The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia: Construction and Invention 9780812297423

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The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia

The V I S I G OT H I C KINGDOM IN IBERIA Construction and Invention

Santiago Castellanos

un iver sit y of pen nsy lvan i a press phil adelphi a

Copyright © 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Castellanos, Santiago, author. Title: The Visigothic kingdom in Iberia : construction and invention / Santiago Castellanos. Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020003826 | ISBN 978-0-8122-5253-8 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Visigoths—Spain. | Spain—History—Gothic period, 414–711. | Iberian Peninsula—History—To 1500. Classification: LCC DP96 .C376 2020 | DDC 946/.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003826

For Delfina, Vega, and Enrique

Contents

Preface

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Chapter 1. The Collapse of the Roman Empire in Hispania: Between the Texts and the Archaeological Revolution

1

Chapter 2. Political Overview: The Beginnings of the Gothic Kingdom in Iberia

9

Chapter 3. Structures of Power: Magnates and Dependents

30

Chapter 4. Negotiating and Imposing: Kings and Local Worlds

59

Chapter 5. Inventing a Kingdom: Projecting Messages

83

Conclusion

111

Chronology

115

Abbreviations

117

Notes

119

Bibliography

153

Index

181

Acknowledgments

185

Preface

Two moments in time bracket the period covered by this book. The first is in the second half of the fifth century, when the elite of Tarraco, one of the most important cities in Hispania, declared their loyalty to the Roman emperors, shown by a dedicatory inscription found there. At that time, the imperial administration had virtually ceased to exist in most of the West. In Hispania it controlled only some areas in the northeast, specifically in the province of Tarraconensis. This same zone was soon to pass into the orbit of the Gothic kingdom of Euric, based in southern Gaul. The Gothic offensive took place around 472, shortly after the inscription was placed in Tarraco. The second time point falls almost two hundred years later, in the mid-seventh century, when King Chindaswinth, together with his son and successor, Recceswinth, carried out a series of in-depth reforms to the administration of their kingdom. By that time, the regnum Gothorum was firmly established in Iberia. This book addresses specific questions relating to the two centuries that passed between these moments. How did the kingdom of the Goths manage to establish itself in Hispania? What were the keys to this process? In doing so, the book offers an overview of the long phase between the end of the fifth century and the middle of the seventh. During this time the regnum Gothorum maintained an interest, at first in certain enclaves within late Roman Hispania from its base in southern Gaul and later in the totality of what had been the provinces of Hispania, where it eventually established itself. The Gothic kings in Iberia gave themselves the title of rex Gothorum, but during the period covered by this book, they came to associate with this the concept of Spania as a geopolitical reference to which they could add Septimania, part of southern Gaul, which remained part of the Gothic kingdom when its center of gravity shifted southward in the early sixth century. The term “Spania” demands some explanation. “Spania” is used with some frequency in the texts of the Visigothic kingdom that occupied what had previously been Roman Hispania, and it can be collated in the editions of these texts

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and in numerous later manuscripts that copied them. Spania derives from Hispania, as do the words “España” and “Spain”; however, Spain did not exist in the Visigothic period of the sixth and seventh centuries that forms the subject of this book. Nor indeed did Portugal, also within Iberia, or the other European nations of modern and contemporary history. It is true that in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries various attempts were made to find a direct origin for these nations in the regna, or kingdoms, of post-Roman Europe. For our purposes, however, the equation of Spania with Spain is unhelpful; accuracy would require present-day Portugal to be included because it lies inside what was once Hispania. Moreover, by “Spania” I do not mean the term sometimes used to refer to the Hispanic Byzantine domains, but the term that, in the sources for the Visigothic kingdom, alludes to the set of territories of that kingdom in ancient Roman Hispania. Between late Roman and Visigothic times, the term “Spania” was frequently used as a kind of shorthand for an evolving geographic entity. It is worth briefly mentioning another question of terminology. “Visigoths” is to be found consolidated in sources only after much of the sixth century had elapsed. Official texts of the kingdom preferred the concepts Gothus, rex Gothorum, and gens Gothorum, even if there are some odd examples of the use of “Visigoths.” (To cite just a few instances, it is employed in hagiography from Mérida dating from the seventh century, and by Procopius writing in Greek in Constantinople and Gregory the Great in Rome in the sixth century, among others.)

* * * This book is not a complete overview of the history of the Visigoth kingdom but rather a thematic study of how the kingdom rooted its structures in what had been Roman Hispania. Consequently, the chapters concentrate on a specific time span, from the final years of the fifth century through to the mid-seventh century. The establishment of the Goths in Hispania was a complex historical process, not an episode or the immediate outcome of an event such as their defeat by the Franks in 507. This process has left traces in sources from the last third of the fifth century and the first third of the sixth. Gothic interests in Hispania had originated in the fifth century, starting under the umbrella of their foedera (treaties, pacts) with the Roman Empire, and thereafter with considerable room for maneuvering. Once the empire had disappeared in the West, through to the midsixth century, these interests gradually became more extensive. It was only in the second half of the sixth century that they were definitively consolidated. The

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final point chosen for the time horizon of this book, the mid-seventh century, is explained by the intensity of lawmaking and reforms undertaken just after that point by Chindaswinth and his son Recceswinth. This is no longer the construction phase of the kingdom but a reform and reconstruction phase, the starting point for a new stage in its history. My objective in this book is to show how this process developed and how it involved problems, splits, and contradictions. Over the course of this long period a pact between dominant sectors of the Gothic aristocracy and the local elites led to the conversion of the Gothic kingdom from Arianism to Catholicism. It was from that point on that Catholic bishops produced a narrative of the process, a discourse of power, which they tried to introduce into the collective awareness at many different levels. The anchoring of these two processes— construction and invention—is the theme of this book. By the construction of the kingdom I mean its articulation and operation in the initial and central phases of its consolidation in Roman Hispania. Its subsequent evolution, from the reigns of Chindaswinth and Recceswinth onward, is a clearly different phase that saw profound reforms in the administration of the kingdom. These lie outside the processes addressed by this book. By the invention of the kingdom I mean the creation of a system of values, of ideological projections, which included the definition of what a king was, what a kingdom was, how and why they should be obeyed, and the place that the past history played in that design. The book begins with a look at the collapse of the Roman Empire (Chapter 1), focusing on some of the changes that took place in Iberia, particularly their consequences for the period that immediately followed. Next I provide (Chapter 2) an overview of the political route taken by the regnum Gothorum from its last moments in Gaul until it was firmly installed in Iberia, while retaining Septimania north of the Pyrenees. The rooting of the kingdom in Iberia is covered by two chapters: Chapter  3 investigates local powers and those dependent on them; Chapter 4 highlights the impositions and negotiations of central authority with regard to them. Finally, in Chapter 5 I consider the invention of the kingdom as such, on the basis of the adaptation of ethnicity, the construction of a linear history, and the projection by the elite of politico-religious messages that gave a shape to the identity of their own political system.

* * * Most of the primary sources for the Visigothic period in Iberia come from the ecclesiastical and monastic sphere. For the chronological period covered by this

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book, perhaps the most systematic narratives are the chronicle of John of Biclar, probably written in the first years of the seventh century, and the History of the Goths by Isidore of Seville, written in at least two redactions some years later. With differences, both authors exalt the kingdom of the Goths as a synthesis of a territorial domain in ancient Roman Hispania with its Catholic identity, acquired at the end of the sixth century. This symbiosis between kingdom and Catholicism has its roots in the speech given by Leander of Seville, brother and predecessor of Isidore in the bishopric, during the Third Council of Toledo of 589. The hagiographies, in particular the Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida and Life of St. Aemilian, are very pertinent here. Both written in the seventh century, they project an image of the local world that interested their issuers, respectively, the ecclesiastical and monastic community of St. Eulalia and Braulio, bishop of Saragossa and friend of Isidore. In all these cases the authors wrote in the service of Catholic power, which from the end of the sixth century was connected with the political. One of the central themes of this book is to analyze how the “invention” of the kingdom was the product of this connection. John of Biclar was of Gothic origin and came from Lusitania. He was to end his days in northeastern Iberia as abbot of the community at Biclarum and bishop of Gerona. In his youth he had traveled to Constantinople to study and spent seven years there, probably in the 570s. It is known that John was exiled to Barcelona by Leovigild, doubtless because of the religious rivalry between Arianism and Catholicism that saw peaks of tension during Leovigild’s reign. John was still alive well into the 610s, as is known from his acting as signatory to minutes of meetings and episcopal documents. John’s chronicle, probably written at this late stage in his life, is a synthesis of the new ideology that was to shape the invention of the kingdom. In this instance it is crucial to pay attention to its use of the past, particularly the reigns of Leovigild and Reccared, in the creation of a linear account of history, a long way from the real complexities of the facts that it selectively presents. Isidore’s family came from the province of Carthaginiensis, which from the mid-sixth century onward was in the hands of troops sent by the Eastern Roman Empire. By the last third of the century his family had settled in the province of Baetica. His elder brother, Leander, was bishop of Seville, while another of his brothers, Fulgentius, held that same office in the diocese of Écija; his sister Florentina was an abbess. Isidore was to succeed his brother in the episcopal see of Seville from approximately 600 or 602 through to his death in 636. He wrote many works, of which the best known is his Etymologiae, an authentically encyclopedic production, extensively copied throughout Europe. However, Isidore

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wrote in numerous literary genres, such as history, chronicles, letters, poems, theology, and monastic rules, among many others. His brother Leander had been involved in Hermenegild’s uprising against his father Leovigild, but nevertheless also had an active role in the Third Council of Toledo in 589. This, under Reccared, brought with it the official conversion of the Gothic kingdom to Catholicism. Isidore likewise played an active part in the relationship between bishops and monarchs in the first third of the seventh century, and his contribution to the invention of the kingdom was crucial. Other sources include texts of a biographical, ecclesiastical nature and letters, wills, and treaties of various kinds. Sometimes it has been necessary to contrast the information coming from within the kingdom with that emanating from abroad—from Jordanes, Procopius, Gregory of Tours, Gregory the Great, and Fredegar, among others. In addition, the laws issued by the Visigothic kings and the Formulae show how the setting of norms and protocols for action can be the expression of social problems, though not through a literal reading, which would lead to a superficial view. Something similar happens with the councils, which in their efforts to insist on certain prohibitions may suggest a high frequency of the behaviors that they were trying to prevent. Information provided by some particularly relevant inscriptions has been used. And it has also been important to study the so-called Visigothic slates, which often lack archaeological context. These are slates inscribed with text in cursive script or with numerals or drawings, which contain fascinating information of various different types, such as religious contexts, learning, and school exercises. Here we are interested especially in those that refer to the social and economic structure of the west-central zone of the Iberian peninsula. All this leads us to a high density of very different kinds of sources. One of the constant concerns of this book is to explain the new archaeological records in the general context of the political, social, and ideological history of the construction and consolidation of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia. While Leander, Isidore, and their colleagues were shaping the invention of the kingdom, peasants were burying their dead in cemeteries associated with villages. In the very same communities, other dead were thrown into disused storage pits or onto garbage dumps. While such events occurred in villages, games of political and ideological power were played out elsewhere. Leander delivered his homily at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, John of Biclar wrote his chronicle covering the years 567 to 590, and later, in the first part of the seventh century, Isidore wrote his history of the Goths. This book aims to bring together both sorts of information. Recent public construction projects for airports,

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highways, and railroad lines for high-speed trains have led to excavations yielding major new empirical evidence. Indeed, one of the objectives of this book is to attempt to link the two sets of materials: written sources, arising overwhelmingly from court or church, and archaeological records. Laws, letters, histories, hagiographies, and records of councils are expressions of the very top level of society. They come from the world of Isidore and his colleagues, of magnates and of kings. The unfortunates who in death were flung into abandoned silos in villages were from the least privileged classes. Between the two were various intermediate levels. Hence the study of the construction and invention of the kingdom must look at how these two processes were anchored between the horizon of local notables and the structures of the underlying peasant base.

chapter 1

The Collapse of the Roman Empire in Hispania Between the Texts and the Archaeological Revolution

At some point between 467 and 472 an inscription was set up in Tarraco, today’s Tarragona, honoring Anthemius and Leo, Roman emperors of the West and the East, respectively. The dedicators recognized them as Domini Nostri and Augusti. By that time the Western Roman Empire controlled very few regions in the West. It was decades since it had withdrawn from Britannia, and in the end it had lost control of a large part of Gaul, Africa, and Hispania. The city in northeastern Iberia and its associated Tarraconensis province were among the few territories that the last Western emperors could say they administered outside Italy and part of southern Gaul. In Iberia, the kingdom of the Sueves had been settled for somewhat more than half a century in Gallaecia in the northwestern peninsula, with eastward and southward expansions. In general, Iberia was the scene of a growth in local powers. Hence the inscription in Tarraco was more or less the swan song of the presence of the Roman Empire in Iberia and the identification of local elites with it. This chapter looks at the collapse of Roman dominion in Iberia, not as an end in itself but rather as a necessary starting point. The historical basis for changes that have become visible thanks to modern archaeology will also be investigated. Without a clear grasp of these changes it is not possible to understand the later establishment of the Gothic kingdom.

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The End of Roman Iberia: The Basis for the Changes At the time when the dedicators commissioned the inscription to the emperors, it was only a few years since Hydatius had finished his chronicle or, even, as he was finishing it. This work is one of the most complete fifth-century sources for the West. Hydatius was a bishop in Gallaecia who took a personal hand in the negotiations and conflicts between those with a Roman tradition and the Sueves. At the later point when the dedication to the emperors in Tarraco was being paid for, Hydatius had probably already passed away or was on the point of dying. All the same, the end of his chronicle and the inscription are very few years apart. Hydatius makes it plain in his chronicle that he identifies himself with the Roman tradition, though he showed his pessimism in its preface and general content. So, in two places in Iberia at a considerable distance one from another, it was being demonstrated that belonging to the empire could still be seen as desirable.1 The motivation for Hydatius’s work may have been the movement into Hispania of Sueves, Vandals, and Alans in the year 409. This was followed by the arrival of the Goths around 415 to 417, acting as Rome’s allies. Their intervention was requested by the empire in order to confront the former groups, and afterward the Goths themselves settled in southern Gaul. By mid-century the Goths’ interest in Hispania seems to have increased. According to Hydatius, this was always theoretically at imperial request, as in 454 when they beat the Bacaudae and in 456 when Theoderic II came to defeat the kingdom of the Sueves. Although Hydatius presents this defeat as definitive, the kingdom of the Sueves is known to have lingered on until around 585. The early decades of the fifth century saw unquestioned disturbances, but it is not possible to set a figure on the number of barbarians present. The groups that entered Hispania were a minority in the population, but supplied a factor for change that it is hard to measure. The three most striking features up to around 472 were the consolidation of the kingdom of the Sueves in the northwest, theoretical maintenance of imperial sovereignty over the province of Tarraconensis in the northeast, and the rise of local notables. The emergence of local powers is one of the keys to understanding how the Visigoth kingdom was established in the sixth century, which will be examined in detail in Chapters 3 and 4. Nevertheless, several things changed just after this during the reign of Euric, king of the Gothic realm in southern Gaul between 466 and 484.2 Some authors have speculated that Euric managed to impose Gothic control over almost all Iberia. This view was influenced by the statement of Jordanes

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affirming that Euric held totas Spanias Galliasque (all of Hispania and Gaul). It is certain that Euric had adopted a policy of taking the offensive in the early 470s, considerable information about this being available from Sidonius Apollinaris and other sources that made it plain Euric was expanding his domains in Gaul. As for Hispania, his generals attacked Tarraconensis from both ends of the Pyrenees, perhaps between 472 and 473, in accordance with the chronology derived from the new edition of the Chronica Gallica a. DXI prepared by Burgess. Gauterit attacked Pampilone and Caesaraugusta, modern Pamplona and Zaragoza. Heldefred and Vincentius, hitherto a high-ranking member of the imperial administration in Hispania, headed for Tarraco and took control of the coast. Isidore of Seville was to note long after the event that Euric seized upper Spain (superioremque Spaniam) but not without resistance from aristocratic groups (Tarraconensis etiam prouinciae nobilitatem). These local notables in Tarraconensis who opposed the Gothic troops are likely to have lived not long after the people who encouraged the setting up of the dedication to the emperors in the capital of the province. Not all specialists have agreed with the view that Euric gained total dominance over Iberia, and the available evidence does not support such an idea. This will become clear shortly when the Consularia Caesaraugustana and campaigns in the period of Euric’s successor, Alaric II, are considered.3 This affects our interpretation of the political evolution of the kingdom in the sixth century, as will be seen in Chapter 2. The idea that Euric had almost total control of Iberia was also based on an inscription that is now lost. Dating from 483, it mentioned Euric in a text describing the cultivation of lands handed over and repairs to a bridge and the city wall in Emerita, today’s Mérida, in the southwestern peninsula. The text faces problems in respect to its transmission in the records. It refers to the Gothic king Erwig (680–687), but this reading has been emended so that there is some doubt about whether there were several rewritings. Recent analyses would see Euric’s name as quoted in the inscription more for the purposes of chronological reference, since the key figures in it are Bishop Zeno and the dux Salla. It is credible that there would have been such a reinforcement of the city wall: the work undertaken seems now to have been clearly identified by archaeologists as occurring at a point very late in the fifth century. Euric might also not simply be a reference for the date, with the Goths having some sort of specific interest in Emerita. It is highly likely that there was a Gothic garrison in what was the most important city in the Roman administration in Hispania under the late empire. The city had been the object of particu lar attention during Theoderic II’s campaigns in 456 and 457, and it would not be strange for it to be decided that

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a foothold should be kept in Emerita. However, this does not mean that Euric controlled all Hispania.4 On the basis of the idea that Iberia was already under the control of the Gothic kingdom under Euric, the mass entry of the Goths into the area was seen as taking place at the end of the fifth century, during the reign of his successor Alaric II. This would have continued in 507, after Alaric was defeated and killed by the Franks under Clovis. This line of argument holds that the Goths would have settled mainly on the Central Plateau or Meseta. This idea of a migration in the late fifth century was grounded on two pieces of information, apart from Euric’s supposed previous takeover. The first was the information noted in the Chronica Caesaraugustana, and the second the cemeteries that in the twentieth century were given the name of “Visigothic necropolises,” as mentioned elsewhere in this book. The first aspect will be very briefly considered here. The Chronica Caesaraugustana points to the arrival of Goths in Iberia in the time of Alaric II. The text states that in the year 494 the Goths entered Iberia (Goti in Hispanias ingressi sunt), and that in 497 the Goths controlled enclaves in Hispania (Gotthi intra Hispanias sedes acceperunt). It must be stated that this source is less linear than Mommsen described in his edition. The text is a compendium of diverse pieces of information based on consularia but also on laterculi or lists of Gothic kings and other types of texts. Since the appearance of the edition by Cardelle de Hartmann, and in accordance with the suggestion in it, this source should be called the Consularia Caesaraugustana. Its text also gives hints that there was local opposition. For instance, it mentions Burdunelus, who in the Consularia is explicitly called a tyrant (tyranidem assumit, he assumed tyranny) in referring to the arrival of the Goths in 494, and notes for 497 that Burdunelus was betrayed by his own people and taken to Toulouse, where he was put inside a bronze bull and burnt alive (Tolosam directus in tauro aeneo impositus igne crematus est). Some years later, in 506, these same Consularia state that the Goths took Dertosa, today’s Tortosa, a coastal city south of Tarraco, and that another man, Petrus, was executed—it is surmised in that same place, given the structure of the sentence and the fact the text is at pains to point out that his head was taken to Caesaraugusta. Most likely the references in the Consularia allude to military campaigns against Tarraconensis, the same zone attacked two decades before by King Euric’s generals. Their sense would be a reinforcement of the Gothic strategic presence in this zone, which over recent years had been eroded by opposition from local powers in the northeast. The texts give the impression that the Goths, who even under Alaric II still did not control all Hispania, had at least succeeded in consolidating their hegemony in parts of

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Tarraconensis and were beginning to stamp out resistance from local magnates, such as Burdunelus and Petrus: the nobilitas to which Isidore was to refer much later when recalling the era of Euric.5 The end of the Roman Empire in Iberia, as elsewhere in the West, was a gradual process. However, it was not just an end but also a time of changes, some of which were very long lasting. Two elements in this collapse should be highlighted, apart from the consolidation of the kingdom of the Sueves in the northwest. First, there was slowly increasing Gothic interest in Iberia. Second, there was a growth in the importance of local notables in both cities and countryside. All of this is essential to an understanding of the rooting of the regnum Gothorum in Iberia, as will be seen, especially in Chapters 2 and 4. However, with regard to the fifth century, attention should be drawn to changes in material evidence provided by archaeology.

The Archaeological Revolution Until a few years ago it was habitual for university textbooks on Hispania in late antiquity to refer to the idea of decline. This was based on a priori concepts. Hispanic cities from the times of Vespasian or Hadrian, with their forums, columns, and temples, were stylistically far ahead of the archaeological remains from later periods. All of this has changed radically in recent decades. Construction projects for high-speed trains, airports, and highways have led to urban and rural rescue digs. Moreover, new research projects by today’s archaeologists have added substantially to the available material evidence. The result is that knowledge of the cities and countryside of the fifth century and the post-Roman era has greatly changed. At this point it is of interest to reflect briefly on how far such a revolution in archaeology has affected knowledge of the Roman collapse in the fifth century, because these structures in transformation were later to be the foundations for the Visigothic kingdom. Elsewhere in this book (Chapters 2 and 3) attention will be paid to deposits from the sixth and seventh centuries when considering this settlement. In the cities of fifth-century Hispania it was common for public spaces to be put to new use. In most cities in Hispania in the fifth century, as in a large part of the West, forums, amphitheaters, theaters, and temples were either occupied for domestic use or dismantled. Another phenomenon datable to this point is that large domus groups within urban areas were split up for diverse uses. Furthermore, in the fifth century, churches began to proliferate, both inside and

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outside the walled areas of cities. At times, as in Barcino (Barcelona), it is possible to identify the episcopal buildings, which later grew more extensive, as in Barcino itself or in Valentia, with sixth-century levels seeming clearer than fifth-century ones. In Barcino it has been shown that there was relatively widespread use of pedestals with inscriptions or fragments of columns taken from the forum to build the episcopal buildings. In general, the fifth century sees a shrinking in great public spaces, the impoverishment of materials employed, a steady growth in ecclesiastical construction within the city walls and in suburbia, and the occupation for domestic purposes of former public spaces and even part of the street network.6 In the countryside archaeological evidence provides information on four main phenomena: the end of the Roman uilla (rural properties and estates with land and a luxurious residential complex) the springing up of numerous castella (fortified hilltops), the problem of what were formerly known as “necropolis areas along the Douro,” and the beginnings of peasant villages. These four elements form part of the same mass of transformations that involved the cities, in other words, the context of the collapse of the Roman system. The uillae—one of the most striking power structures in the countryside—were farming complexes with various different types of workers, whether dependent freemen or slaves. Their residential zones often had a monumental appearance, with numerous rooms and exuberant ornamentation. However, the majority of uillae in Hispania were abandoned as the fifth century advanced. Some did linger on, however, not as uillae as such but as places occupied by peasants or used for burials. The end of the uillae implies a change in the interests of the aristocracy, who channeled their investments in other directions, and partly also a reduction in their overall wealth and capacity. It also signals a turning point in the identity of these elites, the most powerful sectors of which were to find scope for their expansion in the ecclesiastical sphere and soon in collaboration with the new political systems in the West, the regna.7 Another phenomenon that current archaeology has detected, especially from the fifth century onward, is the emergence of castella, inhabited places on high points, often fortified. When a contemporary, Hydatius, refers to them, he gives the impression that they played a very active role in the balance of power and conflicts in the northwest. Archaeology has gradually detected them throughout the greater part of Iberia. They range in size from a number of acres to barely more than one. Some have walls similar to those around towns; others have very modest walls or even no defenses at all. As in the case of cities and villages, more details of castella will be given in Chapters 3 and 4, which concentrate on the

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relationship between the Visigothic kingdom and local notables. What should be stressed at this point is that castella are a phenomenon that present-day archaeology notes especially from the fifth century onward.8 A topic much debated by archaeologists is the question of what have traditionally been called “necropolis areas along the Douro.” These are burial zones from the early and mid-fifth century, although some date from a little earlier. They are cemeteries that for most of the twentieth century were seen as belonging to the northern part of the Meseta, hence the description “along the Douro.” They were interpreted in very diverse ways, from barbarian burial grounds to cemeteries for soldiers, as distinct from the peoples of the north. Little by little these deposits have been reinterpreted as being heterogeneous, a view espoused by both Pérez Rodríguez-Aragón, who warns of the need not to see these necropolises as homogeneous, and Vigil-Escalera, who views them as an expression of basically peasant management. This does not prevent some archaeologists from maintaining to this day that there is a direct connection between certain materials from fifth-century Hispania and the groups of barbarians (Sueves, Vandals, Alans, Goths) mentioned by Orosius and Hydatius. Nonetheless, an interpretation of these cemeteries from the early and mid-fifth century that is not on strictly ethnic lines may help in understanding a final matter that should be highlighted.9 In the fifth century peasant villages began to appear, and this phenomenon increased in the sixth and seventh centuries. Until around twenty years back a few scattered deposits were known. In the case of Iberia, not all the villages arose in the fifth century, with some dating to the sixth or even later. However, in many instances the phenomenon does date to the fifth century. These are modest remains, with very simple dwellings. At times an associated cemetery has been found, at other times, none. There is also diversity in the belongings found, ranging from some striking materials for personal adornment to their complete absence. As in the case of ciuitates and castella, villages will receive more detailed attention elsewhere in this book. For the moment it should merely be noted that they started to appear in the fifth century, once again in a context of changes arising as the Roman system collapsed.10 To sum up, the archaeological record has expanded considerably in recent years. Some of the new contexts are late Roman, while others date to the Visigothic period; they are essential for our view of the establishment of central power that will be dealt with in Chapters 3 and 4. The collapse of the Roman Empire was like a whirlpool from which new structures emerged while others disappeared. It was on these changing structures that the Gothic kingdom would be constructed and its elites would establish its ideological architecture, as we

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shall see in Chapter 5. References to power were no longer the same in cities or countryside. There were groups who decided to build dwellings in high places, sometimes with impressive defensive walls, sometimes with modest ones. At the lowest social levels, the peasantry established new forms of organization. Such changes laid the social basis on which the regnum Gothorum was established in the sixth century.

