Cordoba the Muslims encountered some opposition, as a group of nobles took refuge in a church and fortress where they resisted for three months. After that time, and seeing that no one was coming to help them, they surrendered and arranged agreements with the conquerors. On the other hand, Málaga, Cádiz and Granada were conquered without resistance.

The brother of Wittiza Oppas arrived in Toledo before Tariq, and he was probably proclaimed king, but only a few days after that happened Oppas fled Toledo along many other people. Abandoned by those who could have put up a fight, the little resistance that could still be offered wasn’t enough and Tariq conquered Toledo. The fall of Toledo, the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom, had an important psychological and political blow. Apart from north-eastern Spain that was controlled by the Visigothic pretender Agila II, the rest of the regions could only put up an isolated resistance with no coordination with other regions. In Toledo, the Muslims executed many nobles, as they were either too close to the aristocratic families that ruled the Visigothic Kingdom, or they had supported Oppas. We don’t know the fate of Oppas, but we do know that his brother Sisebut established himself in Coimbra, in modern Portugal. Sisebut wasn’t the only noble who fled to the north to live outside of al-Andalus, but we will see that within two episodes when I will talk about the start of the Reconquista.

When word of the incredible success of his client Tariq reached Musa ibn Nusayr, he felt envious of the achievements of his subordinate and decided to send reinforcements and prepare an army that he would lead himself. It wasn’t difficult to recruit new Berber and Arab soldiers, because everyone heard about the opportunity to enrich themselves. From Kairouan Musa departed in 712 with maybe more than 10,000 men, many of which were Arabs. The objective of the expedition was to make very clear that Musa ibn Nusayr was the legitimate authority and that the conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom would be his personal achievement. I’m sure Tariq wasn’t very enthusiastic about this idea. The governor of Ifriqiya first gathered information and thoroughly planned the route that his army would follow. Then Musa landed at Algeciras and conquered the fortress of Carmona in southern Spain, which was captured with the help of native collaborators that pretended to be refugees and from within they opened the gates. Then Musa ibn Nusayr laid siege on Seville and it was conquered by force, which means that the properties of the locals weren’t to be respected. After being conquered, Seville became the capital of the new conquered lands, which was a quite logical decision, since it was the most economically powerful city of Spain and it has a navigable river, the Guadalquivir.

Then Musa divided his forces, the majority remained under the governor of Ifriqiya while a smaller army under his son Abd al-Aziz moved to the southeastern region of Murcia. In Mérida Musa faced serious resistance, as Mérida had the magnificent Roman walls and aqueduct that made its conquest difficult. For more than a year, Mérida resisted until the city capitulated in the summer of 713. The conditions of the surrender were that all the properties of the clergy and those who had fled the city were to be confiscated, while the Muslims would respect the life, property and faith of the rest of the local population. As for the son of Musa, Abd al-Aziz, he conquered the region of Murcia with the surrender of Theodemir. Theodemir was a Gothic noble who had defended a few years before the southern coast of Spain from a weird Byzantine attack. It’s said that Theodemir had to dress up women and children as soldiers to create the illusion that he could defend his estates and that it was better to negotiate without a fight. His example shows how defenseless Visigothic Spain was. Luckily for him, the trick worked and Abd al-Aziz and Theodemir signed what’s known as the Treaty of Orihuela or Treaty of Theodemir, a treaty of surrender that has been preserved. Let me quote a fragment of the treaty:

“We will not set special conditions for him or for any among his men, nor harass him, nor remove him from power. His followers will not be killed or taken prisoner, nor will they be separated from their women and children. They will not be coerced in matters of religion, their churches will not be burned, nor will sacred objects be taken from the realm, as long as he remains sincere and fulfills the conditions that we have set for him. He has reached a settlement concerning seven towns: Orihuela, Villena, Alicante, Mula, Bigastro, Ello, and Lorca. He will not give shelter to fugitives, nor to our enemies, nor encourage any protected person to fear us, nor conceal news of our enemies. He and his men shall pay one dinar every year, together with four measures of wheat, four measures of barley, four liquid measures of concentrated fruit juice, four liquid measures of vinegar, four of honey, and four of olive oil. Slaves must each pay half of this amount.”

Surrender agreements such as these were signed in many cities and with many Spanish nobles and priests. As you can see, the terms of the treaty are assumable, which is why many nobles and towns submitted instead of trying to resist the Muslim conquest, which would have provoked a futile bloodbath. The conditions of capitulations varied though, as in some towns the Muslims demanded captives and properties, while in others they respected the faith of the natives and the local authorities in exchange of their loyalty and tribute. A few towns were burned and destroyed, and in those cases the local population was killed, but that very rarely happened. The enslavement of the local population, particularly young women to turn into sexual slaves, the taking of hostages or plunder were much more common though, so don’t get it wrong, the conquest was far from being peaceful.

Going back to the expedition of Musa, as the siege of Mérida was taking a long time, Musa left the city before its fall to move to Toledo, to meet again with Tariq and make clear that he was the boss. As you can imagine there were tensions and disputes over the booty, but they left together Toledo after the winter and launched a joint expedition to submit the Ebro Valley, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. There they continued to occupy the administrative regional centers, such as Zaragoza, Pamplona, Leon, Astorga or Lugo. The Muslims made hundreds of nobles prisoners and captured their treasures. Many of them were refugees that had fled Toledo or their respective hometowns with the hope that the Muslim invasion would be repelled, but that didn’t happen. Those who believed that the new conquerors were there to stay could exploit that to their advantage. For instance, Count Cassius converted to Islam to preserve his lands and to become a close native collaborator of the new regime. This Count Cassius founded the Banu Qasi dynasty that became important in the Andalusian politics of the 9^th and 10^th centuries.

In a matter of just three years, only Septimania, Lusitania and modern Catalonia and Valencia remained out of Muslim control. The strategy followed to conquer the Visigothic Kingdom wasn’t innovative. The conquest was similar to that of Iran, although it all happened faster, on a smaller scale and with less bloodshed. The first stage of the conquest was about conquering the main cities and lines of communication, as well as the fertile lands of southern and southeastern Spain. The second stage, that happened gradually and only after the expedition of Musa and Tariq, involved the conquest of the north-east and making effective Muslim control over rural and remote areas.

However, this story didn’t have a happy ending for the main characters of the conquest. The success of Musa and Tariq drew the attention of the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid, who summoned them in Damascus. Musa and Tariq reluctantly left Spain in September 714, along captives and nobles such as Count Cassius, leaving his son Abd al-Aziz as governor of al-Andalus. Musa and Tariq were never to return to the lands they had conquered. Musa and Tariq triumphantly entered Damascus, before meeting with Caliph al-Walid who was on the point of death. A few days later al-Walid died and was succeeded by his brother Sulayman, who demanded that Musa gave him all the spoils of war. Musa refused to do so, and Sulayman stripped him of his rank and confiscated the spoils anyway. The punishment didn’t end there, but we will see in the next episode how cruel destiny was with Musa ibn Nusayr. It’s kind of what happened to Hernán Cortés, they both lead epic conquests only to be suspected later by the rulers in whose names acted. However, the fate of Musa was much more tragic than that of Cortés. As for Tariq, we virtually know nothing about what happened after he arrived in Damascus, but it’s safe to say that he didn’t have a happy ending either.

Before going to The Verdict, I think it’s interesting to see how the success of the Muslim conquest was explained by both Christians and Muslims. For Muslims, the answer was simple: God had willed it. The Christians instead had to explain why God had abandoned them. Medieval chroniclers blamed the ruling Visigoths for their immorality. According to them, they were all to blame: the desire of power and glory of Roderic, the treachery of Oppas and Sisebut, the cowardice of the bishop of Toledo who fled to Rome, and the lust of King Wittiza, who had many concubines. Therefore, for Christians the sins of the Visigoths were what made God punish them with the invasion of the infidels.

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I want to discuss the common motivations that all conquests have. Religion has traditionally been a major reason, as it unites people and it gives warriors a higher moral cause, and this is true for both Muslims and the later fervent Christians. But religion is not a sufficient motivation, because if it was, there wouldn’t be conflicts among believers of the same faith. More mundane reasons are usually much more important. Conquerors risk their lives to enrich themselves, either through a salary, a share of booty, or new lands to settle. Conquerors also risk their lives for women, either to marry foreign women or to sexually enslave or rape them. And the other big reason is for prestige, glory and power. The deadly sins, such as lust, pride and greed, are the human factors that have shaped the world. And with that, The Verdict ends.

In the next episode I will cover the definitive conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom and the society of al-Andalus. To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

KINGDOMS OF FAITH. A NEW HISTORY OF ISLAMIC SPAIN. Brian A. Catlos

MUSLIM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. Hugh Kennedy

HISTORIA DE LA ESPAÑA DE LA EDAD MEDIA. Vicente Ángel Álvarez Palenzuela

ESPAÑA 702-719: LA CONQUISTA MUSULMANA. Luis A. García Moreno

A HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL SPAIN. Joseph F. O’Callaghan

ESPAÑA MUSULMANA (SIGLOS VIII-XV). Rachel Arié

CONQUISTADORES, EMIRES Y CALIFAS: LOS OMEYAS Y LA FORMACIÓN DE AL-ÁNDALUS. Eduardo Manzano

LA CONQUISTA ÁRABE, 710-797. Roger Collins

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Visigothic Twilight

July 29, 2019 DavidCot 0:27:19 0 Comments

This is episode 19 called Visigothic Twilight and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

The succession of Recceswinth and the rebellion of Paul against Wamba
The social problems that late 7th century Visigothic Kingdom was facing
The coup of Erwig and Julian of Toledo to disqualify Wamba as king
Why Julian of Toledo supported the coup and his fervent antisemitism
The weakness of Erwig and the backstabbing of his successor Egica
The ruthless rule of Egica and his brutal antisemitic policies
The weak rule of Egica’s son Wittiza and the famines and plagues of his rule
The coup of Roderic (Rodrigo in Spanish), and the emergence of the pretenders Agila II in northeastern Spain and Oppas, leaving the Visigothic Kingdom divided right before the Muslim conquest
Final thoughts on the key political features of the Visigothic Kingdom

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 19 called Visigothic Twilight. In this episode you will learn about the last years of the Visigothic Kingdom, from the reign of Wamba to the succession of King Wittiza, right before the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

On the same day Recceswinth died in September 672, a noble named Wamba was elected king. This Wamba had been a courtier in the court of Recceswinth since his early reign, so it’s obvious that he was part of the noble faction loyal to Chindasuinth’s family. Wamba initially opposed his own election arguing that he was too old, but he was forced to take the crown anyway. However, Wamba demanded to be crowned and anointed in Toledo, to make the succession as legitimate as possible. That didn’t prevent revolts though, as the kingdom was in a fragile state.

Wamba first led an expedition against the Vascones, but when he arrived in modern La Rioja, he heard news of a noble rebellion in the edges of Septimania. This may not have been an attempt to usurp the throne, but rather a plot to hand Septimania over the Franks. King Wamba immediately sent part of his army to suppress the rebellion, although as we will see it would have been smarter to have led that army himself. Instead, that army was led by Paul, someone that Wamba trusted, as he had also appointed him Duke of Narbonensis. Paul had been a man of the inner circle of the court of Recceswinth too, but it seems that he was disappointed with the election of Wamba, since, as soon as he left Wamba fighting the Vascones, Paul started a conspiracy against the King too. Paul obtained the backing of the Duke of Tarraconensis and the rebels of Septimania to support his claim on the Visigothic throne. Actually, it seems like Paul attempted to be recognized as king of the eastern half of the kingdom, while accepting the rule of Wamba in the western half, but this unrealistic offer was refused by Wamba and his supporters. Cowabunga it is!

In a week Wamba pacified the Vascones and he marched towards Tarraconensis. Apparently, the royal army quickly conquered the strongholds of Barcelona and Girona, and then Wamba divided his army in three columns to regain control of the Pyrenees and Septimania. The ground offensive was combined with a naval blockade and Wamba successfully conquered town after town. The properties of Paul and the other leaders of the rebellion were confiscated, and they were sent into exile.

Even though Wamba had put down the rebellion, it was quite revealing of the weakness of central power and the increasing desire of autonomy of the local elites. Another issue that worried the King was that it was increasingly difficult to recruits troops. Much like before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the local population didn’t seem compromised with the defense of the kingdom from both internal and external threats. The nobility wanted more autonomy, while the peasantry was living in very poor conditions and many ran away from the land of their lord. Wamba promulgated a law that forced everyone near an attack to participate in the defense of the realm. Those who didn’t honor their duty could face the confiscation of their property and the loss of their right to testify. We don’t know to what extent this law was enforced, but it seems that confiscations were quite numerous. Wamba also appointed several people of humble origin in key administrative positions, and he took measures to limit the excessive growth of ecclesiastical assets. So, to summarize, Wamba was the kind of king that took measures to strengthen royal power.

The end of the reign of Wamba is quite confusing. One source tells us that Wamba started feeling ill in 680 and asked to be tonsured, which disqualified him as a monarch. He signed a document making Erwig his successor and asked the powerful bishop of Toledo, Julian of Toledo, to anoint Erwig as soon as possible. However, another source claims that it was all a palace coup led by Erwig and Julian of Toledo. They apparently administered a narcotic to Wamba and they tonsured him while he was drugged. By the time Wamba recovered, he had no choice but to accept that he could no longer be a king. Since Wamba didn’t want to be the king since the beginning, it was probably okay for him to live the rest of his days without fearing for his life. The story of the conspiracy seems more plausible, as that would explain why Erwig was anointed so quickly.

Julian of Toledo supported the coup because Wamba had created a new see in Toledo to curb the authority of the metropolitan. Wamba had given the Praetorian Church of Saint Peter and Paul to the new bishop, which is very significant because in that church Wamba himself had been anointed and it was the church from where kings departed for war. Of course, that bishopric was immediately eliminated once Wamba was removed from power. But who was this bishop of Toledo? Julian of Toledo was like a second Isidore of Seville in terms of influence in both the politics of the Visigothic Kingdom and within the Spanish Church, and he was a very prolific writer too. Julian of Toledo descended from a family of Jewish conversos, but he was fervently anti-Jewish. He advocated for harsher measures against Jews, and the late Visigothic kings listened to his antisemitic rhetoric that was not so different to that of Hitler. King Erwig for instance called for the “root extirpation of the Jewish plague”, while his successor Egica called for the “enslavement of all Jews”. Julian of Toledo justified the antisemitic policies comparing Jews to a disease, saying that a good Christian king should remove them before they spread the disease. Truly Nazi levels of antisemitism.

But let’s talk about Erwig and his reign. Erwig was the cousin of Recceswinth, and his father was an Armenian or Persian Christian that fled to the Visigothic Kingdom after the Muslim conquest of his birthplace. Upon his rise to the Visigothic throne, Erwig summoned the bishops of the realm in the Twelfth Council of Toledo and rapidly issued a revision of the Visigothic Code of Recceswinth. Among the new laws there were 28 directed against Jews, which included forced conversions as King Sisebut had attempted in the early 7^th century, but there were more extreme measures. Some of these include the obligation of Jewish conversos to show up every Saturday in the presence of a clergyman or a civil officer, or the mutilation of the genitals of those who circumcised or were circumcised after the law was promulgated. Ouch. As Erwig was worried that those laws wouldn’t be enforced, he threatened with fines the bishops and judges who didn’t implement them. Aside from those laws, Erwig made concessions to the clergy and nobility, for instance eliminating the laws of Chindasuinth that banned violence against slaves. That certainly didn’t help restoring social order and calming the common people. Social tensions were very serious, especially because there was a succession of bad harvests that caused widespread famines. By the way, according to a chronicle written later, the Umayyad Caliphate already sent scouts to the coasts of Spain, a prelude of their conquest two decades later. That might be the reason why the Visigoths started paying more attention to the Strait of Gibraltar and militarizing Ceuta, the key North African stronghold of the Strait.

During the reign of Erwig there was an unusual amount of Councils of Toledo, so the Twelfth Council of Toledo was followed by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Councils of Toledo. In the Thirteenth the properties of the rebels of 672 were restored to the original owners, which suggests that Erwig wanted to reconcile with that part of the nobility, maybe in an attempt to end the constant conflicts between noble factions. Those councils also show concerns for the lives of the royal family and its supporters, as in the reigns of Chintila and Tulga. Erwig might have felt deceived, because he was concerned for his life and that of his inner circle even though he had diminished substantially royal power. Not only had he returned confiscated properties, Erwig also banned the use of violence to force the confession of treason, and he ended the practice of employing serfs in administrative positions.

What Erwig didn’t expect was that the real threat to his family came from his own ranks. In 687 Erwig was dying, so he proclaimed a provincial duke named Egica his successor. Soon after his election, King Egica summoned the bishops of the realm in the Fifteenth Council of Toledo. There Julian of Toledo defended his view on a theological issue that caused tensions between the Spanish Church and the Pope, but more importantly for us Egica wanted to reverse the canon of previous councils that protected the family and properties of former kings. Before naming Egica his successor, King Erwig forced Egica to take two oaths. One was that he wouldn’t harm Erwig’s children after Egica married his daughter, and the other oath was to be a just king. Egica claimed that the two oaths were contradictory, given that Erwig apparently confiscated some properties in an illegitimate way to hand them to his children. The bishops freed him from his first oath and allowed him to repudiate his wife, who was the daughter of Erwig, while also depriving her family from their unjustly acquired properties. Nonetheless, the council didn’t allow Egica to do everything that he pleased to maintain the cohesion of the ruling noble faction. In any case, you sure have noticed that any law to protect the family and supporters of a former king always came to naught.

After this ruthless and despicable act Egica felt secured in the throne. But there was a challenge to his rule soon enough. After the death of Julian of Toledo in 690, someone named Sisebert was appointed bishop of Toledo. This Sisebert supported the rebellion of a nobleman named Suniefred to usurp the throne and kill Egica, and for some time the rebels seized Toledo. However, the rebellion was quickly suppressed, Sisebert was excommunicated and the rest of the rebels were sold into slavery. It has been suggested that members of Erwig’s family participated in the plot, and if that was the case it was the perfect pretext to make them fall into disgrace. King Egica passed new legislation that banned the formation of alliances through oaths, except for the oath of loyalty towards the king of course. Offenders of that law faced the same sentence as traitors, although I wonder if this law was actually enforced.

Egica also used the failed revolt to secure his family in power, as he already made co-ruler his son Wittiza in late 693. The mother of Wittiza was Erwig’s daughter, so Wittiza must have been only 5 or 6 years old when he was associated to the throne. Wittiza would have been overthrown if Egica had died when his son was a minor, but luckily for him that didn’t happen. We have seen how Egica was ruthless, but he was also down-to-earth. He knew that the best way to secure the position of his family was to strengthen his economic and social bases, exactly the opposite that his predecessor Erwig did. Egica swelled the ranks of the royal army with freedmen who had been liberated by royal order. The King also used a classic of the guide of Visigothic rulers, confiscations, along executions and forced exiles. It seems like Egica really admired the rule of Chindasuinth, as he also restored the ban on the use of violence against slaves.

On another note, in 698 a Byzantine fleet attempted to raid the southeastern coast of Spain, but the Visigothic count Theodemir drove them off. The reason behind this bizarre attack is unknown, but we know that this fleet was the same that attempted to recover Carthage from the Arabs. Through this contact or through some commercial interaction a plague originated in Constantinople reached the Visigothic Kingdom, and the outbreak was so serious that Egica and Wittiza had to leave the capital for some time. All was going badly to sustain social peace, because bad harvests and famines happened almost every year, there was a very serious problem of fugitive slaves and brigandage, and the Jewish community was being persecuted on a way never seen before.