chapter 2

Political Overview The Beginnings of the Gothic Kingdom in Iberia

Between Franks and Ostrogoths The Gothic kingdom in southern Gaul had a military presence in the province of Tarraconensis beginning in the 470s, reinforced in the final years of the fifth century. It is likely to have maintained some form of garrison in cities such as Emerita. However, this is far from indicating that the greater part of Iberia was controlled from Gaul. The battle of Vouillé in 507 and Alaric II’s death imply defeat at the hands of the Franks under Clovis. From then on, details in the sources give the impression of a chaotic situation. The Frankish advance coincided with direct intervention from Italy by the Ostrogothic monarchy under Theoderic the Great.1 Gesalec, the son of Alaric II and a concubina, seized the kingdom, becoming Gotthorum rex, or at least he was so described in the fragmentary texts still extant, such as the Consularia Caesaraugustana. These fragments are clear about the result of the battle in 507: regnum Tolosanum destructum est (the kingdom of Toulouse was destroyed). Another passage in the same source states that Theoderic directly replaced Alaric II as Gothic monarch. It has already been noted that this source is an amalgamation of collections of notes of various sorts; so this discrepancy is not surprising. The main list of Visigothic kings drawn up at a later date, the Laterculus regum Visigothorum, attributes a reign of three years to Gesalec, followed by a year in exile. The early decades of the sixth century are very confusing in respect to the political history of the Gothic kingdom. Gesalec, Theoderic, and Amalaric all appear in the sources covering these years as heads of the Gothic kingdom. Amalaric was the child of the marriage between Alaric

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II and Theodegotha, Theoderic’s daughter, so Amalaric was the Ostrogothic king’s grandson. Direct intervention by the Ostrogoths in southern Gaul began as early as 508, and the military and political panorama is complex.2 Over a century later, Isidore would state that Gesalec had been chosen as king in Narbonne. He also notes that the siege by the Burgundians under Gundobad caused the king to flee to Barcino, which may have happened around 509. Once again northeastern Iberia emerged as a rear-guard area for the Gothic kingdom. Meanwhile, it seems that the Ostrogothic king managed to take control of the part of the Visigothic treasury that was in Carcassonne, in addition to backing Amalaric. By 510 the Consularia say that Theoderic sent his general Ibbas, who succeeded in forcing Gesalec to flee from Hispania and go into exile in Africa. Procopius stresses that Theoderic took hold of the kingdom. Gregory of Tours noted that after the defeat and death of Alaric II, his other son, Amalaric, crossed into Iberia and took on the succession, and that Clovis seized the part of the Gothic royal treasury that was in Toulouse. The image that Isidore of Seville projected of Gesalec in his Historia Gothorum (HG) was pitiful. He terms Gesalec’s flight from Gaul to Barcino an ignominia. However, sources closer to the events, such as the Gaulish Chronicle and Consularia Caesaraugustana, claim that it was General Ibbas who led the offensive. In any case, the general confusion is of importance both for dating and for scenarios. Isidore insists on the idea of exile, already mentioned by the Consularia, which speak of exile to Africa, and notes there was no assistance from the Vandal kingdom. Consequently, Gesalec decided to return to Gaul, staying in Aquitaine for a year. The final battle apparently took place twelve miles from Barcino, victory going to the Ostrogothic general Ibbas. According to Isidore, Gesalec was captured in Gaul and executed. His fall (ca. 511/513) marked the total hegemony of the Ostrogoths in the Visigothic kingdom, which certainly had been in effect, although not completely, since Alaric II’s defeat at the hands of Clovis. The account by Gregory of Tours directly assigns the Visigothic throne to Amalaric. However, there are more than sufficient indications in other sources that Gesalec was recognized as king by at least some of the Goths. With the documentation so fragmentary, it is difficult to draw conclusions, and some authors have envisaged the possibility that he held his court in Barcino. Study of the texts gives the impression that his position was stronger in that area. He did attempt from the start, and after his exile, to take possession of the core of what remained of the kingdom in Gaul. In any case, his resort to Barcino appears in the sources as a flight to a place from where he could fight a final battle against Ibbas.3

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Ostrogothic hegemony having been confirmed, Theoderic was recognized as king much later in the Laterculus regum Visigothorum. This was also recorded by Isidore, and in addition Theoderic appears as such in the Consularia Caesaraugustana. In this last case, though, it is specified that he was acting as guardian (tutelam gerens) for the young Amalaric (Amalarici paruuli). Theoderic is cited as a reference for the dating of the council of Tarraco (Tarragona) in 516, as well as the one held in Gerunda (Gerona) in 517, both in northeastern Tarraconensis. This zone, as has been stressed, contained the main enclaves that the Visigothic kingdom of Gaul controlled in Iberia. Procopius noted that Theoderic constantly sent generals and troops to both Gaul and Iberia. Here Procopius’s allusion to payment of tribute that arrived in Italy each year seems crucial. It must be supposed that it came from both Gaul and Iberia, as the statement about taxes continues directly after that concerning the sending of troops to the two areas. Procopius hints that in practice Theudis was the strong man for the Ostrogoths in Iberia but that he pursue his own agenda. This may have led to some expansion of his interests, later confirmed by his designation as king of the Visigoths.4 In the context of Ostrogothic hegemony over the Gothic kingdom in Gaul and the positions it controlled in Iberia, one specific set of documents is of great interest. It comprises two letters sent by Theoderic to Ampelius (uir inlustris, illustrious man) and Liuverit (comes, companion, but also a delegate of the king), uir spectabilis (admirable man). They were responsible for Ostrogothic matters in the zones Theoderic controlled in Iberia. The textual content is essentially fiscal. It cites villici, who are assigned a financial function, and conductores of royal estates, among others. Theoderic urged his emissaries to investigate tax abuses. Tax collectors’ whims (arbitrio compulsorum) had replaced the traditional use of deeds and public censuses. Weights and measures had been altered. Among other abuses there had been erroneous calculations, and excessive amounts had been charged as rent for public lands. Moreover, private concerns had taken over the mints for coinage, and corruption had been detected in payments to the exchequer. Orders were even given to restore the functiones publicas (public obligations, which included fiscal charges) of the days of Euric and Alaric II. In his letters, the Ostrogothic king alluded to the scarcity of resources in Rome and ordered the transfer to Italy of grain from Hispania (Hispaniae triticeas) collected as part of the taxes due, so that Rome would receive it as it should. This duty was assigned to the uir spectabilis Marcianus. However, things went wrong, and the grain was diverted to Africa. Investigations of what had happened were entrusted to Catellus and Servandus, putting Ampelius and Liuverit on the spot, since they had failed to avoid this problem. Direct

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responsibility lay with shipowners. Theoderic was able to state the exact amount that they had received from the sale of the wheat (triticum) in Africa—280 solidi for the wheat and 758 for freight charges (in naulis)—and imposed a fine of 1038 solidi on them. The king ended with a general allusion to maintaining justice and the public good (iustitiae et publicis utilitatibus), conscious of the problems arising from failure to comply with such a decision.5 During the Ostrogothic hegemony the Gothic kingdom seems to have increased its control over parts of Iberia, though to an extent that is impossible to specify at this distance in time. This can be seen both in the administration directly controlled from Ravenna by Theoderic and in the room for maneuvering that Theudis seems to have enjoyed, if Procopius is to be believed. Procopius records Theudis’s marriage to a rich lady from Iberia, of whom he says that she was not a Goth but from the local population. He states that this marriage allowed Theudis access to the numerous staff of his wife’s vast estates, from among whom Theudis recruited some two thousand soldiers and lancers. The part played by Theudis seems to have expanded Gothic interests in Iberia. Theoderic consented to all this, as Procopius sees it, both because of Theudis’s efficiency and because of his fear of an advance by the Franks. Theudis sent taxes to Ravenna but did not go there in person despite being summoned by Theoderic.6 On Theoderic’s death in 526, Italian matters passed into the hands of Athalaric, while those of the Gothic kingdom of Gaul and positions in Iberia went to Amalaric, who married Chlothild, a Frankish princess. Procopius gives a laconic account but does elucidate the essential terms of the division of power and also states that the conflict between Amalaric and the Franks arose from a religious pretext: the Visigothic king was an Arian and his Frankish wife a Catholic. The Consularia Caesaraugustana note that in 531 the king was defeated by Childebert near Narbonne and fled to Barcelona, where he was assassinated by a Frank called Besso.7 Gregory of Tours’s version of events is similar, though it differs on a few points. He states that Amalaric had married princess Chlothild, but his bad behavior toward his wife caused her brother Childebert to decide to invade the kingdom. The basic account recalls the Greek version by Procopius, but Gregory goes into details, as is usual in his Historiae. He stresses religious conversion, emphasizing that Amalaric wanted his wife to abandon Catholicism and become an Arian. Amalaric is claimed to have had people throw dung at Chlothild when she headed to church to pray, in addition to his mistreating and hitting her. Chlothild sent her brother Childebert a handkerchief stained with her own blood, and finally he intervened. As so often occurs in Gregory’s work, the truth-

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fulness of each detail is not known. The bishop of Tours was producing an account for a late sixth-century audience. What he really wanted to do was to project the idea that a conflict in the past, a Frankish offensive against the Visigothic kingdom, was given legitimacy by religion. Gregory situates Amalaric in Iberia. He says that on seeing Childebert’s army advancing, Amalaric attempted to flee the city by sea, without indicating which city. He adds that the army cut off Amalaric’s route to the port and that he was struck by a lance and died.8 Isidore wrote that Amalaric was defeated by Childebert near Narbonne and then fled to Barcelona, where his throat was cut (iugulatus) by his troops; so the two versions differ as to whether he died in Narbonne or Barcelona. All the materials concur, though, that there was a Frankish offensive and that the king died violently. Once again, the main scenarios are in Narbonensis and northeastern Tarraconensis. However, by this time there had been some variations in the political geography of the kingdom.9

The Kingdom in Iberia Despite the image that Gregory and Isidore later projected of Amalaric, one gains the impression that during his reign Gothic interests increased in the interior of Iberia. We know that between 527 and 531 a council was held in Toletum (Toledo) that recognized Amalaric as king. Furthermore, the letters of Bishop Montanus of Toledo from around the same date describe the king as an authority figure. Procopius clarifies that on Theoderic’s death (526) there was a division of power between Athalaric, who took Italy, and Amalaric, who held the Gothic kingdom with its possessions in Gaul and Iberia. Procopius, writing in the Constantinople of Justinian, already uses the term “Visigoth” in Greek (in forms such as Ουισιγοτθοι and Ουισιγοτθων) to designate the Goths whose kingdom lay in southern Gaul with interests in Iberia. This term also appears in Latin in other sixth-century sources and will be used hereafter in this book. Part of the Visigothic treasure taken by Theoderic years before was returned, and the sending of taxes from Iberia to Ravenna ceased. This was a turning point. Procopius adds that after Amalaric’s defeat by the “Germans” (meaning the Franks), there was a migration of Goths into Iberia, with their wives and children. The leader of the Goths in Iberia was Theudis, whom Procopius calls a tyrant. Study of Procopius shows that the deaths of Theoderic in 526 and Amalaric in 531 marked a readjustment of the positions of the Goths, those whom Procopius

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was to call Visigoths on the one hand and the Ostrogoths on the other. The Visigothic kingdom turned definitively toward Iberia, while retaining a part of southern Gaul in Septimania. Hence it was not a sudden process, whether in 531, in 526, in 507, or in 494/497, to cite dates that in different sources are given prominence and have received exclusive attention. Seen overall, it was a process whose roots went back to the first interests of the Goths in Iberia in the fifth century, which were strongly encouraged at the end of the century under Euric, especially in Tarraconensis. In the early decades of the sixth century, as an outcome of Alaric II’s defeat by the Franks and Theoderic’s hegemony, these interests allowed the establishment of tax flows controlled by the Ostrogoths from Ravenna. Finally, Theudis, who for some time had had considerable freedom to maneuver in Iberia, was to end by becoming king on the basis of these structures. Procopius implies that Theoderic was afraid of a possible military revolt by Theudis and hence preferred to give him space to operate. Jordanes presents Theudis as Amalaric’s guardian, who simply took on the status of rex on the latter’s death as a logical step. As noted earlier, the advance of Gothic interests into the interior would be confirmed by the recognition of Amalaric as king by the bishops gathered in Toledo. However, there are other details relating to Theudis’s time as king that would support this hypothesis. Procopius speaks of an embassy sent by the Vandal king in 533, in the context of war against imperial forces, with the aim of obtaining an alliance with the Visigothic kingdom. He gives the detail that the emissaries arrived by ship but met Theudis in a place far from the coast, while on another occasion the king had received information directly from sailors. The possibility that Seville was King Theudis’s capital has been mooted, but this is not stated explicitly in Procopius’s text. Nevertheless, the passage does make clear that the interests of the Visigothic kingdom were beginning to expand beyond what had been noted under Amalaric as the case for Toledo. The Consularia Caesaraugustana tell of the entry of Frankish kings into Hispania in 541, traversing Pampilona and reaching Caesaraugusta. The initial bases of the Gothic kingdom in Iberia lay in Tarraconensis, but it is no coincidence that the core of the fighting was on the routes into Caesaraugusta. This was the entry to the interior of Iberia and led to the areas that had gradually fallen under the control of the Visigothic kingdom during the days of Amalaric and Theudis. The Consularia state that the siege of Caesaraugusta lasted forty-nine days. At the end of the same century, Gregory of Tours took an interest in the affair. He noted that the leaders of the expedition were kings Childebert and Chlothar themselves. His viewpoint is one of hostility toward the Goths, who were Arians, and he stresses the part played by the relics

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of St. Vincent, which were carried around the city walls. Isidore mentions the campaign but sets it in a context of Visigothic power politics, which he is keen to highlight. He is not bothered about justifying Theudis’s Arianism, as the king had permitted a council to be held in Toledo. If Isidore is referring to the Second Council of Toledo recorded in the Hispanic Canonical Collection, the king in question would really have been Amalaric, but Isidore may be speaking of some other gathering of bishops of which no records have been preserved. Isidore mentions Theudisclus’s role as the military winner of the victory over the Franks. The other major campaign in this reign was against the enclave of Ceuta in the north of Africa, but it ended in failure and the stronghold remained in imperial hands. Theudis was killed in palatio (in the palace), although Isidore does not say in which city. He does, however, express a value judgment when he records the supposed words of the dying king, saying his killer should be forgiven as his death was well deserved. In the long version of HG, Isidore made things even clearer: Theudis had deserved death—Nec mora praeuenit mors debita principem (the prince did not delay in paying with his deserved death). This choice of words by Isidore was a message to his readers of the 620s, relating to suspicions that Sisebut might have been poisoned. His treatment of the death of Theudis served Isidore’s interests in royalty, which he wished to inculcate into his aristocratic audience of the 620s.10 King Theudis decreed a law on trial costs in 546. This law was directed at universis rectoribus et iudicibus (to all the rectors and judges), provincial and local representatives of the central power. It reflected the desire of the central power to demonstrate its local ramifications in the legal and political fields and makes sense within the context of the expansion of the Visigothic kingdom into the interior of Iberia. The law was promulgated in Toledo, an indication of the interest of the Gothic monarchy in Toledo that we have already seen in Bishop Montanus of Toledo’s letters. Along with the Second Council of Toledo (ca. 527/531), medieval manuscript transmission has handed down two letters written around these dates by Montanus. The council met in the city of Toledo (in ciuitate Toletana), and, as stated in the beginning of the text preceding the canons, Montanus was a key figure in it (apud Montanum episcopum). King Amalaric was cited as a reference. Moreover, Montanus was the first to sign the minutes.11 After the list of those attending the council, the two letters are included. The first is from Montanus to the lords and their brothers and sons, in the area of Palencia (dominis dilectissimis fratribus filiisque territorii Palentini). The letters deal with ecclesiastical and territorial organization, probably having to do with

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local powers in the Douro basin. It is of interest at this point to note that Montanus appears as the metropolitan bishop of a new ecclesiastical province, Carpetania uel Celtiberia, and wishes to exercise his authority in the Palencia area. He argues that he has the support of the king. There were bishops from other territories who went to consecrate basilicas (ad consecrationem basilicarum alienae sortis a uobis) in the zone around Palencia, which Montanus takes as now falling under the metropolitan authority of Toledo. Some think this refers to bishops from the kingdom of the Sueves, others that the bishops came from provinces such as Tarraconensis. Whatever the case may have been, Montanus of Toledo states that such episcopal interventions were not appropriate for the province (his new province of Carpetania uel Celtiberia) nor for the king’s business (nec prouinciae priuilegiis nec rerum domini noscitur utilitatibus conuenire). Montanus adds that the king had been informed of such interference. In the other letter, addressed to one Toribius, Montanus makes plain that this personage had held offices in the secular world (enim adhuc floreres in saeculo). However, he was now devoting himself to religion as a Catholic and had been able to convert and soften the hearts of his fierce neighbors ( feroces cohabitantium tibi animos). This has been interpreted as referring to the Goths or even the Sueves. Montanus charged Toribius with the mission of eliminating abuses in the Palencia area, already mentioned in the other letter to the faithful of that zone. It was a question of consecration of holy oils by priests, or of churches by bishops, from other regions, and once again use is made of the word sortes: fratres nostri alienae sortis episcopi (our brother bishops from other areas). Once more the king is described with the term dominus as the ultimate fount of authority, although in this instance a certain Erganus is cited as intermediary between the highest authority and the judge (et huiusmodi ausum praecepta culminis eius uel districtio iudicis). In both letters the figure of the king is seen as a point of reference, supporting Montanus, who attempts to make use of his authority to impose his will on the northern fringes of his new ecclesiastical province in the center of Iberia. It should not be forgotten that the Gothic monarchy was Arian. Montanus at no point mentions the Goths, probably because the recipients of his letters, the faithful and clergy of Palencia in the first and Toribius, his emissary to Palencia, in the second, were fully aware of them. This dominus must be Amalaric, in view of the connection of the letters with the Second Council of Toledo in their transmission in the medieval codices. Montanus’s letters give the impression that things were changing. The bishop of Toledo, in the center of Iberia, relies on the king and on one of his government officers, Erganus. The king’s support for Montanus in his control of the Palencia

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area gives an idea of the gradual beginnings of the extension of the Gothic sphere of interest. It would be hard to claim there is no relation between these texts and the excerpt from Procopius speaking of immigration at the time of Amalaric’s death, which occurred very shortly after the date of these letters. In short, the context is one of the gradual evolution of a kingdom that until this time had been concentrated, apart from southern Gaul, in northeastern Tarraconensis. The interests of the Gothic kings under Amalaric (d. 531) were already tending toward the center of Iberia, the Meseta, both in Toledo and beyond that in the north in the basin of the Douro and areas around Palencia and Segovia, a region where the letters name several enclaves. These texts reveal the interest of the Gothic royalty in drawing support from the territorial dimension that the Catholic Church could provide. Of course, this was just the start of a route that would be followed decades later, despite theological tensions between Catholics and Arians. What with the council of Toledo in 527/531, the letters of Montanus of Toledo around these dates, and the law promulgated by Theudis in 546, the overall impression gained is that the kingdom had extended its bases into the interior of Iberia, with indications of southward expansion. The reference by Procopius to the south, noted in the context of Theudis’s movements, would appear to confirm that the construction of the kingdom in Iberia had started.12 For a long time it was believed that the Visigoths settled on the Meseta, the great central zone of Iberia. A number of cemeteries that were generally regarded as dating from the late fifth to the seventh century, depending on the individual deposit concerned, were discovered many years ago. A “mass” entry of Goths had also been linked to references in the Consularia Caesaraugustana for the final years of the fifth century. This interpretation raises numerous problems. Infiltration by Visigoths is indeed an event with its roots in the fifth century, but the historical process as such culminates in the first three decades of the sixth century. Certain archaeological schools of thought with considerable influence during the twentieth century associated these cemeteries with the Gothic migration into Iberia, particularly on the basis of the presence of certain types of belt buckles or brooches of fibula style. This led to the crystallizing of a concept of “Visigothic necropolises,” examples being deposits such as those at Madrona, El Carpio de Tajo, and Duratón, among others.13 Some archaeologists have taken a fresh look at this ethnically based paradigm associating materials with peoples. In the case of the so-called “Visigothic necropolises,” there is debate as to whether the Goths had material goods inherently linked to a supposed specific ethnic status. These materials are interpreted

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by some as prestige goods, representing only a very small proportion of the total funerary record. The necropolises are seen as the burial grounds of rural communities and not as cemeteries that are necessarily “Visigothic.” In fact, some deposits excavated in the last few years have revealed materials traditionally linked with “Visigothic necropolises” in contexts relating to sixth- and seventh-century villages, such as at Gózquez in the Madrid region, among others. As will be seen in Chapter 5, the gens Gothorum functioned in very diverse ways in Iberia during the sixth and seventh centuries. It was a concept with changing senses that finally proved political and all-pervasive. With regard to the material record, it seems logical to accept that certain items (belt buckles and brooches, in particular) acted as signs of prestige. This indicates that in rural communities possibly associated with necropolises there was social stratification, as will be seen in Chapter 3. However, these prestige items are a tiny part of the total rural burial record and cannot in themselves explain the totality of these communities. Thanks to new excavations, today the situation is seen as sufficiently complex to make it impossible to explain on exclusively ethnic lines.14 The settling of barbarians in the West during the fifth century has triggered another argument, in this instance relating to whether they gained direct ownership of land or whether they drew rents and taxes from it according to whether it was private or public. Traditional theories held that, among other instances, the Goths and Burgundians in Gaul and the Ostrogoths in Italy gained access to land very late in the century. However, Goffart claimed that it was more a case of rents and taxes from land than land itself. It would seem that the specific question here has different historical coordinates. Indeed, when the gradual settlement of Goths in Iberia took place, it was decades after the Roman Empire had ceased to exist in the West. Nonetheless, in the sixth and seventh centuries the Gothic kingdom of Toledo kept in force laws that dated back to the period of the Gothic kingdom in Gaul. These were laws that usually mention the concept of the tertiae of Romans, referring to the old system of settlement in fifth-century Gaul. As I see it, the maintaining of such laws relates to mechanisms that the Goths later copied in Iberia. However, by then the empire was no longer in existence in the West. In sixth-century Iberia, the Goths provided themselves with mechanisms similar to those used previously for pieces of both public and private land. Hence they carried forward this legislation during many decades thereafter. Among others, there were leges such as LV 10.3.5 antiqua, which revived CE 276. It even alludes to properties held prior to the arrival of the Goths, ante adventum Gotorum, and the boundary markers indicating the limits of plots, sig-

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nis aut limitibus, structures that must be respected in all cases, iure consistat. Such an insistence on the physical aspects of land must surely ensue from effective access to land ownership, not just to the drawing of rent, or of taxes in the case of public lands. Upkeep of boundaries of properties appears in other instances as well, such as LV 10.3.1 antiqua, also having as its background the era of Euric. At other times the terminology of the period of land divisions, also drawn from fifthcentury Gaul, is retained, as in LV 10.2.1 antiqua on the sortes Goticae et tertia Romanorum (the assignments of the Goths and the thirds of the Romans), which if neither revised nor the object of claims for fifty years should not be subject to reclamation thereafter. Among those dispositions termed antiquae that were retained, a striking example is LV 10.1.8 antiqua, which called for the maintenance of the divisions or sharing of lands and forests between Goths and Romans. It was laid down that a Roman should take no part of the two-thirds that had fallen to a Goth (ne de duabus partibus Goti aliquid sibi Romanus presumat aut vindicet) nor a Goth take any part of a Roman’s third. The intention that these circumstances should remain unchanged suggests that in practice there were infringements of agreements in both directions. The presence of these leges in the sixth and seventh centuries must have been due to interests affecting palace records and fiscal control within an administrative rhetoric that probably did not reflect the fact that this was not the only model of settlement. There would also have been direct occupation needing no judicial discussion and leaving no trace in legislative sources. It is most likely that in practice very diverse pieces of land were occupied, just as the most powerful groups installed themselves in the major cities of the kingdom. Hence, over time the lands to which these laws were applicable must have become a relatively small proportion in the overall structure of property ownership in Iberia in the sixth and seventh centuries. It was only to these properties that reference was made with terms that in the fifth century had implied an ethnopolitical distinction. In the seventh century, when these laws were retained in the legal corpus of the Visigothic kingdom, they referred to the origin of such long-standing properties and not to “ethnic” differences in the seventh century.15 Theudis was assassinated, as was his successor Theudisclus (548–549). Gregory of Tours lingers over the details because he is keen to stress the negative role of the Goths and create the image of a detestabilem consuetudinem (detestable custom) of killing one another. He mentions that Theudisclus was dining with a group of companions when at one point the candles were blown out and the king was killed with a sword. Isidore noted in the short version of his HG that Theudisclus had indeed been done away with during a feast; in the long version

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he added that the king was assassinated in Seville and that he had dishonored the wives of many magnates (plurimorum potentum). Already under Theudis locations in the south (Seville, Ceuta) are seen as prominent in the monarchy’s strategy, but this trend strengthened under his successors. In the reign of Agila (ca. 549–555), cities in the south once again were of importance. Gregory of Tours concentrates on Agila’s fate as a liberation from the yoke of his reign (dominationis suae iugo). This liberation arrived thanks to soldiers from the Eastern Roman Empire, whose ruler at that point was Justinian. Gregory adds that after Agila’s murder the new king, Athanagild, fought against these same troops, in other words, the imperial army, and recovered some of the cities they had taken. Gregory does not, however, mention the internal warfare between Agila and Athanagild. Isidore noted that Agila had led a military campaign against Corduba, today’s Córdoba, in the south. It seems likely that this was not the only such offensive, and it seems to fall within the framework of an expansion of the sphere of influence of the Gothic kingdom into southern Iberia. That area had cities with long-standing Roman traditions and powerful aristocracies, such as Corduba and Hispalis, modern Seville, to name but two. Indeed, Isidore makes use of Roman political terminology when he states that it was a revolt of the ciuitas and that Agila made war on the citizens of that city (aduersus Cordubenses ciues). It is true that he wraps up his information in his habitual religious rhetoric: Agila had profaned the church of St. Acisclus. The consequence was that the king was defeated and lost both his son and his royal treasure. Isidore wrote his book for an elite audience in the first third of the seventh century. Thus Theudisclus was shown as meeting his doom after quarreling with the aristocracy, and Agila met his after profaning a Catholic church. This sort of exempla, whether positive or negative, is at the basis of the sources and is not surprising. Isidore mentions that after his defeat in Corduba, Agila took refuge in Emerita. In the short version Isidore records Athanagild’s uprising in Agila’s third year of rule (551), but in the longer version he tells how Athanagild defeated the troops Agila had sent against him in Seville, which seems to have been some sort of core zone for Athanagild. At this point he brings in the idea that the Goths assassinated Agila in Emerita (ca. 555) fearing the entry of imperial soldiers. Athanagild had made a pact with Justinian to gain military intervention by imperial troops in Iberia (imperial detachments disembarked around 552) to support him in winning power, which Isidore sees as totally illegitimate: Athanagildus tyrannidem regnandi cupiditate arripiens (Athanagild, greedy to rule, usurped power). He concurs with Gregory of Tours that once Athanagild gained power he tried to expel the Byzantines. Here, though, while

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Gregory indicates that he had managed to recover some cities, Isidore chooses to see him as failing. It must not be forgotten that Isidore’s family came from Carthaginiensis and that the presence of imperial soldiers had been one of the catalysts in the family’s departure. Byzantine troops managed to establish military control from Cádiz to Valencia, especially along the coast. Athanagild died in Toletum, and an interregnum of some five months ensued. The next king was chosen from the other side of the Pyrenees.16

Expansion and Fissures Liuva I was proclaimed king of the Goths in Narbonne toward the end of 567 or at the beginning of 568. The information about the geographical siting of Liuva’s proclamation comes from Isidore, but John of Biclar makes no mention of it. He reigned three years, but in the second year (568/569) associated his brother Leovigild with him in power. John states that Leovigild managed to put down revolts and recover the possessions of the kingdom. Liuva had come to power in Septimania. This may explain Leovigild’s need to attract support from Gothic magnates in Iberia and also his marriage to Gosvinth, Athanagild’s widow. Leovigild undertook campaigns in many different parts of Iberia. Let it suffice to note, among others, his successful offensives in Medina Sidonia, or in Córdoba and its rural hinterland, which John sets after Liuva’s death. Leovigild attacked Sabaria, fighting the Sappi, in the northwest. He made his sons Hermenegild and Reccared associates in power (consortes regni), these being his children by a previous wife. Around 573 to 574 he attacked Cantabria in the north, taking the enclave of Amaia. Shortly afterward he undertook an offensive in the Aregenses mountains in the northwest, and in 576 to 577 in the zone of Orospeda in the south. Around 578 he founded Reccopolis in the center of Iberia. John takes pains to point out that the city was named after his son (ex nomine filii), in other words, after Reccared. Archaeology has identified the city’s location as the archaeological site at Cerro de la Oliva in Zorita de los Canes in the province of Guadalajara. Isidore writes that Leovigild was the first Gothic king to appear regali ueste (regally clothed). There has been considerable debate about precisely what garments are meant by this term. They may perhaps have been an imitation of the traditional dress of the court in Constantinople, but whatever they were, they constituted a symbolic reinforcement of royalty in a stage of full expansion. This is also the case for the foundation of Reccopolis, or the issuing of coinage with the king’s name, which henceforth would be customary.

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John sets three events at this time. The first is Hermenegild’s marriage to Ingund, whom the historian does not mention by name. The second is the cession of part of the territory for him to rule. The third is the outbreak of a war between Leovigild and Hermenegild. The chronicler accuses the latter of tyranny and specifically of working factione Gosuinthe, which has to be understood as signifying “with the support of Gosvinth’s faction.” This is a sentence that has aroused debate, but the text seems clear enough. Gosvinth was Athanagild’s widow, while Hermenegild’s wife, Ingund, the daughter of Brunhild and Sigibert of Austrasia, was her granddaughter. Gregory of Tours represents Gosvinth as trying to get Ingund to convert to Arianism. However, the impression is given that the war involved conflict among the nobles. The child that Ingund and Hermenegild had was significantly given the name Athanagild. By his marriage to Gosvinth, Leovigild was looking to gain access to the group that had supported king Athanagild. It should not be forgotten that this group allied itself with the imperial powers when it rose against King Agila. It was these same imperial powers whose support Hermenegild sought years later via Leander of Seville. Later still, however, in John’s chronicle and then in Isidore’s HG, Hermenegild appears with the profile of a tyrannus. The theater of the war was the key enclaves in the south where support for Hermenegild was concentrated: Emerita, Hispalis, and Corduba, among others. Neither John nor Isidore says a single word about Hermenegild’s conversion to Catholicism, but Gregory of Tours and Gregory the Great both mention it. John makes it plain that the revolt started in Hispalis. The bishop there was Leander, who is known to have traveled to Constantinople. His stay there cannot be dated with certainty but must have been in the early 580s, and the precise date of his return is not known. While in the imperial capital he got to know Gregory, the future bishop of Rome, who some time later wrote that Leander’s journey to Constantinople had been due to matters of the Visigoths’ faith. Leander surely negotiated imperial support for Hermenegild, who also initially had the backing of the kingdom of the Sueves in northwestern Iberia. John’s account of the arrival of the Sueves in the south is ambiguous. It can be interpreted in two ways, one suggesting support for Leovigild, the other for Hermenegild. Decades later, Isidore gives the impression that they came to back the first of the two. However, the text by Gregory of Tours, prior to Isidore’s and based on information from ambassadors sent by the Gothic and probably also the Sueves who came to him a few years after the war, insists that in principle the Sueves supported Hermenegild. Be that as it may, Leovigild managed to deactivate both of Hermenegild’s supposed supporters, imperial and

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Suevian. According to Gregory of Tours, 30,000 solidi were paid to the imperial authorities. The Sueves were clearly neutralized. Gregory of Tours stresses two factors that for their part John and Isidore both minimize. One is the influence of Ingund, the daughter of Sigibert of Austrasia and Brunhild, who in turn was the daughter of Athanagild and Gosvinth. Another of the daughters of the latter, Galsvinth, married Chilperic I of Neustria. Venantius Fortunatus somewhat later and in poetic style recorded how both had departed from Toledo for Gaul. There seems to have been a swing among certain groups of Gothic magnates, who had aligned themselves with Hermenegild against Leovigild and Reccared, taking the side of Gosvinth and her granddaughter Ingund. In fact, some years later Gosvinth herself was to head a rebellion against Reccared when he became king. The second factor Gregory of Tours emphasizes is religion. He describes Leovigild as a persecutor of Catholics who was confronted by Hermenegild, a convert to Catholicism thanks to Ingund. For his part, John says nothing about any possible influence from Ingund and in fact does not mention her by name. He does note the marriage of Hermenegild to Sigibert’s daughter and the fact that Leovigild handed over territory for them to govern. By 580–581, in addition to undertaking a campaign in the north against the Vascones and founding Victoriaco, Leovigild had mobilized his troops to move into the south. This was where the bulk of support for Hermenegild was to be found. It is known that he entered Emerita and that the last battles of the war took place in the province of Baetica, in Corduba, Hispalis, and Italica. The area around Seville was thus key both for the origin of the revolt and for the ending of the war around 584. Hermenegild was finally captured in Corduba. The part played by Leander of Seville is unclear in the texts from Iberia, although, as noted earlier, it was precisely at this time in the early 580s that he traveled to Constantinople. First John, then Leander himself in his speech to the Third Council of Toledo, and finally his brother Isidore all take care not to mention Leander’s involvement in the conflict. However, Gregory the Great does give some hints, as has been seen earlier. Hermenegild was taken to Toledo and exiled to Valentia, modern Valencia. Shortly afterward, around 585, Leovigild conquered the Suevian kingdom in the northwest, while his rebellious son Hermenegild was killed in Tarraco by a certain Sisbert. Simultaneously, there were several military campaigns in the province of Narbonensis to resist Frankish offensives. At least one was successfully led by Reccared. John was at pains to note that when Reccared succeeded Leovigild this happened cum tranquillitate (calmly). The account that Isidore gave of Leovigild

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some years later was very similar to John’s, the latter having been a source for his work. Isidore stressed Leovigild’s role as leader of the kingdom, to which he added new territories by means of military campaigns, about which he gives details very much like those in John’s version. Both writers present Leovigild as a sort of definitive turning point in the extension of the Visigothic kingdom to almost all Iberia, excepting only the imperial possessions in the southeast, which in any case were now gradually eroded. The reinforcement of unity around the regnum Gothorum and the expansion of its social basis would explain the law by which Leovigild removed the prohibition on mixed marriages between Romans and barbarians. Isidore in particular highlights the strengthening of royal powers. He stresses this was on both a symbolic and an effective plane, alluding to confiscations from nobles and bolstering of the royal treasury. John and Isidore agree in presenting Hermenegild as a rebel, with the classic concept of a tyrannus rising against a legitimate regime. Nevertheless, they differ over the religious aspect, where Isidore is much more strongly against Leovigild than is John. The silence about the conversion of Hermenegild to Catholicism is not exclusive to John and Isidore. The Vitas (sic) Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium (VSPE) (Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida) a hagiography written in Emerita in two stages during the seventh century, is equally silent about this, even though, as mentioned earlier, it is known from Gregory of Tours that Leovigild had to attack Emerita around 582 at the start of the war against his son.17 Reccared succeeded his father in 586. He had taken part in the war against his brother and it was to him that Hermenegild had surrendered. It had been Reccared himself who led the campaign to Septimania to counter the offensive by Guntram. It was probably in this northward advance that he took Hermenegild from Valencia to Tarragona, where he was executed by a certain Sisbert. A few months after the beginning of Reccared’s reign, this same Sisbert died in what John of Biclar calls a morte turpissima (shameful death). He may have been executed on Reccared’s orders, since the latter may also have been the person who had Hermenegild killed by Sisbert one or two years before. From a Merovingian perspective, Gregory of Tours found it striking that Reccared made a pact with Gosvinth. It should be remembered that John of Biclar stressed that Gosvinth played a key part in Hermenegild’s rebellion. Yet Gosvinth was Brunhild’s mother. The agreement with Gosvinth was doubtless intended by Reccared to gain the backing of the noble factions who had supported the elderly woman for decades past. Simultaneously he would have consolidated relations with the Austrasian court, these having been strained since

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Map 1. Iberia at the end of the sixth century.

the tragic end of Ingund and the capture of the boy Athanagild by imperial forces. Just as Leovigild had arranged for Hermenegild to marry Ingund, he had tried at one point to get Reccared wed to Rigunth, the daughter of Chilperic of Neustria and Fredegund. This marriage never took place, however, and later, when Reccared was king, a different matrimonial project arose for him, in this case marriage to Chlodosind, the daughter of Sigibert and Brunhild, sister of the now deceased Ingund, and Gosvinth’s granddaughter. This match likewise did not occur. In fact, Reccared was to appear in Toledo in 589 with a wife named Baddo. Reccared’s reign is of particular relevance because it was then that the regnum Gothorum underwent conversion to Catholicism (as also did the Suevian kingdom, annexed by Leovigild shortly before). Leovigild had already summoned a council of Arian bishops in 580, at which the liturgical mechanisms for moving between Catholicism and Arianism had been rendered suppler. According to Gregory the Great, Leovigild himself on his deathbed had asked Leander to do with Reccared what he had done with Hermenegild, that is, to encourage his

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conversion to Catholicism. It is true that Gregory writes using a hagiographic tone. It must be added that the letters between Gregory and Leander, Reccared and the dux Claudius that have been preserved display a rhetoric of flattery that covers a reality of underlying tensions. After all, Reccared most likely took a direct part in the fall and death of his brother and certainly in defeating the supporters he had had among the clergy and magnates of southern Iberia. Leander figured among these. In 587 Reccared called a synod of Arians, doubtless to prepare for the transition to Catholicism. The king’s personal conversion and the preparations mentioned triggered disturbances that are described by various sources. They took place in crucial enclaves, such as Toledo, Mérida, and Narbonne. Both Arian bishops and magnates, including Gosvinth, were involved, but these revolts were all quashed. Moreover, Reccared managed to retain control of Septimania despite Guntram’s offensives. In 589 the Third Council of Toledo was held, making the conversion of the kingdom official. Leander pronounced a convoluted homily in which he omitted the Hermenegild episode and even left out the name of King Reccared himself. In the council the bishops recalled how Reccared’s decision had its roots in the tradition of Catholic councils in the late Roman Empire. This was an ideological projection of symbiosis between kings and bishops. Such an alliance was to have a long future in the Visigothic monarchy and medieval Christian kingdoms. All of this conceals a series of strategic moves, a pact between the royal power and the Catholic Church. This was the basis for what may be termed “the invention of the kingdom.”18 Reccared died toward the end of 601, and his son Liuva II succeeded him. The dynastic line of Liuva I and Leovigild seemed to be consolidating itself. Nevertheless, a coup led by Witteric brought the latter to power in 603. This was the same Witteric who had participated in a plot against the Catholic bishop Masona in Emerita, and who later had broken with the plotters and revealed their plans to Masona’s group, to the dux Claudius and in the final instance to Reccared. This all goes to demonstrate, even with sparse sources, the contradictions of a system dependent on the will of the Gothic magnates to put a king into power or remove him from it. The divisions within the aristocracy may be glimpsed in the letters of Bulgar, who had been comes in a city of the Narbonensis before being exiled by the king, although later restored to his position. Rather like Theudisclus, Witteric was killed at some sort of banquet (inter epulas), according to Isidore, in revenge for some action of the king against an innocent party. Here once again there are glimpses of the fissures to which references have already been made. Apparently Witteric undertook military

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action against the Byzantine possessions in Iberia, though without achieving any clear success. Around 607 he negotiated the marriage of his daughter Ermenberg to Theuderic II of Burgundy. However, the marriage was not consummated, and the bride was returned to Iberia without her dowry. The Gothic king arranged an alliance against Theuderic II with Chlothar II of Neustria, Theudebert II of Austrasia, and the Lombard Agiulf, but this diplomatic project was unsuccessful. The letters of Bulgar the comes give the impression that the next king, Gundemar (610–612), may have been one of the kingdom’s strong men in the Narbonensis. Once he became king, he backed the decree putting Toledo forward as the metropolitan see for the province of Carthaginiensis, and he is known to have attacked northward against the Vascones and to have harried the imperial positions. Sisebut (612–621) likewise carried out military campaigns northward and into the southeast against the imperial possessions. In the north his troops, led by Rechila, attacked the Astures and Ruccones. Isidore mentions that he forced the Jews to convert to Catholicism, sed non secundum scientiam (but not according to wisdom). He apparently carried out conversions potestate rather than ratione (by force rather than by reason). In the second version of his Chronica, which was extended in the period of Suinthila, Isidore took out the phrase gloriosissimus princeps (most glorious prince) and shortened the content here somewhat. In the short version of the HG, completed just after the death of the king in 621, Isidore says he died either from disease (morbo) or from poisoning (ueneno). Nevertheless, in the longer version, completed around 626 during Suinthila’s reign, he removed the word ueneno and replaced it with inmoderato medicamenti haustu (immoderate taking of medicine). Isidore may have been covering up for possible culprits who were in power when he was composing the second version. Sisebut tried to set in place succession by inheritance, so his son Reccared II came to power but died within a few days. This information was also included by Isidore in the long version but not the short. He was taking advantage of the circumstance to justify the fact that Suinthila had likewise attempted to establish a dynastic line at the time when Isidore was producing this expanded version of his book. This king had previously attacked the Vascones and founded Ologicum. The high point of his reign was the now definitive victory over the imperial forces. Isidore notes that Suinthila was the first king to obtain monarchical power over all peninsular Spania (totius Spaniae intra oceani fretum monarchiam regni primus idem potitus). The chapters he gives over to Suinthila are a panegyric, praising the king’s supposed virtues. They end with him

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designating his son Reccimer as his successor, which Isidore appears to approve. The judgment Suinthila deserved, in the view of the bishops gathered in Toledo some seven years after Isidore brought to a close the long version of his HG, was totally different. This was paradoxically the case despite the fact that among those present, the most influential was Isidore himself.19 The fissures in the political system of the regnum Gothorum opened up because of tensions among the aristocracy. Once again they were the ones who saw to it that Suinthila’s attempt to set up a dynasty ended in failure. They arranged a coup based in Narbonensis and led by Sisenand. The latter gained the support of King Dabogert in exchange for a large sum of money. The rebels and their Frankish backers reached Zaragoza. Suinthila abandoned power and Sisenand (631–636) became the new king. At the start of his reign he summoned a council in Toledo, the fourth, held in 633. The bishops decided to take a step forward in constructing the regnum, under the influence of Isidore. They attempted to provide a mechanism for successions that in practice proved useless. It is of interest to note the judgment the bishops felt Suinthila deserved: a severe criticism. This was the same Suinthila whom the same Isidore had praised some seven years before in the long version of his HG. In contrast with the silence of the bishops regarding the fact that Sisenand was in reality a usurper, the chronicler writing in 754 did explicitly record this status. Probably certain materials originating among groups linked to Suinthila were the basis for the king’s meriting a very different evaluation in this chronicle, written in the mid-eighth century. Chintila succeeded Sisenand on the latter’s death in 636. Chintila’s reign, lasting till 639–640, saw two general councils held in Toledo. The intense preoccupation expressed by the bishops regarding the stable status of king and family may well be the best proof that the reality was the complete opposite. Once again the contradictions in the system turn up in the documentation, sometimes directly, sometimes less so. A little later, when Chindaswinth engineered a coup and overthrew Tulga, Chintila’s son, he promulgated a law against those who had sought support from external foes in the times of Chintila. However, it also concentrated on cases of stirring up internal trouble. This is another of the fissures to which the current section refers. Chindaswinth’s ascension to power was very bloody, with hundreds of people slaughtered. From beyond the Pyrenees, Fredegar wrote ironically of these fissures. He noted that Chindaswinth was well aware of the way the Goths deposed their kings, which he calls the morbus Gothorum, the Gothic disease. However, what is clear is that from 642 onward Chindaswinth gained a firm grip on power, ensuring the same for his son. Chindaswinth’s

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rule, as with that of his son Recceswinth, whom he associated with himself in power, marked a turning point in the history of the Gothic kingdom. It was a highly reformist period of both legislative and administrative reforms and falls outside the period of construction of the kingdom that this book is intended to explain.20

* * * This chapter has attempted to show that the establishment of the regnum Gothorum in the former Roman Hispania was not a linear process. It is not even possible to explain it solely on the basis of the Goths’ defeat by the Franks in 507. Gothic interests in Hispania originated at the start of the fifth century and then grew after the campaigns that took place in the middle of that century. However, it was during Euric’s reign that territories were incorporated into the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by conquest, especially in Tarraconensis. The line taken is that during the period of Euric and his son Alaric II, the Goths were far from controlling the whole of Hispania. It took decades for the Gothic kingdom to set up a firm power base in Iberia. The beginnings of this process can be seen in the time of Amalaric and Theudis, but its high point was to come under Leovigild. The period when the latter’s younger son, Reccared, ruled brought with it a pact with the Catholic bishops, pointing to the route to the political role of councils that was to be seen in the following reigns. The political history of the construction of the Gothic kingdom in Iberia was, above all, one of relationships with local powers and the search for a legitimizing discourse, these being topics covered in later chapters. And it was the basis for the double process: the construction and the invention of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia.

chapter 3

Structures of Power Magnates and Dependents

This chapter starts with two events in the year 642. The first was mentioned at the end of the previous chapter. Tulga, the son of Chintila, lost his throne as the result of a revolt led by Chindaswinth. The latter had eliminated two hundred (ducentis) Gothic magnates, de primatis Gotorum, and a further five hundred from a group of lower rank, de mediogrebus quingentis. In writing about these details, Fredegar could not avoid adopting a somewhat sarcastic tone. He alludes to the tendency of Goths to liquidate their kings, saying of Chindaswinth that he knew the mania that the Goths had for deposing their kings (morbum Gotorum quem de regebus degradandum habebant).1 If the figures are accurate, they give an indication of some of the hundreds of aristocrats who clustered around the top of the system. They would have had different territorial bases but with access to the decision-making mechanisms in Toledo and the cities of the regnum. The second event comes from an inscription now lost. A certain Oppila was buried in October 642, not far from Corduba. He had died in September in the north, fighting against the Vascones. He was forty-six years old. The text states that Oppila had died from a mortal wound in the military campaign. He had dependents with him in the battle, since it was they who carried his corpse home: cli[e]ntes rapiunt peremtum. Oppila was at the battle because he had been summoned. This is to be understood as summoned by the king, since the text says Oppila had received orders to take up arms. He was sent against the Vaccei, but this is a corruption in the copying (or on the basis of the Isidorian link between both words), as in fact it was against the Vascones. It is mentioned that his companions left him alone and unsupported (opitulatione sodalium desolatus). Dis-

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regarding the rhetorical figure, this might be an allusion to other nobles. He was buried by his house slaves (suis a uernulis humatur). Whoever drew up Oppila’s epitaph had a knowledge of classical Roman literature and particularly of Virgil. This person was aware of the rules of versification and the ins and outs of composing a Roman epitaph. Oppila was a powerful man. He had slaves and dependents, some of whom accompanied him to the war. He was a magnate, and his family had the wherewithal to commission a text with a Roman intellectual base, inspired by Virgil.2 The intention in this chapter is to take a look at magnates and peasants. There are problems in detecting them in the sources. Not the least is the fact that one of the essential sources are the leges. There are some who take these absolutely literally, as if they were a sort of photograph of reality. At the opposite extreme, there are some who simply ignore them, perhaps because of ignorance of the Latin in which they are written. Domenico Vera is right to express caution about the sort of history writing that is based almost exclusively on this kind of evidence, though it is also the case that no overall explanation can be built up without taking such sources into account.3 Patrick Wormald was also right in explaining the risks inherent in the leges because of their ideology, strongly permeated by attitudes arising in the royal court, while simultaneously stressing their usefulness as academic material. Sixthand seventh-century leges, which on occasion reiterate previous laws from the period of the kingdom of Toulouse, give us a picture of powerful folk (termed domini, patroni, maiores, potentes, and the like) and dependents, mostly not free, preponderantly called servi. Not all of these are necessarily to be seen as slaves. However, in the light of certain punishments, penalties, and expressions used, there were slaves among the mass of servi, mancipia, ancillae, and so forth. At times it appears that the wording is intended to refer to slaves, for example, in equating mancipia with lands and animals. These words had signified slavery in former times. However, slaves had long since ceased to be the preponderant massive labor force in the West if, indeed, they ever had been such a force outside Italy and Sicily, and even then only at very specific moments in time. Legislative and literary sources are almost lacking in respect to small proprietors. It must be supposed that there would have been many such in the cities and rural areas of sixth- and seventh-century Iberia, but they left virtually no mark on the texts, which are interested in other things. It is easier to find traces of the dependents whom those in power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, controlled through mechanisms such as patrocinium. There were other “Oppilas” in sixthand seventh-century Iberia. Oppila’s case is exceptional because of the interest

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of his now-lost inscription. Likewise there were those who fell at Chindaswinth’s hand in the very same year as did Oppila, and naturally also those who did not. All of these were magnates: Oppila, those purged, those rewarded. They all fell into that category. The empirical evidence demonstrates the existence of magnates and underlying groups. Only on the basis of this is it possible to ask to what extent it was necessary to rely on these groups in constructing the Gothic kingdom in Iberia, as will be done in the next chapter.4

Magnates, Bishops, and Landed Property Despite all the twentieth-century debate on whether society in the time of the Visigothic kingdom was “feudal” or, alternatively, “proto-feudal,” socioeconomic structures in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia rested on underlying late Roman foundations. Although in all probability they were an absolute minority in the population, the Gothic elite’s access to lands must have had local impacts on the management of fundi, or estates. This is one of the reasons that it was important whether individuals were ascribed to the group of Goths, those identifying themselves as Gothi and recognized as such by the leges of the regnum and its political construction. Aristocracies of the Roman tradition continued to exist but had to adapt to these new situations. Regionalization of power during the collapse of the Western Roman world went hand in hand with a decline in both demand and supply. In Iberia this can be seen from a comparison of the material remains of the seventh century as compared with the fourth century. The magnates were great proprietors in the economic sphere and assumed lordship in the social. This was visible as early as around 400, or at least the bishops at the First Council of Toledo assumed it was so.5 The term senator is used at times even in the sixth and seventh centuries. On the one hand, this is a question of structures following the Roman tradition with the management of great properties and personal client statuses. On the other, the world has changed, and this use of aristocratic vocabulary is steeped in rhetoric and archaism.6 The model for aristocratic occupation of rural lands in the fourth and part of the fifth century had been the uillae. However, by the period considered in this book, these uillae had largely disappeared. The mechanisms for their disappearance and its results were highly varied. However, in the sixth century it is normal for these former uillae to have been either abandoned or taken over for some other sort of function, such as burials or the provision of space for peasant

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farming. It is likely that underlying this collapse of the uilla model was an extensive process of concentration of ownership. Together with this was a change in the values of those with power, who gradually ceased to identify with the previous model and moved toward other types of investments, particularly ecclesiastical.7 It is probable that nowhere in Iberia was there to be found anyone with wealth like that of Bertram of Le Mans in Gaul. At his death at the beginning of the seventh century, he had at his disposal a gigantic land holding, divided into more than a hundred separate portions in the territoria of around a dozen cities, among other areas. A law decreed by Chindaswinth gives some idea of the theoretical levels of wealth in Iberia. His law on dowries among the aristocrats holding offices in the regnum (ex palatii nostri primatibus) and those of Gothic origin (vel senioribus gentis Gotorum) limits the dowry it is possible to hand over upon marriage. It is confined to a maximum of one-tenth of the wealth of the magnate. Besides a thousand solidi (mille solidorum), it included a limit of ten pueri, ten puellae, and twenty horses. This model of a large property built up by the accumulation of lands and dependents is the predominant image of society that can be observed in the sources for Visigothic Iberia. This was the case both among lay domini and in the management of great ecclesiastical and monastic estates. By the time the regnum Gothorum came to fix its territorial base in Iberia, these domini were the leaders in their social environments, whether rural or urban. However, there is not much detail in the sources concerning the subtleties. For a start, it is not very clear where these magnates lived. It is known that in the sixth and seventh centuries the uillae were no longer their habitual surroundings. The majority of them, or at least of the most influential, in all likelihood lived in cities, above all in those cities of greatest importance in the kingdom, such as Emerita, Toletum, Barcino, Tarraco, Valentia, Hispalis, and Corduba. This does not mean that these same magnates may not also have had residences in rural settlements, but it seems reasonable to think that these were not used on a permanent basis. It appears certain that in the castella, as the following chapter will attempt to demonstrate, there were potentes, domini, local aristocrats. Nevertheless, they existed on a smaller scale than their counterparts in Emerita, Hispalis, or Toletum.8 The central power itself assumed that the local spheres on which it was attempting to anchor its political system were structured around the power of the magnates, who were called by different names in the laws. Nevertheless, a tendency toward simplification may be observed. At the start of this chapter two concrete examples were given from the year 642, the year that Chindaswinth