Talking about Jews, you know that all the attempts to eliminate Judaism failed. Yes, for sure they managed to truly convert some to Catholicism, but the forced conversion created a new problem, the problem of fake conversos or crypto-Jews. Despite the judicial terror, Jews kept practicing their religion and owning Christian slaves. The fact that similar laws were promulgated again and again indicates that authorities negligently enforced antisemitic laws. King Egica, determined to end with Judaism in his realm as many previous kings, adopted a carrot-and-stick approach at first. He offered certain economic incentives to those who proved their conversion to Catholicism, while limiting the economic basis of those who didn’t. However, as those measures failed, he adopted the most brutal measures in Visigothic history to persecute Jews. In the Seventeenth Council of Toledo of 694 he accused Jews of being a fifth column that conspired with the Umayyad Caliphate to conquer the Visigothic Kingdom. Because of that he ordered the perpetual enslavement of Jews and the confiscation of all their properties. Those radical antisemitic laws were rigorously enforced in certain areas of Spain, while not so much in others. No wonder why the Jewish Spanish community welcomed the Muslims as liberators.

Then Egica died in 703 and Wittiza started his sole reign. It looks like there was an unavoidable and strange pattern in the history of the Visigothic Kingdom, a pattern were strong fathers were succeeded by weak sons. Such pattern kind of happened with Leovigild and Reccared, it happened with Chindasuinth and Recceswinth, and it happened again with Egica and Wittiza. I say that because the first thing Wittiza did was recalling those who had been exiled and returning confiscated properties. Those measures made the nobility happy, but some later chroniclers blamed Wittiza for doing so because he greatly weakened the royal treasury, which left the central power weak by the time the kingdom had to face the Muslim Umayyad forces. We don’t know much more about the reign of Wittiza, but we know that there were famines in 707 and 709 and that the plague was still widespread.

King Wittiza died in 710 or 711, being only in his mid-twenties. Wittiza was succeeded by Roderic, Rodrigo in Spanish, and this Roderic was the last Visigothic King to rule from Toledo. The succession of Wittiza was a very obscure event, so we have different interpretations of what happened. The Chronicle of 754 states that Roderic “tumultuously invaded the kingdom with the encouragement of the Senate”. Therefore, it’s clear that the succession wasn’t a regular and legitimate one, but the exact meaning of these words has long been discussed by historians. The term invaded shouldn’t be taken literally, and as for the kingdom it should be noted that regnum in Latin also referred to the royal office, so it’s safe to say that royal office is the actual translation of regnum here. And the encouragement of the Senate means that part of the nobility and possibly the clergy supported him. The conclusion is that Roderic violently seized the throne and it was probably not a discrete palace coup, so it’s very likely that King Wittiza was overthrown and assassinated. Some sources suggest that Roderic was the Duke of Baetica at the time he usurped the throne, but his origins are as obscure as his coup.

However, the usurpation of Roderic wasn’t left uncontested. The Visigothic Kingdom split into two areas governed by two different kings. Roderic controlled the southern and western part of the realm, while a man crowned as Agila II ruled Tarraconensis and Narbonensis. We don’t know the origins of King Agila II, but it’s possible that he was somehow related to Egica and Wittiza. But to make things more confusing, there was another pretender. The pretender was the son of Egica and therefore brother or brother-in-law of Wittiza. His name was Oppas and he got the support of some former supporters of Wittiza. The whole situation, certainly chaotic, is very confusing, and late sources and legends don’t help to make the story clear. What seems clear is that the situation resembled a civil war, but the truth is that none of the three sides had time to fight among themselves, because the Muslims quickly took advantage of the internal chaos of the Visigothic Kingdom to launch their unstoppable invasion.

I leave the Muslim Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom for following episodes. With that a new era will start for the history of Spain, a period where Muslim and Christian states would fight against each other and among themselves.

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I would like to just leave a few final thoughts about the Visigothic Kingdom. One of the most striking features of the kingdom was the role that no more than two dozen families played in the politics of the realm. We are talking about a handful of wealthy families that dominated the different regions of the Iberian Peninsula and formed alliances among themselves to keep the kingdom united. That was not something especially rare in Medieval Europe, but what was a particular feature of the Visigothic Kingdom was that the powerful nobility chose one of them as King but didn’t allow any monarch to establish a long-lasting dynasty. That’s why the Visigothic monarchy was elective in principle, and in fact no dynasty lasted more than 3 generations. The leading aristocratic families made sure that none of them could use the royal office to build up their own family wealth to a degree that would make them permanently superior. The maintenance of the balance of power among themselves was the key objective of their complex political system, that’s also why there was this pattern of confiscating but then restituting properties and positions. The history of the Visigothic Kingdom is the story of an oligarchy of wealthy families that dominated both secular and religious offices. An oligarchy that was infighting in one of the worst possible moments to do so, when the ambitious and unbeatable Umayyad Caliphate was ready to invade Spain. And with that, The Verdict ends.

I must confess, I didn’t expect to finish covering the Visigothic Kingdom this soon, but the lack of primary sources of this period is remarkable. However, I’m happy to have covered Visigothic Spain with this level of detail, and I’ve learned many aspects of this period that I didn’t know before researching for the episodes. I hope you have learned a lot too, without feeling bored! As you know I love to receive feedback to improve the podcast, so any comments on Twitter or through an email or review are always welcomed. I’ll work hard to keep improving the quality of the podcast, so I will plan thoroughly how I’m going to research and narrate the long and complex Medieval period that remains of the history of Span.

To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

THE GOTHS IN SPAIN. E. A. Thompson

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Tyranny and Peace

July 11, 2019 DavidCot 30:11 0 Comments

This is episode 18 called Tyranny and Peace and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

The steps that Chindasuinth followed to consolidate his power and prevent rebellions, which include executions and forced exiles
How Chindasuinth used the Spanish clergy to support the administration and how he played the nobility and clergy against each other
The codification of the most important Visigothic legal code, the Visigothic Code of Recceswinth
The uneasy succession of Recceswinth and how the rebellion of Froia marked his reign as he had to adopt a conciliatory policy, as opposed to the tyrannical policies of his father
How the succession was future monarchs was established to ensure the continuity of the ruling noble faction, not dynasty
The increasing social polarization and political division
Why the Visigothic Kingdom didn’t face external threats during the 7th century
The powers of the Spanish clergy and the collaboration between the Church and the state
The role of monasteries in Christianizing the most marginal areas of the Iberian Peninsula, that would later become bastions of resistance to Islam
The relationship between the Spanish Church and Rome during the Visigothic period
The legacy of the Visigoths in Spain, from intellectual to political and religious aspects
Reflection on why a long-lasting powerful state was impossible to establish in the Early Middle Ages

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 18 called Tyranny and Peace. In this episode you will learn about the tyrannical reign of the old Chindasuinth, the peaceful reign of his son Recceswinth, some aspects of the powerful Spanish Church, and the legacy of the Visigoths in Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

In the last episode titled Changing dynasties I talked about the rebellion of Chindasuinth that led to the overthrown of King Tulga, and in The Verdict I already mentioned that Chindasuinth took bold measures to limit aristocratic and ecclesiastical power. Without a doubt, the reigns of Leovigild and Chindasuinth defined the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo. Those kings represented the ideal of a centralized and caesaropapist state of the Late Antiquity. However, that brings up the question of why that ideal was challenged over and over again. The paradox is that the political structure of the Visigothic Kingdom was sustained by a landowner class of large estates. Those landowners formed noble factions through relationships of dependency and fidelity that were constantly fighting to achieve the hegemony that royal power represented. It’s quite easy to see the contradiction of having a quasi-feudal society while attempting to establish a strong and centralized state. In the long run, if there were no changes in the economic and social relationships, failure was granted for such an attempt to consolidate royal power.

Chindasuinth ascended the throne being 79 years-old, and he had a turbulent past of participating in several failed conspiracies. Needless to say, he understood the internal problems of the Visigothic Kingdom and he knew how noble factions and conspiracies were formed. I mean, that’s precisely what he did to usurp the throne. Chindasuinth exploited the structural political weaknesses of the realm to conquer royal power, but as he was now king, he had to fix those weaknesses to prevent rebellions against his rule. Therefore, Chindasuinth followed four steps for dummies to achieve his aims.

The first step was the execution and forced exile of hundreds of nobles and the confiscation of their properties. Second, Chindasuinth closed ties with a noble faction that supported him in exchange of several concessions and privileges. The third step consisted in enriching himself and his family with new estates, and the fourth and last step was about fusing even more secular and religious power.

Let’s go more into detail with each step. Chindasuinth executed 200 first-rank nobles and 500 of lesser standing, while many more went into exile in Frankish or Basque territory either to avoid being sentenced to death or charged for conspiring against the King. The confiscation of properties was the norm against those executed or exiled. Actually, not only their properties, but their widows and daughters were redistributed amongst the king’s supporters. It was certainly a major redistribution of political power and wealth, and even though it was a tyrannical and very harsh act, it produced a period of stability. Later on, Chindasuinth summoned the bishops of the kingdom in the Seventh Council of Toledo in 646, where the law against treason added excommunication on those who conspired against the King, and it extended the punishment to the clergy too. The bishops for sure feared Chindasuinth. Most of those labelled as traitors faced execution, but they could accept “royal benevolence” and be blinded instead. Chindasuinth sure was a nice guy.

As for the second step of creating a loyal noble faction, it’s something rather simple and common in world history: making your supporters wealthier or moving them up in terms of social status. Chindasuinth forced the marriage of the widows and daughters of those who were executed or exiled with his supporters, to restructure the alliances and kinship ties. More interestingly, he gave certain rights to royal slaves that occupied important positions in the administration of the state, such as giving them the right to testify, mainly to use them against their former masters. A truly clever policy once again.

The third step was about amassing estates for the royal family, something essential to make his position more secure. It wasn’t difficult to own more estates, since he just made some of those estates he had confiscated his own. And the fourth step, that consisted in increasing his power over religious affairs, was materialized by making the word of a king equal to that of God. Disobedience was therefore sacrilege. And he managed to do that without increasing anti-Jewish policies, what an achievement!

To control more firmly the nobility and clergy on a provincial level, the King played them against each other. He allowed bishops to inspect the judicial sentences of the secular administration, which allowed him to control more closely the clergy as he used them as royal administrators. Even though Chindasuinth was a great benefactor of the Church, he had many enemies in the clergy. It’s not surprising, since they didn’t like the interference of royal power in ecclesiastical affairs nor how Chindasuinth removed some of their privileges. Nonetheless, he had collaborators, for instance the prominent bishop of Zaragoza, Braulio of Zaragoza. Braulio of Zaragoza, along other bishops, advised Chindasuinth to associate Recceswinth to the Visigothic throne. There are some possible explanations, maybe their supporters feared that the old Chindasuinth could die soon and with him everything they had obtained in exchange of their loyalty. Another explanation could be that there was an increasing opposition within the nobility and clergy, and Chindasuinth’s supporters needed to ensure the continuity of the regime, to again preserve their wealth. In the end, it’s all about money and power. Anyway, Recceswinth was made co-ruler in 649, and Recceswinth started his sole reign when his father died in 653.

Before he died, Chindasuinth commissioned a new codification of laws for the kingdom. In 654 the codification was finished and Recceswinth promulgated what became known as the Visigothic Code. In episode 15 titled Leovigild, restorer and unifier, I mentioned that King Leovigild not only essentially unified Hispania under Visigothic rule, he attempted to unify religiously and legally the Hispano-Roman and Gothic population. Apparently, the lost Code of Leovigild eliminated most legal differences between Goths and natives, but not all. On the contrary, the Visigothic Code of Recceswinth was applied equally to both groups that at this point presented no differences. The subjects of the kingdom stopped being Roman or Gothic, instead they became Spanish. The Visigothic Code combined elements of Roman, Catholic and Germanic customary laws, and it included laws that dealt with legal procedures, crimes, marriage and divorce, succession, financial transactions, and Jews. It was the most important legal code of the Visigothic Kingdom, as it outlived the kingdom and it was still used by the Mozarab population, that is, by the Christians under Muslim rule, until the 13^th century. King Ferdinand III adopted the Visigothic Code almost entirely to apply it in certain towns, and it was used in parts of Spain as late as in the 19^th century.

Going back to the dynastic succession, it wasn’t unquestioned. A Gothic political refugee named Froia made an alliance with the Vascones of Aquitaine and other Gothic refugees to support him. The rebels devastated much of Tarraconensis, but they weren’t able to capture Zaragoza. Froia and his forces decided to go all-in instead of retreating to Aquitaine to regain strength. But in the end, royal power won, many of the Gothic refugees and Vascones perished in the battlefield, and Froia was executed. Recceswinth suppressed the rebellion quick enough, but he needed to close ranks and his supporters for sure asked for rewards. That may explain why Recceswinth carried out a conciliatory policy with the nobility and clergy, as opposed to the tyrannical policies of his father.

The aristocratic requests were recognized in the Eighth Council of Toledo, a council with a very high attendance rate and the first to see the participation of royal officials. The King’s supporters agreed to allow Recceswinth the choice of pardoning those who were persecuted by Chindasuinth, although they didn’t allow a complete pardon. There were other measures to somehow facilitate the return of the political refugees, and that’s essentially in what consisted the conciliatory policy of Recceswinth, protecting the interests of his loyal supporters while reconciling with those who suffered the confiscations and executions of his father.

Neither his enemies nor his supporters liked how Chindasuinth had treated confiscated property as his own. Therefore, his son was forced to accept to clearly differentiate the property of the royal family and the property of the crown. That certainly made sense in an elective monarchy, and it sure limited any pretensions of establishing a long-lasting hereditary monarchy. It’s obvious that those nobles who backed Chindasuinth in his coup and who supported the succession of Recceswinth felt that the old king had kept too many estates for himself rather than for the crown or his supporters. These nobles didn’t have the guts to protest when Chindasuinth was alive, but instead had waited cautiously until they saw the opportunity to exploit the weakness of Recceswinth’s position.

Another decision taken at the council was referred to the succession of the king. They decided that the election of a new king had to take place in the royal palace, and that the electors would be the bishops and nobles of the court. In practice, that meant that only the bishop of Toledo and the nobles of the inner circle of the previous king had the power to elect a new king. It was a way to ensure, not the continuity of the ruling dynasty, but the continuity of the ruling noble faction.

We basically have no information about the remaining years of Recceswinth, even though he reigned alone for 19 years, from 653 to 672. It’s very likely that he had to send several expeditions to keep the northern peoples in check, and it seems like there were changes in socioeconomic terms that further weakened central power. The administrative reforms of Chindasuinth may have accelerated the process, because many civil positions disappeared and were assumed by military officers. Chindasuinth may have thought that simplifying the administration and concentrating power in a few hands would help him in controlling the nobility that supported him, but in the long run the opposite may be the case.

Territorial decentralization weakened political unity, in a moment where most of the peasantry didn’t consider the protection of their lords worth the price. The society of the Visigothic Kingdom was very polarized in the late 7^th century, because the landowner elite of large estates was only worried about increasing their wealth and gaining more social connections, while the peasantry lived in very poor conditions. Would you happily fight and pay taxes for someone that gave you essentially nothing in return? For sure not. Many colonus, who were almost enslaved peasants, ran away from the lands they were associated to, and it seems like the colonus had kind of a class consciousness, because many helped those fugitive colonus. And what was the genius response of the Visigothic elite? Toughening laws against those fugitives and those who took them in. The peasantry only hated their lords more and more. Like before the fall of the Roman Empire, brigandage plagued the roads of the late Visigothic Kingdom, which is an indication that at the death of King Recceswinth the realm was suffering from great insecurity and social and political instability. This internal division and weak social unity was very effectively exploited later by the Muslim invaders, as we will see in a few episodes.

On the other hand, the Visigothic Kingdom didn’t have to worry much about external enemies during most of the 7^th century. The Frankish lords were constantly fighting each other; the Franks aided some Visigothic usurpers and rebels, but the Franks weren’t the existential threat that they used to be in the early 6^th century. The other old enemy, the Eastern Roman Empire, went from crisis after crisis during the 7^th century. The Romans first fought the Persians, then the Arabs of the Caliphate, while also having to deal with the Slavs that were settling in the Balkans, as well as social and religious internal divisions. However, the Visigothic Kingdom remained very vulnerable to external aggression, because the political and social structure of the realm was inherently weak. Kings feared that groups within the realm could conspire with foreign powers, that’s why there were both civil and ecclesiastical laws that imposed penalties on those who dared to do so.

To talk a bit about the organization of the Spanish Church, the essential thing to know is that it was divided in 6 dioceses, following the Late Roman division of provinces: Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis, Baetica, Lusitania, Galicia and Narbonensis. As the Visigoths conquered Hispania and established the capital in Toledo, Toledo was made the metropolitan capital of Carthaginensis and the bishop of Toledo was superior to the rest. The close link between ecclesiastical and secular power is what made that happen, not without some opposition within the Church. Royal power and the bishop of Toledo sometimes intervened in the election of provincial bishops, but most of the time the provincial clergy elected their bishop themselves. Bishops had the duty to monitor the local clergy, to prevent spiritual corruption and the spread of wrong beliefs.

But in the Visigothic Kingdom, after the conversion of Reccared to Catholicism, bishops heavily intervened in the secular administration of the kingdom. Bishops were judges of ecclesiastical conflicts, but they also judged acts that transgressed certain civil laws or both ecclesiastical and civil laws. Again, this brings up the question of what kind of state the Visigothic Kingdom was, but as I said in previous episodes it was not a theocracy, it was a state where secular and religious power helped and watched each other. For instance, secular authorities could judge some strictly religious offenses and fine the offenders, a fine that went to the pockets of secular authorities. So what you need to understand is that the Church and the administration cooperated, in a way that was beneficial for both parties. The clearest example of that cooperation was the Councils of Toledo, where civil and ecclesiastical authorities discussed the most important political and religious issues. Nonetheless, there were some limitations to the role of judge of bishops in civil offenses, as for instance they couldn’t sentence someone to death.

Now I want to talk about the role of monasteries in this period. Ever since the reign of Leovigild, monasteries had expanded in the Iberian Peninsula, thanks to the will of many African, Greek and Spanish clergymen. Monks and hermits lived an ascetic life and sought their own spiritual salvation in isolated areas, living alone or in group. Due to their establishment in isolated areas, they spread Christianity in communities that were still pagan, for instance certain areas of Asturias and Cantabria, or in the north-western Pyrenees where the Vascones lived. We know the name of some of those Christian proselytizers, such as Aemilian or Valerius of Briezo. A very prolific founder of monasteries was Fructuosus of Braga, a Gothic hermit and bishop who founded no less than 20 monasteries, throughout Galicia, Lusitania and Baetica. But we don’t know the name of many other monks and monastic founders that ensured the Christianization of the most marginal areas of the Iberian Peninsula. The Christianization of those mountainous regions would eventually transform them from the most backward parts of the peninsula into bastions of resistance to Islam and birth places of new Christian kingdoms.