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came to the throne. His son Recceswinth was as concerned as his father about possible political coups against him. After all, his family had reached power through what was perhaps the most violent coup in the whole history of the kingdom. When penalties were being established for transgressors who took part in such mobilizations, one group was picked out as liable to lose one-half of its properties, which could be disposed of at will by the king. Other individuals were to hand themselves over, along with all their possessions, to be disposed of as the king saw fit. The first group is described with the expression ex nobilibus idoneisque personis (of noble and free people), the second as being de vilioribus humilioribusque personis (of the most vulgar and most humble people). Recceswinth, who was highly familiar with how usurpations took place, was accentuating the vertical structure of such movements. Penalties were graduated, but it was taken for granted that magnates mobilized their dependents in this kind of process. Once the kingdom had taken political shape during the sixth century and the early years of the seventh century, the existence of magnates and their power networks was taken as real.9 This sort of binary split does not seem to be solely a rhetorical artifice. There is rhetoric here but also real content. Recceswinth’s law had a very clear motive, of which he and his father had firsthand knowledge. The same king made another law that stresses the binary division, in this instance yet more clearly if that is possible between omnis ingenuus adque etiam libertus aut servus (all freemen, freedmen, and servants) and the group patrono vel domino (patron or owner). The text refers to the committing of criminal acts (quodcumque inlicitum). It would appear that in reading Visigothic laws, serui must be seen as comprising both unfree tenants and slaves, according to the context. However, this law also alludes to ingenui, freemen in general. The text takes cognizance of whether any individuals from this group had committed acts by order of their patronus or dominus, clarifying that in that case the one ultimately responsible for the action was precisely the patronus or dominus. Regardless of the degree of compliance, the crux of the matter is that central power as late as the mid-seventh century, at the end of the period covered by this book, accepted the existence of a double condition of social lordship (patroni) and economic dominance (domini) on the part of these local notables.10 We see this double dimension, of patroni and domini, at two points in time, one before and one after the core period addressed by this book: the First Council of Toledo in 400 and the laws of Recceswinth in the mid-seventh century. In the meantime, the Gothic kingdom had taken these aspects on board. This must be the explanation for the retention of an antiqua law on participation in armed

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ser vice by those granted estates. This aspect of the carrying of weapons is also implicit in the fact that another antiqua law was retained, in this instance referring to the use of violence in attacking houses. The specter of possibly violent individuals that was evoked included mention of ingenui, some in eius obsequio vel patrocinio constituti (covered by that obligation and patronage). There was the alternative that there might be ingenui who were not covered by any patrocinium or obsequium, but also those who were in patrocinio vel obsequio. In this case, the person responsible for acts would be the patronus. Finally, servi are mentioned. To sum up, the text separates servi from ingenui, additionally recognizing the difference between the latter two groups: those wholly free and those under a patrocinium. The law was aimed at putting a brake on such attacks. Once more, the interesting feature is not so much the desire to regulate, compliance with which can never now be ascertained, but rather recognition by the central power of these vertical structures of domini and dependents. The political system itself assumed these were in force. Chindaswinth later returned to this matter, although only to adjust penalties and punishments. Even later, the military laws of Wamba (672–680) and Erwig (680–687) attempted to give expression to their desires and aspirations on the basis of similar local realities. The relationship between the capacity to raise armed forces and property structures could already be glimpsed in the case of Theudis (d. 548). Procopius makes plain that he had married a woman from Hispania who was not a Goth. From his wife’s estates he recruited a thousand soldiers. These troops would be linked to the king’s central power, which the Greek-speaking Procopius saw as akin to the concept of δορυφορων, or bodyguards. However that may be, these soldiers certainly came from great estates, in this instance with an owner from the Roman tradition.11 These socioeconomic power structures continued to be rooted in the local contexts of Iberia, and the regnum Gothorum had little choice but to accept them. Nevertheless, on occasion, attempts were made to put some limits on their scope and impact. One way was through conflict resolution, in par ticu lar through trials. The regnum tried to prevent litigants in trials from submitting to magnates (ad maiorem personam) so as to gain the influence of the latter and thus win judgment against their rivals (ut in iudicio per illius patrocinium adversarium suum possit obprimere). The reference implies that this is precisely what happened in real life. It is no less striking that the text had to recognize that in practice powerful people got themselves accompanied to trials by ingenui seu servi. Once again the contrast between free and unfree is can be seen again in the legal texts, but in any case within the sphere of influence of magnates. Apart from being a venue for conflict resolution, trials were a place where domini could gain visibility and

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ostentation, and this continued over time. This is clear from the fact that at a later point one of Chindaswinth’s laws attempted to restrict the influence of patrocinium in trials. This is proof that despite the central power’s wishes, patrocinium still had an effect toward the end of the period covered by this book.12 There were domini and patroni in, for example, Barcino and Emerita, but also at a more modest level in the Douro basin. Naturally the scales of resources and wealth available to the two types were different. However, both were magnates despite their differences. Each was a magnate in a given local context. Whether they could exercise influence beyond their local circle depended on the magnitude of their power in their own territories. Local worlds existed at very diverse levels, from those closest to the royal court (Toletum, Hispalis, Emerita, Corduba, Barcino) to those most remote and isolated, and at every point between. Domini and patroni could differ greatly one from another, but all were hegemonic in their respective local worlds. Recognition of patrocinium by the regnum may be perceived in other details. For instance, it was assumed that whoever was covered by a patrocinium would have to provide compensation to the patronus on leaving the latter or going off to another; that is to say in the case of being infidelis. The former patronus had the backing of the regnum in holding onto the land that had previously been assigned to the individual involved. This even extended to aspects that might have been a competence of the central power and to which the latter attempted to set bounds. What seems relevant is not the system’s desire to regulate matters, but rather the fact that it took for granted that the local power structures of patrocinium functioned.13 Other sources give some idea of the existence of such owners who also controlled networks of dependents, whether unfree tenants or slaves. One very specific case is that of Vincent of Huesca. His donatio of 551 and testamentum of 576 are extant in late copies. Vincent was a great owner, who took religious orders in the monastery of Asán, in the northeastern zone of Hispania, specifically the Pyrenean area. He eventually became bishop of Huesca, in favor of whose ecclesia he made out his testamentum. The donatio covers dozens of properties. These varied in having free, dependent, or slave workforces, spread out at times over estates distant one from another. In the donatio, Vincent listed properties in the Pyrenean zone, in Huesca, Ilerda, and other places in the Ebro valley, such as the environs of Caesaraugusta. They were grouped as a function of the terrae, and within each group the place names of specific properties were given. The expression porcionem meam (my part) is used, implying that in these instances Vincent was the owner of an estate in which others also had a share. He was a magnate who held properties in both mountain and lowland areas. Some were within the

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ambit of major ciuitates, such as Ilerda or Caesaraugusta. Others lay in smaller ciuitates, or in rural surroundings. His testamentum was dictated to his deacon Stephen and nominated the church of Huesca, of which he was bishop, as his principal legatee. The will included real estate along with dependents, both tenants and slaves. A later section of this chapter will return to Vincent of Huesca in discussing the matter of slaves and coloni.14 Vincent is an instance of a magnate with diverse properties in urban, rural, and edge-of-town areas, for whom specific empirical evidence is available. Although of a different nature, there is similar evidence for Oppila. There were many other “Oppilas” and “Vincents,” traces of whom are now lost in the dark gloom of missing documentation. The properties owned by this kind of magnate would have required accounts, but none have survived into the present. It is likely that some of the so-called Visigothic slates could have referred to rents. Others, as will be seen in the next chapter, give more of an impression of potentially being lists of taxes. It could well be a rent register in the case of the Valdelobos slate from Montijos in Badajoz province, which lay in the territorium surrounding Mérida. The slate comes from a context of the breaking up of a uilla that had collapsed during the fifth century, with necropolises of sixth- and seventh-century date.15 It is sometimes possible to detect owners, such as the dominus Gregorius (Gregorios uinditor in the text), who sold (uindere et uindo) a portion of his estate (portione de terra) to his nephew Desiderius; so it can be inferred that Gregorius was the proprietor of a larger estate of which he was selling just one part (portio). Owners are also mentioned on other slates, among others number 45, originating in Diego Álvaro in Avila province. People make payments in the document, for example, Domnella, who appears p[er] mandato sui d[om]ni (by mandate of her lord, a domnus or dominus), or Serena, who also acts p[er] ma[n]dato domn[i sui]. These same surroundings yield another document alluding to hospitium, which here must be understood as a payment in kind by peasants working the land of a dominus who clear their debts with grain and cattle. This is a specific instance in which two men, Simplicius and Matratius, must hand over animals and wheat as their hospitium (quoted in the ablative form hospitio) to their dominus Valentinus. It refers to the latter’s farmyard buildings (in corte domni sui Valentini), where the cow that Matratius was supposed to deliver as hospitium had given birth. Property management also emerges with some clarity in slate 103, originating in El Barrado in Cáceres province, an area that formed part of Lusitania. The slate is an epistula, or letter, with advice on estate management sent by Faustinus to Paulus. The edition, with philological commentary, of

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this letter by Isabel Velázquez allows certain highly interesting data to be extracted. Whoever wrote the letter had a good grounding not just in language and letter-writing but also in the literature and culture of the Roman tradition. It is in late Latin, the language spoken in the Iberia of the period the document was composed, the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century. The letter begins with a traditional Roman structure of directio, intitulatio, and salutatio. It was sent by a certain Faustinus to one Paulus. As reconstructed by the editor, the latter appears as domno Paulo, later reprised as te domne, indicating the respect with which Faustinus addresses him, habitual in letters from this period.16 From the contents of the letter, it is clear that Faustinus is the dominus of the property, and Paulus is in charge of the zone covered by the missive. Paulus may have been a steward or perhaps even another owner, but in any case he was subject to some form of dependence on Faustinus. In fact the latter requests Paulus (rogo) to take personal charge of harvesting olives (p[er] te ipsut oliba illa quollige). He notes that this was the custom (ut comodo consu[etum] facere est). Faustinus next moves into the imperative mood, in what looks to be the most striking sentence on the slate. He tells Paulus that he should try to oblige ([coger]e debeas) his dependents or slaves (ut ipsos mancipios, here in a Latin usage that has already changed the formerly neuter mancipium into a masculine) by means of an oath (in iura[re]mento) not to commit any frauds against him, Paulus (ut tibi fraudem non fa[cian]t). Faustinus gives very precise instructions to Paulus about supervising tools used in the work. He then mentions other people. He uses another exhortatory verb in the imperative to tell him to order one Meriacius (illum Meriacium manda) to come from Tiliata ([d]e Tiliata uenire) to help him (ut aiute tibi). Nothing is known about Tiliata, although Velázquez’s edition comments on the various possibilities and suggests it may be a place name derived from tilia, linden trees. There are then some gaps in the text, but Faustinus suggests to Paulus that he should call on other individuals, one unidentified who should come from Siriola to assist a certain Mantius or Mancius (Mancio nostro) and another, whose name is also missing, who should attend on a certain lady (at illa amma). As the editor herself suggests, these people are moving around at the orders of a dominus, probably between individual holdings within the overall set of estates. Faustinus is the dominus, and Paulus in reality is taking orders and in his turn must give them. The dominus issues instructions to his steward or bailiff on an estate or perhaps to a landowner subordinate to him (Paulus), who then himself encourages Meriacius to come and help him. Similarly, a further un-

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Figure 1. Visigothic slate number 103, obverse. Courtesy of Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid.

named person is expected go to assist that Mancio nostro who must have been another of Faustinus’s agents, like the Paulus who was the addressee of the letter. This also must have been the case for the unidentified amma. There are at least three levels of management. At the top there is the principal dominus, Faustinus; at the next level his agents, Paulus, Mancius, and the amma; and below them people who most likely were tenants and in any case some sort of dependents, that is, Meriacius and the various unnamed others. There are at least three levels, since it is not known whether Paulus had some sort of higher rank than the other agents. Furthermore, at the start mention is made of ipsos mancipios (those same slaves), who were doubtless at the lowest rank within the social structure affected by Faustinus’s property management. The bishops must be situated among the class of magnates, especially in the greatest and indeed the middling dioceses, as they often governed patrimonia of no mean size. What is stated here about great estates is largely valid also for ecclesiastical properties. It is no coincidence that toward the end of the Visigothic kingdom, in 693, the bishops themselves felt that a clergyman should be the head of a church only if it had at least ten mancipia. They appear to be setting a minimum property requirement within the church that in this instance is expressed in terms of dominion over people. Management of property on the basis of having tenants, as well as servi and mancipia, is supported by the sources, and there are several good monographic studies on this point.17

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In his Historia Gothorum (HG), Isidore makes mention of magnates in the context of the assassination in Seville of king Theudisclus around 549. The latter had dishonored the wives of many of these magnates (plurimorum potentum).18 At times local notables appear in the sources as groups, for instance, when whole cities resist pressure from the central power, as happened in Corduba. On other occasions such groups are associated in the texts with the names of ethnic communities, such as the Sappi in the northwest. Alternatively, they may be related to geopolitical terms such as Cantabria and its power nucleus, Amaia, which is even said to have a senatus in the Vita Aemiliani by Braulio. There is also Orospeda in the southeast, which, as will be seen later, opposed three levels of resistance to central power: civitates (towns), castella (fortified hilltop sites), and rustici (peasants). In other instances, specific individuals are mentioned, such as Aspidius, a magnate from the northwest who is described as loci senior by John of Biclar. Others would be Abundantius, a member of the senatus of the Cantabria region, and Honorius, also called senator by Braulio. Yet again, there is the married couple from Emerita (the term senator once more being used in describing them) who gave their immense patrimonium to Bishop Paulus, according to the hagiographic text from Emerita. It is likely that these expressions, senatores and senatus, respond to a twin rhetoric. They reflect the archaizing, cultured style of hagiographic texts. They also link into the tradition of the former curiae, the local senatus. By this time, in the sixth and seventh centuries, there is no longer any Roman municipium as such, but some of the vocabulary that had been used in relation to it was still employed to label local structures. Use of these words is associated with those magnates following the tradition of late Roman aristocracies. However, this is in a changed environment, that of the regnum Gothorum.19

Rustici: Villages, Tenants, and Dependents Until quite recently, the archaeological record of the peasantry was virtually nonexistent. Fortunately, this situation has changed. Today there is knowledge of villages, some of which emerged in the fifth century, while others came later, during the period of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia. In the village world, the family unit was the predominant structure for production. As will be seen later, this appears clearly in the studies by Carlos Tejerizo García for the Douro region, by Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado for the central zone of Iberia, by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo for the Basque Country, and by Jordi Roig Buxó for the northeast. One of the ideas that some archaeologists have put forward is that

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these villages functioned as a largely self-sufficient model of land management. Vigil-Escalera has claimed that hamlets gradually arose during and after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and that the peasantry organized in forms of village society that imply relationships between mostly autonomous groups. It is logical to assume that where the aristocracy was less able to draw income and enjoy social predominance, the peasants would have more room to maneuver. Although some of these communities of peasants do seem to have had wide-ranging autonomy, the overall impression is that the magnates were not completely left out of this process. The first point to consider is the archaeological record.20 It has already been noted that the emergence of villages from the fifth century onward was a process explicable within the changes wrought by the collapse of the Roman world. Although not occurring at one single time nor in identical fashion, the same process is perceptible throughout the post-Roman West. Work by archaeologists makes it evident that in many regions of Iberia there were some peasant hamlets and villages that developed in the fifth century, while others appeared in the sixth century or even slightly later. In any case, there is evidence that they existed in various regions of Iberia by the time of the Gothic kingdom. They are relatively small settlements with modest buildings. They are not all alike by any means, and there are some instances of the occupation of peripheral areas and occasionally even of caves, which gives the impression that peasant management of land was quite extensive, regardless of the type of settlement involved.21 In northeastern Iberia, Jordi Roig has discovered more than a dozen hamlets and villages: seventeen are listed in a publication in 2011. There were such settlements both in inland zones and in the environs of such cities as Barcino and Egara. In the Douro basin villages seem to have few internal differences, although it is possible to detect some in examples such as La Mata del Palomar near Nieva in Segovia province, which Tejerizo suggests may have been linked to a power center such as Bernardos. On the northern half of the Meseta there are further cases of settlements, such as Ladera de los Prados in Aguasal in Valladolid province, Canto Blanco near Sahagún in León province, La Cárcava de la Peladera near Hontoria in Segovia province, and Navamboal in Íscar, Valladolid province, to name just a few. These are settlements that emerged either as the Roman Empire collapsed or just after. The structures are mostly modest habitations, with the foundations of huts surviving. In the northern region of Asturias, it is clear that villages sprang up out of the fragmentation of uillae and other landmark sites of the Roman period (Figure 2). Also in a northern area,

Figure 2. Tomb at Vigaña with sword (Asturias). Courtesy of Margarita Fernández Mier.

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the Basque country, archaeologists have detected indications of peasant action during the sixth and seventh centuries in the form of terracing of hillsides, both in such villages as Aistra and Zaballa and in outlying areas and zones with caves in the case of Los Husos. In Galicia in the northwest, traces of the terracing and plowing of fields have also been found, a product of land management by the peasantry.22 It is worth giving special attention to the central zone, coinciding more or less with the modern autonomous region of Madrid, not far from the royal seat (sedes regia) of the kingdom, Toletum. Settlements have been detected that grew up on the foundations of previous late Roman estates, as in the site at El Pelícano. However, there were also communities that started from scratch, such as Gózquez. This is perhaps the most important find among the post-Roman villages and hamlets of Iberia, both because of its specific characteristics and because it has been excellently covered by academic publications. It presents two areas of dwellings and peasant farming, with a cemetery between the two. In the same Madrid region there are further settlements of this period, such as Soto and La Huelga, both in the Barajas district; Congosto in Rivas-Vaciamadrid; and La Indiana in Pinto. As happens in the rest of Iberia, there are some that are more like a village, some more like a farm, but in any case these settlements exhibit peasant dwellings and land use. Quirós Castillo and Vigil-Escalera have suggested the possibility that there were networks of villages. This might have happened in the area that today is the province of Madrid, in the vicinity of the capital of the kingdom, Toletum. It may also have taken place in the Douro basin, following the erosion there of the system of ciuitates. An alternate suggestion put forward is that of peasant autonomy. Even so, those authors suggesting such a theory also leave the door open to the possibility of influence from magnates.23 In the light of data from current research, these peasant hamlets were able to accumulate surpluses. This can be seen from their grain stores. Among other examples, there are the finds at Can-Gambús-1 near Sabadell in Barcelona province, where there were approximately two hundred grain storage pits grouped in blocks of five or six. This is part of a general trend. The peasant farmers built up and managed surpluses. Investigation of the presence of animals in these communities points to a diversity of animals and mixed pastoral farming that minimized the risks of overreliance on one species. This suggests far from random planning by these farming folk. It is a different matter to discern whether this management was independent or the domini had some sort of influence over it. It is probable that there were instances of autonomous management. However, the overall framework of written sources gives the impression that in other cases

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it was magnates of various ranks who may have been controlling part of these farming processes. They could have done so from the castella, or in other cases from the ciuitates, according to their status and district, delegating stewards or bailiffs to the rural settlements—such individuals as Oppila, Vincent, and Faustinus and their management networks, as they appear in a diverse range of documents. Not a few villages must have had agents representing these magnates. This would explain something that archaeology has gradually been discovering—that some village folk had access to imported articles, such as fine ceramics or items for personal adornment. It seems impossible that there were such distribution circuits in the sixth and seventh centuries unless elite groups were involved. It is usual for rough pottery to predominate, but at times there are “stamped” or molded ceramics that are a superior quality within the record of the Visigothic period. To cite two very clear instances, the settlements of Gózquez in the center and Can-Gambús 1 in the northeast show the presence of fine imported ceramic ware. On the other hand, there were villages of a more isolated nature, such as some of those investigated in the zone around Salamanca. Yet others had contacts that were probably networks linked to political structures, as may be the case for some in the center not far from Toletum. It may rightly be stated that the written sources come from court, episcopal, and monastic contexts. Nevertheless, the information in them supports the view that there were magnates at very diverse levels. Peasant land management can surely not have been absolutely independent; rather, the domini and patroni mentioned earlier must have had an influence over it in several instances. This does not rule out cases of peasant autonomy, not recorded in the written documents because they were outside the field of interest of those compiling them. To sum up, it is possible that some peasants may have carried out their tasks free from the longrange influence of the mighty. However, many surely did not.24 Perhaps the clearest proof of inequality between these communities lies in funerary remains. At times village cemeteries emerge from nothing and are shared, as at Gózquez. On other occasions they arise from former uillae, and specifically from late Roman mausoleums, as at El Pelícano. However, whichever model applies, it is usual for cemeteries to show inequalities. Some tombs are more modest than others; some are stone-built, others not; some include grave goods, others none; and there are even individuals just dumped outside the village necropolis. In the Tarraconensis of the Visigothic era, Jordi Roig has found both cemeteries and individuals who were thrown into disused grain stores; he interprets the latter as serfs. In a piece of work published in 2015, he states that when looking at villages and hamlets, he discovered several with burial grounds, for

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example, Can Gambús-1, Plaça Mayor de Castellar del Vallés, and Can Solà del Racó, where the vast majority of tombs have no grave goods. The impression given by the graveyards of the settlements in post-Roman eastern Tarraconensis is one of less inequality than in some cases in the center or the Douro basin. Nonetheless, it is possible to encounter differences between sets of grave goods. The most striking thing Roig discovered was interments in structures that were not funerary, that is, individuals buried outside the cemeteries. Something very similar occurs in the center, in instances that Vigil-Escalera also interprets as possibly slave burials.25 This does not mean that all the peasantry was unfree. The leges concentrated particularly on the unfree because, as has been seen, it was assumed that patrocinium was something that the kingdom should not combat but on the contrary use as a solid anchorage. As for rustici, the generic term for peasants whether unfree or free, it definitely does not often appear in literary sources. It is uncommon for rustici to be found in very specific texts, as happens for instance in slate 129. This text comes from the deposits at El Cuarto de Enmedio de la Dehesa del Cañal at Pelayos in Salamanca province and contains a list of names either in the nominative with the ending –os (for a detailed account of the changes in the nominative and other Latin cases during the Visigothic period, see Isabel Velázquez’s edition of the slates) or in the genitive. As Velázquez points out, it is possible that in some instances these genitives indicate a situation of dependence on a dominus; but what is of more interest here is the use of the word rustici, which is likely the label used to identify the group of people whose names are listed. The Visigothic slates do offer some references to mancipia, serui, and ancillae. However, these are not very numerous. The impression is given that when such dependents appear on the slates, they include not only slaves but also tenants. This would be a result of the retention of Latin terminology for slavery to cover a very diverse range of dependent statuses, from some genuine slaves all the way to dependent tenant farmers.26 It is sometimes possible to find specifications, as in the case of the legislation concerning the abduction of freewomen by men who were of servus status decreed by Recceswinth; Erwig added to this, including all rustici among those subject to the law. There is also the matter of torture applied to a servus accused of having committed a crime but who was actually innocent of it. Alongside the inferior, there is reference to a fully free peasant: si inferior fuerit atque rusticanus, quem liberum esse constet (if he is an inferior and rustic person, but he is free). This in itself implies a contrast with one who was not such, an unfree peasant. While the term rusticus itself does not appear, there is another specific allusion

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to peasants in the episode in the VSPE concerning Nanctus. This individual, a Catholic abbot from Africa, settled in Emerita and received a grant of land from the royal estates authorized by the Arian king, Leovigild. The text, the first version of which was written a half century later, states that the inhabitants of the locality (homines habitantes in eodem loco) decided to go and visit their new dominus but were so disappointed by his wretched vestments that they decided it was better to get rid of him rather than serve such a dominus (Melius est nobis mori quam tali domino seruire). These peasants, working in a locus, in this case a property of the fiscus of the kingdom, would have been accustomed to domini of an appearance nothing like that of Nanctus. The text is rhetorical, as it is trying to champion the suitability of ascetic dress. Nonetheless, it does not fail to mention the workers on fundi. They were dependent on the dominus in some sort of servitude, although it is hard to determine their precise legal status. In another passage, the hagiographers mention that Masona used to distribute wine, oil, and honey in the atrium of the episcopal residence, both to inhabitants of the city and to rustici from the countryside (de ciuibus urbis aut rusticis de ruralibus). The Vita Fructuosi, another seventh-century hagiographic text, uses the term rusticus to refer to an individual who attacked Fructuosus as he was journeying from the northwest to a more southerly area in Lusitania. Once again, apart from typical comments on meddling by the Devil, reference is made to Fructuosus’s poor clothing as a motive leading the rustica mens of the villager or rusticus to decide to insult and beat the saint.27 The text sources make it plain that there were local notables rooted in aristocracy and large estates. They mention rustici only infrequently, very generically, and using clichés. Most of the texts concentrate on magnates together with their dependents. There seem to be detectable processes of breakdown of small estates as the Western Roman Empire crumbled. Nevertheless, Domenico Vera’s comments relating to simplistic views of property ownership at the end of the Roman Empire appear well founded. The assumption that it was characterized by the system of slavery, partially continued in the later regna, must be looked on with caution. While there were slaves, the commonest system in the post-Roman West was one of diversity and of complete but nonslave dependency.28 In his Sententiae, Isidore referred to servitude in general and to slavery in particular in the sense that he justified it as something permitted by God. He noted that the penalty of servitude (poena seruitutis) could be imposed on men and that it was just for there to be serfs and masters (alios seruos constituens, alios dominos). He included punishment and fear as vital mechanisms. Beyond

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this, though, the impression is gained that the set of villages and hamlets known in Iberia involved very diverse groups of peasants. Some would have been unfree, others free. Some were buried in their communities’ cemeteries, others excluded from them. Some had access to prestige goods, others did not. The leges concentrated mostly on the unfree peasantry, because the magnates had control over this group. It has already been seen that the apparatus of the regnum Gothorum itself was obliged to recognize the existence of these dependency mechanisms.29 There are two major models for the historiographical interpretation of serui in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. Although they follow different routes and have varying results, they both have as a starting point the arguments of Marc Bloch published posthumously in Annales in 1947. This French historian used various criteria to explain what had happened to slavery and how it was gradually eroded in the latter part of the post-Roman phases. He stated that slavery in the early Middle Ages no longer had much to do with slavery in late Antiquity. Bloch’s arguments have served as the theoretical basis on which the two approaches have been built, focusing now on the case of the Visigothic kingdom. Some scholars, such as Charles Verlinden and especially Pierre Bonnassie, feel that the servi of Visigothic Iberia must have been slaves. Their idea is that large late Roman estates were primarily run using slaves and that this continued in the centuries that immediately followed. Bonnassie managed to identify 46 percent out of the total of nearly five hundred Visigothic laws as mentioning what he identified as “slavery.” The other main approach, found for instance in Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil, understands serui as covering not only what remained of slavery but also other groups of inferior status. Among them would have been the coloni, a designation that had fallen out of use in legal texts of the Visigothic kingdom.30 It is not certain that whenever seruus appears in a text that this must refer to a slave. Vera’s arguments cited earlier about the decline in slavery in late Antiquity are too strong for it to be assumed that slavery was omnipresent in fifthto seventh-century Europe. As seen earlier, the leges themselves for certain practical purposes did not hesitate to lump together categories that were legally different, such as the ingenui, theoretically free men, and serui. However, in contrast, numerous very severe punishments give the impression of evident instances of slavery. In all likelihood the term would include slaves but also dependents subject to domini, according to the context. Constant allusions to dependency (as in patrocinium) lead to the conclusion that many folk of humble estate were seen by the monarchy as just another part of the broad mass of serui.