Regarding the relationship of the Spanish Church with Rome and other foreign churches, the Spanish Church recognized the supremacy of the Pope and made efforts to align their doctrines and decisions in line with what was decided in universal councils. Despite that, it’s obvious that the Spanish Church wasn’t as close to other churches as it used to be during the Roman period. This is kind of logical, because the Western Roman Empire disintegrated into several kingdoms that were developing a kind of national or unitary consciousness. But to be more specific, a major reason is that the Eastern Roman Empire controlled Rome. As the Spanish Church became closely linked to the Visigothic monarchy, relationships with Rome became more complicated because the two states were foes. Another reason is that the Spanish Catholic Church gained strength after the conversion of the Visigoths, so it could deal with their own problems without the assistance of other churches. That doesn’t mean that the Spanish Church was an independent Church opposed to Rome, as some historians say, on the contrary it means that the Spanish Church was strongly organized, so they just needed to consult a few times Rome to solve some issues.

Lastly, I want to talk about the legacy of the Visigoths. Their contributions have often been ignored or even seen in a negative light. They left few artistic works, no substantial unique architecture, and little linguistic legacy. However, the Visigoths did leave an important legacy. As I explained in the previous episode, Muslim Spain has often been regarded as the reversers of the cultural and scientific decadence that the Visigoths brought. That’s far from being true, because under the Visigoths Spain produced great intellectual works, such as those of Saint Isidore of Seville, and the Spanish clergy preserved classical works that would have been lost otherwise. They also preserved the Roman bathing culture, just as the Muslims did later. The Visigoths also made the free Hispano-Roman and Gothic population equal in law, and under them the Spanish clergy unified the liturgy of the kingdom in what became known as the Hispanic or Mozarabic rite, that Christians preserved in Muslim-ruled territories.

More importantly, the Visigoths unified Spain politically and religiously. The idea of Spain as a distinct entity emerged then, defined by the boundaries of the Iberian Peninsula, and that political unification is exactly what the Christian Medieval kings pursued during the so-called Reconquista. With the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism, the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans shared the same religion, something that had a profound impact on the history of Spain and all Spanish countries. For instance, it meant a long relationship of close collaboration between the Church and the state, or the persecution, forced conversion or expulsion of Jews for the sake of religious unity. It was the memory of the Visigothic Kingdom, as an independent Spanish and Catholic kingdom, that was used to justify ideologically the Reconquista.

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I want to discuss why it was impossible to establish a strong and long-lasting royal dynasty, which is kind of a continuation of The Verdict of the previous episode. The efforts of Chindasuinth to end forever the endless internal struggles between noble factions failed, even though he had executed many important nobles. Chindasuinth ruled using fear, and no one dared to oppose him when he was alive. But as Tyrion told Daenerys in season 7 of Game of Thrones, fear is all Chindasuinth had. That made his position brittle, because many beneath him wanted to see him death. Even his faction of loyal supporters didn’t approve his disproportionate confiscations to enrich himself and his family. So, once the tyrant died, a rebellion was all what was needed to make his regime crumble. The rebellion was suppressed, but the price was the idea of establishing a strong royal power. If you think about strong monarchs of Visigothic Spain, they either used military expansion, such as Leovigild, or repression, as Chindasuinth, to strengthen the crown. Those efforts worked in the short-term, but they are not sustainable in the long-term. In the end, I think it was impossible to establish a powerful monarchy due to the very nature of the society and economy of the European kingdoms of the Early Middle Ages. Too often we look at individual kings as if their ability alone determined the outcome of a kingdom, but we overlook the circumstances that define their time. And with that, The Verdict ends.

In the next episode I will end the period of Visigothic Spain, covering their history right before the start of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

THE GOTHS IN SPAIN. E. A. Thompson

INTRODUCCIÓN A LA HISPANIA VISIGODA. Raúl González Salinas

HISTORIA DE LA IGLESIA EN ESPAÑA. VOL. 1: LA IGLESIA EN LA ESPAÑA ROMANA Y VISIGODA. Ricardo García-Villoslada

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Changing dynasties

June 15, 2019 DavidCot 34:01 0 Comments

This is episode 17 called Changing dynasties and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

What was the ideal of good government in 7th century Christian Europe
The early internal problems of Sisebut due to eclipses
Sisebut’s campaign against Byzantine’s Spania, and why he decided not to completely expel them from Spain
The start of a trend under Sisebut: anti-Jewish policies, fake conversions and the problem of crypto-Jews
The passive role of the Church in the forced conversions of Sisebut
Suintila’s successful campaigns against the Vascones and his success in ejecting the Byzantines from the Iberian Peninsula, which meant that Suintila became the first king of all Spain
The failed attempts of Suintila to centralize and his overthrown led by Sisenand
What was a agreed in the Fourth Council of Toledo to limit royal power while securing more strongly the position of the king
The reigns of Chintila and Tulga where the position of the king was very weak, and an explanation of why was that the case
The successful rebellion of 79-year-old Chindasuinth against Tulga
Intellectual achievements of 7th century Visigothic Spain and why was Spain the intellectual and cultural center of Western Europe in that period
Reflection on why 7th century Visigothic kings failed to centralize unlike Leovigild and Reccared

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 17 called Changing dynasties. In this episode you will learn about a period of turbulence for the Visigothic monarchy, with some ups and downs, as well as the intellectual life of Visigothic Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

We left the previous episode with Sisebut becoming King of the Visigothic Kingdom. Few people in Spain know him, but Sisebut was actually an important king, because he promulgated pro-Catholic and anti-Jewish policies that defined the Visigothic Kingdom of the 7^th century. Many historians consider Sisebut the most learned king of the history of the realm, and he was one of the most pious ones too. Because of his literary education, he was familiar with the concepts of good government of 7^th century Europe. Those ideas came from the Eastern Roman Empire, so centralizing and caesaropapist policies were considered the ideal, as well as the idea of the Christian ruler having the duty to suppress sin and having high moral standards. For example, Christians disapproved performing arts, and Sisebut sent a letter to the metropolitan of Tarraconensis to reprehend him because that metropolitan liked performing arts, so we can see how Sisebut applied the ideal of caesaropapism. He was a close friend and patron of Isidore of Seville, who under his reign wrote his main works.

In 612, the first year of Sisebut’s reign, there were two eclipses. As you can imagine, in an era of ignorance and superstitions, the common people interpreted that as a bad sign from heaven. The year before there had been yet another two eclipses, so you can imagine that people were anxious. In a more global context, the Persians of the Sasanian Empire were invading the Eastern Roman Empire in a very devastating war, so certain scholars and clergymen said that the Apocalypse was going to happen soon. To make things worse for Sisebut, the pagans of northern Spain, heretics and nobles who opposed Sisebut took advantage of that and cause social unrest. To solve this issue and to, you know, avoid being overthrown or assassinated, Sisebut asked Isidore of Seville to write a text to explain, in a rational way, why the eclipses were happening. When Isidore finished the text, the learned king Sisebut replied Isidore and wrote his own explanation to those phenomena, using theories of the Greco-Roman tradition.

It’s impressive how Sisebut wrote that astronomic treatise while he was personally leading an expedition against the Cantabri and Vascones. They were not the only ones causing problems, as the Visigoths had to campaign against the Astures and Ruccones. The future king Suintila was the guy in charge of the campaign against the Ruccones, but I will talk about him later.

In addition to fighting the always trouble-making peoples of the north, Sisebut campaigned against the remnants of the Byzantine province of Spania in 614 and 615. As I said before, the Eastern Roman Empire was in a very weak situation, because the future emperor Heraclius revolted while the Sasanians were invading, so they didn’t care about what was happening in such a peripheral and strategically unimportant province like Spania. That’s why the Visigoths needed to seize the opportunity to expel them. During this campaign the Visigoths conquered most of Spania, including Ceuta and the second major city of the province, Málaga. Surprisingly, Sisebut accepted peace negotiations with the governor of Spania, even though he could have easily crushed them then. The letters that Sisebut and the governor exchanged luckily survive to this day, and we know that the governor agreed to recognize the territorial gains of the Visigoths and hand over the hostages they had captured in exchange for peace. But why Sisebut accepted this deal instead of demanding an unconditional surrender? The more likely explanation and according to the writings of Isidore of Seville, Sisebut heard about the unstoppable advance of the Zoroastrian Sasanians and how they conquered the sacred city of Jerusalem. Then, in an act of piety and mercifulness, he accepted to stop the bloodshed of more Christians. With that, Spania only consisted of the area that surrounded the stronghold of Cartagena and the Balearic Islands.

Now let’s focus on his religious policy, because Sisebut started a period of anti-Jewish policies that continued until the fall of the kingdom, and many Jews precisely helped the Muslims when they were conquering Visigothic Spain because of it. I said in the previous episode that there were already policies targeted against Jews with Reccared, but according to the law that Sisebut promulgated the previous law was being loosely applied. Just like Reccared, Sisebut aimed for the religious unity of the kingdom, of all its peoples, so no heresies or other religions were allowed. To achieve that, he forced the conversion of the Jews, which generated a new problem that continued until Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492: the problem of fake conversions, also known as marranos or crypto-Jews. That means that although those who stayed were forced to convert, they practiced Judaism in secret. The others that didn’t accept the forced conversion were expelled, with some moving to France and others to North Africa. The first law against Jews again banned marriage with Christians, it banned Jewish proselytism, and Jews were forbidden to own Christian slaves, otherwise half their properties would be confiscated. Then there were other laws that further discriminated Jews, like for instance their offspring was forced to be baptized. Jews in Spain weren’t a particularly wealthy group, so those policies again were not about economics, but about the idea that everyone living in a Christian kingdom must be a Christian. For Sisebut, he was enforcing his role of protection against the sin, just as the ideal caesaropapist Christian ruler would do.

Strangely enough, the Church didn’t put pressure on Sisebut to force the conversion of the Jews. It was entirely Sisebut’s idea, partly because of what I have just said but also because Jews in the Eastern Roman Empire collaborated with the Sasanian invaders. Isidore of Seville, who was the most influential bishop of the kingdom, didn’t approve the idea of forcing their conversion. But although he opposed it and much of the clergy did it too, they didn’t actively oppose those policies either while Sisebut was alive. They later criticized it, but again, as those who converted had received the sacred baptism, their conversion was irreversible. We can say that the Church in this case passively accepted the forced conversion of the Jews and later accepted the done deal.

Then in 621 King Sisebut died, probably by poisoning, and he was shortly succeeded by his son Reccared II, who died after a few days, probably assassinated by the ones who assassinated his father. Then there was an interregnum of 3 months and Suintila, the general who fought the Ruccones and Byzantines, was elected King of the Visigoths. The reign of Suintila can be clearly divided in two periods, the first five years of reign stood out for his military successes while the next five years his reign overshadowed his achievements because of the internal problems of the kingdom. In his first year of reign Suintila led a campaign against the Vascones, who were again raiding the Ebro Valley. Suintila launched a large-scale operation with multiple fronts in modern Navarra. Unlike other occasions, the victory must have been overwhelming, because this time the Basque raiders accepted an unconditional surrender that never had happened before Suintila. The Vascones agreed to pay tribute and to collaborate in the construction of Olite, a new stronghold to control the Vascones. With that, Suintila built a solid defensive line to keep the Vascones in check, and he was successful in doing so because we will not hear more news of Vascones raiding the Ebro Valley for some time.

However, his most prominent achievement was the ejection of the Byzantines from the Iberian Peninsula. From 623 to 625 he campaigned against the remnants of the province of Spania. It wasn’t difficult, because the Eastern Roman Empire was very weak at the time as the war against the Sasanians continued and the Lombards and Berbers attacked their possessions in Italy and North Africa too. The provincial capital, Cartagena, fell and the Visigoths destroyed its walls. Only the Balearic Islands remained under Byzantine control, although it was almost an independent archipelago because it lacked any strategic value for the weakened Eastern Roman Empire. After the conquest of Spania, Suintila became the first king to rule over all Spain, in other words, to rule over the entire Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, the Visigoths achieved the territorial unity that they were seeking, following the idea of mater Spania. By the way, it was around this time that scholars started using Spania instead of Hispania to refer to the Iberian Peninsula, which of course is closer to the modern España or Spain. Nonetheless, even though he was theoretically ruling over all the Peninsula, don’t get tricked, the Visigoths never had a strong control over some regions of the north.

Despite his military achievements, Suintila was facing internal problems. According to Isidore of Seville, Suintila was a good king that was generous with the nobility, clergy and the poor. However, this is of course biased because he wrote that while Suintila was king. It seems like the military success of Suintila made him change his pro-aristocratic policies to imitate imperial policies, just as previous Visigothic kings had attempted. He made co-ruler his son Riccimir, and the nobility and clergy didn’t like that. According to the declarations of bishops in the Fourth Council of Toledo of 633, after Suintila was overthrown, Suintila’s greatest crime was the confiscation of many ecclesiastical properties. Nonetheless take that with a grain of salt, because those declarations were made a posteriori to justify a coup against Suintila. In any case, the attempts of Suintila to diminish the power of the nobility and clergy and to consolidate a dynasty were the beginning of the end of his rule, just as it had happened before with other kings.

In this context of some discontentment among the nobility and clergy, a group of nobles conspired against the King and started a rebellion in 631, with a power base in the peripheral region of Septimania. Apparently, there weren’t enough nobles willing to overthrow Suintila, partly because Suintila had the sympathy of the common people and not all the nobles were hostile. That’s why the leader of the conspiracy, the Duke of Septimania Sisenand, sent a delegation to the Court of Neustria of King Dagobert I to secure Frankish military assistance. Sisenand offered in exchange a very symbolic treasure of the Visigoths, a plate of gold that general Aetius gave to Thorismund back in 451. After hearing about such a powerful force, many indecisive nobles joined the rebellion and many nobles deserted from the side of Suintila, including his own brother. When the rebels arrived at Zaragoza, the army of Suintila surrendered without fighting and the King was overthrown and arrested. The Visigothic nobility then proclaimed Sisenand king in 631 and we can interpret that as a victory of the privileged powers over the royal power and the common people.

King Sisenand summoned a national council to legitimize his rebellion and strengthen his position, an important event since the last one was called in 589. However, it wouldn’t be until 633 that the Fourth Council of Toledo could be held. Why? Well, from two coins we know that there was a rebellion in the province of Baetica to overthrow Sisenand. The recent victories of Suintila in southern Spain probably made Suintila gain powerful allies there, and that network of loyalties wasn’t broken by the overthrown of Suintila. It was only after the rebellion was suppressed that Sisenand could convoke the council.

On December 633 the Fourth Council of Toledo was held under the presidency of Isidore of Seville, and with the assistance of all the bishops of the kingdom. The council dealt with a wide range of topics, from strictly ecclesiastical issues to political issues of the Visigothic Kingdom. For the nobility it was also the perfect chance to finally define the nature of the Visigothic monarchy. Among the 75 canons of the Fourth Council of Toledo, it was stated that upon the death of the king all the bishops and upper nobility had to reach an agreement to elect a successor. After the election, all the subjects needed to take an oath pledging their loyalty to the king for the stability and prosperity of the realm. Thus, the position of the king was made sacred because the king was also anointed in imitation to the anointing of biblical kings. Following the theories of Isidore of Seville, kings had a sacred role, but a king didn’t have a superior position to that of the Church nor the capacity to sentence a noble without the consent of other nobles. If the king turned into a tyrant, the Church could excommunicate him, and a coup would be justified. In theory all those details would make aristocratic revolts more difficult, but as we will see that didn’t prevent revolts from happening.

Nonetheless, the Fourth Council of Toledo also imposed some restrictions to prevent the participation of the clergy in possible revolts. That included prohibitions such as taking arms against the king, negotiating with foreign powers to overthrow the king, or receiving and sending secret messages outside of the kingdom. Another political issue discussed in the council consisted in decide what to do with the deposed King Suintila. The council and Sisenand agreed to declare Suintila a tyrant for all his alleged crimes and he and his family were sent into exile, although with all their properties confiscated.

Among other issues discussed in the council, the clergy was exempted from all taxes and the liturgy of the Spanish Church was unified throughout the kingdom. That was especially relevant because it created what is known as the Hispanic Rite, also known as Mozarabic Rite, because it was still widely used until the 11^th century in the Muslim territories of Spain. A canon excluded the king from appointing bishops, and another canon required bishops to establish seminaries in their cities, to extend the study of Greek, Hebrew, liberal arts, medicine and law. The council also agreed to consolidate the ownership of slaves by the Church and to held annual councils in each province. Finally, there were also some new anti-Jewish policies, because yeah it seems that there weren’t enough already, and those basically made punishments more severe. Bishops recognized that the forced conversions of Sisebut were unfair and that they failed, but they still added new laws to discriminate Jews, like forbidding them to hold a public office.

King Sisenand died pacifically in 636, as he assumed the throne by making important concessions to the nobility and clergy that weakened royal power. His successor was Chintila, a king whose reign lasted 3 years. What we know about his reign is that there were several conspiracies and attempts of rebellion, because he summoned the bishops of the kingdom in a new council to confirm their loyalty. Only 22 bishops attended the Fifth Council of Toledo, a council that included many canons to reinforce the sacred protection of the king. The rulings of the Fourth Council were reiterated and were remembered throughout the kingdom, and the council forbade the confiscation of the properties of the previous king and his supporters. From that council it’s clear that Chintila was worried about the loyalty of his subjects and his own life. It’s seems like around that time the Visigoths were having a hard time collecting taxes and that the state of the economy reached its lowest point of the Middle Ages. Add to that the persecution of Jews and you have the ingredients for a revolt. We don’t have details about the possible revolts that occurred then, but it seems like the Visigoths lost a certain degree of control over Gallaecia, Septimania and northern Spain.

Then in 638 King Chintila convoked the Sixth Council of Toledo, this time with more success than the previous one, since he was able to gather 48 bishops. This council again reiterated that the properties of the previous king couldn’t be confiscated if he had owned those properties before assuming the throne, and the bishops agreed to praise the benevolence of Chintila, as he supposedly pardoned several rebels. From those two councils we can say something interesting that may not be so obvious, but it seems like the economic balance among the nobility was an extremely important issue. Nobles feared confiscations and an increase in the wealth of the king, while kings feared conspiracies that could led to confiscations and death.

Other aspects that we know about the reign of Chintila is that he introduced new measures against the Jews to force their conversions and make sure that the Jews that converted swore to never go back to their old faith. Chintila even agreed with the clergy to ban the presence of any non-Catholic in the kingdom, an extreme measure that couldn’t be seen anywhere else in Europe. Of course, that wasn’t made completely effective, especially considering that Visigothic authority had been weak compared to other periods, but it’s still pretty revealing about the fervent antisemitism of the Visigothic nobility and clergy.

After passing away Chintila was succeeded by his son Tulga in 639. Considering how weak Chintila’s rule was, we must guess that he couldn’t associate his son to the Visigothic throne, but instead the bishops and high nobility elected his son to maintain the cohesion of the faction that supported Chintila. However, Tulga was young, he had a weak character and part of the nobility was already against him due to the hereditary nature of his succession. That was the perfect mix for a rebellion. The 79-year-old general Chindasuinth took advantage of the circumstances and led a successful rebellion. Chindasuinth was a veteran of the Leovigild campaigns and he had fought the Vascones and suppressed several rebellions, although it seems that he had also participated in a few failed conspiracies too. Chindasuinth perceived the weakness of Tulga and he decided to summon some nobles to be proclaimed king. He was proclaimed king, but all bishops decided to fulfill their oath and they didn’t support the rebellion. However, the rebels managed to overthrow Tulga in 642 and instead of killing him Chindasuinth had Tulga tonsured as a monk, something that made him ineligible to rule after that. The old Chindasuinth ruled tyrannically and he strengthened royal power, but I will leave his reign for the following episode.

Let me put political history aside and talk about the intellectual center that was 7^th century Visigothic Spain. A succession of authors produced theological, liturgic and literary works that were unparalleled in the West. The most notable scholars were also leading figures in the politics of the kingdom, such as Isidore of Seville, Julian of Toledo, Ildefonsus of Toledo and Fructuosus of Braga. All their writings remained influential for centuries both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the rest of Europe. The development of the Hispanic Rite was especially outstanding, because the Visigothic Kingdom was the only realm of Western Europe with a homogenous liturgy throughout the kingdom.

It’s also important to note that the Spanish Church did an impressive work preserving old Greco-Roman texts and texts of other authors that preceded themselves. I say that because many times we hear about how great Muslim rule was in terms of preserving classic Greco-Roman works, which is true, but the Visigoths never get enough credit about it. The Spanish Church of the 7^th century compiled thousands of rare books, but how did that happen? The answer is in the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantinople was the greatest city of Europe at the time and it was the most important cultural and intellectual center. But despite how great the capital of the empire was, the empire was plagued by internal division, not only politically but religiously as well. Justinian I attempted in the 6^th century to resolve the Monophysite controversy, which was yet another theological issue that divided Christianity. There were several rival churches in the Eastern Roman Empire and Justinian decided to side with the Monophysites, something that only stirred up opposition. Those who opposed Justinian were imprisoned, among those the African bishop Victor of Tunnuna, who wrote a chronicle until he died in prison. A Gothic scholar travelled to Constantinople to study Latin and, somehow, he managed to get the only copy of the chronicle of Victor of Tunnuna.

That may seem anecdotical, but similar things happened with other unique and rare works. With the acquisition of those works, the scholars of the Visigothic Kingdom had the responsibility to preserve those unique works. The connection of the Spanish Church with several North African churches was especially strong, that’s why so many works of the opponents of Justinian have survived. The cultural flow was one-sided, because African clergymen decided to migrate from Africa to the Iberian Peninsula in the late 6^th century. They migrated mainly due to the growing threat of Berber raids and due to the religious persecutions of Justinian, and they didn’t move to Italy for instance because the Gothic Wars and the Lombard invasion had devastated the region. The African refugees brought books and their human and intellectual capital. For instance, an African monk built the first monasteries of southern and central Spain, and several African monks had a prominent role in the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism.

All kind of texts were compiled and extended, from grammar and anti-Arian treaties, to collections of poems, to even a collection of acts of all the Spanish, Gallic and African councils compiled by Isidore of Seville. The anti-Arian treaties must have been influential during the reign of Leovigild and the role that those texts had in the conversion of the Visigoths shouldn’t be minimized. Overall, the Spanish Church was an intellectual, cultural and theological reference in the Western Europe during much of the 7^th century.

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I want to discuss the reason why Leovigild and Reccared were quite successful in centralizing the Visigothic state while his successors of the 7^th century failed. I mean, Suintila for instance achieved some great military feats, like removing the Byzantines from Spain or pacifying the Vascones for a long time, but that wasn’t enough to prevent a rebellion that overthrew him. Why was that the case? As I interpret it, there might be several reasons that played a role. With Reccared, the Spanish Catholic Church gained many privileges. Reccared tried to counterweight aristocratic power with the ecclesiastical hierarchy to strengthen his own position, but that’s not what actually happened. Successive kings were generally weak, so they had to make more concessions to the nobility, clergy or both. In the first half of the 7^th century, Europe experienced an economic downturn and that also created social tensions, that’s why European rulers of this period were weak too. During the period that I talked about today the nobles and especially the clergy were very powerful, while the king was just an elected noble that had his hands tied. If a king tried to strengthen royal power, he was overthrown and replaced by someone that protected the interests of the privileged. However, the old but energic Chindasuinth would take bold measures to stop that, but let’s see that in the following episode. And with that, The Verdict ends.

I won’t be able to record and publish the episode for the end of the month because I’m busy with exams, so the next episode on the authoritarian reign of Chindasuinth and the peaceful reign of Recceswinth will be published on July 15. Sorry about that! To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

THE GOTHS IN SPAIN. E. A. Thompson

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Visigothic conversion to Catholicism

May 30, 2019 DavidCot 30:34 0 Comments

This is episode 16 called Visigothic conversion to Catholicism and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

Why there was a religious conflict in Visigothic Spain between Catholics and Arians
Why the reformed Arianism of Leovigild didn’t work and why it was so difficult to make Catholicism the state religion of the Visigothic Kingdom
What King Reccared did to reduce opposition following his conversion
Details about the three attempts to overthrow Reccared between his personal conversion and the Third Council of Toledo and how the Visigoths repelled the Frankish invasion of Septimania
Reccared’s strategy to strengthen royal power using the Church
Third Council of Toledo: Visigoths abdjure the Arian heresy and embrace Catholicism, alliance between the Visigothic state and the Church and firsts anti-Jewish policies
Why Reccared’s religious policy wasn’t that different from that of Leovigild and the implications of the religious unity of Visigoths and Hispano-Romans
Comparison of the Medieval and modern concept of nation and how Isidore of Seville blended the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans together in one nation
The idea of mater Spania and the breakup with the ancient historiography to develop a national narrative
Minor events of the reign of Reccared and the short reign of his son Liuva II
The reigns of Witteric and Gundemar
Reflection about the long-term consequences of the alliance between the Visigothic state and the Catholic Church and the unique mix of caesaropapism and theocracy that resulted from it

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 16 called Visigothic conversion to Catholicism. In this episode you will learn about the reign of Reccared that led to the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism, as well as the long-term consequences that the conversion had in the formation of Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

We left the previous episode with the death of the great King Leovigild and the succession of his loyal son Reccared. At the moment of his accession to the Visigothic throne, Reccared inherited two unsolved problems, one internal and one external. The internal problem is well known, the religious issue, while in terms of foreign affairs the war with the Frankish Kingdom of Burgundy was still going. Even though the war was going well for the Visigoths, King Guntram of Burgundy didn’t renounce to his claims over Septimania. We will see later in which way King Guntram tried to accomplish his pretensions, but let’s focus on the key issue, the conflict between Arians and Catholics.

Why that religious conflict happened in the first place, though? Truth is that the theological conflict was barely important. The theological difference is centered on the question of the equality and eternity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but do you think those things really mattered? Hell no. The Visigoths abandoned their Pagan beliefs and adopted Christian Arianism in the 4^th century only because they lived next to the Eastern Roman Empire and it was the dominant theology back then. But why do you think the Visigoths didn’t adopt the resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon that gave birth to Christian Catholicism? It was not because they cared about theological differences, instead they stuck to their old beliefs because that gave them a distinct identity.

But by the mid-6^th century, Visigothic unity started to crumble. Marriage between Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was a thing already, way before the ban was lifted, and that not only put their ethnic unity under threat, but their religious unity as well. Some Visigoths had already converted to Catholicism, that’s also why Leovigild proposed a national and more Catholic form of Arianism, to bring the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans together, but he failed in achieving so. According to some sources, Leovigild regretted his religious policy and even converted to Catholicism before he died. While we cannot corroborate that, there are some clues that could confirm a change in his religious policy, as for instance he ended the exile of Leander of Seville. Truth is there were very few Arians in Hispania, most of them Visigoths, but it’s precisely because of that why it was so difficult to convert to Catholicism for the Visigothic Kingdom. Keep in mind that there was a strong association between the Visigothic elite and the Arian clergy, the breakup of this alliance could destabilize the Visigothic Kingdom in a very dangerous way. The political risk was very high, I mean you could have revolts, street violence between Arians and Catholics, a civil war, foreign states could take advantage and intervene, and the position and life of the king could be under threat as well. And some of the things I mentioned actually happened, so yeah it’s important to understand the complexity of that issue.

To go back to the story, King Reccared personally converted to Catholicism less than a year before succeeding his father. It was a very brave and significant action, but he knew that he needed to do more to bring the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans together in religious terms. First he sealed an alliance with his mother-in-law, Goiswintha, who was herself an Arian fanatic. If Reccared got her on his side, he would have the support of a substantial number of Visigoths and Franks from Austrasia too. Moreover, he held meetings with Arian bishops and got as many as he could on his side. What the Arian clergy feared was the loss of patronage and status, but Reccared was probably able to guarantee them that they would maintain the same hierarchical status in the Catholic Church. In exchange, they had to convert to Catholicism, give all the properties of Arian churches to the Catholic Church and burn all the Arian books and texts. Although most of the Arian clergy agreed to that, there was obviously going to be opposition.

As a matter of fact, there were three attempts to overthrow Reccared between his conversion to Catholicism in 587 and the Third Council of Toledo in 589. All those conspiracies had in common that pretenders used the Arian faith to legitimize their revolt, although of course it was only a matter of politics. The first revolt happened already in 587, and it broke out in Mérida, the capital of the province of Lusitania. The conspiracy was led by a Gothic noble named Segga, and it had the backing of Sunna, the Arian metropolitan bishop of Lusitania, and several counts of the region too. The conspirators aimed to assassinate both the Duke of Lusitania, the Hispano-Roman Claudius, and Masona, who was the Catholic bishop of Mérida and metropolitan bishop of Lusitania. This Masona was a Visigoth that used to be an Arian bishop, but he converted to Catholicism during the rebellion of Hermenegild, and when Hermenegild was defeated Leovigild asked him to convert again to Arianism. However, Masona refused to do that, so we can see with this example how the conversion to Catholicism was irrevocable for some notorious Visigoths. The plot was uncovered though, because a young count named Witteric informed Claudius about the conspiracy. This Witteric earned the confidence of the King and Claudius and taking advantage of that he would later become king, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The Duke of Lusitania Claudius acted before the conspiracy could actually unfold, and the leader of the conspiration had his hands cut off and was sent to Galicia while Sunna, the Arian bishop, was sent into exile outside the kingdom, in modern Morocco. The following year there was another conspiracy, this time the Queen Dowager Goiswintha and the Arian bishop of Toledo were involved, although according to historian Roger Collins the plot may have been made up to remove possible political opponents of the new order. Again, the Arian bishop was sent into exile while it’s not clear what happened to Goiswintha, but she died soon afterwards.

The third conspiracy was more serious, because it had the backing of King Guntram of Burgundy. Some counts of Septimania led the rebellion, with the ideological support of the Arian bishop of Narbonne, but the main threat was external. A significantly large army from Burgundy besieged Carcassonne, one of the key cities of Septimania, and King Reccared sent the loyal Duke of Lusitania there to suppress the rebellion and repel the Frankish invasion. Duke Claudius prevented the union of the two main Frankish armies and the Visigoths earned their greatest victory ever over the Franks, killing 5,000 Franks and capturing 2,000 of them. With that, Guntram had to give up his pretensions and the revolt was quickly suppressed. It’s very interesting to see how a Hispano-Roman general accomplished that, and this victory may have been seen as a divine sign that Reccared did the right thing converting the Visigoths to Catholicism and blending together even more than his father the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans.

After this victory and after having prevented or suppressed three conspiracies, King Reccared felt confident enough to call the most important council Visigothic Spain ever had, the Third Council of Toledo. On May 4 589 the Third Council of Toledo opened, with three days of prayer and fasting. Leander of Seville and Masona had organized and made all the arrangements of this council, and they assembled more than 70 episcopal sees, including 8 Arian bishops that subscribed the acts of the Third Council of Toledo. However, even though Leander of Seville was a key responsible of that council, King Reccared was the one who called and presided it. That is very significant in fact, because it notes the role of protection and vigilance that the Visigothic monarchy had over the Catholic Church of the kingdom, a role that was again copied from the model of the Eastern Roman Empire. The position of King was strengthened, as it then had a sacred role too. The idea is that the monarchy and the Church would work more closely and that would benefit the royal dynasty because the nobility would have a harder time revolting. That’s the idea, but as we will see, the 7^th century would be yet again very unstable for the Visigoths.

Then on May 8 Reccared made public a declaration stating that the King and the Goths abjured the Arian heresy and embraced Catholicism, thus accepting the resolutions of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon. The public declaration condemned the teachings of Arius, but there was no mention to a sensitive subject such as the religious policy of his father Leovigild or to the rebellion of his brother. Reccared then instructed the council to approve some canons to regulate the structure of the new Church, to determine the powers of the Church within the state and to reinforce ecclesiastical discipline. On the theological side, a canon confirmed the resolutions of the previous councils I mentioned, but also adding what is called the Filioque clause, that states that the Holy Spirit not only proceeds from the Father, but from the Son too. This seems like a very stupid detail, just as the theological differences between Arianism and Catholicism, but the Filioque clause caused a great deal of controversy for centuries and it was never accepted in the East. Another very important canon was one that stated the tax exemption of the clergy or the slaves of the Church, that was indeed very relevant because it granted the Church more power. The collaboration between the Visigothic state and the Church was obvious, but as the Catholic clergy gained influence in the government, Jews started being persecuted in the name of religious unity, just as it had been happening all over the Catholic kingdoms. For instance, a canon forbade Jews from marrying Christians or having Christian slaves. The persecutions and laws against Jews were still not as bad as in other countries, but they would soon be and because of that many Jews fled from Visigothic Spain to North Africa. Finally, King Reccared issued a decree giving the resolutions of national and provincial Catholic councils a force equal to that of laws, which is yet another evidence of the increasing influence of the Church.

The religious policy of Reccared may have seen as opposite to that of his father, but in the end they shared the same vision and objective: to unify and strengthen the Kingdom and its peoples. Leovigild had presented himself as the head of the national Arian Church, and Reccared was doing just the same but with the Catholic Church instead. In both cases they wanted to strengthen their legitimacy by not only ruling over secular affairs, but religious matters as well. The Visigothic conversion to Catholicism was the culmination of the process of integration of both the Goths and Hispano-Romans that King Leovigild started. The Visigoths were very Romanized at this point, they had lost the Gothic language, they wore the same clothes as the Hispano-Romans, and they had changed their burial costumes. With the conversion, a new nation was born, as contemporary scholar Isidore of Seville said in his works.

Now I want to spend some time discussing the question regarding the concept of Hispania as a nation. Previous authors from the Roman period and early Visigothic rule talked about Hispania only in a geographical sense, but Isidore of Seville was the first to refer to Hispania in a more national sense. Before I get started, let me clarify this, the concept of nation in the Middle Ages was very different from the concept of nation that was developed in the 19^th century. The Medieval concept of nation was very imprecise actually, although even today there’s debate about what a nation is since it’s a very abstract concept. The modern concept of nation is defined as a community of peoples that share a common history, language, ethnicity, territory or culture. A key concept of nationalism is the principle of popular sovereignty, which means that the authority and legitimacy of a state is sustained by the consent of its people, which implies a democracy to some extent.

What’s clear though is that the elites of Medieval Europe would have laughed if someone told them about this crazy idea, so this brings us again to the question of what a nation was for the Medieval intelligentsia. Medieval relations were fundamentally personal, because of that patron and client relations were key to maintain the unity and stability of a state. Therefore, in an era where religion and personal or kin relationships were very important, a nation was defined, at least partly, as having a common biblical ancestor. So to legitimize Visigothic rule and reinforce the idea that Visigoths and Hispano-Romans were one nation, Isidore of Seville deliberately made the Visigoths Spanish. And how he made that possible? He wrote that the Hispano-Romans and Goths descended from a common biblical ancestor, Japeth. “Seven sons of Japeth are named: Magog, from whom people think the Scythians and the Goths took their origin. Tubal, from whom came the Iberians, who are also the Spaniards, although some think that the Italians also sprang from him”. As you have heard, not only did Isidore connect genealogically the people from Hispania and the Goths, but also the Romans to make us see the Visigoths as legitimate successors of the Roman Empire, especially after their conversion to Catholicism and efforts to evangelize every inhabitant of the kingdom.

But the scholar Isidore of Seville didn’t stop there, because he also invented the idea of mater Spania, or mother Spain, and this metaphor was also used in the Middle Ages to define nations. This idea of motherland links every human being to the land where each one was born, so the people that was born in Hispania had a kind of mother-son relationship with the land, with the mater Spania. In his History of the Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Suebi, Isidore of Seville wrote his famous prologue De Laude Spaniae, or In Praise of Spain, and this prologue is very relevant because he wrote an exalted patriotic and chauvinistic poem that is the precedent of the idea of the Spanish nation.

Let me read a fragment of In Praise of Spain: “Of all the lands from the west to the Indies, you, Spain, O sacred and always fortunate mother of princes and peoples, are the most beautiful. Rightly are you now the queen of all provinces, from which not only the west but also the east borrows its shining lights. You are the pride and ornament of the world. [..] Rightly did golden Rome, the head of the nations, desire you long ago. And although this same Romulean power, initially victorious, betrothed you to itself, now it is the most flourishing people of the Goths, who in their turn, after many victories all over the world, have eagerly seized you and loved you: they enjoy you up to the present time amidst royal emblems and great wealth, secure in the good fortune of empire.”

Isidore of Seville wrote a narrative history that broke with the ancient historiography that praised the Roman past and depicted the Visigoths as Barbarians. Instead, the Visigoths were depicted as the legitimate heirs of the Roman Empire in Hispania. Because of that Isidore was key in the development of the independent ideology that legitimized Visigothic role, but his work outlived the Visigothic Kingdom too because during the Reconquista Christian Kingdoms presented themselves as heirs of the Catholic Visigothic state.

Wow, I really had a hard time researching this part about the Medieval concept of nation and the ideas of Isidore of Seville, but I hope I have explained it in a comprehensive way. Let’s pick up again the narrative, the Third Council of Toledo ended, and the Visigoths converted to Catholicism, but what happened next? Truth is that after that landmark moment of Spanish history, we don’t know much about the reign of Reccared, but we have a few events. There was yet another attempt to overthrow him in 589, that time led by the Duke of Carthaginensis. However, the conspiracy would be suppressed, the associates of the Duke were executed and he himself was tortured, then had his right hand cut off, and he was displayed throughout Toledo as an example to all that “servants should not be presumptuous to their masters”. However, Reccared then had a pro-noble policy of giving them back some states that had been confiscated by his father Leovigild, so during his reign both the nobility and clergy were rewarded overall. That policy contradicted the overall policy of Reccared though, because still the majority of the laws he promulgated had the objective to centralize power and emulate the Eastern Roman Empire, just as his father had done.

In terms of foreign policy, the Visigoths fought again the Vascones and Byzantines. The Vascones continued their raids in the Ebro Valley, even though the Visigoths had pressed them to migrate to the other side of the Pyrenees. In any case the Visigoths just kept them in check, but they didn’t conquer their homeland. On the other hand, the Byzantines recovered a few lands, which isn’t that surprising considering that at that time the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire engaged in some expansionist campaigns in Africa and Italy. Unlike his father, Reccared attempted to maintain the status quo, and he asked for the mediation of Pope Gregory I to fix the borders of the province of Spania. He was in good terms with him because Reccared had founded several churches to make effective the religious unity of the kingdom and because of his anti-Jewish policies.