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In practice the essential differentiation was between domini or potentes and the remainder.31 The examination of sources and contexts points to not all serui being slaves as such, while at the same time some of them definitely were. The studies by Alice Rio of formularies from the Merovingian and Carolingian periods in France demonstrate that there the peasants had some ability to negotiate about their degree of liberty. The distinction between unfree and free was not black and white. In all probability views are distorted by a natural tendency to understand the unfree from a perspective shaped by knowledge of slaves in classical Greece and Rome.32 This agrees with what has here been noted for Iberia, although doubtless the two situations did not fully coincide. The point is that in the eyes of central power the differences between ingenui and serui were of less weight than those between the magnates and everyone else. This is the framework within which allusions to serui and the absence of references to coloni (with the exceptions noted below) must be understood with regard to sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. In Iberia in the Visigothic period allusions are mostly to serui, although it is possible to find mentions of ancillae, mancipia, and other categories, as discussed earlier.33 Just as it does not seem correct to identify as slaves all those mentioned as serui, it appears even less suitable to take a legalistic approach. This is because the latter would wish to see the distinctions as explicable from the angle of whether somebody’s origin was Germanic or Roman, a method that has a longstanding tradition but will not be adopted here.34 In the post-Roman West it was not uncommon, indeed on the contrary, for a legal label as seruus or even of mancipium not to coincide with the idea of a slave as chattel. The difference between freedom and servitude was present in references in sources, but the impression given is that in practice boundaries were much blurrier. To quote Julia Smith’s view, the two were the extremes of a wide range of situations.35 Chris Wickham has put forward the idea that the legal specification of the status of these serui was of less relevance than their situation in practice, which he feels was one of some independence, to the extent that he decided not to use the translation “slaves” for serui. Rather, they were unfree, or bound, tenants, who seem to have been in the majority in seventh-century Iberia among the various sorts of dependent.36 An attempt has been made here to demonstrate that the leges themselves leave room for the conclusion that when they refer to serui they are not always talking about slaves but sometimes also about unfree tenants. Nevertheless, there were true slaves as well.

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As Wendy Davies has noted, in the West there was a range of kinds of “tied dependent.” The idea of a variety of categories, although with overarching predominance of dependency, is how it seems seruus must be understood in the instances being considered here. This is not the place for a complete listing of the references to serui and the like in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. These may be found in systematizations, such as those by Verlinden or King. Yet attention must be drawn to certain specific references. It is certain that allusions to serui as groups at the absolute disposal of the mighty go back a long way. At the start of the fifth century, Didymus and Verinianus, members of the family of Theodosius I, armed their dependents to confront Constantine III’s usurpation. Orosius says they used servuli from their estates, in a context involving private properties at least in respect to the origin of the men recruited. Some decades later, Sozomen stresses a similar concept. Also at a later date, Zosimus states that both enlisted men from their dependent workforce.37 This was the basis on which relationships of dependency developed in Iberia. In the 520s it is possible that the Ostrogothic king, Theoderic, was referring to these processes of servitude. At the end of his letter to Ampelius and Liuvirit he made an attempt to avoid a situation in which villici, the managers of great estates, both private and public (tam de priuata possessione quam publica), might commit abuses by offering harmful “protection” (ad damnosam tuitionem), later clarifying what this procedure was. Apparently, they took advantage of the presence of Gothic military garrisons in the cities of Iberia to demand contributions or obligations. Theoderic decided to suppress (decernimus amoueri) these obligations, servitudes or servitia. The Ostrogothic king was trying to limit the spread of such servitia created on the basis of military preeminence. It is not possible to specify either the kind of obligation or what levels of society it affected within the cities. However, there was a link between politicomilitary dominance where this was present (in the cities where Gothic troops were posted) and what the Ostrogothic king saw as illegitimate servitia. The king did not wish income to be transferred, but rather that it should come into the treasury. It should not be forgotten that this was the crucial mandate he had given to Ampelius and Liuvirit: they were to impose order on the tax system in those territories in Iberia controlled from Italy. In light of the general tone of the letter, which is markedly angled toward fiscal matters, it is reasonable to assume that these servitia would also include the rents and taxes on both private and public property (de priuata possessione quam publica). Use of the expression servitia most likely means that the towns referred to by the king were not just paying rents but were also involved in other obligations.38

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The great estates of Vincent of Huesca in the sixth century, organized into various parcels in a zone running from the Pyrenees to the Ebro, give indications of the use of a dependent workforce of tenants. There were also slaves, judging from the gradations noted in the documentation. Such a structure was probably the most usual in Iberia as a whole. There was a combination of working levels, using slaves and dependents, both directly run and on farms rented to tenants, with the latter appearing to be the most numerous. Vincent sometimes issues documents granting freedom (cartulam ingenuitatis), while at the same time ceding plots of land and even slaves (mancipia). At other times he sets people free without any complication in the form of grants of land, slaves, and dependents. These manumissions hark back to traditional Roman vocabulary. For example, there is the use of expressions stating that the dominus was transferring over into the body of Roman citizens the slave that was being freed. It will be seen later that in the Formulae this traditional Roman vocabulary was also retained.39 Historians in the past laid great emphasis on the insistence in the LV of controlling fugitivi (fugitives), who were slaves who had run away. It is true that there were numerous laws to prevent or at least to punish such escapes and that they extend over a long period. However, a recent analysis by Amancio Isla Frez highlights that what these laws really demonstrate is that landowners in practice did not fulfill the monarchy’s wish that servi be returned to their domini but rather tried to gain control over them. This is a conflict between a regnum attempting to emulate the Roman tradition of subjection and social structures in which domini tried to function outside the royal will.40 The structure of the class of serui, even that recognized by the central power through leges, is complex, to the extent that some of them had a peculium (property or wealth) that might not even be known by their dominus. In fact, one antiqua law accepted that there could be instances of proprietors who might sell serui who actually had property that might be unknown to the vendor of the servus (eius nesciens facultatem). The kingdom granted them permission to take charge of such items owned by their seruus once they learned about them. Chindaswinth gave details of some of the types of property that might be owned by servi, including domum, agrum vel vineam, and animalia (house, fields, vineyards, and animals). In another law he refers to edificium agrumque (building and fields). If it is kept in mind that all of this is from the legislative record of the regnum, which was constantly striving to merge categories, details like these are good evidence for the concept of different statuses that has been stressed here.41 In view of the heterogeneity of dependents, it must be accepted that the documentation at times does not allow precise determination of whether a given

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instance refers to a slave or to an unfree tenant. For example, in the Formulae there is the mechanism for manumission, which speaks of cases of slavery being transformed into freedom. The general panorama of legislation also contemplates manumission, and the same happens with ecclesiastical property, even if bishops try to ensure that manumissions were as infrequent as possible. One instance is the will of Riccimir of Dumio, the bishop and abbot of the ecclesiastical and monastic complex at Dumio in Gallaecia. The matter was debated shortly after his death, in a council held in 656. Riccimir left his property to the Church. He stipulated, however, that each year goods and money should be distributed among the needy. Furthermore, he freed those persons who had been Church property (liberos ex eiusdem ecclesiae familiis), and to them he granted five hundred serfs, who may have been slaves or perhaps also unfree dependents. In any case, they are described as mancipia, even if there is some confusion over the number, which has been read as either quingenta, five hundred, or quinquaginta, fifty. The most recent editors of conciliar records have inclined toward quingenta. However, the bishops decided to annul these provisions. They applied the tradition of inalienability of diocesan property.42 A further example is found in the hagiographers of Emerita, who noted that just before he died, Bishop Masona had freed those serving him. Use is made of such terms as puerulis and servitium. Those freed were given a document recording their liberation, libertatis cartulam. Another case is Gaudentius, bishop of Écija in the south, who manumitted (in Vives’s edition of the First Council of Seville, libertaverat) unfree persons belonging to the local church. Some he had handed over or transferred (donaverat) to family members or people in his circle, proximis suis. Later (in 590) the bishops gathered in Seville debated the matter. They looked at both manumissions and transfers, libertas aut transactio. They decided that if there had been no compensation to the Écija church, the latter should continue to have control over those freed and their descendants. Indeed, years later the gathering of bishops in Toledo in 633 stressed that the Church, as an institution, was a patrona that never died (quia nunquam moritur eorum patrona). There are numerous references to the permanent bond to the bishops: a patrocinio eiusdem nunquam discedant (so that they never separate from their patronage). In brief, the canon law from councils held in Hispania in the sixth and seventh centuries is replete with references to property and to slaves and dependents of the Church. In some of these councils, such as the Mérida meeting held in 666, this was the main topic.43 This is an appropriate point to look at the Formulae. These are documents that are repeated over time and are extant in late copies that probably go back to

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late Roman models. The Formulae grouped under the title Formulae Wisigothicae (FW), with manuscript transmission as edited by Juan Gil, are usually ascribed to a compilation drawn up in Corduba in the time of Sisebut (612–621). This traditional view has recently been challenged by Edorta Córcoles Olaitz. Her arguments concentrate on the dubious nature of such an ascription, based on FW 25 (referring to Córdoba) and FW 20 (mentioning Sisebut). As she stresses, Formulae by definition are documents that should lack specification of definite places, and she feels that copyists likely failed to eliminate these two details. Nevertheless, it is not fully clear that this was some sort of error by copyists. What is certain is that Corduba and Sisebut match the place and time when two of the Formulae were put into application. However, it is definitely possible to challenge the traditional idea that this material was compiled by a single author or group of authors. In fact it is the product of accumulation and includes a substratum of late Roman legal tradition.44 In dealing with manumission a form of words is used that sounds rather anachronistic for the seventh century. The formula notes that the owner decrees freedom, and the ex-slave becomes a “Roman citizen” (ingenuum te ciuemque Romanum esse constituo atque decerno). A very similar line is taken by another formula, using the exact same phrase.45 The same expression is used in other Formulae of manumission, although in these instances cum obsequio. In these cases the freedman was not completely free but continued dependent on his former dominus. There is an addition to the former phrasing that notes the freedman will remain under the patronage of his former owner, and proof for this is given by such expressions as ut ingenuus in patrocinio mihi persistas (so that as a freeman you persist in my patronage) and ut ingenui obsequium mihi prestare debeatis (so that being free you must lend me obedience).46 In the post-Roman West instances of individuals selling themselves to, or putting themselves into the patronage of, others are documented in the sources, as has recently been tabulated by Alice Rio. In some cases, such as the Formulary of Angers, the impression is given that there is some margin for negotiation. In the Visigothic kingdom selling oneself into servitude had been permitted by law since the time of Euric in the fifth century. An antiqua law that was then retained in Iberia into the seventh century allowed a free man to sell himself (ingenuus se vindi permiserit). It it added that thereafter he could make no claims but had to remain in servitude (servitute permaneat). However, the later revision by Erwig from the end of the seventh century added that if the price of the transaction was refunded in full, it was possible to recover free status (ad ingenuitatis titulum . . . poterit revocari). The text is of great interest because once again the

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idea of ambiguity referred to in this chapter arises, as the individual’s handing himself over is considered to fall within servitute. Nonetheless the tradition was kept (in the antiqua law) that it was dishonorable to make such a voluntary submission, saying that somebody who willingly gave himself into servitude was not worthy of being free (quoniam non est dignus, ut liber sit, qui se volens subdidit servituti).47 This law seems to be referring to someone who has become a slave, selling himself for a pretium. Nevertheless, it has already been seen that the boundaries between seruus and ingenuus, despite appearances, were more blurred than they had been in the Roman tradition. The major piece of work by Bonnassie quoted earlier also maintains this. The problem constantly faced is that the Leges Visigothorum (to give them the title used by Karl Zeumer’s edition) are an accumulation of laws from differing chronological periods. There is an enormous Roman influence in them, and at times the technical terms of late Roman law are gradually diluted in sense as a function of recognition by the kingdom of the local powers of magnates exercised through patrocinium and the various degrees of serui. In the case of the Visigothic Formulae, number 32 corresponds to selling oneself into servitude. It is not possible to determine its exact applications and much less so the level of compliance. However, its repetition over time, which explains why the later early medieval copy of it was made, does give an idea of its effectiveness as a reference. Rio has demonstrated how far Merovingian and Carolingian Formulae differ from legal codes in their presentation of the unfree. She rightly states that this is particularly so because legal codes from these times and places are more conservative and traditionalist with regard to the unfree than are the Visigothic Formulae. In the specific instance of Visigothic Formulae, the context of their use in the Visigothic period had changed the treatment of the unfree into an agglomeration hard to separate into discernible groupings. In the case of coloni, indeed, the difference relative to the late Roman Empire is very striking: they simply do not get any mention in the Leges.48 In FW 32, a freeman of his own free will (pro sua uoluntate) downgrades his status, statum deteriorat. The act in itself consists of the individual selling himself for an amount expressed in solidi. A blank space is left in the Formula for this to be specified in practice. From this point on, a link is established such that the freeman ceases to be free and becomes a dependent of the magnate. Such phrases as uestra dominatio (your domination) or iure dominioque tuo (in your right/law and property) are used. It is made plain that the new owners of the people involved in such a transaction can dispose of them exactly as they wish,

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uel quicquid in meam uel de meam personam facere uolueris (to do what you want with me or of me). As pointed out by Pablo C. Díaz, this Formula for selling oneself never mentions the term seruus. It surely should be understood in a general context of the extension of a very wide range of types of servitude, a process referred to repeatedly in this chapter.49 The possibility of heterogeneity of dependencies, which combined situations involving unfree tenants and slaves, is observable in another source. This is the Vita Sancti Aemiliani (VSAe), written by Braulio of Zaragoza in the seventh century and describing the upper basin of the Ebro in the sixth century. In narrating the supposed miracles of Aemilianus, cases are mentioned such as that of the ancilla of an aristocrat, Sicorius, who is described with the term senator; a seruus called Sibila belonging to Tuentius; and another seruus, in this case attached to a prominent local notable with a link to the power structures of the regnum, as he is described as a comes, Eugenius. The next chapter will cover such magnates to the extent that they illustrate certain mechanisms for imposing the regnum at the time when it expanded under Leovigild in the second half of the sixth century. These terms were used by one of the most learned men of his day, Braulio (d. 651), to refer to servants and others subject to the power of local notables.50 The fact that the Leges of the Visigothic realm do not mention coloni even once has drawn a fair deal of attention. Ever since Pérez Pujol suggested in 1896 that coloni really did exist in the laws but not under that name, as a result of a sort of terminological substitution, the approaches taken by historians of Iberia in Visigothic times have been varied. In a book based on analysis of the leges, Paul D. King maintained that coloni did exist as such, his main grounds for saying so being a reference in the Second Council of Seville to which consideration will be given later. However, the reason it is surprising that coloni are absent from the laws of the Gothic kingdom is their extensive presence in late Roman laws. This may perhaps be the answer to a seeming paradox that in fact is rather simple. Late Roman coloni were a phenomenon strongly linked to the empire in terms of its fiscal structures. In fact their inherent subjection was not so much to a patronus as to a piece of land and the imperial income drawn from it, as explained by Domenico Vera. A late Roman colonus constituted a fiscal unit, and this is traceable, according to the case, down to the times of Gregory the Great, at least in Italy. Moreover, a colonus was not a seruus. From a legal viewpoint, coloni were a legal and public institution tied to the empire’s fiscal arrangements and hence so expressed in its laws.51 In sixth- and seventh-century Iberia there were no laws about coloni because the specific basis that gave the term its sense no longer existed.52

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There is therefore a need to explain the few references that there are to coloni in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. These come from very specific contexts. The new documents of Asán mention them, but this book was in preparation (see note 14). In documents known before, one is the documentation relating to Vincent of Huesca. In the donatio to the monastery at Asán, dating from 561, the expression colonis uel servis is found. The context of the reference is the list of goods that Vincent was bequeathing to the monastery, organized by districts, and here relates to the Zaragoza area, in terra Cesaraugustana. This is in fact the zone around the most important city mentioned by Vincent, and in a long sentence citing buildings, vineyards, meadows, and orchards, it uses the precise wording colonis uel seruis, of whom it explicitly states that they had peculium. In a testamentum some years later (576), in the specific context of the freeing of Monnellus, Vincent concedes to the latter a colonicam (a land with a tenant system). Another reference is to be found in a canon issued by the Second Council of Seville, held in 619 in the presence of Isidore. The canon was the response by the bishops of the south to the case of a cleric called Ispassandus who had moved from one diocese to another, from Italica to Corduba. The bishops decided that this clergyman should go back to his original see. They pointed to civil laws about “tied” farmworkers in the countryside (in lege mundiali de colonis agrorum). These stressed that such workers were each tied to their places (ut ubi esse quisque), where they had to remain (perduret).53 The detail from Seville is an archaizing allusion, which implies the bishops had available to them old legal materials from the Roman tradition. Their aim was to adapt to a traditional legal model the general idea that clerics should be tied to the ecclesia on which they depend. Another instance is FW 36. It includes a model of commitment to work in a given place with a status of personal handover. The person handing himself over to a master accepts submission to him (with reiteration of the concept uestra dominatio, your domination) and agrees to work whatever lands the owner deems fit to assign him (ad excolendum terras dare iuueres). The formula expressly states that the subordinate is obliged to offer benefits measured in decimae and exenia (decimas uero praestationis uel exenia, tenths, provisions of ser vices, and duties), and once again the reference is to tied farmworkers, as the formula adds ut colonis est consuetudo (as it is customary among the tenant farmers/colonists). Most likely these are instances of the retention in theory of the traditional terminology of the late Roman world. However, in social reality this was no longer in force, because the empire that had given rise to

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it existed no more. The leges of the regnum Gothorum in Iberia make no reference to coloni because they had ceased to be a recognized administrative or fiscal category, the political structure that had defined them in its laws having disappeared.54

The Magnates and the Rest: A Conclusion In the Iberia of the Visigothic era, leges, formulae, and literary sources all used terms from the Roman tradition, as in so many other matters, when alluding to slavery and relationships of dependency. When texts refer to serui, they are not always speaking of slaves but also of varied degrees of dependency. Apart from slaves both with and without peculium, the term could also, according to the case concerned, include unfree tenants in the network of patrocinium of magnates. The terminology was confused and ambiguous, as has been seen in numerous references. To make confusion doubly so, there is the striking use of the term mancipium. In essence this should refer to a slave, but at times the term seems to become confused with any individuals who were subjected to patrocinium. A law prohibiting Jews from having Christian slaves issued by no less a personage than Sisebut, perhaps the most cultured king in the entire history of the realm, read, Christianum liberum vel servum mancipium in patrocinio vel servitio suo habere (have a free, servant or slave Christian in his patronage or ser vice). In a previous law, aimed primarily at places in Upper Andalucía, the same king Sisebut directly mentioned the mancipia christiana (Christian slaves) of Jews. These were to be manumitted in the same archaizing Roman manner that has been noted in the FW: mentioning a return to Roman citizenship. One and the same king, in two different laws on the same topic, used mancipium on its own in one but in association with in patrocinio vel servitio suo (in his patronage or ser vice) in the other. This illustrates the ambiguity of the general use of these terms for forms of dependency. Some years before, Reccared had already made a law on the same lines, quoting christianum mancipium, then adding in another sentence the terms servus and ancilla. Simultaneously, the Gothic kings retained an antiqua law that differentiated between servus and mancipium as distinct terms. This ambiguity can likely be explained by the diversity of forms of dependency and servitude. They would be impossible to classify in a single fixed and perfect inventory, which in any case would be an artificial construct.55 In practice, serui might be equated to slaves in some instances, but to unfree tenants in others. There was no single model for managing large estates or

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for dominance over the workforce. In the peasant society that existed in sixthand seventh-century Iberia, there could be some places with a certain level of peasant autonomy, while in others the magnates were more dominant. The texts seem to leave little room for peasant autonomy, but this perception arises from sources originating with the elites of court and church. For its part, archaeology shows heterogeneous peasant communities. Some individuals are buried with grave goods coming from trade routes outside their own region. At the other extreme some are dumped on dung heaps or flung into disused storage pits. Between these two there are modest burials of differing degree. The peasantry of sixth- and seventh-century Iberia was quite varied. On this point there does seem to be convergence with the record found in the texts. Isotope data on the one hand and studies of fauna on the other imply internal differences in these communities. It was mentioned earlier that Vincent of Huesca’s dependent workforce, contemporaries of many of these hamlets and villages, was equally lacking in homogeneity. When it is possible to get down to the local level, even via texts that are strongly rhetorical and ideological, such as the Vitae, this heterogeneity of the workforce can sometimes be seen, with some cases of apparent slavery and some of unfree tenants. The regnum accepted patrocinium and the gap between the mighty and the rest. There was thus a clear difference between the potentes (the powerful people) and reliqui vero ingenui seu servi (the others, whether freemen or slaves). In other words, the magnates were different from everybody else, as indicated by the title of this concluding section.56 In the sources documenting the collapse of the Roman Empire and the sixth and seventh centuries, free peasant smallholders barely appear. As Domenico Vera has observed for fifth- and sixth-century Italy, the greater the concentration of ownership, the greater the fragmentation of production. The two essential extremes of the social structure of post-Roman Iberia were magnates and peasants. The development of great estates in the West in late Antiquity was in the direction of a model with many splits in it, with varying forms of management requiring very diverse workforces. In Iberia, the lowest of the low were slaves: people selling themselves into servitude and the different levels of unfree seem to show that at least some of the unfree were slaves. At intermediate levels there were dependent peasants of various sorts, most of them tenants. At the higher levels some had access to prestige and consumer goods indicating trade outside the immediate locality. In 1978 Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil saw as almost unimaginable the idea of free smallholder peasants in Visigothic Iberia, with just a few rare

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exceptions. It has been seen from the texts that have been considered that the concentration of ownership was an essential phenomenon of sixth- and seventhcentury Iberia. All this would apparently leave little space for a free peasantry. However, it should not be forgotten that the sources concentrate on those who were dependent, whether tenants or slaves. The central powers lacked the capacity of the imperial government to make subtle technical discriminations between types, so they lumped together in one single mish-mash of serui all sorts of dependent tenants along with slaves. Thanks to archaeology, today there is knowledge of hamlets and villages. These show a world of peasants who occupied lands that hitherto had often been peripheral and that differed from one instance to another. Land management had some elements of autonomy, and there may well have been absolutely free peasants. However, they do not seem to have existed in great numbers. As far as can be discerned, the archaeological record hints at a penetration by mechanisms involving a certain social hierarchy. Access to goods distributed from beyond the local region indicates connections with groups who were necessarily linked to the overshadowing potentes in that outside world. The exclusion of some individuals from community graveyards illustrates inequality even on the lower rungs of the peasantry ladder.57 What the sources sometimes call rustici in reality formed a complex world of peasant inequality, in management, land occupancy, connection to trade distribution networks, and domination of some by others. The fact that the texts reproduce only part of reality is explicable by the very nature of these sources. They concentrate on the mechanisms that the elite wished to stress. The domini were interested in managing and controlling their patrimonia, and the regnum found it convenient to accept these structures, negotiating with the domini and recognizing social power structures. Such negotiations, not free from hostility, and this anchoring of the regnum in local worlds will be the topic of the next chapter.

chapter 4

Negotiating and Imposing Kings and Local Worlds

The Gothic kings were at the head of the regnum. They issued coinage stamped with images of themselves and with their names (from Leovigild onward) and built cities, such as Reccopolis, Victoriacum, and Ologicus. They promulgated laws, commanded the exercitus (army), and were chief among the governors of provinces and the comites in cities, in brief, heads of the administrative structure of the regnum. Toletum became the capital probably from the mid-sixth century onward. In the leges, the central power strove to project an image of itself. This image may be misleading if it is taken literally, without understanding that in reality it is a self-representation, but a glimpse at it is useful in detecting the desires of this central power so as to match them against the other data available about local worlds.1 In this self-representation there is a striking metaphor. One of Recceswinth’s laws indicated that God had established the head to govern the limbs or members of the body: Deus . . . in sublimem caput erexit (God put the head highest). Hence the head and intelligence ruled over the members that were subject to them (subdita membra), and the welfare of the head was essential for that of the members of the body. The metaphor identified kings with the head, so it was necessary to take care of the kings’ business (negotia principum) and of their health (salus regum). In 653 Recceswinth himself alluded to this matter before the bishops of the realm gathered in Toledo. He affirmed that he had been put in power by God (ex toto diuina mihi potentia subiugauit). He claimed that the health of the head was the root of the welfare of the limbs or members (regendorum membrorum causa salus est capitis). Addressing the magnates who participated in power in the court, the officium palatinum, he described them as heads of the people and associates in government of the king himself (quos in regimine socios).

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Decades before, Isidore had used similar wording to that which Recceswinth employed at this later date. In his Sententiae, Isidore had spoken of the divine origin of kingship. This will be examined in more detail in the next chapter. What should be stressed here is that the king himself referred to the magnates as his necessary allies and also as the heads of the people. Recceswinth would seem to be going beyond a merely theoretical level. He was very conscious of the need to rely on the support of these magnates not only in the officium palatinum but also in their capacity as heads themselves; so their relationship to local powers, the “members” of the metaphor, was important to him. The set of political and religious ideas that took shape from the Third Council of Toledo (589) onward, defined explicitly by Isidore in his works and by the Fourth Council of Toledo (633), was the basis for what Recceswinth explained at this later date. It was the theoretical support that the Church gave to what had substance in reality, in the anchoring or rooting, despite all the problems and limitations involved, of the regnum in social structures, as noted in the previous chapter. At this point the Gothic kingdom, as Recceswinth seems to have known very well, needed these membra, these local powers. This chapter will consider how the central power fit into the world of local matters, whether through imposition or negotiation. Finally, taxation will be considered as a gauge of the possibilities and limits of the kingdom.2

Kings: Powers and Limits, Donations and Confiscations In the view of the bishops and magnates who took part in the discussions in the general Councils of Toledo from the late sixth century onward, the king had to belong to the Gothic nobility. The peak of central power was a monopoly of that group. However, the system went a good way beyond that and does not fit into any simple binary scheme. For a long while, academic historians discussed this period on the basis of pairs: Romans and Goths, feudalism or protofeudalism, strong or weak central power, Arians and Catholics. Fortunately, the functioning of the Visigothic monarchy in Iberia has more recently been the subject of excellent studies that have gone beyond such simplistic pairings.3 From the great pact that brought the official conversion of the kingdom to Catholicism at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, the bishops contributed an ideology of the sacred to the Gothic royalty. The king appeared at the council like a new Constantine and put forward the idea that he had received the kingdom from almighty God (Deus omnipotens). This idea of the divine origin of

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power was strongly developed thereafter, both in the works of Isidore and at the Fourth Council of Toledo (633), itself subject to great influence from Isidore and in later texts. On a theoretical plane, in accordance with Recceswinth’s metaphor, in institutional matters the king was also the visible head of judicial functions, since he issued decrees and sentences; he was the leader of the exercitus, he promulgated leges, and he intervened in ecclesiastical matters. He was also the head of fiscal and administrative affairs: those governing the provinces of the kingdom—rectores or duces, according to the specific area involved— were under his control, and he also controlled the comites and iudices who represented central power in the principal centers of territorial control, in particular, the ciuitates.4 The religious dimension of the monarchy was reflected in the oath of loyalty that subjects, especially the most powerful figures in the kingdom, had to swear to the king. This is documented, for example, in 633 at the Fourth Council of Toledo headed by Isidore. Fidelitas to the king was in existence at the very least from the time of this council, but it cannot be ruled out that it was in place before. At the Fourth Council not just the loyalty oath itself but also the procedure for electing kings was formulated in great detail. The bishops noted that fidelity bound people to kings in a holy manner ( fidem sacramento promissam, the faith promised by sacrament), but many people did not comply with this, despite their oath (iurant enim regibus suis). In the same canon the bishops proposed a system for succession, which should be elective. Hence, once a king died, his successor would be designated (constituant) by the nobility and bishops (primatus totius gentis cum sacerdotibus). The canon was attempting to establish a mechanism for orderly succession. In practice, it is known this was hardly ever observed. It would appear from careful reading of the canon that something similar happened with fides, political loyalty to kings under oath. The bishops themselves recognized this when they stated that many broke this fides, and there is no other way of understanding the extent and emphasis of the canon’s comments. Also along these lines, sure evidence for the anointing of kings is found only in the second half of the seventh century during the reign of Wamba, but it may have been a product of the conversion of the kingdom in 589 and, afterward, of the regulations drawn up in Isidore’s time. Royal anointment involved putting in practice a ritual rooted in biblical times, in which the symbiosis between bishops and kings was embodied in palace and liturgical procedures. However, this sort of question was handled at a court level. Consciousness of the fragility of these theoretical principles was soon perceptible, as we have seen in Chapter 2 on political developments.5

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The king’s power was sacred in theory but very vulnerable in practice. Nevertheless, the kingdom set up between the late fifth and early sixth century endured until the early eighth century. Hence there were clearly certain foundations for power, which would seem to be the consequence not so much of strong administration as of the collaboration of local elites in sustaining it. The territorial range of the Visigothic monarchy is implicit when court sources, laws, or councils mention as part of the regnum Gothorum the territories of Gallaecia, Hispania (very often as Spania), and Gallia, referring to Septimania. To give just one example, at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 it was decided at the urging of Reccared himself that in all churches the symbolum fidei (creed) of the Council of Constantinople should be recited, with clarification that this order applied per omnes ecclesias Spaniae, Galliae uel Galliciae (in all the churches of Spania, Gaul, and Gallaecia). In another instance the same council used the expression omnes Spaniarum et Galliae ecclesiae (all the churches of Spania and Gaul).6 This terminology refers to the territorial extent of the kingdom, but it has a more practical explanation. The turning point in the territorial establishment of the kingdom was the reign of Leovigild (ca. 568–586). If Isidore is to be believed, it is likely that at this stage the reges also adopted a more eye-catching monarchical ritual, using a throne and royal garb (regali ueste), while simultaneously issuing a body of laws. Fifthcentury texts make it clear there had been some courtly ceremonial around the rex Gothorum in Gaul, so that this was not a total novelty. Nevertheless, some of the symbols that years later Isidore tried to represent as a turning point were indeed such. For example, from Leovigild onward Gothic kings issued coinage bearing their image and superscription. Moreover, during his reign there were several military campaigns that bound the whole of the territories of Iberia to the regnum.7 Listing some of these—without any claim to exhaustiveness—is necessary, since the campaigns point the way to the imposition of central power over local urban and rural powers during the second half of the sixth century. John of Biclar records that one city, Córdoba (Cordubam ciuitatem), had indeed resisted (rebellem) the Goths (Gothis) for a long time (diu), until in the end it was occupied by Leovigild (Leouegildus rex) at the start of the 570s. He alludes to the cities and castella captured, in which there dwelt a multitude of peasants (multasque urbes et castella interfecta rusticorum multitudine). Isidore states that King Agila had already attacked the city (aduersus Cordubensem urbem proelio mouens). The king’s bad behavior in the place sacred to the martyr Acisclus had triggered Agila’s defeat, together with the loss of his son and his royal treasure.

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The key to this is the magnates of the important city of Corduba with its Roman tradition. Isidore associated these local powers with the Roman concept of citizens (ciues). This is an instance of conflict between local magnates and the growth of the regnum.8 Leovigild’s campaigns implied conquests to cement the definitive territorial basis of the regnum. The focal points of resistance are evidence of a tendency to maintain local powers that had consolidated their positions during the collapse of the Roman Empire, whether in cities or in intermediate rural strata. There must have been strong powers at a level above the purely local to have had sufficient capacity to oppose Leovigild in the 570s. This would have been the case in the northwest in the zone called Sabaria, between southern Galicia, Zamora, and northern Portugal, in this instance identified as a group, the Sappi. In the northwest there was another instance, here labeled with the name of an individual, Aspidius. He must have had a strong network of local power for him to be picked out by name in John of Biclar’s chronicle. Aspidius had his power base in the Aregenses montes, probably between the area of Orense and northern Portugal. The chronicler’s information describes the wealth of this figure and his family, who fell into the hands of Leovigild (Aspidium loci seniorem cum uxore et filiis captiuos). The king took over Aspidius’s power networks through his wealth and the places he controlled, which passed into the hands of the king (opesque eius et loca in suam redigit potestatem). Isidore expresses things more laconically. He names the Aregenses montes that John had called Aregia and very briefly mentions Sabaria. Isidore sums up the crushing by Leovigild of centers of urban rebellion, which are to be understood as the local power of city oligarchies. They are individualized in the case of Corduba and also appear in a generic formula, plurimae rebelles Hispaniae urbes (many rebel cities in Hispania). These were magnates who were trying to hold onto the positions of power that they had accrued during the collapse of the empire.9 Around 577 Leovigild conquered a zone in the southeastern peninsula called Orospeda, this being an area bordering on the positions held by imperial troops on the southeastern coast for the past several years. Most likely this was once again a question of local powers that had operated autonomously during the collapse of the empire and for most of the sixth century. John uses the term prouincia, but not in a strictly administrative sense, rather with the meaning “area” or “zone.” Leovigild was able to break into the two main areas of local power (ciuitates atque castella eiusdem prouincie occupat [he occupies the cities and the fortified hilltops of the same area]), which he subjected to his control (et suam prouinciam facit). He had to put down outbreaks of resistance in rural areas

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(rustici rebellantes a Gothis opprimuntur [rebel peasants are defeated by the Goths]). From the courtly viewpoint of the chronicler, these rustici were conceived of as peasants, but they must necessarily have had local groupings of rural notables able to face up to the troops of a king who at that period had been conquering regions of varied kinds around the edges of his kingdom. John finished off his entry with a last sentence that alluded to the fact that the task had ended only when these “rebel peasants” had been brought under control (et post hec integra a Gothis possidetur Orospeda [and after this all Orospeda was possessed by the Goths]). They would seem to be best interpreted as a peasant base organized around local powers capable of mobilizing resistance to Leovigild.10 In the mid-570s Leovigild conquered Cantabria, the area of the Upper Ebro. This conquest is mentioned by John of Biclar, Isidore, and Braulio. The first depicts it as a legitimate campaign by Leovigild as king (Leouegildus rex) with the result, just as for Orospeda, that the area ended up being seen as a legitimate domain (prouinciam in suam reuocat ditionem). According to John, the king’s arrival led to the liquidation of certain peruasores, or invaders, whose identity is unknown to the point that almost all possibilities have been mooted: Franks, Sueves, Ruccones. There does not appear to be enough evidence to choose any of these options with certainty, but what is clear is that Leovigild managed to impose his will over the local notables of the Upper Ebro. John explicitly states that he occupied Amaia (Amaiam occupat), and this must be identified with the site at Peña Amaya, north of Burgos. He adds that the king seized the riches of his foes (opes eorum peruadit), using a genitive plural that seems to refer to the supposed invaders, although the sentence containing it comes right after the mention of the taking of Amaia.11 The crucial point about the conquest of Cantabria is that, like that of Orospeda, it involved gaining control of a zone that hitherto had been in the hands of local magnates. Some information is available about the latter that seems to point to this. It comes from the Vita Sancti Aemiliani (VSAe) written by Bishop Braulio of Zaragoza in the first half of the seventh century. Aemilianus lived in the Upper Ebro region that is today’s La Rioja from the end of the fifth century until shortly after Leovigild’s campaign, which took place around 574. The text mentions various places. One of these is Vergegio (probably modern Berceo in La Rioja); another is the saint’s oratorium, which later formed the basis for the early medieval monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, also in today’s La Rioja. Other localities quoted are Amaia and the castellum Bilibium (near modern Haro in La Rioja). About one of the miracles supposedly performed by Aemilianus, the hagiographer says that among the Cantabrians everyone had seen or heard

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of it. Hence Cantabria, or at least southern Cantabria, was in the area where Aemilianus was active. These northern campaigns will be given further consideration, including those of Reccared and Sisebut into the lands of the Astures and Vascones.12 Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil proposed the theory that the tribal structure of these northern peoples was the key to their centuries-long opposition to the Romans, Visigoths, and Moslems. The present state of epigraphic and archaeological knowledge of the Roman period no longer allows this to be maintained. Today the north is known to have been effectively included within the Roman world, and local groups of great landowners are known to have existed. The book in which Barbero and Vigil summed up their theory about the primitive state of the peoples of the north, Cantabrians and Asturians in particular, dates from 1974, although it includes some earlier work. It was a book of great merit, published at a point when Spanish universities were facing very difficult times, and opened up new areas for research. However, the archaeological data that have now become available make it plain that Roman structures (ciuitates, uici, uillae) proliferated in these northern territories. Thus we now know that the north did fall into the Roman ambit and that the collapse of the empire encouraged the emergence of local powers, as happened in so many other areas.13 Confiscation, that is, the seizing of properties by the monarchy so as to add them to the royal fiscus, was a mechanism used by the Gothic kings. This is very clear in the case of Leovigild, in the midst of the expansion of the regnum. Isidore stresses this aspect, the connection between stripping enemies of their estates and increasing the treasury through confiscations. He contrasts this with Reccared, where Isidore likewise lingers over this aspect, but here in the opposite direction: Reccared seems to have restored ownership to those who had suffered confiscations. In later years there were to be more instances of confiscations, such as those during the transition from Suinthila to Sisenand and later those carried out by Chindaswinth, who also issued a law against possible usurpers which, among other penalties, imposed the attachment to royal control and to the treasury of what was in the ownership of those involved.14 Donations made by kings to the magnates who supported them were another mechanism for consolidating royal power. Just as confiscations were a punitive measure, donations were an element of reward. The clearest references come late, from the Councils of 636 and 638 under Chintila and thereafter. In the Fifth Council of Toledo in 636 an attempt was made to guarantee that the property of those faithful to kings (pro fidelibus regum) would be respected, an idea on which the bishops insisted again during the Sixth Council of 638, both for fideles

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in general and for the Church itself. Properties donated by the king should remain in the hands of the respective recipients. The tendency in Visigothic legislation was to protect whatever was donated by kings. Most likely this trend hid the fact that in practice such concessions could be infringed. In any case, just as confiscations punished, donations were mechanisms for rewarding support given to kings by sectors of the Iberian aristocracy.15 This picture, derived from sources connected to the central power, such as council decisions or laws, can be complemented with some data from other types of source. The VSAe alludes to local leaders, grouped into what Braulio calls a senatus in Cantabria. The existence of such a senatus, even if the term is perhaps too grand to reflect the reality, suggests some organization of local notables above the purely local. These were magnates with the dependents and slaves discussed in the previous chapter. This was so for Sicorius, who appears as a senator. Tuentius seems to be such, too: while his rank is not indicated, he was the owner of a seruus exorcized by Aemilianus. Yet again, there was the comes Eugenius, affected by a very similar miracle. Furthermore, there were the instances of the senatores Nepotianus and Proseria, and the curialis Maximus. Finally, there is the mention of the senator Honorius, who sent wagonloads of food supplies to Aemilianus and had an ecclesia with clergy, a private church, on his lands at Parpalines, not far from Aemilianus’s oratory in today’s La Rioja. In the context of Leovigild’s campaign incorporating the zone into the regnum (ca. 574), mention is made of figures such as Abundantius, who belonged to this group of magnates. Such local leaders, with their estates, dependents, and slaves, had sufficient similarities to be seen from outside as a group, and this is how they appear in Braulio’s text some time afterward. They were to be seen this way by Leovigild and John, and later by Isidore. This can be observed, as noted earlier, from the fact that they regarded the campaign against Cantabria as a major landmark in the consolidation of the kingdom.16 The main focal point for a concrete instance giving a view of local powers in operation in their relationship with the central power is Emerita. It is true that this is largely a matter of ecclesiastical authorities. After all, the reference text, the Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium (VSPE), a seventh-century collection divided into five opuscula, concentrates on clerics. As will be seen in Chapter 5, it is possible to observe in these accounts the conflicts arising within the structure of the Catholic Church itself and how these were cosmeticized so as to present a record of the sector projected as unanimous but really biased. Of interest here is the mention of civil powers in the shape of local magnates. The first thing to note is that these actually existed, but this is not surprising in view of the im-

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portance of Emerita from late Roman times onward, when it had been more or less the “capital” of the diocesis Hispaniarum and the seat of residence of the uicarius Hispaniarum.17 The text refers to a married couple of notables who requested Paulus, the Catholic bishop of Emerita, who came from the East, to apply his medical skills to save the man’s wife, who was very ill because of the death of the fetus during her pregnancy. The text calls them senatores when recounting an incident dating from the mid-sixth century or the early part of the second half of the century. It should be recalled that the first compilation of the VSPE dates, perhaps, to the 630s, or even before. Braulio in his VSAe and the main compiler of the VSPE both used a term from the Roman tradition to refer to local notables. Both id so in the 630s in referring to episodes that can be located more than half a century earlier. The married couple from Emerita rewarded Paulus, who saved the lady by extracting the dead fetus from her womb, by donating their immense wealth to him. The bishop used it to promote his nephew Fidelis as his successor in the bishopric of Emerita. Most likely this indicates a connection between certain parts of the local aristocracy and sectors of the Catholic Church. It should not be forgotten that the kingdom was still Arian. Likewise it should be remembered that there are hints that Paulus and Fidelis had enemies, described by the text as evil and wicked, within the Catholic Church itself. Moreover, years later other sectors of the local aristocracy backed revolts against Bishop Masona and in general against the conversion of the kingdom to Catholicism encouraged by Reccared. These uprisings, like others occurring in Toledo and Narbonne, must be dated as happening between 587, when Reccared announced his conversion, and the Third Council of Toledo, which brought the official conversion of the whole political apparatus. The revolts in question, which occurred between 587 and 589, led to a range of penalties and banishments. Like confiscation, exile was another coercive or punitive mechanism the royal power could apply to magnates, yet another of the systems it used according to circumstances. Obviously, the text handles the matter from a hagiographic perspective, but it is possible to see how the various groups had their backers. It was not merely a binary confrontation between Catholics and Arians. The linkages between all the groups involved and the central power are visible in the reigns of both Leovigild and Reccared. Each of these kings had a given section of these groupings sympathetic to him, while others were hostile, for very different reasons. Moreover, when Reccared issued a compulsory sententia against the plotters of 587, Bishop Masona defied the king’s legal decree and at his own initiative finally absolved Vagrila, one of the

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accused. In this way, it is possible to perceive in specific instances both the extent and the limitations of the power of the kings, who intervened in local affairs, but who might meet with gray areas where their decisions were not applied as thoroughly as a literal reading of leges and concilia might imply.18 However, this is the view given by sources emanating from the court and the Church, whether legal, narrative, or hagiographic. Sometimes relationships between central and local powers appear quite black and white, with donations and confiscations, as happens with councils and laws. Sometimes it is possible to gather that there were shades of gray, as with the organizations above the local level in rural territories, such as the Upper Ebro (in the VSAe), or the circuits of power in major ciuitates, such as Emerita. It may be asked whether there is any other sort of evidence regarding relationships between central and local powers, and the answer seems to be that it can be found in the archaeological record.

Anchoring the Kingdom: Territory and Local Powers The regnum had managed to achieve a territorial presence in Iberia. Although built up with difficulty in the times of Theudis, Agila, and Athanagild, it had burgeoned under Leovigild. Reccared’s pact with the bishops implied collaboration not merely from an ideological power (Catholic bishops and their councils) but from the network of ecclesiae, whether urban or rural. From a court perspective, implantation of the kingdom in the sixth century and its consolidation in the seventh century was organized around central departments. Thus there were posts, such as that of comes patrimonii covering fiscal matters and comes thesaurorum for the kingdom’s central treasury. The officium palatinum immediately surrounding the king and provincial governors (some called rectores, some duces), judices, and comites ciuitatis were among the top members of the kingdom’s administration. Many of these posts had been in existence at least since the end of the sixth century, as a law of Reccared’s gives a sort of listing of quite a few of them. Some positions had even been there since the times of the Gothic kingdom of Gaul, while others were added later. In fact, in the days of Chindaswinth and Recceswinth a major administrative reform was undertaken, although this lies outside the scope of this book. In brief, the terms (comites, iudices, and the like) are an expression of the implantation of an administration in the communities included in the regnum. Precisely for this reason they have left a mark in the sources, whether these are narratives or hagiographies, but also in the decisions of coun-

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cils, in letters, and above all in laws. However, it must be asked whether there may have been relationships between local and central powers that went beyond the designations and posts that are recorded.19 There were ciuitates in Iberia that had practically collapsed during the late Roman period. One instance is Clunia, on the northern half of the Meseta, or central plateau. As has been seen, however, a number of them had gradually redefined themselves in the fifth century, changing former domus either into spaces for those in power (as in Barcino) or into gardens and orchards (as in Emerita). The impression is gained that the most striking phenomenon was the growth of ecclesiastical spaces both in suburbia and within city walls. The ecclesiae were places that sometimes held relics, whether ancient (e.g., Eulalia in Emerita) or recent (e.g., Leocadia in Toletum). Bishoprics accumulated lands in areas that were former domus, as in Barcino, or in the environments, previously forums, that had then been used as graveyards, as in Valentia. Archaeologists believe it highly likely that in many cities pieces of land of this sort are at the lower levels of sites underlying what later became cathedrals. Despite the poorer materials employed, a growth of agricultural uses of land within cities themselves, and the abandonment of what had been public spaces in Roman times, ciuitates were crucial to the kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries. From a reading of the sources, whether laws, council decisions, histories, letters, or hagiographies, it is plain that cities had a key role in shaping the regnum. It was through laws that the game of winning power was most strongly played. In the light both of texts and of archaeology, some cities seem more dynamic: such is the case for Toletum, Barcino, Emerita, and others. The ciuitates continued to be vital for the process of tax collection, as will be seen, and the keys to administration: in them were comites and iudices, and in the most important city in each prouincia were governors (rectores or duces, according to the case).20 Toledo is a striking instance because of the contrast between the political clout of this city and the current state of archaeological knowledge about it. It was the sedes regia, the capital of the regnum, under Leovigild and probably previously under Athanagild, while it should not be forgotten that as far back as Theudis it had been a landmark city from which he issued his law on trial costs. As any visitor to the present-day city becomes aware, the ridge next to the Tajo includes a marvelous collection of monuments, but this has made archaeological work complicated. The site at Vega Baja on the outskirts of Toledo has been the object of archaeological investigations. Imports from Africa and the East have been found in this suburbium, together with structures that some archaeologists have identified as part of the palace complex of the Gothic kings in Toletum.

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Other authors are more skeptical of the hypothesis that the remains at Vega Baja correspond to royal structures. It is generally believed that the episcopal church of Santa María would have been where the current cathedral now stands. There is some debate about the inscription from 587 in which Reccared seems to have consecrated the church in catolico, but recent epigraphical studies appear to back up its historicity. Other churches, such as Santa Leocadia, encouraged by Sisebut, or the Church of the Holy Apostles (called the praetorian church), lay outside the city walls. Overall, little is known about Toletum. It is a royal perspective that makes understandable the case of Reccopolis, identified with the deposits excavated at Zorita de los Canes in Guadalajara province. The city was founded around 578 by Leovigild and named after his son, ciuitatem in Celtiberia ex nomine filii condidit (he founded a town in Celtiberia with the name of his son). John of Biclar, who is the source for this, says it was impressively adorned, miro opere (with an amazing work). Excavations have documented imports, workshops, a building some 140 yards long, a church, high-quality stonework, and contacts with Mediterranean trade routes.21 Archaeology has permitted identification of other spaces connected with power in ciuitates, mostly arising in the second half of the sixth century or the start of the seventh. Without any pretension to exhaustiveness, some examples may be given. In Gerona archaeologists believe they have detected the complex used by the comes of the city in Visigothic times, in the area of the former forum of Roman days, as also the episcopal complex. In Tarraco, one of the major cities of Roman Hispania, the necropolis of Francolí stands out in the late Roman era but appears to have lost its prominence to the zone of episcopal buildings. In Barcino, as in other Iberian cities, archaeologists seem to have found building work of some intensity during the second half of the sixth century. The bishop’s group of buildings, already in existence in the fifth century, was expanded by conversions of residential areas in a city where, as happened elsewhere, Arian and Catholic dioceses lived cheek by jowl until 589. Besides the setting up of a new church with a cruciform ground plan, the main episcopal complex was considerably extended in the sixth century and given towers in the seventh century. Archaeologists have also found what they have identified as the residence of the comes ciuitatis, a U-shaped, two-story building very close to the bishop’s buildings, near the city wall. Like other cities, Barcino gives evidence of private occupation of former public thoroughfares and of the splitting up of domus into smaller units, together with reuse for new purposes. There are other bishop’s complexes that archaeologists have discovered, for example, in Egara (modern Tarrasa) and Ampurias. Both of these, like Barcino and Tarraco, are in the northeast.22

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Figure 3. Segobriga, an aerial view of the church. Courtesy of Juan Manuel Abascal.

In the case of Segobriga (Figure 3), in central Iberia, archaeologists have documented the closure of the great Roman public buildings, together with the construction of the bishop’s complex well into the sixth century, in the environs of a former basilica and cemetery area. Inscriptions set up by the sixth- and seventh-century bishops are known, in quite a few instances thanks to drawings made in the past, the original being now lost. In Segobriga it is possible to see phases of abandonment and ransacking in the fifth century followed by an intensification of building in the sixth century. In Valentia, on the east coast, there was also reuse of former public spaces in the fifth century, but in the sixth there are traces of the episcopal complex, which, as in other places, included a church, baptistery, and burial zone. Similar to finds in other cities, in Valentia, archaeologists have found evidence of imports from both Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.23 In Emerita the bishop’s complex and the cathedral are not known from archaeological finds. They are mentioned in the VSPE, and archaeologists generally think that they lie somewhere below the present cathedral area within the

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city walls. Information from this same text about work done in the sixth century on the basilica of Saint Eulalia, which was built outside the city walls in the fifth century, has been confirmed by archaeological digs. This is also true for the growth of the graveyard area in this context. There is still some debate about whether the deposit identified as the xenodochium founded by Masona for pilgrims and the sick is actually such. However, it is plain to see that there was reuse of former public spaces and even of private ones. Former domus became farmyards, market gardens, or orchards, spilling out over part of the width of the old streets from late Roman times. A close look at publications by archaeologists combined with analysis of the VSPE gives an impression of major changes in Emerita during the period of consolidation of the Gothic regnum. Perhaps the most striking changes are the expansion in domestic buildings very different from the domus model and the growth in occupation of land by ecclesiastical structures. This is not just a question of the cathedral inside the city walls and the Saint Eulalia complex outside, but also refers to other churches mentioned in the text. As observed by Isaac Sastre de Diego, archaeology allows a glimpse of the circulation of liturgical necessaries, noticeable from the mid-sixth century onward, which proves the intensity of investment in the ecclesiastical sphere.24 Careful reading of the records of the council held in Emerita in 666 gives a clear idea of the enormous complexity of Church property in the city, also mentioned in the VSPE. In Emerita the interactions of central and local powers may also be seen. The revolts by Sunna and Gothic magnates against Masona and in the ultimate instance against Reccared, or the intervention of the dux Claudius as a representative of the central power, are samples of this. The implantation of the regnum in a landmark city such as Emerita is seen clearly in the VSPE, even though it is a hagiographic text. An instance would be the intervention by Leovigild, who attempted to attract Masona to Arianism. Logically enough, the text is crammed with trite sayings, archetypes, and clichés, but the basic content chimes with the general policy of expansion of the regnum in the second half of the sixth century. In other territories there are no texts as vivid as the VSAe and VSPE to give a glimpse of how central power embedded itself there. The question may be asked whether it is impossible to provide more data for this extension of central power into local worlds. It would appear that it is not and that there is a need to seek for it once again through archaeology, this time in rural areas.25 Most of the castella had emerged during the fifth century. Some did not last into the period of the Visigothic regnum, while others did. Castella comprise a range of heterogeneous sites. For example, their size varies from scores of acres,

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as at Peña Amaya, Dehesa de la Oliva, to the opposite extreme of barely an acre. Some have defensive walls built similarly to those of ciuitates, such as Bernardos and Tedeja, while others have more rudimentary defenses and some even lack them completely. In the time span between the fifth and eighth centuries, numerous castella appear and disappear, with highly disparate chronologies, so that they cannot be interpreted in a homogeneous fashion.26 It has been argued that castella may sometimes have been set up by the central power. This might be the case for the castellum of El Castillón de Santa Eulalia de Tábara, where excavations appeared to point to its being a fifth-century fortified military settlement, but more recent archaeological work suggests it continued in use at least into the sixth century. It is not impossible to imagine that there was political action here, probably by the Suevian kingdom, as the place lies in the contact zone between this kingdom and the inland areas of fifthcentury Roman Hispania. Thereafter, in the sixth century, it could have been caught up in the process of consolidation of the Visigothic kingdom, which conquered the Sueves around 585. This may also have happened to the castellum of El Cristo de San Esteban, at Muelas del Pan, among others in the northwestern sector. In the northeast a possible presence by the central power has been believed present in such sites as Puig Rom, Roc d’Enclar, and Sant Julià de Ramis, among others. Another possible example of action by the central power might be Gauzón, in Asturias, which was begun in the sixth century and provided with a defensive wall that archaeologists believe is to be explained by the phase of expansion and control by the kingdom in the north from the late sixth century onward. At a later date, the castellum of El Castillo de los Monjes, in present-day La Rioja, gives an impression of being a military stronghold from a late stage of the Visigothic kingdom, well into the seventh century.27 What is certain is that the phenomenon of the emergence of castella is relatively frequent throughout Iberia. In some areas, such as the center and northwest, there seems to be more evidence for them, but it is not clear whether they really were more widespread or whether this is an impression arising from where research has taken place. They have been found in Galicia. In the Basque country and Upper Rioja fortifications from the sixth and seventh centuries are rare, but there are some, such as Aitzorrotz in Eskoriatza in Guipuzcoa province, Bilibio at Haro in La Rioja, Lantarón in Alava province, and one or two more. In Portugal, the most striking example may well be the Tintinolho site in the Guarda district. In Catalonia, further examples have gradually been discovered beyond those known for a long while, such as Puig Rom, referred to earlier. In the south, too, castella from the sixth and seventh centuries are beginning to