Moving on, Reccared died in 601 and he was succeeded by his only son, Liuva II, who was then 18 years-old. His mother wasn’t a noblewoman, and that affected his legitimacy to rule. Because of that there was a successful coup in 603, thus ending the dynasty of Leovigild. The coup was led by Witteric, the man that reported the first conspiracy against Reccared, and he had Liuva II executed. Witteric was a king with a military background, so his energic policy against the Romans of Spania shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. Witteric took advantage of the internal problems that the Empire was facing, and he conquered several towns close to the Gibraltar Strait and he even occupyied a town that was very close to Cartagena, the capital of Spania. Apart from that, Witteric arranged the marriage of one of his daughters with the King of Burgundy, but the marriage was cancelled even after his daughter had already arrived there. That infuriated Witteric and he attempted to form a coalition against Burgundy, but it all came to naught. In terms of internal policy, King Witteric faced some opposition from factions of the nobility and clergy. His policy was similar to that of Leovigild or Reccared, he wanted to maintain or increase the power of the monarchy, but because of that some of the nobles that had supported him in his conspiracy turned against him. Witteric realized that his life was under threat and he tried to reconcile with that part of the nobility, but he was unsuccessful and was assassinated in 610. Isidore of Seville wrote that “He killed with a sword; he was killed with a sword”.

The nobles then proclaimed King the Duke of Narbonne, Gundemar. Under his reign the Visigoths increased the pressure on the Byzantine possessions of southern Spain and he led expeditions against the Vascones, Cantabri and Astures, that were yet again raiding the territories of the Ebro and Duero Valleys. And just like it had happened previously, these expeditions weren’t successful enough to completely dominate the peoples of the north. Unlike his predecessors, Gundemar gave up some powers of his position, such as appointing bishops. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, since the nobility and clergy that had put him in power were against the centralizing policies of the dynasty of Leovigild and Witteric. That allowed him to die from natural causes just 2 years after he started reigning. Sisebut succeeded him, and this Sisebut was supported by the same nobility of his predecessor, but let’s leave things here for the following episode.

THE VERDICT: in today’s verdict I want to discuss a bit more why Reccared converted to Catholicism and the long-term consequences of the alliance between the Visigothic state and the Catholic Church. The thing is that the conversion wasn’t a top-down phenomenon, because even before the reign of Leovigild the Visigoths were increasingly becoming Romanized, and that included individual conversions to Catholicism. When Reccared succeeded his father, it was clear that the reformed Arianism formula wasn’t going to work and that there was no way to stop the Romanization of the Visigoths, so it was better if the kingdom just recognized that fact. Then, about the long-term consequences of the alliance, we can say that the Visigothic Kingdom evolved and became much more associated with the religious power. The Visigothic Kingdom was then transformed into a very unique form of government that couldn’t be found anywhere, at least in Europe. The state became a mix of caesaropapism and theocracy, and that’s actually contradictory because in a caesaropapist regime the king ruled over the Church while in a theocracy the Church has the secular power too. But that’s why it’s unique, because the King had some prerogatives over the Church but the Church assumed new administrative and legislative functions. The only problem was that the association with the Church didn’t make the position of the king more secure, it didn’t serve as a way to prevent the endemic noble revolts and conspiracies, and that’s definitely one of the big failures of the Visigothic Kingdom. And with that, The Verdict ends.

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

THE GOTHS IN SPAIN. E. A. Thompson

EL CONCILIO III DE TOLEDO. Juan Antonio Zugasti and Francisco Javier Simonet

THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN VISIGOTHIC SPAIN: RELIGION AND POWER IN THE HISTORIES OF ISIDORE OF SEVILLE. James P. Wood

MEDIEVAL IBERIA: READINGS FROM CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM, AND JEWISH SOURCES. Olivia Remie Constable

‘El concepto de España en la historiografía visigoda y asturiana’. Alexander Pierre Bronisch

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Leovigild, restorer and unifier

May 17, 2019 DavidCot 34:18 2 Comments

This is episode 15 called Leovigild, restorer and unifier, and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

The solution of Liuva to save the Visigothic Kingdom and the importance of that decision
Leovigild’s successful campaign against the Byzantine province of Spania
The first campaign against self-governed areas in Baetica
Visigothic campaign in the north to conquer the buffer zone between the Suebi and themselves and the short campaign against the Suebi
The conquest of the last self-governed region of southern Spain, Orospeda
Leovigild’s legal, administrative and territorial reforms to strengthen the Visigothic state and unify the Goths and Hispano-Romans to rule over a more homogenous society
The background of the rebellion of his son Hermenegild
Why Hermenegild’s rebellion wasn’t a religious nor an ethnic war
The attempts of Leovigild to solve the religious issue by imposing religious unity with a national, reformed, and more Catholic version of Arianism
How Hermenegild’s rebellion failed
The last conquest of Leovigild: the annexation of the Kingdom of the Suebi
How the economy of Visigothic Spain was
Reflection on the importance and true legacy of Leovigild’s reign

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 15 called Leovigild, restorer and unifier. In this episode you will learn about the ambitious conquests of King Leovigild and the economy of Visigothic Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

We left the previous episode with the election of Liuva as King of the Visigoths. Before being elected king, Liuva was the Duke of Septimania that protected the region more prone to Frankish attacks. He took the throne in a moment of weakness for the Visigoths, the Frankish and Eastern Roman conquests had left the Visigothic state in a state of decomposition, not to mention to numerous revolts and civil wars. The situation was very bad for the Visigoths, and the Franks took advantage of that by putting the key city of Arles under siege in 569. The Franks successfully took Arles, and because of that Liuva had to take a desperate and tough decision: he associated the throne to his brother Leovigild, named him co-ruler and heir and gave him full powers to govern Hispania. Liuva was kind of a Jon Snow type of leader, he was a military man above anything, a man of action that put on his shoulders the mission to personally defend Septimania from Frankish attacks. In addition to that, Leovigild married the widow of King Athanagild, Goiswintha, a political move that could be interpreted as a way to get the support of the old noble faction that had supported Athanagild.

In 569 it may not have looked this way because Visigothic rule was under serious threat, but the decision of Liuva to name Leovigild co-ruler and heir became extremely important for the consolidation and expansion of the Visigothic state. It’s truly a landmark in the history of Spain, because after that the history of the Iberian Peninsula can be followed and learned in a much more unitary way. When the reign of Leovigild started, the kingdom was surrounded by enemies: the north wasn’t under Visigothic control, in the west the Suebi still had their independent kingdom with some support from the Franks and Eastern Romans, beyond the Pyrenees the Frankish kingdoms were constantly making incursions in Septimania and Hispania, and in the south there were the Eastern Romans and the powerful Hispano-Roman nobility that was de facto independent. Therefore, Leovigild thought that the best way to ensure the survival of the Visigothic Kingdom was to take the offensive and launch a series of military campaigns against the enemies of the Crown. By doing so, Leovigild could not only rule more territories, but strengthen the power of the royal dynasty as well. Leovigild needed to be bold, he needed to not give them a break, so the Visigoths campaigned yearly for 7 years, from 570 to 577.

The first campaign was against the Byzantines that had set up the province of Spania in southern Spain. We don’t know if Leovigild wanted to expel them altogether from Spain, but if that was the case he failed. We must understand this in a more global context, because the Lombards were conquering Italian territories from the Eastern Roman Empire too. In any case the priority was to push the Romans towards the coast as much as possible, because the rich Guadalquivir Valley needed to be under Visigothic control. To piss the Romans as much as he could, Leovigild tried to divide Spania in two parts by conquering Málaga, but the Visigoths failed to take the city. Nonetheless, the Visigoths did manage to conquer Baza, a key city of the province of Granada. The conquest of Baza was important, as it left much of the inland territory of Spania vulnerable to conquest. Then the Visigoths headed towards the westernmost area under Byzantine control, in the modern province of Cádiz, as Imperial control threatened Visigothic control over the Guadalquivir Valley. Leovigild managed to conquer the key fortified city of Medina Sidonia thanks to the treason of the Imperial governor of the city, and then he was able to take Cádiz. That ended the Visigothic campaign against the Eastern Romans, that left them only with the control of the Gibraltar Strait and the coast of southern and southeastern Spain.

This campaign not only served to remove any serious threat from the Byzantines, but to allow Leovigild to fight the rebel nobility of Baetica and to prevent the Byzantine to support them. Leovigild lost no time and attacked Córdoba and several fortified towns and castles of the region. The Visigoths managed to conquer them all, although apparently massacring the farmers that had been armed by the local aristocracy. That was a word of warning to the rest of the autonomous aristocracy of Hispania: the Visigoths will eventually come and conquer them, the decision to prevent a bloodshed was up to them. In early 573 Liuva died, leaving the Visigothic throne solely to his brother. The situation didn’t change much, but now Leovigild had more responsibilities since he had to worry about the Franks too.

In 573 the target of the campaign changed completely, as it moved to the northwest. The Visigoths may not have had another choice, because the Suebic King Miro decided to attack the Ruccones. The Ruccones were an obscure group of autonomous peoples that lived between the Astures and Cantabri in northern Spain. Apparently, the Ruccones lived in the mountains and survived by raiding the peoples that lived in the plains of the north. The Visigoths had a problem with that, because King Miro was attacking an area that was just too close to the Tierra de Campos, an area with many Visigothic settlements. Apart from that, the Visigoths needed to keep the Suebi in check to reaffirm their position of hegemony in Hispania, and they had a good pretext to subdue the autonomous peoples of the north. Leovigild first attacked the region of Sabaria, between modern Zamora and Braganza, and then he conquered Cantabria, a territory that hadn’t had any kind of central authority for more than a century. The Visigoths set up some permanent outposts, but Leovigild dismissed the possibility of completely subjugating the Atlantic side of the Cantabrian Mountains. The real strategic objective was to stabilize communications between the Ebro Valley and the northern part of the Meseta.

In 575 the Visigoths conquered some bordering territories between the Suebi and their kingdom, because hostilities between the two caused the proliferation of local independent leaders. Then Leovigild launched an expedition against Suebic territory, but it quickly ended as King Miro sued for peace. It seems that Miro offered some kind of subordination, especially in terms of foreign policy, but of course he would still betray the Visigoths if he had the chance. For some reason Leovigild accepted that, maybe because the troops needed some rest, maybe because he couldn’t launch a large-scale campaign to destroy the Suebi, but who knows. In 577 the tireless King of the Visigoths launched a new campaign, this time against the independent aristocracy of Orospeda, a marginalized region like Sabaria that bordered the Imperial province of Spania, above the region of modern Murcia. After conquering Orospeda he had to return briefly to put down a peasant revolt. It was then when Leovigild established a defensive system of bordering fortified towns along the border of Spania, just as the Byzantines themselves had done before.

After 7 years of continuous campaigns in different regions of Hispania, there was one year of peace. Leovigild had managed to consolidate and strengthen the Visigothic Kingdom, as now the Visigoths had less enemies compared to the precarious situation at the start of his reign. His bloody campaigns were certainly effective. Leovigild took back some territories and incorporated marginalized areas that had been out of Visigothic control, but also rich regions like the Guadalquivir Valley. I’ve only talked about his military achievements for the moment, but a good king needs to do more than that. During those years he issued legal reforms and he reorganized the state. His vision was clear, Leovigild wanted to build a strong centralized state, similar to the Eastern Roman Empire of Justinian. To achieve that purpose, he strengthened royal power by adopting measures to reduce the power of the nobility and by making the Visigothic monarchy elective but hereditary within the royal family, just as it used to happen with the Balti dynasty. He named his sons Reccared and Hermenegild heirs, but not with the same powers of the ruling king as it had happened when Liuva associated Leovigild to the throne. Leovigild also emulated Roman Emperors by issuing his own coins and by giving a strong symbolic power to the position of king, using distinct ceremonies and clothing. He also founded a new city, Reccopolis in honor to his son Reccared, which was yet another prerogative of Roman Emperors.

In terms of administrative and territorial reforms, Leovigild emulated yet again the Eastern Roman Empire by dividing the territory in provinces governed by both military and civil officers. Furthermore, to unify the diverse peoples that lived under Visigothic rule he lifted the ban of mixed marriages between the Gothic and Hispano-Roman population and he unified the legal code to be applied to both populations. That was a very important step to consolidate the Visigothic Kingdom as an independent and Spanish-based monarchy.

However, his efforts to strengthen the ruling dynasty caused serious tensions. In 579 Hermenegild, eldest son of Leovigild and co-heir of the kingdom, married a twelve-year-old Catholic Frankish princess, Ingund, daughter of the King Sigebert of Austrasia. Ingund was also the granddaughter of Goiswintha, the Queen of the Visigothic Kingdom, so the alliance between the Frankish Kingdom of Austrasia and Visigothic Spain looked quite solid. Queen Goiswintha received her granddaughter warmly at first, but things deteriorated quickly. The Queen tried to force the conversion of Ingund to Arianism, but the twelve-year-old princess refused it firmly. Because of that Goiswintha lost her temper and beat her granddaughter up herself. Goiswintha was an Arian fanatic, and it was very painful for her to see how his daughter and mother of Ingund had to convert to Catholicism when she married, as well as the tragic death by strangulation of another daughter at the orders of her Frankish husband. You know, these details are important to understand the motives behind her overreaction. Anyway, the situation within the Court of Toledo was so delicate that Leovigild decided to send Hermenegild and Ingund to Seville to rule Baetica and southern Lusitania. He had no other choice, otherwise the conflict could escalate and cause the end of the alliance between Frankish Austrasia and the Visigothic Kingdom, as well as internal problems. Baetica was a region of great strategic importance, only a few years before the nobility had fought the Visigoths and Baetica bordered Byzantine’s Spania as well, so seeing how Leovigild entrusted Hermenegild with this province we must guess that Leovigild had no doubts of his son’s loyalty. However, Leovigild would regret this decision.

Seville was the most populated and rich city of 6^th century Hispania, and Seville had a strong Catholic and Hispano-Roman nobility. Much of the Catholic clergy from Africa had fled from persecutions to southern Spain. Apart from that, the bishop of Seville was Leander, brother of scholar Isidore of Seville who later wrote an important work on the history of the Goths, Vandals and Suebi. The family of Leander and Isidore of Seville had fled from Cartagena following the Byzantine conquest of the city, but they were still a wealthy and powerful family. The influence of his wife Ingund, Leander of Seville and the Catholic nobility and clergy of Baetica were critical for the conversion of Hermenegild to Catholicism. Hermenegild didn’t want to challenge his father without enough support, so he first contacted and made an alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire and the Suebi of King Miro to support his cause. After getting their support, Hermenegild proclaimed himself king in 580 and justified his rebellion saying that he was being persecuted for religious reasons. This was nonsense, since the Visigoths, although Arians, didn’t interfere in the affairs of the Catholic Church, their conflict with the Catholic clergy only happened due to political reasons, not religious. But, you know, Hermenegild couldn’t say that he just rebelled because he wanted more political power. The nobles and Catholic clergy that supported his cause did it to oppose the centralizing policies of Leovigild that reduced the power of the local aristocracy.

So Hermenegild’s rebellion cannot be seen as a religious war between Catholics and Arians, and it cannot be seen as a war between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans either. Strangely as it may seem, Leovigild adopted a wait-and-see approach during the first two years of the rebellion. The legitimate king was prudent probably because he feared that the Catholic propaganda could work and provoke a large-scale revolt in more territories. He first needed to unite firmly his subjects to ensure their loyalty, and the religious issue needed to be solved quickly, as Hermenegild had laid out the war in religious terms. In 580 Leovigild called a synod of Arian bishops and in that council the Arian clergy adopted measures to facilitate conversions to Arianism and they also reduced the theological differences between Catholicism and Arianism to a minimum. Leovigild pretended to unify the Visigothic and Hispano-Roman population with a national religion led by the King, so it was essentially about imitating the caesaropapism of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, this policy failed and most of the Catholic clergy and population stuck to their old beliefs. Unlike some Catholic propaganda tried to make us believe, Leovigild didn’t use violent repressive methods against the Catholic population, as if he had done so Hermenegild could have succeed in his rebellion.

Nonetheless, it’s surprising how we don’t have news of conquests accomplished by Hermenegild between 580 and 582. This seems to indicate that Hermenegild had weak military support. Meanwhile, Leovigild campaigned against the Vascones that were sacking the Ebro Valley and founded a new city to control the region before going to war against his son. In 582 Leovigild conquered the capital of Lusitania, Mérida, that paved the way for the conquest of the epicenter of the rebellion, Seville. The following year Leovigild besieged Seville, and the Suebi came to aid the usurper, but they were defeated and King Miro was forced to return to Gallaecia after recognizing again the supremacy of the Visigoths. The Romans of the Imperial province of Spania didn’t honor their alliance, as they saw that the rebellion wasn’t going anywhere. They couldn’t get reinforcements as they were in trouble in Africa and Italy, and to make the decision even easier Leovigild offered a bribe to ensure their neutrality. Hermenegild then fled to Córdoba, and as the outcome of the war became clear he sent his wife Ingund and his son to Spania. Ingund probably pretended to return to Austrasia, but the Byzantines took her and his son as hostages. On her way to Constantinople, Ingund died, and his son was used to put pressure on the Frankish Kingdom of Austrasia to attack the Lombards in Italy.

Hermenegild knew that the rebellion was over. He took refuge in a church of Córdoba, as no soldier could enter to a sacred temple, but Leovigild could sent his son Reccared to negotiate a way out. Leovigild promised Hermenegild that he wouldn’t execute him, so the pretender surrendered, and the King sent him into exile in Valencia. Hermenegild was later sent to a prison of Tarragona, where he was assassinated at the orders of his own father. Don’t believe everything they promise you, even from your own father.

So now what, peace? Nope. King Miro of the Suebi had died soon after he returned to Gallaecia. He was succeeded by his son, but the military defeat of his father and the renewal of the vassalage made him loss any kind of legitimacy. Because of that, a relative named Audeca usurped the Suebic throne, and this was the perfect pretext for Leovigild to start the conquest of the Kingdom of the Suebi, because he was the patron of King Miro’s son. But the Franks of Burgundy also took advantage of the situation to invade Septimania. The heir apparent Reccared led the Visigothic troops and repelled the offensive, and the Frankish navy sent to support the Suebi was crushed too. The Suebi had to fight all by themselves, pointlessly. The Suebi were quickly crushed, Gallaecia was devastated and the royal treasure was seized. With that, the Kingdom of the Suebi was annexed to the Visigothic Kingdom and the Suebi vanished from history as an independent group. With that, only the province of Spania remained under control of another state, while some lands of northern Spain were still only under Visigothic influence, but not direct control.

Soon after this great accomplishment, King Leovigild passed away in 586, and his son Reccared succeeded him without opposition. Leovigild is considered by many the best and most effective king of Visigothic Spain, as he largely unified Hispania under his rule and made efforts to unite the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans to create a new, distinct nation. Leovigild’s reign was a turning point for the history of the Visigoths, since he managed to reverse the decline of the kingdom, a kingdom that had suffered from decades of defeats, civil wars and disintegration. Leovigild suppressed all the independent local governments and his son’s rebellion, he conquered much of Spania, repelled the attacks of the Franks and annexed the Kingdom of the Suebi. His only failure was the imposition of religious unity under a reformed, more Catholic form of Christian Arianism. But his son Reccared would solve that issue.

Let’s leave the reign of Reccared for the next episode, because as I promised in the previous episode, I want to talk about the economy of Visigothic Spain. As you sure know, in every preindustrial economy the primary sector was overwhelmingly the most important one, so let’s start with that. The Visigoths didn’t change much the crops and diets of Hispania, most of the agricultural land was dedicated to grow cereals, grapes and olives. The exploitation of land was still predominantly organized around villae, so you had the home of the landlord surrounded by dispersed modest houses of the colonus and free peasants. Don’t get it wrong though, many isolated estates disappeared, and instead there was a concentration of people in the small settlements that villae formed. The agricultural output and productivity were not great, subsistence agriculture was the rule, so surpluses were rare and demographic growth and trade were very limited because of that. Famine was a constant threat, because droughts, floods and lobster plagues commonly ruined harvests. The situation was even worse if we consider that the climate and lands of many areas of the Iberian Peninsula were not suitable for farming. Moreover, epidemics like the Plague of Justinian of the 6^th century killed thousands of people, which also played a role in the poor performance of lands and the weakness of European Medieval states. And of course, wars meant devastation and looting, and that had a negative impact in the economy too.

Stockbreeding and hunting became more important in Visigothic Spain compared to the Roman period, as the Germanic diet gave more importance to the consumption of meat. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a super important increase, and the composition of the cattle didn’t change much either, pigs, cows, ox and sheep were the most common animals to breed. To finish talking about the primary sector, most mines were closed down since coins had lost much importance and there weren’t great military needs either.

Manufacturing activities, like iron foundry or goldsmithing, became even more marginal than they used to be, because of the general state of economic decadence and the economic decline of cities. As large estates gained importance, those became more economically autonomous and textile products for instance were produced there for self-consumption. Trade declined as well, and we can distinguish between international and local trade. Local trade was mostly done using the old network of Roman roads, although those roads were in decay because there wasn’t proper maintenance. Moreover, there were bandits too that only made trade more unsecure and thus expensive. Fluvial commerce was safer, but there are few waterways in the Iberian Peninsula, and they are mostly concentrated in southern Spain. The products that circulated locally were essential goods and transactions mostly occurred to supply urban centers. There was no such thing as a local, professional businessman, it was a very primitive kind of trade where producers traded directly with consumers.

On the other hand, we have international trade that had also been in decline since the 3^rd century. Long-distance trade was scarce and only luxury products were traded for the upper classes of Visigothic Spain. That kind of trade was mainly carried out by Jewish and Eastern Roman merchants, and those same Oriental businessmen probably helped in the Byzantine conquest of southern Spain. The Visigothic Kingdom exported olive oil, salt and garum, however, there was a trade deficit due to the lack of manufacturing industries and luxury products to export. Foreign trade mostly occurred with North Africa and the Eastern Roman Empire, although there was also trade with Merovingian France and the British Islands.

So, the big picture of the Visigothic economy wasn’t a good one, but that was a phenomenon that was happening all over Europe and North Africa. Compared to the economy of the Roman Empire at its height, the Visigothic economy was much more rural and primitive, both domestic and foreign trade declined, manufactures also declined and mines closed down. Even agricultural output was not great, and famines, plagues and epidemies could happen anytime. It wasn’t a great period to be alive, but for most people in human history that has always been the case, hasn’t it?

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I want discuss the importance of Leovigild. His campaigns demonstrate his intentions to unify Hispania under one rule, but he knew that only with military achievements he wouldn’t have a lasting legacy. His true legacy was the unification of the Goths and Hispano-Romans to create a new identity, an identity that outlived the Visigothic Kingdom itself and that was a justification for the so-called Reconquista. His reign supposed the definitive break up from the Roman past, as Hispania was not a part of the Roman Empire nor a vassal. Instead, Hispania was unique on its own way, and Leovigild’s reign was definitely a turning point for the history of Spain. And with that, The Verdict ends.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fulfill my promise to talk about the reign of Reccared, but that’s because there was just so much to talk about Leovigild. I’m quite excited to talk about the Visigothic conversion to Catholicism in the next episode, so make sure you listen to that too. To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Ostrogothic interval and Byzantine invasion

April 29, 2019 DavidCot 30:05 0 Comments

This is episode 14 called Ostrogothic interval and Byzantine invasion and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

The context and political map of Europe and North Africa after the traumatic Battle of Vouillé
What happened right after the Battle of Vouillé: Visigothic retreat led by Gesalic and Ostrogothic aid
The efforts of Theodoric the Great to unite the Goths under one rule to stop Frankish advance
How weak Visigothic rule was in Hispania at that time
How limited Theodoric’s influence was over the Visigoths due to the power of the appointed governor, Theudis
The fall of the Balti dynasty and the problems that that caused to the long-term stability of the Visigothic Kingdom
A revival of Roman power in North Africa and Italy under Justinian
Decreasing Visigothic control over Hispania and civil war between Agila and Athanagild
Byzantine conquest of southern Spain due to Justinian’s intervention in the civil war and the foundation of the province of Spania
The reemergence of sources on the Suebi: migrations of Romano-Britons and Suebic conversion to Catholicism
How the Visigothic Kingdom was definitely established in Toledo and the election of Liuva I
A depiction of the society of Visigothic Spain, talking about the heterogenous population and social stratification
A reflection on the importance of having a strong system of dynastic succession

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 14 called Ostrogothic interval and Byzantine invasion. In this episode you will learn about this period of Ostrogothic supremacy over the Visigoths and the transition from the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse to the one of Toledo. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

I want to draw you a picture of the political map of Europe and North Africa to understand the global context we are in after the traumatic Battle of Vouillé. The Kingdom of the Franks was a rising power that controlled most of modern France, Clovis I governed a territory that spanned from Toulouse in southern Gaul to the Rhine Valley of West Germany. The Burgundians were in a difficult position because they were an obvious target for the Franks, as the Kingdom of the Burgundians ruled over Lyon and modern Western Switzerland. The Burgundians under King Gundobad didn’t want the Franks to conquer southern Gaul at the expense of the Visigoths, but since that already happened, they wanted to take advantage of the situation. As we will soon see, that didn’t turn out well for the Burgundians. The Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, was focused on reforming itself to strengthen its position and avoid being conquered like it had happened to its Western counterpart. The Vandals were still powerful in central North Africa, but they weren’t the great threat they used to be. On the other hand, Italy and part of the Balkans were firmly under Ostrogothic control. King Theodoric proved himself to be a capable administrator and he was now the real rival of Clovis of the Franks. As we will see, Theodoric the Great soon ruled over his cousins, the Visigoths, to stop Frankish expansion.

I finished the previous episode with the pivotal Battle of Vouillé and the Frankish conquest of southern Gaul. But I have yet to explain what happened next. The nobles who survived the Battle of Vouillé elected Gesalic as their king. Gesalic was a bastard son of Alaric II, and they elected him because the legitimate son Amalaric was just 5 years old, so they were being pragmatic here. Gesalic had a very important mission on his shoulders, he had to protect what was left of the Visigothic Army to save the kingdom from utter destruction. To achieve so, Gesalic ordered the retreat of his troops to Septimania, even leaving defenseless the capital, Toulouse. Then the Burgundians intervened, defeated Gesalic and plundered Narbonne, the temporary capital of the Visigoths. Because of that Gesalic had to order a tactical retreat to Barcelona, hoping to regain strength and waiting for the much-needed aid of the Ostrogoths. The help came, but the outcome was not what Gesalic expected. King Theodoric sent a large army led by a general named Ibba to make a counteroffensive against the Franks and Burgundians. Ibba lifted the siege the Burgundians had placed in Arles and decisively defeated them. The Ostrogoths were powerful enough to reconquer Septimania for the Visigoths and even to attack the lands of the Burgundians. Well played, Gundobad.

With that the war between Visigoths and Franks ended, but Gesalic couldn’t be happy because now the Ostrogoths went after him. He was labeled as a coward and ineffective leader, and Theodoric supported the legitimate son of Alaric, Amalaric, to rule the Visigoths. Because of that, Theodoric’s general Ibba went to Barcelona and defeated and deposed Gesalic. I think that he is treated too harshly, but what he did next was definitely not cool. Gesalic took refuge in the Vandal Kingdom, then he moved back to Hispania and tried to be proclaimed again King of the Visigoths with the support of the Franks. Not cool, Gesalic. Of course he failed and was killed in 513. Historian Saint Isidore of Seville said about him that “he lost his honor first and then his life”.

There’s debate about whether to consider Theodoric the Great as regent of the Visigothic Kingdom or as king of his own right. We have contradictory ecclesiastical acts on this matter, but it seems more accurate to say that the Ostrogothic King was King of the Visigoths too. It’s obvious that Theodoric wanted to unite the Goths under his family, to have better chances against the Franks. To make the union effective, Theodoric promoted mixed marriages between the Ostrogothic and Visigothic aristocracy, but of course this policy of Ostrogothic supremacy was met with resistance. What Theodoric couldn’t expect was the death of his presumptive heir for both thrones, a man named Eutharic. His death in 522 frustrated the plans of Theodoric, and the Goths would never again be united.

The Visigothic Kingdom that Theodoric ruled was one that only controlled firmly Septimania, Hispania Tarraconensis, the Meseta of central Spain and little more, in other regions the Visigoths had influence but not a strong and effective dominance. Some Visigoths emigrated to Hispania from southern Gaul, but others chose to remain there under the rule of the Franks. What’s important to understand is that these Gothic migrations were aristocratic and military, which means that the migrations were based on patron and client relationships, they weren’t popular and disorganized.

Theodoric administered both Italy and Spain respecting the old Roman administrative apparatus, he was both king for the Goths and patricius for the Romans. We have seen multiple times and we will continue to see how those Barbarian rulers tried to legitimate their rule emulating the Roman Empire. The administration was kind of dual, because the Ostrogoths and Romans had different institutions, and Theodoric restored some Imperial institutions when he ruled over Hispania too.

Nonetheless, during much of the Ostrogothic interval, the sword-bearer of Theodoric the Great ruled the Visigothic Kingdom quite autonomously. His name was Theudis and he was the appointed governor of Hispania during the minority of Amalaric, and yeah Theudis paid the annual tribute required to the Visigoths, but he didn’t follow all the orders from Italy. Theudis had married a wealthy Hispano-Roman woman who had large estates and thousands of slaves. I guess the legal prohibition of intermixing may not have been strictly enforced, and what’s clear is that the Germanic and Hispano-Roman upper classes was starting to fuse. Anyway, Theudis used that leverage and the legitimacy of his appointment to grow his power. There was discontentment among the Visigothic and Hispano-Roman aristocracy due to the fiscal reforms of Theodoric the Great, and Theudis took advantage of that. Why didn’t Theodoric intervene, you ask? Apparently, Theodoric didn’t confront him because he feared the Franks could use that as an excuse to intervene.

Theodoric died in 526 and with him direct Ostrogothic rule died as well. The premature death of Eutharic, the opposition of much of the Visigothic aristocracy and the autonomy of Theudis left no other option but to leave the two Gothic kingdoms separate. The grandson of Theodoric succeeded him in Italy while Amalaric of the Balti dynasty could finally rule the Visigoths on his own. The Visigoths stopped paying the annual tribute to the Ostrogoths and the Ostrogoths returned the Visigothic royal treasure, but Amalaric had to cede Provence to his cousin. Amalaric then took up residence in Narbonne, in the region of Septimania, and this detail is very important, because the Visigoths still had hopes of reconquering southern Gaul.

Amalaric probably tried to get rid of Theudis and remove his influence, but he failed to achieve that. We know more about his foreign policy, as the Visigothic King tried to recover the prestige of his peoples and restore Visigothic rule over southern Gaul. Amalaric needed to defeat the Franks, and he was so determined to achieve that that he personally led his troops. Unfortunately for Amalaric, his plan didn’t work as he had planned. Childebert, Frankish King of Paris and Orleans, defeated the Visigothic Army in Septimania in 531. Amalaric was able to flee to Barcelona, with the intention to set sail from there to go to Italy and seek the help of his Ostrogothic cousin. Nonetheless he was assassinated, it’s not known if by his own men at the orders of Theudis or if by a Frankish man, but in any case, Theudis was the prime beneficiary of that murder. I say that because Theudis was then able to use his influence to get elected King of the Visigoths. That supposed the extinction of the Balti dynasty that had always ruled the Visigoths up to that point. The transmission of royal authority and legitimacy was then weakened, because the loyalty of the aristocracy towards the ruling dynasty disappeared and after that succession from father to son became always very difficult in the Visigothic Kingdom. So no, the fall of the Balti dynasty wasn’t good news for the long-term stability of the kingdom.

Now, before I move forward, I should leave Hispania and talk about important things that were happening outside. The political map of Europe and North Africa was rapidly changing again, but this time the cause was not the Barbarians but the Eastern Roman Empire. The ambitious Justinian I started his reign in 527 with a clear objective in mind: the restoration of the Roman Empire with the reconquest of the Western half. Justinian first attacked the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa with the pretext of supporting the deposed king. His general Belisarius conquered in a year the once fearsome Pirate Kingdom, including the Balearic Islands and Ceuta. Then another dynastic struggle allowed Justinian to have an excuse to intervene in Ostrogothic Italy. Italy had been peacefully reigned by the Ostrogoths, but the Gothic Wars that lasted almost 20 years devastated the region. The Romans managed to destroy the Ostrogothic Kingdom by 554 and they defeated an attempted Frankish invasion of Italy as well. What’s interesting for us is that Justinian’s campaigns changed dramatically the balance of power. The Visigoths lost their main allies, and the Barbarian kingdoms were under threat.

Let’s go back to the Visigothic Kingdom for a while. Theudis had a hard time defending the kingdom from Frankish attacks, with the Visigoths losing forever some cities of Septimania, and the Franks put Zaragoza under siege. The Visigoths repelled the Frankish invasion, but they were in a weak situation from both an internal and external perspective. Theudis used diplomacy to secure Visigothic power over the almost independent region of Baetica, because he realized the threat of a possible Byzantine intervention in Hispania. Theudis was right to fear the Romans, as we will see. In 548 the Visigothic King was killed in his palace, although it seems that it was for personal instead of political reasons. Theudis was succeeded by Theudigisel, the general that had defended Zaragoza from Frankish attacks, but he was killed after just one year. A group of nobles had conspired to assassinate him because he apparently had slept with the wives and daughters of many Visigothic nobles. That’s what happens when you are too naughty. The Gallo-Roman historian Gregory of Tours stated that “the Goths had adopted the reprehensible habit of killing out of hand any king who displeased them and replacing him on the throne by someone they preferred.”

His death was followed by more than two decades of anarchy and decreasing Visigothic control over Hispania. Agila was elected king with the wide support of the nobility, but everything went wrong quickly. The Hispano-Roman aristocracy of Córdoba started a revolt against the centralizing policies of the Visigoths, as they had been used to rule independently for decades. Agila failed miserably in his attempt to suppress the revolt, losing his son and part of the royal treasure. The royal treasure it’s especially important for the Visigoths and the rest of Germanic peoples, because it represents the tangible evidence of a shared history of a group. The defeat was humiliating, and for many Agila lost the legitimacy to govern. Because of that a noble named Athanagild declared himself king in Seville with the support of part of the Visigoths. The Visigothic Kingdom was in a state of civil war, and who is an expert in exploiting civil wars? Justinian.

It’s not clear who called the Romans, although I would say that it was probably Athanagild. In exchange of their support, Athanagild agreed to give the coastal region of southern Spain from Cádiz to Valencia to the Empire, and the imperial province of Spania was then founded. The Byzantines sent a small army in southern Spain in 552 and Athanagild and the Romans defeated Agila. In the next two years there were skirmishes, but nothing decisive. In 554 the costly Gothic War in Italy ended, so Justinian could now send a massive army in Hispania if he wanted to. Justinian sent reinforcements that landed in Cartagena and it was then when the Visigothic nobility opened their eyes. The leading aristocracy realized that the Visigothic Kingdom could face the same fate as the Ostrogothic or Vandal Kingdoms if they remained divided. The fear of a full-scale Roman invasion was so real that the supporters of Agila turned against him and assassinated him.

We have very few news about the reign of Athanagild, but it’s clear that he attempted to repair the weakened central authority, although with little success. Athanagild recovered a few towns from the Romans, but the Byzantines established a strong defensive system to consolidate the newly formed province of Spania. We don’t know if the Visigothic and Imperial authorities signed a new treaty to clearly define the frontier, but in that case both states recognized the status quo and allowed trade and travels between the two states. The Romans couldn’t destroy the Visigothic Kingdom and reincorporate all Hispania to the Roman Empire not only because the Visigoths ended the civil war, but also because of the damage provoked by the Justinian Plague and the exhaustion of the financial and manpower reserves after years of wars. The province of Spania wasn’t very strategically important for the Empire, the Byzantines mainly wanted to control the southern coast to prevent a Visigothic invasion of North Africa, therefore there were few stationed troops and the countryside was at the mercy of Visigothic raids. The key fortified cities of Spania were Málaga and Cartagena, while we don’t know who controlled Córdoba, if the Romans, the Visigoths or the local aristocracy.

The Visigothic Kingdom had more problems than the Romans in the south. The state was essentially bankrupted and because of that Athanagild couldn’t deal with separatist revolts in other regions. The north was out of Visigothic control, and even the region of modern Zamora was autonomous. If the Visigoths couldn’t dominate regions that were not states, it’s quite safe to guess that the Kingdom of the Suebi wasn’t a vassal state anymore. From 550 to the fall of the kingdom, we have sources about the Suebi again, and among other things we know that some Romano-Britons emigrated from the British Islands to Gallaecia, we know that leprosy was quite common in the region and that the King of the Suebi at that time was Chararic. We have contradictory accounts on the Suebic conversion to Catholicism, but it seems that their conversion was quite gradual. The Frankish historian Gregory of Tours wrote that Chararic had a son that suffered from leprosy, Chararic heard about Martin of Tours through the bishop of Braga Martin of Braga, and the Suebic king promised to convert to Catholicism if his son was cured through the relics of Martin of Tours. His son was cured and because of that the Suebi converted. The conversion to Catholicism of the Suebi after other Germanic peoples like the Franks was a prelude that announced that the same would happen to the Visigoths, but we are not there yet.

Athanagild established the capital of the kingdom in Toledo before he died. Toledo is located near the center of the Iberian Peninsula, it had access to important Roman roads and it was easy to defend, so it was ideal to consolidate the weakened Visigothic monarchy in Hispania. Then Athanagild died of natural causes and the nobility had to discuss the succession. There was a long interregnum of 5 months, which leads me to think that the Visigothic nobility couldn’t agree to name a candidate. The chosen candidate was Liuva I, who was probably the Duke of Septimania. One possible interpretation of why the Visigothic nobility chose a noble from Gaul could be that Liuva was chosen precisely because he was far from the center of power that was now Toledo. Otherwise, the different noble factions could have started a new civil war that the weakened Visigothic Kingdom couldn’t bear.

I will stop the political talk here to dedicate some time to the society of the Visigothic Kingdom, and in the next episode I will talk about its economy. Keep in mind that there were probably less than 150k Visigoths living in the Iberian Peninsula, over a population of around 6 million Hispano-Romans, so we are talking about a militaristic minority that dominated a larger population. At first both populations were strictly divided, they were like two neighbors that live in the same flat but that hardly speak to each other. But after some decades coexisting and seeing that the Roman Empire wasn’t coming back any time soon, both the Visigothic and Hispano-Roman elites started to closely collaborate, to influence each other and to even marry. The laws of the Roman Empire and the Church largely influenced the Visigoths, but some Germanic customary practices and social institutions were adopted in Hispania and elsewhere in Western Europe. There were not only Hispano-Romans and Visigoths in Hispania, there were also Suebi, Cantabri, Astures and Vascones that hadn’t been completely Romanized, Bretons, Berbers, Africans, Roman Greeks and Jews. Therefore, Hispania was not an ethnically homogenous region, and it was not religiously unified either. Most of the population was Catholic, but the Visigoths were still Christian Arians, there were still some followers of Priscillianism or even some that had Pagan beliefs. These points are important to highlight because ruling over diverse groups of people wasn’t easy.