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be found. The great central zone, especially the northern half of the Meseta, is probably where there is the greatest variety of types, some already mentioned. Here there are castella of considerable extent, such as Peña Amaya; with spectacular defensive walls, such as Tedeja or Bernardos; and with more modest walls but still fortified, such as El Cristo de San Esteban and La Cabeza de Navasangil.28 With all their variety and heterogeneity, these castella must be taken into account in order to understand the transformations occurring from the fifth to the seventh century. Although the number known has grown exponentially over the last few years, it is not possible to see them as forming a homogeneous set. It does, however, seem feasible to pick out certain elements giving pause for thought, particularly in the context of the present section on the anchoring of the regnum at local levels. First, these sites do not offer any sumptuary excesses but are somewhat unpretentious. With a few exceptions, among which would figure the defensive walls of Bernardos and Tedeja, these are fortified settlements on hilltops with very modest characteristics. Nonetheless, it is equally true that in many of these castella there are finds that point to elite goods, insofar as there was any “elite status” in the rural Iberia of the sixth and seventh centuries. These include “stamped” or molded pottery, tremisses issued by the Gothic kings, slates with numerical data, and certain brooches and belt buckles, among other materials. These imply contact with trade routes beyond the local that could only be within the reach of elites, even if always on a local and rural scale.29 Likewise, it does not seem possible to explain all the castella as belonging to the regnum, even if, as noted earlier, this is indeed one of the factors that may account for some sites. For example, there are castella in the northwest, on the borders of Gallaecia, that may have been defensive strongholds of the Suevian kingdom, first in the context of fifth-century late Roman Hispania, then against the Gothic kingdom in the sixth century. The site at El Castillón de Santa Eulalia de Tábara (Figure 4) may be among the best known archaeologically. Excavations in recent years have shown that the castellum, located on a rocky spur lying on the River Esla and provided with defensive walls, was in use in both the fifth and sixth centuries, though the excavators found fewer resources in play in the second phase of the site. As at other castella among those being discussed here, “stamped” pottery appears, this being considered a marker of relatively elite circles.30 Thus, elements such as ceramics of a somewhat higher-class nature in the post-Roman context (e.g., “stamped” pottery), together with coins and slates bearing numerical data, may be a pointer to elites. Depending on the case, such elites may have functioned as autonomous powers during the collapse of the Ro-

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Figure 4. Castellum, El Castillón, at Santa Eulalia de Tábara, Zamora. Courtesy of José Carlos Sastre.

man world, which might explain the emergence of numerous castella precisely in the fifth century. In other instances these local elites may have operated in the context of the Suevian kingdom, possible examples being El Castillón or El Cristo de San Esteban. The castella of the present-day provinces of Salamanca, Avila, and Segovia may have been set up by autonomous bodies, as may those in the east and south. In any case, the progressive construction of the Gothic kingdom in the sixth century must have taken place in the context of the castella. The offensives seen in the literary sources are largely associated with Leovigild and to a lesser degree with Reccared, Gundemar, and Sisebut, the last three mostly attacking northward, and in practice must have involved the castella. The world of castella gives an impression of having been one largely modest and based on the peasantry. But it also involved elites directing and channeling the gathering of surpluses needed to go beyond a peasant level to more powerful structures able to build defensive walls and maintain contacts with circles beyond the local. The evidence is given, for example, by the coins and higher-quality ceramics, items beyond

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common kitchenware, that are among finds. The castella were territorial landmarks that during the kingdom’s offensives to expand, especially under Leovigild, might house focal points of resistance. Such nuclei emerge in the literary sources, as happens with Amaia (if the association with the Peña Amaya site noted earlier is accepted), and with John of Biclar’s references to castella in the south, both around Corduba and in the Orospeda, again as discussed earlier. In the context of the organization of power in the regnum, it is clear that the ciuitates were the crucial points, but account must also be taken of smaller entities, such as these castella or even churches. Relevant here are the letters written by Montanus quoted in the Chapter 2, which show the extent to which in the first half of the sixth century ecclesiae were relevant in the initial stages of gaining control over the northern part of the Meseta by a kingdom that was still Arian. For the northwest there is the Parrochiale Suevum, a text from the second half of the sixth century that describes the thirteen episcopal sees in the territory of the Suevian kingdom, with their corresponding ecclesiae, forming a network of landmark points that was of interest to the political powers. This whole network was later to fall into the hands of the Visigothic kingdom.31

Circulating Power: Taxation The regnum itself took on ciuitates and castella as places for gathering the annona. This was a heavy tax of Roman origin that the successor kingdoms attempted to keep in place as far as they could. Cities and castella were a key part of the territorial organization of the kingdom, and this was also true for taxation. At times there is very clear evidence for this. One instance is Gallaecia, where it has been found that most of the main territorial centers of the Suevian period acquired mints issuing coinage for the Visigothic kingdom after they were conquered by Leovigild around 585. On other occasions it is not possible to be so clear-cut. Here, taxation comes into the spotlight as a mechanism involving relationships between the kingdom and local powers. Studies of taxation in the Visigothic kingdom have been hindered by debates that are very difficult to resolve. For instance, there is no agreement as to whether Goths paid taxes or not. Moreover, very little is known about exactly how the properties of the imperial res priuata that remained in Hispania were taken over by the Visigothic political system. Like other political systems in the West, the regnum Gothorum tried as far as it could to emulate the Roman methods of skimming off of surpluses in the shape of tax. At times it is possible to detect, as in Merovingian Gaul, that part of the concept of

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taxation had become military obligation, as Goffart observed. In other places the documents give an impression of a greater survival of the Roman fiscal system, as in Ostrogothic Italy, However, it has been suggested that in all likelihood there are fiscal differences most specifically in the way that supposedly ethnic terminology is used.32 The expansion of the kingdom in Iberia from the mid-sixth century onward had as a consequence a growth in taxation receipts compared with previous decades. Progressive extension under Theudis, and above all Leovigild’s conquests, brought territorial and fiscal expansion. Isidore writes that Leovigild extended the tax system, aerarium quoque ac fiscum, comparing his financial greed with the rebates that his son Reccared granted. The latter supposedly returned properties to individuals and to churches that had previously been incorporated into the fiscus by his father. There is a great deal of rhetoric here in the composition of negative and positive profiles, something which is also visible in respect to fiscal matters in the Historiae of Gregory of Tours. Nevertheless, the political and military offensive of the second half of the sixth century must have implied an increase in the taxation capacity of the kingdom. Passages such as the one about donation of a property from the fiscus to the abbot Nanctus by Leovigild would be a good instance of a donation, with the fiscus as a resource for punishments but also for pacts.33 It is probable that this was the context when the comes patrimonii centralized a major part of the tax system. Territorial expansion would be accompanied by growth in the numbers of numerarii, or tax collectors. Until Recceswinth’s reforms of the mid-seventh century, the property which was the king’s personally and that of the monarchy as an institution were confused with one another to some extent in legal documentation. The times of Leovigild (d. 586) and Reccared (d. 601) involved a turning point and a change of scale for taxation in Iberia. This statement is not based solely on Isidore’s comments on Leovigild and Reccared and the way they handled taxes but also on other types of evidence. For the most part the documents recording this peak in taxes come from the days of Reccared, but it is likely that the practices recorded had begun under Leovigild as far as territorial extent is concerned. Before Leovigild, tax mechanisms in the regnum had been much more limited.34 In the regnum in the ultimate instance, the tax system depended on the rex, who could rely on the comes patrimonii as his contact for such matters at the royal court, upon whom a number of actores fisci and numerarii in turn depended. The current stage of knowledge does not point to any long-term large exemptions from taxes, whether on the grounds of ethnic group or of religion. The old laws

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on the matter that were retained made a point of recalling that not even lands from the settlement period were exempt from tribute. On the other hand, such a preoccupation about possible losses of taxes may be a reflection that such losses occurred in practice. Sometime later, Chindaswinth issued a law to make certain that tax (publica functio) was not lost in cases of sales and donations of land, estates, or dependents and slaves. The main taxes were levied on people and land, while there were indirect taxes on trade and customs dues, for example.35 Conversion of the kingdom to Catholicism in 589 brought with it the entry of the bishops into the political ideology of the system but also their participation in tax matters. One of Reccared’s laws indicates that the numerarii could be chosen by bishops and people. The latter would seem to refer to the magnates corresponding to each zone. This law has sometimes been accorded too much importance. It was a declaration of intent on the need to avoid excess in gathering taxes: these are listed in the ablative case, indictionibus, exactionibus, operibus vel angariis (impositions, exactions, works, mandatory ser vices). When the law gets down to detail, farther into the text, numerarii are mentioned who had apparently been nominated by bishops or the people (qui electus ab episcopis vel populis fuerit), but it is not stated that they necessarily had to be chosen in this way. In fact, the Third Council of Toledo gave the bishops a much greater role with regard to tax collectors (and indeed iudices), iudices uero locorum uel actores fiscalium patrimoniorum. It was declared that they should appear before councils, and the royal decree was quoted as authority for this. Obviously, all this might be self-affirmation by the bishops or even, it has been suspected, an interpolation intended to give the bishops a bigger role in tax supervision than was decreed by the law quoted. In fact, there is evidence for numerarii designated directly by the comes patrimonii. This can be seen in the document known as De fisco Barcinonensi (On the fisc of Barcelona), circa 592, which in itself is an instance of numerarii designated by the comes patrimonii, but above all of Church intervention in the tax-raising process. It documents how the bishops of dioceses in the eastern Tarraconensis supervised the tax corresponding to the process of adaeratio (conversion to monetary value of goods in kind). Here it was a question of setting a money equivalent for grain crops, which was to be used as a reference by the numerarii designated by the comes patrimonii, one Scipio by name. These numerarii are shown in operation in Barcino, but it can be seen how the bishops of the environs participated in setting a money value for taxes expressed in terms of grains. Something similar must have occurred in the main nuclei of power of the regnum, but there are no documents like this one from Barcelona to corroborate

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the assumption. Bishops were involved in the tax-gathering procedures, providing channels in the form of the network of bishoprics and ecclesiae.36 The law texts and council canons speak of central departments, the comes patrimonii, fiscus, actores fisci, and numerarii, but these are documents emanating from the central power. There are elements allowing some limits to be set to this dialogue between theory and practice. One is the bishops’ participation, which must have favored territorial implantation of tax collection. Another is coinage. The kingdom expressed the value of the tribute to be collected in money terms. Beyond its function as a medium of exchange, coinage was above all a reference for political power. Its fiscal dimension lay in the fact it was used to calculate the tribute value that the kingdom assigned to the wealth that it gathered, even if this was originally in kind, as seen in the case of De fisco Barcinonensi. In fact, the issue of coinage was a monopoly of the Gothic kings, whose images appeared on coins from the period of Leovigild onward. Archaeological finds show that coins are most often discovered in association with focal points of power, whether urban or rural, such as castella.37 All of this leads to the local level. A search for evidence of a nature possibly indicating taxation in the archaeological record would give some indication of the implantation of taxes in the kingdom. These do not seem to have been excessive but did suffice to cover expenditure. Iñaki Martín Viso has highlighted the extent to which the tremisses that are found in rural areas and in some urban zones, such as the Avila of today or Egitania, today’s Idanha-a-Velha in Portugal, together with some of the slates bearing numerical data, are possible hints of the presence of such taxation. Slates of this kind are also to be found in castella, examples being, among others, Castelos Velhos and Tintinolho, both in Portugal; Lerilla and El Cortinal de San Juan in Salamanca province; and La Cabeza de Navasangil at Solosancho in the province of Avila. What are known as pizarras visigodas, or Visigothic slates, are in reality a very heterogeneous set of items, bearing drawings, symbols, numerical calculations, and texts. Most of them have been found on the northern half of the Meseta but by no means all. Martín Viso has used convincing arguments to suggest that some of the numerical slates may have had a purpose in taxation, while others may relate to rents. It is not easy to distinguish these. One numerical slate found in Valdelobos, not far from Emerita, and recently studied may correspond to the management of private rents. Martín Viso suggests that in some places, such as La Genestosa near Casillas de Flores in Salamanca province, the slates may be linked to peasant villages, which needed to control and manage agricultural resources. This management may have been directed from the castellum of Lerilla, which appears to have

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been the main hierarchical focal point in the area. In other zones slates have been found in village contexts, as at La Cárcava de la Peladera in Segovia province and El Pelícano in Madrid province. Not all numerical slates necessarily have to be related to taxation, but some are, as has been claimed for other castella by Martín Viso. In his joint work with Pablo C. Díaz he pointed at a possible river passage toll on the basis of the archaeological records for El Cortinal de San Juan at Salvatierra de Tormes in Salamanca province. Another example, which according to the numbering used by Isabel Velázquez’s edition would be slate number 5 from Peralejos de Solís in Salamanca province, dated by the editor to the sixth or seventh century, shows payments made by different individuals. At times it is specified that these are for grain, but in one case it is noted that a certain John paid in angarias mod[ios] LX, that is to say a tax on animal transport, although just as conceivably it is some other sort of tax charge. Another slate, possibly from Diego Álvaro, dated by Velázquez as perhaps from the first half of the seventh century, has a list of lambs, rams, and ewes for the era[ra]rio. At times the references are not as explicit as in these instances but do give a similar impression. For example, slate 20 from the zone of Salamanca repeatedly uses the expression suscepimus per castros (sic; this is the local development of late Latin, an accusative plural that has changed from neuter to masculine gender: “we have collected by the fortified hilltops”). The slate gives an account of the collection of certain quantities, but it is not known of what. The expression recalls the castella (which the slate calls castra, or more exactly the neologism castros), which may correspond to the notions expressed in LV 9.2.6 about tax collection in ciuitates but also in castella. These and other slates on which payments of quantities are recorded, sometimes with diversified payments and possible differences of social rank, have led Martín Viso to think that some of them (but not every numerical slate) may reflect the payment of taxes. Expressions such as angarias or erarario leave little room for doubt. At least some of these slates seem to be records of tax payments, although some of the numerical records may well be references to rents or property management. Those that do record taxation reflect a certain degree of penetration by the political and tax system into these zones of high plateaus, mountains, and moors of central and western Iberia. It has been seen that the tax system functioned in legal theory, in the bishops’ aspirations, and in the formation of urban fiscal districts (the example of Barcino is clear). It may be that these slates give information about how this same system operated in rural areas away from the principal ciuitates.38

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In the period of expansion and building of the Gothic kingdom between the late sixth and the early seventh century, an idea of unity was projected that was reinforced by the alliance with the Catholic bishops. The latter provided an ideological capacity for the central apparatus in Toledo. They also brought with them their network of rural and urban ecclesiae, which permitted expanded circulation of the images that kings, magnates, and bishops agreed on in councils. These images were not distortions in their own terms and should not be taken as mere rhetoric. Recent archaeological findings show there is evidence for connections above the local level in places that might have seemed marginal from the viewpoint of the great decision-making centers, such as Toletum, Barcino, Hispalis, or Emerita. The distribution of prestige goods, such as “stamped” pottery and certain items of personal adornment, point to such connections beyond the local. The presence of coins and the possible fiscal purpose of some of the numerical slates may be a better pointer to penetration by the channels of central power than would have been suspected had royal documents been taken as mere rhetorical exercises. Kings had certain theoretical and practical powers, but in the final resort they needed the collaboration of the magnates of various ranks. The regnum as a system had need of the nobles of Emerita or Corduba. However, it also required the more modest elites of the castella on the steppe-like plateaus of western Iberia. It needed the bishops who supervised the setting of a monetary value on the tribute collected. It had a need for the individuals who did the same in small ciuitates and castella, leaving a trace of the process in the form of the gold coins that archaeologists are gradually finding in clearer and clearer contexts. These same elites supervised local rural taxation, as happened with those lambs that were to be paid to the erarario (aerarium) or those angarias. These would be the people who had access to the prestige goods that appear among finds, such as stamped pottery or personal ornaments. As Recceswinth said at a later date, in words quoted early in this chapter, for the king the magnates were his socii, his allies. The grand outlines of the construction of the kingdom may well be Leovigild’s conquests or the pact Reccared made with the bishops. However, at intermediate and rural levels this type of archaeological find may give some clue as to how correct Recceswinth’s statement was. This chapter has focused on the channels both for hostility and for negotiations between the local powers investigated in Chapter 3 and the political system whose development was covered in Chapter  2. The construction of the kingdom, beyond the political line studied in Chapter 2, was based not only on

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conquest but also especially on such negotiations. Hostility took solid form both in the case of specific individuals, in other words, magnates with sufficient leverage to set up very local power networks, and in that of groups, which are given ethnic names by the sources. Negotiations took place on the basis of donations or concessions by kings and of participation by local sectors of power in the mechanisms of the kingdom, such as taxation, military ser vice, and administration. The construction of the kingdom in Iberia was thus no mere sudden imposition but rather the result of a systematic engagement with local powers. And it was also the origin of the invention of the same kingdom in ideological terms.

chapter 5

Inventing a Kingdom Projecting Messages

Mechanisms for Inventing a Kingdom In his Sententiae, Isidore of Seville wrote that God gave princes sovereignty to govern peoples. These words summed up an idea of symbiosis between kingdom and religion: kings should use the gifts God gave them to protect the members of Christ’s church. This was an endpoint, reached after decades of political, military, and ideological tensions. The official conversion of the kingdom in 589 had been a turning point in a gradual process, not a sudden event. Nonetheless, it is probable that Isidore and his colleagues wanted this also to be a starting point. When he wrote those words, several decades had gone by since the Third Council of Toledo. The image projected of the regnum Gothorum was created between the late sixth and early seventh century. This image implied the “invention” of the kingdom cited in the title of this chapter.1 Certain aspects were omitted, others emphasized. Those emitting political messages about this invention were basically bishops and monks. In consequence, the sources, and even to a considerable degree the leges, are strongly shaped by religion. This does not imply that there were no lay producers of cultural messages. There were some kings who did so, for example. Sisebut (612–621) wrote a poem on lunar eclipses, a hagiography, letters, and other texts. However, the ideological invention of the kingdom came from the Catholic bishops. Several of them were also monks, and some composed regulae. This invention rested on a minimum of two major ideological supports. One was already in existence but underwent adaptation: “ethnicity.” The system identified itself as the regnum Gothorum, the kingdom of the gens Gothorum, but the sense assigned to this

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concept changed over time. Another was unity on the basis of Catholic religion and monarchy. Naturally, all of this contained detectable flaws. However, these were the two supports for the ideological invention, justification, and political identity that the elites who came out on top in the changes occurring during the sixth century gave to the Visigothic kingdom. In fact, the construction of identities, both ethnic and religious, is perhaps most spectacular in the evolution from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages in the West. As Helmut Reimitz has shown, the two constructions present contradictions but also interconnections.2 The mechanisms for inventing the image of the kingdom were varied. Here only a few will be mentioned. On the one hand were the leges. These were an expression of the desires of the central power, whether or not these desires were fulfilled. On the other hand were mechanisms controlled by the clergy. First of these were the councils. From them ideology was transmitted to the ciuitates but also to rural areas, in both cases on the basis of networks of ecclesiae. Each network of churches may well have had some elements that fell outside episcopal control. However, it was possible to transmit the messages agreed in councils to local areas along these networks. Sermons were perhaps the most powerful mechanism in this circuit of oral communication. They were heard both by the elite audience and by humbler social classes. These lower classes were for the most part illiterate but could understand an oral message if the communicator adapted it to a whole range of audiences.3 Another mechanism was history, which enabled the production of a given version of the past. This involved use of the past to transmit social and cultural memories and to project the interests of the elite that created a particular history. John of Biclar and Isidore of Seville formed part of an interconnected elite, participating in councils, controlling networks of urban and rural churches, and maintaining connections, sometimes direct, to monasteries. These mechanisms were not hermetically sealed compartments but were related one to another. This elite had reached a pact with the monarchy and most of the Gothic aristocracy at the end of the sixth century. Some Gothic magnates held out against this pact, but it finally came into force. Interest in the past was vital to the construction of a supposed common identity under the aegis of regnum and bishops. Oral tradition was the foundation for some written versions, especially in hagiographies. Braulio of Zaragoza in his Vita Aemiliani or the clerics who composed the VPSE in two phases, for example, used oral tradition. Isidore used it alongside the written narrative by John of Biclar when dealing with such matters as the reigns of Leovigild and Reccared or Hermenegild’s war. John was able to

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use it because in those days his brother Leander had been a protagonist. He also resorted to oral tradition to gain more knowledge of the reigns during which he himself had lived. John of Biclar himself also made use of oral tradition, besides written sources. He had been in Constantinople, and on returning to Iberia he must have been a member of the elite circles holding power, since there is no other reason for him to have been exiled to Barcelona by Leovigild. He was afterward bishop of Gerona and abbot of the monastery of Biclar, Biclarum. These are the most significant examples. In the presentation of history that was designed during the late sixth and early seventh centuries, there were oral traditions, even if they are preserved today exclusively thanks to having been inserted into texts. The elite of the Gothic kingdom, like those elsewhere in Europe, tended to try to preserve a privileged position, and cultural items, including history, were useful for this purpose. Fixing the past in written form gave that past, or the memories constructed from it, a stable definition. Orality and literacy formed part of the projects that John, Isidore, and the Mérida clerics aimed to realize.4 However, this construction of the past at the end of the sixth century and early decades of the seventh century was not without problems. It had to provide a linear version of what in reality had been a complex process. A simplistic image of the triumph of Catholicism and the Gothic kings had to be given roots in history. Leander himself had shown the way as early as 589. His homily delivered to the Third Council of Toledo passed over relevant parts of the recent past. He made no mention of Hermenegild. He did not even speak about Reccared, who was actually present. He gave the impression that the key point was the power of bishops to construct this past. He did so not just before the king but also before the bishops and magnates who were listening, and for others who would read it in the copies of his text that would soon be circulated. His discourse focused on the Catholic religion as an absolute paradigm. He concluded with the idea of a kingdom united on the basis of a strug gle against heresy. Indeed, from the very start of his speech he laid emphasis on heresies. Arguing against them, he addressed his audience with such words as unitas, ueritas, gaudium (unity, truth, joy). His speech set heresy against unity. Delivered to such a public, his discourse had no need to indicate the historical epoch in which this opposition occurred nor the supposed overcoming of it. Leander did not name the principal figures in the matter, not even one. His speech constantly reverted to the positioning of heresy against truth and unity. At times he did mention the Goths and how they overcame these divisions. One example is when he stated that truth had put a

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restraint on error (errori occurrit ueritas), so peoples (gentes) hitherto kept from unity by pride and differences in languages (superbia linguarum diuersitate) could now unite in charity. He ended his speech by speaking of unum regnum. John of Biclar imposed order on this past in his chronicle. Slightly later, Leander’s own younger brother, Isidore, would draw up an ideological invention, in the etymological sense of “discovery,” of this linear past of the kingdom.5 Leander had been a monk before he became bishop of Seville. Monastic foundations had been known in Hispania from the fourth century onward. They grew very slowly. In the Visigothic era, in the northwest, were monastic organizations with a countryside base. Elsewhere, the communities were more linked to political power, as in the case of the Servitano monastery or the monastery of Agali. Bishops considered the topic of monasticism on many occasions. Theoretically, the patrimonia of monasteries were not supposed to be subject to episcopal control, apart from a few specific portions and a scatter of exceptions. Nomination of abbots was supervised by bishops. However, all this formed part of a complex relationship between monasteries and bishoprics, with varying outcomes in practice. This aspect is of interest, as some of the authors most influential in the creation of the memory of the Gothic kingdom were monks or bishops who had sometimes composed regulae, whether or not these have survived to the present day. This was the case for Leander (whose regula for a nunnery, dedicated to his sister Florentina, does still survive) and for John of Biclar, who is known to have written such a text, no longer extant. Isidore wrote yet another, which has been preserved. The impression is that monasticism had an influence over the creation of the kingdom’s history through the thinking of such figures as Leander and John. Eutropius, abbot of the Servitano monastery and also bishop of Valencia, exercised a weighty influence at the Council of Toledo, alongside Leander himself. This was recognized by John of Biclar, who was like them in being both a monk and a bishop.6 In fixing the narrative of the past, the basis was given by the formula for ecclesiastical history that had triumphed in the late Roman world. It was on these foundations that Christian historiographic works in Latin were built up in the barbarian kingdoms, with varying political viewpoints. Jordanes constitutes a different case. His work on the Goths, of interest for Iberia in its references to the late fifth and early sixth centuries, was composed in Constantinople in the midsixth century. Jordanes took Cassiodorus as a point of reference, although it is debated to what degree. Moreover, a local source from Iberia, known to Mommsen as the Chronica Caesaragustana but called the Consularia Caesaraugustana

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since the new edition by Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann, is in reality a heterogeneous accumulation of material bringing together various pieces of consular information. Nonetheless, the key authors in designing the invention of the kingdom in a given past were John of Biclar and Isidore of Seville. However, this invention was constructed, as mentioned above, on the foundations laid by Leander in his 589 sermon.7 John and Isidore’s historiographic works are the core of the written, narrative invention of the Visigothic kingdom in a specific past time. In this process, John composed a chronicle and Isidore both a history (which also covered the Vandals and Sueves) and a chronicle. It is known from Isidore that John spent time as a student in Constantinople in his youth, returning to Iberia at a time when Isidore says Leovigild was making a strong push in favor of Arianism, incitante Leouigildo rege, ariana feruebat insania (being incited by king Leovigild, Arian insanity reached the boiling point). It was in this context, he says, that John was exiled to Barcelona by the king, remaining in this city for ten years. He became bishop of Gerona and founded the monastery of Biclar, which he provided with a regula (monastic rule). Isidore himself states that he had not been able to consult a number of books attributed to John, but he does quote from his historical work. The chronology of the drawing up of John’s chronicle is debated. For a long time the hypothesis was that this occurred around 590–591, the approximate date of the concluding items in its content. In the new edition, Cardelle de Hartmann has proposed a later period, even after the beginning of John’s tenure as bishop, which she dates to around 602.8 Isidore was no less well informed. His family originated in the Carthaginiensis but ended up settling in Seville. They probably came from a zone controlled by the Byzantine Empire, and this influence is strongly present in Isidore’s historiographical thinking. Members of the family did well in the church and in monastic spheres. One of the brothers, Fulgentius, was bishop of Écija, and Leander and Isidore held the same post in Seville. Florentina, a sister, took her vows in a nunnery. Hence they occupied a preeminent position in the province of Baetica, controlling the bishopric of a city as important as Hispalis for more than a half-century. Leander was implicated in Hermenegild’s revolt and is known to have spent time in Constantinople, where he struck up a friendship with Gregory, later bishop of Rome. Leander’s influence over Isidore must have had numerous strands. Some cannot be proved, while others can. As previously stated, Leander’s homily delivered before King Reccared, the bishops, and principal magnates of the kingdom in 589 opened many doors for Isidore later. Perhaps the main one was the new idea of political and religious unity. Heresy was the enemy

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to be struck down. This had been the case for Arianism, but in Isidore’s day stress was laid on the Jews and on the fact that not a few Roman emperors had been heretics. By this stage, the Gothic kingdom had forged itself an identity on the basis of political unity and as a leading light of Catholicism of a Nicene variety.9 Isidore wrote his chronicle in two stages, one around 615 and the other around 626. This was also the case for his Historia Gothorum (HG), with two phases around 621 and 626. While in the past there was some debate over the authorship of the first edition of the HG, philological studies seem to have resolved this question definitively in favor of Isidore as author. Both John and Isidore say nothing of Hermenegild’s conversion to Catholicism and present him as a usurper. In Isidore the presentation of the past joins as one single movement the evolution of the Goths and the way to a Christian monarchy. Isidore’s take on the Goths will be discussed below in the section covering ethnicity. What is of interest here is to point out that at a general level his use of the past is in accordance with the theoretical formulae that he brings together in his Sententiae. According to this viewpoint, kings are kings because of God’s will, and in Isidore’s HG the past serves the present in projecting ideas about good and bad government. For his part, John had built up a version of the past that led to an identity for the Gothic kingdom in opposition to the Eastern Roman Empire, but he also takes a good account of imperial matters in his chronicle. The final pinnacle of this progression, colored by teleology or predetermination, was Reccared.10 Isidore went further. On such topics as ethnicity or conversion, to be considered in this chapter, he went deeper into inventing a new identity for the Gothic monarchy. He put forward the idea that the Roman Empire was no longer a benchmark for legitimacy or identity. Moreover, it had had heretical emperors. He built up an image of the Gothic kingdom as a model of political and orthodox religious power and an enemy of heresy. His history was a timeline on which three turning points marked the way to the apotheosis he envisioned: Leovigild cemented its territorial base, Reccared was the champion of conversion to Catholicism, and Suinthila brought to a successful end the Gothic kings’ campaigns against imperial forces. Both John and Isidore presented Reccared’s conversion as a turning point. Isidore manipulated the past to construct identities in Iberia. The most relevant in connection with the theoretical formulation in his Sententiae was Gothic royalty in symbiosis with the bishops. Here he differed from Gregory of Tours. Gregory sought to demonstrate that it was Christianity, not the Franks, that acted as the principal protagonist in political identity, and he chose specific cases to illustrate this end, bringing the Franks into them as subsidiary players. In Isidore’s case, the Goths are the cru-

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cial part in the formula, although with the bishops as permanent guardians of the system. Aware of the regnum’s contradictions, he drew up canon 75 of the Toledo Council of 633 with them in mind. This happened some seven years after he had finished the second version of the HG. In it he put forward negative and positive exempla of kings and their behavior. This allowed him to use the past as a basis on which to focus on what he hoped would be the behavior of the elite. After all, kings were members of the nobility. His audience consisted of magnates and clerics, so the HG corresponded to what Isidore wanted the regnum Gothorum to be in its present and its future. There is a pastoral element in his conception of history, largely inherited from the influence that the works of Gregory the Great had on him and the rest of the kingdom’s elite.11 This chapter will briefly explore two specific modes of invention of the kingdom in the use of the past. On the one hand, there is ethnicity. On the other, there is the creation of recollections of the past, in which it was essential to design a memory of the conversion of the kingdom to Catholicism and of unity around this process. Finally, I will briefly investigate what the extent of construction of memories at local levels may have been.