As it was happening in the rest of Europe, the societies of the Early Middle Ages were slowly transitioning to feudalism. The trends of the Late Roman Empire I talked about in the episode about Hispania in the Roman Dominate still apply to this period. To refresh your memory, we are talking about a process of ruralization, a substantial decline of trade, and a tendency to go back to subsistence agriculture. The society of Visigothic Spain was stratified in free privileged and non-privileged estates, and the colonus. The free privileged estates were the nobility and clergy, both Hispano-Roman and Visigothic. The non-privileged estates were the free peasants and urban workers that didn’t have a relationship of dependency with a landlord. And finally the majority were colonus, who were in a state of semi-slavery. This system of land tenancy started with the substitution of slaves for free peasants that worked in the lands of their previous owner, paying a rent in exchange for protection and a land to farm. The problem started when the colonus and landlord relationship degraded into a relationship of dependence because of debt, and the problem only grew when many free peasants with insufficient lands to survive had to become colonus. The colonus couldn’t abandon the land of their lord, their condition was hereditary, and they were constantly mistreated. The colonus had no rights, as for instance they couldn’t litigate against their estate owner. They were also forced to serve as soldiers if their lord ordered them to do so, as there was not something like a regular professional army in a Medieval state. You can’t find a difference from a colonus and a slave? Well, there’s a slight difference, and is that they could not be separated or sold separately from the land property. Doesn’t seem much better, right?

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I wanted to discuss the importance of having a strong system of dynastic succession. The Visigothic Kingdom had an elective system of succession, but when the Balti dynasty was still prestigious the Visigothic nobility only chose members of that prestigious dynasty. The prestige and mystical aura of the Balti ended with the Battle of Vouillé, and that’s why that dynasty eventually fell. After that, successions were always a problem for the Visigoths, and they suffered many revolts and civil wars because of that. Something similar happened to the Roman Empire, as their institutions weren’t strong enough to prevent constant usurpations and coup d’états. That’s why I think that neither an elective nor a simple primogeniture hereditary system is good for the stability of monarchies. The best system would probably be an elective system within the royal family with some kind of tests to choose the best possible successor, male or female. Nonetheless, the best way to ensure the survival of a dynasty is to prove the effectiveness of the monarch to rule, otherwise the dynasty will for sure fall. And with that, The Verdict ends.

The next episode will be quite interesting because I will talk about the important reigns of Leovigild and Reccared. To end this episode, let me remind you that the podcast has a website, thehistoryofspain.com, where you can find the scripts of the episodes, a list of books about the history of Spain and subscribe to the biweekly newsletter. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more, review the podcast, and follow the social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you enjoyed the episode and thank you for listening!

Sources

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

HISTORY OF THE GOTHS. Herwing Wolfram

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Good bye, Roman Empire!

April 15, 2019 DavidCot 32:27 0 Comments

This is episode 13 called Good bye, Roman Empire! and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

Who were Ricimer and Majorian, leaders of the coup d’état against Emperor Avitus
The situation of Hispania, especially in Gallaecia that was divided between two factions of Suebi
The very delicate situation of the Western Roman Empire when Emperor Majorian took power in 457
The impressive achievements and conquests of Majorian, against the Vandals, Visigoths, Burgundians and Suebi
What went wrong in 460 that ended the dream of the restoration of the Western Roman Empire
How the Visigoths under Theodoric II and Euric conquered much of Hispania
How the Kingdom of the Suebi was restored under King Remismund, as a vassal state of the Visigoths, and why we don’t have information about the Suebi for the next 80 years
The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the peak of Visigothic power
The consolidation of the Visigothic state with the promulgation of the Code of Euric and Breviary of Alaric and the division of Goths and Romans by law
Where did the Visigoths settle in Hispania and how they distributed its lands
The Frankish expansionism under Clovis I and the decisive Battle of Vouillé of 507, that supposed the end of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, the death of Alaric II, the weakening of the Balti dynasty and the end of Visigothic supremacy
A reflection on the importance of not overextending

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 13 called Good bye, Roman Empire! In this episode you will hear the story of the last days of the Western Roman Empire and how the Visigoths finally conquered much of Hispania for themselves. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

We left the previous episode with the disintegration of the Kingdom of the Suebi and the death of Emperor Avitus. Let’s take a look of what was happening in Italy first and then in Hispania. The conspirators that overthrew Avitus were the Germanic general Ricimer and the Roman general Majorian. Ricimer was not just a random Germanic general under Roman service, he was the son of Rechila and the son of a daughter of the King of the Visigoths Wallia. After the death of Wallia the Visigoths broke relations with the Suebi and because of that, as a loser of these kinds of struggles among Barbarians, Ricimer joined the Romans. Majorian, on the other hand, belonged to an aristocratic Roman family and he had made a name for himself in different wars. The thing is that Ricimer and Majorian were friends, they both had influential positions and they had the support of the discontented Italian aristocracy to get rid of the Gallo-Roman Avitus. Ricimer and Majorian forced Avitus to abdicate and after a few weeks they killed him. The Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I decided not to appoint a Western Emperor because he wanted to rule alone with Ricimer acting as viceroy, but after a few months the Roman Army proclaimed Majorian Western Roman Emperor. Ricimer could not become Emperor himself because of his barbarian origins, but he expected to make Majorian a puppet emperor since he was the one controlling the army. Both the Eastern Emperor and the Visigoths initially refused to recognize him as Augustus as they considered him a usurper, but by the end of the year 457 Leo I recognized him, given that there was no other possible alternative.

Now let’s look at the chaotic situation of Hispania. In the north, the less Romanized region of Hispania, the Astures, Cantabri and Vascones continued to live without any kind of central authority. Gallaecia, as I mentioned in the previous episode, was in a state of chaos and anarchy after the disintegration of the Kingdom of the Suebi. The remnants of the Suebi continued to live there, and the region became split between two factions after the assassination of Aioulf. One faction had its base in southern Gallaecia and part of Lusitania, while the other faction had its base in northern Gallaecia. What both groups had in common is that they barely had a permanent base and instead spent their time moving around raiding and pillaging. They sometimes competed to unify the Suebi under one rule, but in general they acted independently to survive. Hispania Tarraconensis was controlled by the local Hispano-Roman aristocracy, while Hispania Carthaginensis and part of Baetica was under the influence of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse.

When Emperor Majorian took power, the Western Roman Empire consisted of Italy and a portion of Gaul. But even that was at risk, because the Vandals of Genseric were attacking Italy and the Gallo-Roman aristocracy refused to recognize Majorian. Instead the Gallo-Roman aristocracy allowed the Visigoths and Burgundians to conquer what was left of Imperial Gaul. Therefore, the urgent priority of Majorian was the defense of Italy and then the reconquest of south-eastern Gaul. Majorian himself led his troops against the Vandals that were sacking the region of Campania in southern Italy. He crushed the Vandals and expelled them from Italy. That victory earned him prestige as a capable emperor, a true hero that appeared in the moment of greatest need. I really admire these kinds of strongmen that appear in the adversity, like Almanzor for the Caliphate of Cordoba or Napoleon for the French Republic. But these kinds of powerful leaders earn the enmity of other envious people, as it happened with his old friend Ricimer. Remember, Ricimer had the ambition to be the de facto ruler of the Western Roman Empire, and he didn’t expect Majorian to be such a magnificent emperor. He didn’t like to be eclipsed, so Ricimer distanced himself from Majorian and slowly started working on weakening the position of his old friend.

While Majorian was focused on the affairs of Italy, Theodoric II boldly expanded the Kingdom of the Visigoths both in Gaul and Hispania, conquering Hispania Baetica, including the important city of Seville with the support of the local nobility. The Roman Emperor now controlled firmly Italy, but to launch an expedition to reconquer much of Gaul the Emperor needed to recruit more troops among the Barbarians, including Ostrogoths, Burgundians and Suebi. Majorian also started rebuilding the navy to confront the Vandals, but with only a defensive capacity for the moment.

In late 458 Majorian started his campaign to reconquer Gaul, leading himself the army and leaving Ricimer in Italy. Romans and Visigoths fought against each other in the Battle of Arelate, near the key city of southern Gaul, Arles. There the Romans decisively and overwhelmingly defeated the Visigoths. Theodoric II was forced to abandon Septimania, the south-eastern region of France with cities such as Narbonne, and to sign a harsh treaty. The treaty, signed in 459, returned the Visigoths to federate status and forced them to abandon not only Septimania but the conquered territories of Hispania as well. Majorian appointed a trusted general named Aegidius to govern Gaul, while the Emperor continued his campaign against the Burgundians that were also returned to federate status. Majorian then reconciled with the Gallo-Roman aristocracy to continue his ambitious campaigns to recover the former glory of the Western Roman Empire. It seemed like his dream could become true.

His next target was Hispania, and he sent emissaries there to announce that the region had returned to Imperial control. With the help of the Visigothic federates, the Roman Empire reestablished control of Hispania Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis and Baetica. Meanwhile, the Romans also reestablished control of Illyria in the Balkans and Sicily. In Hispania the real campaign started in Lusitania and Gallaecia against the factions of the Suebi. There the Romans and Visigoths reconquered important fortified cities like Lugo or Santarem, but the operation was limited in scope, as the Empire didn’t decisively crush them. Majorian himself led a large army through Zaragoza to then go to Elche, near Valencia, where a major fleet was docked to launch an expedition to finally defeat the Vandals in Africa. Genseric was nervous and feared the seemingly unstoppable Majorian, and because of that he tried to negotiate peace with the Romans, only to be rejected. Majorian was determined to restore Roman control over the former breadbasket of the Empire. Everything was going perfect up to this point, Majorian could accomplish something much greater than Aurelian did in the 3^rd century.

However, destiny decided to not give him that honor. From 460 on, everything went wrong for the Western Roman Empire. The Vandals paid some of the people in charge of the dock of Elche to destroy the large fleet that was needed to land on Africa and destroy the Vandal Kingdom. Majorian was then forced to cancel the expedition and abandon his dream of reincorporating the African provinces. He then decided to return to Italy, making a stop in Arles. Ricimer, the Germanic general left in Italy and old friend of Majorian, started plotting against the Emperor while he was bravely fighting away from Italy. Ricimer had the support of some aristocrats that weren’t happy because Majorian had forced them to pay taxes for his great ventures. Before reaching Rome, Ricimer met Majorian with a military detachment, had him arrested, beaten and tortured, and then beheaded in 461. Such a sad end for a hero and virtuous man like Majorian. The treacherous Germanic rat that was Ricimer then appointed a puppet emperor, as he had always dreamed. However, his puppet emperor was not recognized by the Eastern Roman Emperor, nor by any of the generals who served Majorian like Aegidius in Gaul, Nepotianus in Hispania or Marcellinus in Illyria and Sicily.

The dream to reestablish the Western Roman Empire died along Majorian. From then on, Ricimer ruled what was left of the Empire, which mainly consisted in Italy, and Eastern Roman puppets were appointed as well. The different Barbarian peoples seized the opportunity and conquered the Western provinces, and the native nobilities actively collaborated with the Barbarian elites. The Burgundians conquered Lyon and the Visigoths regained access to the Mediterranean Sea by conquering the region of Septimania. Meanwhile, Aegidius and Marcellinus ruled independently northern Gaul and Illyria. Aegidius stopped an attempt of the Visigoths to expand in northern Gaul in 463 with the aid of the Alans and Franks, while the Roman commander of Hispania Nepotianus was deposed by Theodoric II.

The Imperial government lost control over Hispania too, as the Visigoths cut off the land connection between Italy and Hispania and the maritime routes were controlled by the Vandals. It’s very significative how the Hispano-Roman noble Palagorius went to the court of Toulouse instead of Ravenna to ask for a military intervention of the Visigoths against the Suebi that were fighting a civil war. That shows how Imperial Roman authority was broken forever in the West.

As I have said, apart from reconquering Septimania, the Visigothic Kingdom under Theodoric II tried to expand northwards in Gaul after the death of Majorian but failed. Theodoric II negotiated peace with the Franks and the Western Roman Empire, but many Visigothic nobles thought that they had nothing to negotiate with the decadent Imperial authority. Therefore, as it had already happened among the Visigoths and it will continue to happen throughout their history, there was a conspiracy to overthrow and assassinate the king. The only alive brother of Theodoric II, Euric, succeeded in eliminating his brother in 466.

Euric quickly defeated other pretenders and independent chieftains, and unified the Visigoths. After that, he launched expeditions both in Gaul and Hispania, capturing for the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse Hispania Baetica and Carthaginensis. The conquest of Mérida was especially important to control most of Hispania using the old Roman roads. On the other hand, it wasn’t until 472 that the Visigoths conquered with little to no opposition Hispania Tarraconensis, I mean even the last imperial representative in Spain, the dux Hispaniarum Vicentius, collaborated with the Visigoths. Euric also captured a few key cities of northern Spain, but the Visigoths didn’t firmly control that region. Actually, the Visigoths had weak control over other areas like the coast of Hispania Baetica, but the consolidation of Visigothic power in Hispania would be the work of other monarchs. Although his reign started with a sin, Euric was smart enough to integrate the Gallo-Roman and Hispano-Roman aristocracy in military and administrative positions. That was a very important step to consolidate the position of the Visigothic Kingdom, because you can’t rule forever a territory with the enmity of the local powers.

In Gallaecia, the Suebic king Remismund won the civil war and reunified the Suebi, although to achieve that he had to make the Kingdom of the Suebi a vassal state of the Visigoths. Apart from the political and military supremacy of the Visigoths over the Suebi, the Suebi abandoned their paganism and converted to Arian Christianity in 466. Nonetheless, it’s not like Remismund liked being a vassal of the Visigoths. Remismund attempted to get rid of their influence by sealing alliances with the Western and Eastern Roman Empires and by getting the support of the Galician and Lusitanian nobility. Remismund successfully occupied Lisbon and other towns with the collaboration of the locals, and we can interpret that as a change in the attitude of the local nobility towards the Suebi. Unfortunately, the chronicle of Hydatius abruptly ends in 469 with his death, and we have an obscure period of around 80 years that we virtually know nothing about. I hate when that happens, because we can only guess what was happening. However, we can conclude that the provincial nobility accepted the rule of the Suebi to preserve their privileges and avoid the centralism of a more powerful kingdom like the Visigothic Kingdom.

Going back to the Visigoths, in 472 the de facto ruler of the Western Roman Empire, Ricimer, died. That opened an opportunity for the different Barbarian powers to take what was left of the Empire in the West. Euric for instance conquered the region of Provence in south-eastern Gaul. Meanwhile, the Barbarian mercenaries rebelled and the East Germanic leader Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus and proclaimed himself King of Italy in 476. That’s the conventional date of the end of the Western Roman Empire and the start of the Middle Ages, and from that point until this very day Europe and North Africa remained divided in multiple rival states. I won’t even dedicate a The Verdict about the fall of the Western Roman Empire, because only Majorian showed greatness in his ambition to restore the Empire and after that the Empire had little to do with Spain.

So moving on, I want to highlight that Hispania for Euric was a reserved area for future Visigothic expansion, but the core of the kingdom was still in Gaul, modern France. Nonetheless, the disintegration of Roman power and the pressure of the Franks in the north encouraged the Visigothic conquests of Hispania. The Visigoths reached their maximum expansion then, with their natural borders in the Loire and Rhone rivers, and the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse became the most powerful state in the West. King Euric was more ambitious than that, as he wanted to expand towards Italy and to crush the Franks, but he failed to achieve those things.

The last thing I wanted to talk about the reign of Euric is his administrative and religious policy. His most important administrative work was the Code of Euric, the first written collection of any Germanic laws, as the Germans had always been governed by unwritten costumes. It’s noteworthy that the Code of Euric was only applied to the Visigoths, not the Gallo or Hispano-Roman population. The Goths and Roman subjects were clearly divided by law, I mean among other things the Goths were forbidden to marry and have children with the local population. That division eventually disappeared, but that’s decades ahead. On the other hand, Euric was sometimes viewed as an anti-Catholic, but that wouldn’t be fair, because he didn’t want religious conflicts. What Euric wanted is that the powerful Catholic clergy from Gaul and Hispania submitted to the Visigoths, but some opposed them, and they were purged for political reasons, not religious.

In 484 King Euric died and he was succeeded by his son Alaric II. Alaric II has been treated quite unfairly until recently, because of the disastrous Battle of Vouillé in 507 that I will talk about later. Nonetheless, his policies were similar to those of his father, and sometimes even better. Alaric worked to consolidate Visigothic power in Hispania, as the line between direct Visigothic control and influence must have been very thin, especially in the most marginalized areas of the Iberian Peninsula. In addition to that, Alaric II focused his efforts on strengthening royal authority and integrating the Gallo and Hispano-Roman aristocracy and clergy into the Visigothic state. With those objectives in mind, we can understand the promulgation of the Breviary of Alaric and his relaxed policy towards the Catholic clergy.

Let’s start with the Breviary of Alaric, that was a very complete collection of Roman laws compiled and approved in 506 with the collaboration of the clergy and aristocracy. The laws from the Breviary of Alaric were the ones applied to the non-Visigothic population, and it’s remarkable how the Visigoths continued the Roman tradition and tried to present themselves as the legitimate heirs of the Roman Empire in the West. With the Breviary of Alaric, the Visigothic Kingdom recognized that Roman laws were fundamental for the constitution of the kingdom, while at the same time the promulgation of laws represented the full sovereignty of the Visigoths.

Equally important was the religious policy of Alaric II towards the Catholic hierarchy, since the clergy was even more powerful than the nobility in many regions. Alaric II used a carrot and stick approach to reward those loyal to the Visigothic Kingdom and exile those who were conspiring with the Franks or Burgundians. Among other things, Alaric eliminated the subordination of the Gallic and Spanish churches in relation to Rome, something that the influential bishop of Arles Caesarius desired. More importantly, Alaric II summoned the bishops of his kingdom in Agde to celebrate a council in 506 presided by Caesarius of Arles. That is indicative of how fundamental the Catholic churches were to support the Visigothic monarchy. The Spanish bishops didn’t attend the council, but a new one was planned to be held in Toulouse the following year. As we will soon see, that council couldn’t be held due to a tragic political event.

The tragic political event I’m talking about is related to the Franks. Since the death of King Euric, the Franks emerged as a powerful Barbarian kingdom that expanded from modern Belgium to northern modern France. Clovis I managed to unite the Frankish tribes and he conquered the Domain of Soissons, the rump Roman state founded by Aegidius after the assassination of Majorian. The threat of the Franks became more and more clear, and in the 480s and 490s Visigoths and Franks met in battle multiple times. The Franks failed in their intervention in the Burgundian Civil War of 500 and 501, and because of that the victorious King of the Burgundians sealed an alliance with Alaric. At around the same time the alliance of the Visigoths of Alaric II and the Ostrgoths of Theodoric the Great was strengthened with a marriage too, and that was a very important alliance since the Ostrogoths had conquered Italy after their victory over Odoacer, the same that ended the Western Roman Empire.

Before I continue talking about the Franks, I want to focus the attention on what was happening in Spanish soil. Our only source of information is the Chronicle of Zaragoza, that informs us that there were two unsuccessful revolts against the Visigoths in Hispania Tarraconensis between 496 and 506. What’s more important is the increasing migration and settlement of Visigoths in Hispania. Some Visigoths settled in the Ebro Valley, La Rioja and around Toledo, but most of them settled in the region that is known as Tierra de Campos. This area comprises the modern provinces of Palencia, León, Zamora and Valladolid, in the northern area of the Meseta, below the Douro river. It’s a vast and dry region ideal to cultivate cereals, and it was an area with few inhabitants and little urban development. The Visigoths settled in central Spain, around rivers and important roads to control more easily the rest of the Iberian Peninsula and to avoid putting more demographic pressure in Hispania Baetica and Tarraconensis. Apart from those settlements, it’s important to remember that before those the Visigoths had already established garrisons and small colonies of Visigoths in key strategic cities like Mérida, Seville or Astorga, as well as in Lusitania to keep the Suebi in check. About how those lands were distributed among the Visigoths, it’s likely that the Visigoths occupied abandoned Hispano-Roman and Imperial states.

Okay, with that said, let’s go back to the conflict between Visigoths and Franks. Clovis I, the King of the Franks, restarted hostilities against the Visigoths in 507, this time decisively. Although Alaric II tried his best to integrate the Catholic hierarchy into the power structure of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, many Catholics were unhappy about being ruled by the Arian Visigoths that often abused the local population. Clovis I, who had converted to Catholicism in the 490s, saw the opportunity of waging a war of liberation, instead of invasion, against the Visigothic possessions of Gaul. To prove that it was a war of liberation, Clovis banned his troops to raid and pillage. The religious factor was overemphasized by the Frankish clergy as a variable that contributed to the victory of the Franks, but it was a factor, nonetheless. The Burgundians switched sides and joined the Franks, while the father-in-law of Alaric II, Theodoric the Great, was busy dealing with an attack of the Byzantines.

Knowing that at least for a while he wouldn’t receive any help, Alaric II decided to meet the Franks in the Battle of Vouillé. The Battle of Vouillé occurred near Poitiers and there the Franks decisively defeated the Visigoths. Visigoths and Franks fought hand-by-hand, the Visigoths were less prepared since they hadn’t had a serious battle in years, but they were resisting. The crucial moment happened when Clovis presumably killed Alaric, because that provoked the rout of many Visigoths who were massacred in the chaos of the stampede. Imagine the confusion of this situation, the leaderless Visigoths didn’t know how to react. Seizing the opportunity, Clovis marched south conquering Bordeaux and the capital of the kingdom, Toulouse, with much of the royal treasure included.

I will leave for the next episode what happened next because the war was not over, but the consequences of the Battle of Vouillé still resound today. The Franks conquered most of Gaul and that defined, in very broad terms, the borders of modern France. The Pyrenees were established as a definitive natural frontier between the Visigoths and the Franks, as it happens today between France and Spain. For more than 50 years, the Visigoths suffered from unrest, as the supremacy of the Balti dynasty was in question. The Battle of Vouillé ended the dream of the Visigoths to achieve supremacy and the role of heir of Rome. That role seemed briefly left to the Ostrogoths, but for the following centuries it was obvious that the Franks constituted the most powerful Western state. Finally, the battle ended the phase known as the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse and opened a new one, the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, a period where Hispania was the core of the kingdom.

THE VERDICT: In today’s verdict I want to signal the importance of not overextending. I think one of the causes the Visigoths were crushed in Gaul is that they were overextended, just as it happened to many other kingdoms and empires like Habsburg Spain, Nazi Germany or Napoleonic France. The Visigoths had much more population than the Suebi for instance, but not as much as to dominate both Gaul and Hispania. I mean, the Ostrogoths had around the same population, 200-250k peoples, they settled in Italy and they didn’t expand much more. The Visigoths didn’t decide whether to settle in Gaul or in Hispania, but the Franks chose that for them. What’s better, to seize the opportunity even if you know that you won’t be able to hold a territory for too long, or to only advance if you can consolidate your state there? I leave the answer to you. And with that, The Verdict ends.

Sources

EL REINO DE LOS SUEVOS. Pablo de la Cruz Díaz Martínez

HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA VISIGODA. Luis A. García Moreno

EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAIN: UNITY IN DIVERSITY, 400-1000. Roger Collins

VISIGOTHIC SPAIN, 409-711. Roger Collins

HISTORY OF THE GOTHS. Herwing Wolfram

NOTE: Credit for the intro and outro music to Jeris and Clarence Simpsons, the song is called ‘Conquistador’and it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

Book review: The Mercenary Mediterranean

January 28, 2019 DavidCot 0 Comments

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Review The Mercenary Mediterranean

Hussein Fancy’s The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon presents the complexity of Christian and Muslim relationships, specifically talking about the Muslim mercenaries who served the Christian Crown of Aragon. This challenges the black-and-white perception that we sometimes have while reading about Medieval Spain.

These are some quotes extracted from academic reviews of the book:

“Fancy has put forward a deeply learned and beautifully woven argument, in a thought-provoking and discomforting study that constitutes a major contribution to the history of medieval Spain.” – American Historical Review
“Readers are confronted with multilayered loyalties, military needs, and powerful ambitions that defy the habitual designations of reconquest, crusade, and jihad to this kind of state policy making. . . . Highly recommended.” – Choice
“Fascinating. . . . The Mercenary Mediterranean has made a remarkable number of major contributions . . . and offers valuable lessons for any scholar interested in medieval ethno-religious relations, royal/imperial authority, or the political history of the western Mediterranean.” – Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies
“The Archive of the Crown of Aragon has served as a reliable source for scholars to produce groundbreaking studies on interfaith relations. To a list that includes Burns, Boswell, Nirenberg, and others, we must add Hussein Fancy, whose present volume will be essential reading not only for the discipline of interfaith relations, but of religious history as well.”- Medieval Encounters
“Like David Nirenberg’s now-classic Communities of Violence and Olivia Remie Constable’s vital work in this area, The Mercenary Mediterranean will be of immense importance to historians of medieval Iberia. Original and intellectually ambitious, this book will likely become a landmark for scholars in the field, placing Fancy at the forefront of the new generation of Mediterraneanists working in medieval literary and cultural studies.” – Vincent Barletta, Stanford University
“The Mercenary Mediterranean fundamentally advances our understanding of soldiers recruited from North Africa to fight for the Crown of Aragon. More than just another example of border-crossing or the malleability of religious identity, the case of the jenets demonstrates the paradoxes and strangeness of medieval warfare and faith. Fancy argues convincingly that religion, far from being shoved aside by other factors, remains central to comprehending warfare, cultural conflict, cultural rapprochement and ideas of empire. This is among the most important and thought-provoking books on Mediterranean and Iberian history of recent years.” – Paul Freedman, Yale University
“Fancy begins this extraordinary journey with a pawned sword and five men on mules at the borders of Valencia. By its end he has ranged across mountain, sea, and desert, across centuries and languages, in pursuit–like some relentless historical posse–of mercenary bands of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. His narrative is everywhere astonishing, as he shows us how medieval power was woven out of their migrations across the western Mediterranean, and in the process makes us question the nature of our own modern world.” – David Nirenberg, University of Chicago

Summary of reviews: all the academic reviews signal how thought-provoking The Mercenary Mediterranean is, although without making unfounded revisionist claims. It’s very recommended if you want to learn a specific case of interfaith relations of Medieval Spain.

Book review: Caliphs and Kings

January 9, 2019 DavidCot 0 Comments

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Review Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796-1031

Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796-1031 is one of the works of Hispanist Roger Collins on Medieval Spain. Roger Collins talks about the different Medieval states of the Iberian Peninsula before the disintegration of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. This includes chapters focused on the Caliphate of Cordoba, the Kingdom of Asturias, the Kingdom of Leon, the County of Castile, the Counties of the Pyrenees and the Kingdom of Navarre. But not everything is about politics, in this book Roger Collins also debunks the theory that Muslim-dominated Spain was a place of religious tolerance and harmony between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Nonetheless, he also dmystifies some Christian Spanish nationalists theories about this period.

This is what customers on Amazon say:

“This book SHATTERS the myth that Islamic Spain was a land of tolerance between the Muslims, Jews, and Christians. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because the book is very scholarly and it’s pretty dry in parts because of it. On a slightly cerebral note, I didn’t count the number of decapitated heads mentioned in this book, but it’d be a very high number. Someone needs to write a popular history of this time period with the same content because more people need to know what really happened in Al-Andalus.” – Anonymous Amazon customer
“This new volume in the series “A History of Spain” follows in the footsteps of the two previous ones (“Visigothic Spain 409-711” and “The Arab Conquest of Spain, 711-797”), written by the same author. The later volume was first published in 1989 and the former on the Visigoths in Spain in 2006. Roger Collins uses Caliphs and Kings to revisit the Arab Conquest of Spain some 20 years later, and revisit some of the themes that he developed at the time, in the light of recent historical literature and archaeological findings. His thesis, summarized in the introduction, is that the Visigothic Kingdom was caught at a moment of weakness, rather than being in decline, or even decadent, when the Arab Conquest happened. Moreover, he shows that the Conquest was so swift because of a conjunction of events: a troubled and violent succession coupled with a civil war, the death of the King in battle against the invaders and the swift occupation of Toledo, the Kingdom’s capital, so that no other fully legitimate King could be crowned again.
He also shows that, beyond the Conquest, there were some fundamental changes but also many elements of continuity. Many families belonging to the elite submitted to the invaders were allowed to keep their lands and most of the political and economic power and converted within a few generations. However, Reilly also states that the Arab Conquest put an end, once and for all, to the political unity of the Iberian Peninsula. Never again would it be unified under a single authority. In addition, he also presents the Omayyad regime of Muslim Spain as having to almost continuously fight the separatist tendencies of numerous regional governors and warlords, especially (but not only) in the three Marches. The general impression that is conveyed is that of a relatively divided, heterogeneous and potentially weak Muslim regime that only the strongest among the Omayyad leaders could successfully hold together. Another component is to show what must have been at least one of the reasons for such endemic unrest. The taxes and tributes that the Emirs’ and then the Caliphs’ administration raised were essentially for their own exclusive benefit, and not for that of their subject. Also, the Emirate and then Caliphate was plagued by succession conflicts as all sons of the reigning monarch (and often all of his brothers as well) could stake a claim to the throne.
Despite this, and despite losing the conquered territories beyond the Pyrenees to the Franks by the end of the 8th century, and Barcelona by the beginning of the 9th, the Muslim regime in Spain is shown to have been much stronger than the small Christian kingdoms that were initially entrenched in the mountains of northern Spain. The attitude of the Ommayads and of the Muslims more generally, towards these kingdoms seems to have been rather ambivalent. After an initial failure to conquer them, they raided them regularly in the name of Holy War, destroying and pillaging what they came across but without seeking to conquer and obliterate these kingdoms once and for all. As Reilly shows rather well, this was both because such a conquest was probably not worth the effort and because these regular raids served the political purpose of demonstrating the Ommayads supremacy within their own territory over their own unruly military and often semi-independent and rebellious governors. Over time, however, the Christian kingdoms expanded and became stronger, taking advantage of the periods of weakness of the Caliphate until the later imploded into multiple successor states (the “taïfa” kingdoms).
Despite the author being a scholar and a specialist of the period, but sometimes also because of this, the book is somewhat difficult to read. They are a number of repetitions, especially when considering the various Christian Kingdoms and Counties, as the same event happens to be considered several times when each of the nascent kingdoms is analysed. Further confusion is introduced with many of the Christian leaders bearing similar names, fighting against each other or allying with each other against a third party as least as much as they fought against Muslim raiders and neighbouring warlords, or with them. An additional difficulty for a “general reader” is the book’s structure. In particular, the last four chapters, which cover the 10th and early 11th century, are not entirely chronological since they present an overview of major events and reigns in Al Andalus, Leon, Navarre and the Pyrenean counties and in the County of Castile. As a result, there is some hardly avoidable jumping back and forth which can be nonetheless confusing.
Interestingly, the volume includes a significant amount of discussion on both the Christian and the Muslim sources with the limitations of both categories of sources being highlighted. For the former, which are largely made up of charters, many of these, and in some cases up to half of them, are either 12th century forgeries or have been heavily interpolated during the 12th century in order to make good specific claims. Reilly also shows that some of the chronicles are quite unreliable and tend to “reconstruct” events or even invent genealogies in order to reinforce the claims and legitimacy of some of the monarchs under which they were written. Muslim “historians” are often no more reliable, although they do often preserve excerpts of older sources within their chronicles. This is largely because their purpose was not to tell history as we would understand it nowadays, but to tell – sometimes mythical and mostly embellished – stories. This is why, for instance, Reilly dismisses as a fiction the story of the vengeful “Count Julian”, Lord of Ceuta, who allegedly ferried the Muslim army of Tariq to Spain.
To conclude, this is a valuable book that displays impressive scholarship and develops interesting and, at times, fascinating theses and assumptions. Unfortunately, both the topic itself (Caliphs AND Kings) and the way it is treated also make this book hard to read and somewhat difficult to access for a “general” reader that does not have a particular interest in the topic. Such as reader might prefer to start with other narratives which have the benefit of being simpler and clearer, even if they are less comprehensive than this one, such as Richard Fletcher’s Moorish Spain.” – JPS (top 1000 reviewer)

And this is what a member of the Goodreads community said:

“I don’t know how the hell I always get mixed up with these rigorously academic studies. I think the concept always intrigues me and then when I start reading I’m like Larry David, I just can’t abandon it until I’m done. No offense to Dr. Collin’s either, it’s just that you can tell he’s been grinding through the gears of academia his entire life; the sentences have all the indicative traces of it. Unfortunately this gets my eyes very bleary, and when their at that state I tend to think irrational thoughts, like, “this book deserves a one star rating” or “I should burn down my local university”. Of course, both of these statements are unfair, and, in one case, exceptionally illegal…
SO LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
In “Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796-1031” (2014), the intention of Roger Collins is, in a broad sense, to lay the framework for a historical understanding of the Umayyad rule in Spain during his chosen time frame (796-1031). Yep, a general history. But rest assured folks, Dr. Collin’s isn’t anywhere near this shallow, he’s got other things on his mind as well. Collins makes it crystal clear that he’s not fond of a popular vein of historiography associated with the period, mainly those that push the notion that this was some sort of perfect ‘golden age’ of mutual toleration (pg.2). Throughout the work Collins always takes great pains to try and argue against such a ‘rosy’ outlook, and the nice thing is, he does so with a fair degree of success. Collins is one of those valuable historians that actually cares a good deal about the scholarly treatment of the sources he is assessing, and he even knows how to point out things that seem particularly misleading.
For those not up to date with the historiographical traditions of Spanish high medieval history (who the hell is), you should know that the idea of convivencio (i.e. ‘La Convivencia), or coexistence, is vitally important to the portions of Collins argument’s that concern the degree of interaction/toleration during the Umayyad rule. Convivencio is something he cannot afford to skip discussing if he wants to be taken seriously, and yet, strangely enough, the actual word is never explicitly mentioned anywhere in the text. Even before the chapter devoted specifically to this topic, i.e. “The Christians of al-Andalus”, we only come into very subtle contact with his thoughts on such perceived collaboration. Collins asserts that, on a political level, Umayyad behavior in the 9th and 10th century, especially there deliberate attempt to not capture more territory (pg.23), is an example, not of Christian/Muslim collaboration or understanding, but rather the lack of aggression (strategic and diplomatic jihad tactic, pg.26) on the side of the Umayyad’s. On a more social level, he says that Muslim influences on Christian ideas were less pronounced then once was thought to believe. He denounces the ‘Mozarabic style’ (pg.119) from having a particularly heavy effect on Spanish architecture, while also claiming that class tensions were higher than ever (pg.169) in the ‘golden age’ of “Abd al-Rahman III”. It should already be easy to see that Collins’ approach doesn’t position itself statically in the comfortable realm of simple political history. If that’s what you wanted out of such a book I suggest looking elsewhere, since he’d rather examine the cultural contact through a constantly questioning investigative lens.
In convivencio arguments he often proves his points by comparing and contrasting scholarly opinions on the ideas put forth, while also heavily criticising what he considers weakness in the source material. Collins will talk in-depth about his thoughts concerning the strength of the sources, an approach that tends to be to his advantage. This is because, more often than not, his position will rely on the ability of his argument to compare and contrast with different scholarly treatment. This type of inquiry can only be executed admirably if the writer has a strong grasp of all of the surrounding causes, secondary authorities, and primary source knowledge, or it would look sloppy and superfluous. Luckily for the reader, Collins usually possesses all three. A case that illustrates this strength can be clearly seen in his ch.7 discussion of the stature of ethnic variance (pg.174-176) in the later Al-Andalus period (‘golden age’). In his analysis he does not concede the idea of a total ethnic convivencio easily. Collins makes it a point to include, not just Christian treatment in the total sum, but rather represent all levels of social variance (Jewish, Arabic, Berbers, etc). By employing this type of comparative approach Collins can argue for a much fuller image of potential coexistence, because it allows him to compare the treatment each social group receives within the realm of the others.
The study isn’t perfect though. A potential weakness in some of Collins’ argumentative chapters can also stem from his heavy reference on sources. Chapter 3 seems to spend too much time trying to compare both Muslim and Christian mental sentiments through the exclusive guiding force of upper class behavior (in the primary source material). The effect this has on his Christian coexistence argument is somewhat negative, as it comes off as forcing a link that is perhaps too exclusive to be as tangible as he would like it to seem. In Chapter 3, he argues that even if the physical reality (i.e. actual attempts) surrounding potential revivals of Christian martyrdom in Al-Andalus was faked or blown out of proportion (pg. 89), the fact that it was a distinctive feature in upper class thought is enough to suggest bad Christian sentiments towards Muslim interaction. This argument is an example of how contrasting too heavily between certain groups can lead the argument into a dead end, as the constant reference to upper class (pg. 86-87) attempts at martyrdom cannot possibly account for the entire social perspective for this behaviour. Furthermore, some of his own arguments in this section tend to go against him, but I won’t press the issue.
Let me just say that the way Dr. Collins organizes his writing is fairly offbeat, switching chapter topics in a way that forces the reader to lose focus. On top of that, some chapters cover history that is in no way related to the previous block of writing (e.g. chapter 6 crammed in between two Al-Andalus discussions). All this makes the work choppy, but I must admit Collins himself has a defense for this when he states that to approach each discussion in the same fashion would be repetitive and “probably impossible” (pg.2) anyway, leaving further inquiry to lean on his bibliography. I guess he assumed this style of approach will suit his work just fine since, as mentioned, one of his key strengths lies in his vast congregation of source material(it has hundreds of footnotes and a forest of a bibliography). I can’t be too angry with his response, simply because of how many things he looks into. His scope is not limited to (often times sketchy) primary source readings but uses basically everything. For example, in his study of the blurry Asturian succession (8th century), he applies the use of legal charters and even physical culture (pg.59) such as coins to come to his conclusions, while in another instance he studies urban planning to a certain degree, so he may figure out the implications of houses that are built over pre-existing Roman roads (29).
Through Collins’ discussion we learn that, if anything, the idea of convivencio is not as clear cut as much of the historiography makes its legacy out to be. Even if we don’t agree with his arguments directly, he’s among an admirable group of new historians who has spotlighted just how much grey area is wrapped around the particular areas of contention in this historical field.
I guess what really irks me about all this is that the book, like the rest of the titles in the History of Spain series it’s featured in, are marketed like popular history and written like extended scholarly papers. If you want a synthesis of academic knowledge on this period, I guess this will work, otherwise, prepare for your eyes to turn grey.” – Petruccio Hambasket IV

Summary of reviews: Roger Collins’ work is criticized for being a bit too scholarly and for some of his arguments against the theory of “convivencia” in the Muslim-dominated Spain, but still his work is considered quite good and everyone recognizes that Collins is a very professional historian.

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