Ethnicity Ethnicity is one of the topics most hotly debated in recent decades. Previously, in the nineteenth century and for a good part of the twentieth century, it was subject to political manipulation. The view taken of Rome’s crisis and the successor kingdoms was often colored by nationalistic interests of the day, in a search for the supposed origins of contemporary European nations. Fortunately, the part played by ethnicity has more recently been reinterpreted with very interesting contributions within the model frequently known as “ethnogenesis,” which takes ethnicity into account as a mechanism for generating identities. These would be forged in aristocratic contexts, in “nuclei of tradition,” that would transmit identities within each group of barbarians (Goths, Franks, and so on). On this basis of such ethnic traditions, elites would justify to themselves the hegemonies of certain groups over others. This explanation would see particular influence arising from myths about the origins of each of the barbarian populi, gentes, nationes mentioned in texts from the late Roman Empire and the post-Roman period. Other interpretations have fiercely debated the model of ethnogenesis, strongly downplaying or even denying any role for ethnicity as an element influencing the sociopolitical dynamics of late Roman and post-Roman centuries. In

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reality, ethnicity in late Roman and post-Roman kingdoms, as explained by Walter Pohl, was changing and flexible. It was neither homogeneous nor static, as Patrick Geary stated, nor was it an objective element that can be understood in an absolute sense. In accordance with these views, it would appear that no stable, unambiguous, or predetermined ethnicity should be assumed for the Goths in Iberia. It must be understood that this was an ideological, cultural, and political case of shifting sands, whether on the theoretical level or in the textual record. With regard to material items, the artifacts that archaeologists find were an element in the cultural and social structure. They also formed part of the political foundation of these structures. It is not possible to reduce all this to an ethnobiological equation. Nevertheless, ethnicity did exist as an identity mechanism, if it is accepted that terms, such as gens Gothorum and regnum Gothorum, had an ethnic component identifying groups in the etymological sense. The complexity of the texts goes beyond any simple analysis, even though theses texts are sometimes based on clichés and commonplaces, as happens precisely with the “ethnic” references of Isidore in his Etymologiae.12 In sixth- and seventh-century Iberia such concepts as gens Gothorum and Gothi were functional terms. They appear in a whole range of sources: narrative, conciliar, juridical, and others. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, as happened in other European countries, a racial, pan-Germanic perspective was adopted in analyzing the appearance of ethnic elements in the sources, and an archaeological reflection of them was sought. As also happened elsewhere, certain material items were linked to ethnic groups in a biological fashion. This has been mentioned already with regard to the so-called “Visigothic necropolises,” an expression that is currently debated. The essential basis for this ethnic association was the identification of certain brooches, items of personal adornment, and belt buckles. Earlier it was noted that quite a few archaeologists openly question this ethnic equation, while others hold that these sites were the cemeteries of the Goths who settled in Iberia. However, familiarity with the texts speaking of Gothi leads to the conclusion that there was no homogeneity as early as the fourth century. This becomes even clearer later among the groups of Gothi who followed Alaric, who absorbed a motley set of populations into their ranks during their stay in Illyricum and Italy. Something similar happened during Athaulf’s time in Italy, Gaul, and northeastern Iberia, in Barcino. However, all this had occurred long before the Gothic kingdom became definitively anchored in Iberia. The concept of Gothi necessarily brought together groups of great diversity as a function of their geopo-

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litical history. An attempt has been made here to show that this settlement was not sudden but rather a gradual process.13 The process of installation in Iberia was slow. As already seen, it may have had a faster pace in Euric’s times in the Tarraconensis, increasing under Alaric II, and also after the latter’s death at Vouillé and especially after Amalaric’s death in 531. Some scholars have put forward population figures that are generally in the range of 80,000 to 200,000, but the sources do not seem to permit even this level of precision. Whatever the case, the group was much smaller than the preexisting population of Iberia. Chapter 2 referred to the persistence of the distinction between Gothi and Romani in laws that had a foundation going back to the settlement periods, both in Southern Gaul and in Iberia, but were retained later. This was also true for Leovigild’s law lifting the traditional prohibition on marriages between Goths and Romans.14 The great change in the topic of ethnicity took place between the late sixth and mid-seventh century: there was an evolution in meaning that ended in the political idea that the term Gothi was a generic allusion to the inhabitants of the regnum Gothorum. The key point was the pact between the Gothic elite and the Catholic bishops. At the Third Council of Toledo a spectacle was made of the conversion of the gens Gothorum as well as the recently conquered Sueves. The ritual profession of faith by the Gothic magnates present there, with their king at their head, was highlighted. From those sessions onward, all of this was wrapped up in a blanket of ideological unity. Leander took upon himself the task of giving a definitive shape to this idea of unity, later expanded by other bishops and monks. Before the Third Council of Toledo in 589 the major barrier between Goths and the preexisting population was religious, which was officially abolished at the very moment of the council. It has been suggested that the use in inscriptions of the Hispanic era as a time reference was particularly marked in phases of political and religious tension between Arians, most of whom were Goths, and Catholics.15 However, ethnicity functioned on both a religious and a political plane. In the first few lines of the minutes of the council it was made plain that it was the king who was leading the way to conversion, both his own and the Goths’ (de eius conuersione quam de gentis Gothorum innouatione). In the tomus, the document Reccared handed over to the bishops that was read aloud, there was a clear allusion to omnis gens Gothorum. This was an indication that from that moment on both the gens and the rex himself were bound to the Catholic Church. In this context, Reccared was not referring to all his subjects when he used gens Gothorum

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but rather to the Goths alone. This means that there was an ethnic use of the concept, referring to a group distinct from the rest of the population, the majority of whom were Catholic. That was the sense Reccared gave to gens Gothorum in his tomus. Further uses of the term after that moment, even in the council itself, were as an appeal to the unity of Goths within Catholicism. Essentially, this was projecting the superiority of the value of unity over the restricted meaning of gens Gothorum. This opened the door to a future extension of the concept of Goths to cover all the inhabitants of the kingdom.16 This was an ideological process that started with the council and was to culminate over the next several decades. When John of Biclar wrote his chronicle, at the very earliest around 591 but perhaps as much as two decades later, the use of the label “Goths” was already quite varied. John employed the term Gothi at several levels. One example is in a religious sense, stressing their Arian identity and then their conversion to Catholicism. Another is in a political sense, here pointing to individuals belonging to the regnum. In this usage there is an element of closure: the word now covered all the subjects of the kingdom. However, John hinted that things had not always been thus. There is an instance when he refers to Leovigild’s campaign against Corduba in the early 570s, calling the city diu Gothis rebellem (for a long time rebel to the Goths). Corduba had been one of the most powerful cities of Roman Hispania and had a considerable aristocratic class with Roman traditions. Here there is clear usage of Gothi in the sense of groups led by the king who are attempting to support the kingdom but not including the totality of the population. These words were written by John some years after the Third Council of Toledo, when the term Gothi was already taking on a wider meaning. Although John generally employs Romani to refer to imperial forces, here he uses the binary contrast of Gothi and Romani to indicate that Hermenegild’s rebellion affected two groups. This is still an excluding use, on the lines explained above. It would seem that this is deliberate, in the sense that Hermenegild’s uprising is presented as a negative point before the apotheosis of Reccared. Hence, the image that John projected of Hermenegild’s rebellion was that of a rift between the Goths and the preexisting population of Iberia. This was a rift that John’s ideological scheme saw as being healed from the Third Council of Toledo onward. His allusion to Reccared’s conversion notes that he brought with him the Goths and the Sueves (gentemque omnium Gothorum et Sueuorum), who came into the unity of the Catholic Church. This wording is strongly reminiscent of how the same idea had been put forward in the 589 council itself. In his entry about Reccared’s campaign against the advance by Guntram in south-

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ern Gaul, John contrasted Franci with Gothi, using this latter word as a political and military concept. The summary he gives of the Third Council of Toledo is on the same lines as the council’s documents referred to earlier. Hence, John’s last usage of “Goths” refers to fusion at the religious level.17 This merging was a reflection of the pact between Gothic magnates and the effective powers in Iberia. It was on this basis that there was an ideological projection of a regnum Gothorum that included in the term all of its subjects. Isidore put forward the idea of the Gothi as winners against the Romani in the historical outcome. For Isidore the latter are a backward historical projection of the Romani he had known, in other words, the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital in Constantinople. The key to ethnic usage in Isidore is his symbiosis of Spania and the Gothi. Spania appears as a geographical and historical concept, a place where various peoples were active over time. The Goths (Gothorum florentissima gens) are the people that came out on top and now govern the land. Isidore seems to have finished his second version of the HG between 625 and 626; some seven years later he was the leading light of the Fourth Council of Toledo, held in 633. There the bishops presented an elective system for the royal succession, based on the choices made by bishops and magnates. At the start of the canon regulating the procedure, it was expressly stated that the intention was to strengthen kings (pro robore nostrorum regum) and provide stability for the Goths, stabilitate gentis Gotorum. The canon was intended to give the monarchy religious support so as to reinforce its ideological unity. It decreed that whosoever rebelled against the procedure being proposed or against the king should be anathematized and expelled from the community of the Catholic Church. The canon went a step further than had been taken by the Third Council. Fidelitas (fidelity) to the king must be complied with by cunctis Spaniae populis (all peoples in Spania), and a few words later on there was mention of pro patriae gentisque Gotorum statu (for the standing of the fatherland and people of the Goths), an idea that in varying forms was repeated several times in the canon. In other words, the stability the bishops were calling for referred to the political entirety of the patria and the gens Gothorum in Spania.18 In the process of invention of the kingdom, the identification of the gens Gothorum with the whole of the regnum and its subjects seems clear by 633. This political concept was geopolitically centered on Spania. An evolution of the concept of gens Gothorum away from what was seen in the Third Council of 589 can be observed. Ethnicity no longer functioned as an excluding label from the end of the sixth century and even less so in the early seventh century. The use of Gothi

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was extended in overall political terms. This does not rule out the employment of ethnicity to show family relationship or descent. Isidore noted that John of Biclar was of Gothic origin, natione Gothus. The same happens with the Emerita hagiography when it speaks of the Catholic bishops Masona (genere quidem Gotus) and Renovatus (natione Gotus) or the Arian Sunna (Gotus). The link between gens Gothorum, regnum, patria, and the territory of Spania (plus Septimania in Gaul), and hence with all its inhabitants, was confirmed in the following years. Even so, it was made clear that kings could only belong to the Goticae gentis nobilitas, doubtless because somebody from outside that group had attempted to take the crown. The statement shows that the sense of Gothus also still contained the idea of an individual’s family background. This was independent of the fact that the word had also come to have the political meaning of the whole of the regnum and its roots in Spania. In fact, in the same council mentioning this condition, there was an allusion to the bishops of the whole of Spania. Furthermore, King Chintila included a declaration that began by naming patriae gentisque, without specifying that these were Gothi. Two years later another council convened by the same king referred to enemies who might cause harm to the patria and gens, once again without specification with the genitive Gothorum, and those attempting to usurp power were condemned, it being said that the whole weight of the regnum Gothorum should fall on them. The evolution of the concept of gens Gothorum led to the crystallization of a political sense. This identified the regnum Gothorum as to be understood as the political set-up existing in Spania and Septimania. This was confirmed in the following years, from Chindaswinth’s reign onward. This king issued a law against usurpers, even though he had been one himself. This spoke of those who might act contra gentem Gotorum vel patriam (against the people and the fatherland of the Goths), where it seems clear that there is a definitive overlap in the ideology between the regnum Gothorum and the patria, covering specific territories in Spania and the southern fringe of Gaul that the kings in Toledo controlled. This was to remain so in later years.19

Unity and Religion: Memories in Central and Local Worlds In his 589 speech, Leander had called for unity around religious truth and a single kingdom. This idea formed the basis for Isidore’s political ideas but not just for Isidore’s. A good few years later, in 653, King Recceswinth stated before the principal nobles and bishops that he was proud that there were no longer any her-

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etics in the kingdom (Deus omnipotens omnes ex hac regione radicitus exstirpauerit haereses [almighty God rooted out all heresies from this region]) other than Jews. This was an idea that he also publicized in one of his laws directed against them. The aggressive policy of the Visigothic kings toward the Jews had its roots in the ideas put forward by Leander, as expanded by his brother Isidore and accepted by the episcopal intelligentsia. At the start of this chapter some phrases from Isidore’s Sententiae were quoted, in which he stated that the power of kings should be utilized to protect members in Christ. Immediately afterward Isidore hastened to explain that these members in Christ were exclusively the fideles of the Church. Recceswinth himself, who before bishops and magnates in 653 paraded his pride at having extirpated every heresy, although also strongly preoccupied with eliminating Judaism, used in one of his anti-Jewish laws the expression fidelium Christi societas (society of the faithful of Christ). Between Leander’s homily and Recceswinth’s times somewhat more than six decades had elapsed. The idea of unity that presided over the ideological invention of the kingdom was exclusivist. This gave a foundation for, and stirred up, intolerance toward Jews. One of Reccared’s laws, in tune with the juridical tradition of late Rome and the Gothic kingdom of Gaul, had already criticized the Jews. In the Third Council of Toledo in which Leander spoke, there were signs of this attitude. Rules were approved not merely to prohibit Jews from having Christian wives or slaves, which was no great novelty in juridical tradition. More striking was the requirement that if any children were born in relationships between Christians and Jews, these offspring had to be baptized, ad baptisma.20 The turning point against the Jews came under Sisebut (612–621). This king issued laws at the beginning of his reign. Steps were taken toward zero tolerance, with the intention of eradicating Judaism (execranda perfidia, execrable perfidy) from the kingdom. Jewish proselytism was to be punished with the death penalty. Those in mixed couples who did not convert were threatened with penalties of lifelong exile and confiscation of their property, and with severe physical punishments in the case of slaves and dependents. Between the fourth and fifth years of this reign there was a general process of forced conversion: Iudaei (in) Hispania Christiani efficiuntur (the Jews in Hispania become Christians). The king and Isidore had a special relationship, and each had dedicated literary work to the other. The bishop of Seville fully believed in the ideas of unity on which the attempt was made to design the kingdom. He had no doubts about the nature of Jews as killers of God. Nonetheless, in his HG when he recorded conversions, he showed some caution about the procedure used by Sisebut. He criticized

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the king for lacking a strategy and knowledge, sed non secundum scientiam, and for utilizing his potestas (here, power) instead of acting fidei ratio (on the persuasion of faith). Isidore wrote these lines in the short version of his HG just after the death of the king, which occurred in 621. He retained a very similar wording in the long version, produced during the reign of Suinthila, around 626. In fact, at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, where Isidore’s intellectual hegemony was plain, there were criticisms of the use of violence in converting Jews in Sisebut’s day. The bishops at that council, who decreed various anti-Jewish measures, stated their rejection of the use of force (non ui) in conversions. However, attentive reading of these lines, as also of his treatise on Jews, makes it clear that for Isidore the latter were a group of undesirables. In the 633 session it was admitted that there were Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity and that not a few of them continued to practice their original religion. The council gave bishops the power, with King Sisenand’s blessing, to use their authority to convert such Jews to Christianity, pontificali auctoritate (with the episcopal power). Nevertheless, it was also stressed that a bishop could use his power if they resisted (quos uoluntas propria non emendat). Boys who had been circumcised were to be separated from their parents (a parentum consortio separentur). Such dispositions are far from showing rejection by bishops of forced conversions of Jews in early seventh-century Iberia. During the following decades there would be further occasions when this could be detected, but they fall outside the limits of this book.21 Anti-Jewish sentiment was part of the general context of the ideological creation of the kingdom by the ruling elite and in particular the bishops. The ideas of unity put forward by Leander in his 589 homily and incorporated in the use made of the past by John of Biclar and Isidore had a crucial focus: conversion. The move to Catholicism by the regnum Gothorum was brought into play as the linchpin of this past, seen as having a temporal break between a “before” and an “after.” A brief look will now be given to how elaborate a tale was created about this conversion and also to the cracks in the story. John of Biclar had left behind the idea of Hermenegild as a despot and rebel, defeated by the legitimate king. He had stated that Leovigild had mobilized his troops to confront his tyrannical son. Years later, Isidore accepted the views of the simple schematic developed by John. He thus presented Hermenegild as a mere usurper. This was a gray area for those creating a new history for the regnum because it fell before the conversion brought about by Reccared, which was projected as a one-off founding moment. There was thus a point that had to be kept quiet in inventing Reccared’s legitimacy as the sole and authentic leader in

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the Goths’ conversion to Catholicism. Hence John was creating a past, in the sense in which the term “inventing” has been used in this book. He was inventing an ideological benchmark for the kingdom. The first move was to discredit Hermenegild. Thanks to Gregory of Tours and Gregory the Great, it is known that the latter converted to Catholicism. However, neither John nor Isidore said anything about this. They depicted Gregory the Great as a tyrannus in their texts, a rebel against the legitimate king. In Isidore’s case, he also had to cover up Leander’s role in the whole matter. The part Leander played was said by Gregory the Great to have been crucial in Hermenegild’s conversion. With regard to the latter, Isidore is scathing. His chronicle states that the Goths had been divided into two sides (bifarie diuisi) because of (per) Hermenegild: they were slaughtering one another (mutua caede uastantur). This phrase was retained in the two versions, both that of around 615 and that of around 626. Isidore did alter other sentences in his chronicle, as in the case of how he treated Sisebut, but he did not modify any of the words he wrote about Hermenegild. In the HG he included a brief allusion to the war against Hermenegild. The military element was summed up as simply a siege (obsessum exsuperauit). Following John’s line, he assigned the epithet tyrannizantem to Hermenegild and kept this phrase virtually unchanged in both the edition of around 621 and that of around 626, merely adding the term filius (son).22 Isidore decided to delve more deeply into the way Reccared had converted as a novel element of apotheosis, in contraposition to all that had gone before. He presented Leovigild as a perfidious Arian (Arianae perfidiae furore repletus). He depicted him as the promoter of the persecution of Catholics (in catholicos persecutione commota), with numerous bishops exiled (plurimos episcoporum exilio relegauit), who also seized Church property. All this was intended to give an idea of Leovigild’s hostility toward Catholic power structures in Iberia. Isidore mentions that his own brother Leander went into exile; it is uncertain whether or not this refers to his journey to Constantinople, which according to Gregory the Great was for reasons of the faith of the Visigoths. It is probable he tried to round up support for Hermenegild.23 Indeed, Gregory of Tours states that such support was pledged but that Leovigild nullified it through a heavy payment to the imperial authorities. Isidore’s mention of exiles had some basis in fact. Masona and John of Biclar, later bishop of Gerona, were banished in this period. John himself records in his chronicle that it was Leovigild who summoned a council of Arian bishops in Toledo around the year 580 to soften the liturgical conditions required for converting from

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Catholicism to Arianism. Not without some irony, he records how the Arians considered themselves “Catholic,” while Catholicism based on Nicene principles was called by them “Roman.” He further states that many Catholics (plurimi nostrorum) went over to Arianism (in arianum dogma declinant). The impression is given that Leovigild tried to get Catholic bishops to support the political and territorial unity that he was founding through his military campaigns. In fact, he was the first leader in the Gothic kingdom to issue coinage with his own image and superscription, among other indications of strengthening of the central power. Under these conditions he must have explored the channels of communication that might break down the antagonism between Arianism and Catholicism. From outside, Gregory of Tours, a contemporary to the events and writing very shortly after them, described Leovigild as a persecutor of Catholics. Gregory described very odd details, typical of his narrative discourse, in which he played with the emotions in anecdotic episodes. He mentions a magna persecutio (great persecution) against “Christians,” by whom he means Catholics. It is true that he does claim Gosvinth was the person directly responsible for the persecution. Gregory was working for an audience of magnates, kings, bishops, and monks in late sixth-century Gaul. For them Gosvinth was a known character, as she was the mother of Brunhild and Galsvinth. Similarly, he holds Ingund responsible for Hermenegild’s conversion to Catholicism. At least he does mention this conversion. The same was true at around the same time for another figure, the bishop of Rome. Gregory the Great wrote that his friend Leander was a key figure in Hermenegild’s conversion to Catholicism. Thus, the “two Gregories” confirm that Hermenegild was a Catholic convert. In the case of the bishop of Rome, he claimed in his Dialogi that shortly before dying Leovigild had asked the bishop of Seville to do for Reccared what he himself had done for Hermenegild. Although he did let it slip into his chronicle, John did not insist so much on Leovigild’s anti-Catholicism because he preferred to highlight his military efforts as territorial consolidator of the kingdom. The other three authors, however, were keen to portray Leovigild to their various audiences as a systematic persecutor of Catholics. Gregory of Tours wanted to do so because the Arian profile of the Gothic kingdom fitted in well with his narrative presentation of Catholicism and bishops as the axis around which political figures turned, for good or for evil, according to the case. A negative, Arian depiction of the Gothic kingdom suited his general approach. Moreover, he wished to show Ingund as the decisive agent in Hermenegild’s conversion to Catholicism, about which John and Isidore were absolutely silent. Gregory the Great had an interest in includ-

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ing Hermenegild as an example from Iberia because he was composing a cata log of martyrs in his Dialogi. His personal connection with Leander, whom he met in Constantinople, should be recalled. He granted him the pallium and corresponded with him after Reccared’s conversion. Leander had informed Gregory about the process of conversion, and the latter had recommended to him in 591 that he should keep an eye on Reccared’s actions. He was to watch out (uigilet) that Reccared did not become over-proud because of the good deeds he had done, referring to the conversion. Gregory’s personal connection, which he made no attempt to hide, allowed him to show off his contacts abroad and to give an appearance of truth to his story of martyrs. He needed a persecuting Leovigild in his tale. It suited Isidore, as he was able to construct a linear version of the conversion by starting with a dark horizon in the shape of the king’s Arianism.24 Reccared himself participated actively in the ideology of conversion. His pact with the Catholic bishops was the basis for the new identity of the kingdom. In May 589 the Third General Council opened in Toledo. In the preliminaries to the minutes it was noted that there were present bishops totius Spaniae uel Galliae (from all Spania and Gaul), the latter to be understood as Septimania. It was no coincidence that thereafter there was an insistence on the territorial dimension. In the ideological invention and construction of the kingdom, an appeal was also made to this dimension: Spania plus Septimania. The beginning of the document seems highly relevant as it is an ideological frontispiece. The council had been summoned by the king, who is described with the striking epithet gloriosissimus (the most glorious). The council’s core topic was conversion as a guarantee of unity, as Leander made clear repeatedly in his homily before that audience. At the start of the council, conversion was stressed as a core element. The king made a speech and handed over to the bishops a tomus with the agenda to be covered, most likely agreed on in advance. As it was read aloud to those present, bishops and magnates, the very first sentence left no room for doubt. The kingdom had come to Reccared as God’s gift, and he was making a public profession of faith on Nicene lines. Thereafter the royal tomus continued with allusions to the Goths’ unity around their king and to everybody’s around the Catholic Church. The king granted the bishops an active role in the process of spreading unity on the basis of Catholicism. This is the key idea in Reccared’s tomus as also in Leander’s homily. After stressing the Nicene version of Christian faith and the Roman Councils that had consolidated it, King Reccared and Queen Baddo signed. Praise and glory were pronounced in their honor. The bishops, religious people, and magnates of the kingdom (ad episcopos et religiosos uel maiores natu) also made a public profession of faith. Mechanisms

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had been put in place to transfer Arian churches (in haeresi Ariana) together with their property (cum suis rebus) to Catholicism (nunc autem sunt catholicae). The bishops insisted that they should go to the Catholic sees in the areas where these churches stood. Shortly after, a provincial council in Caesaraugusta stressed that a close watch should be kept on whether former Arian clerics were adhering to Catholic structures. The same vigilance was necessary for relics and churches that had been consecrated by Arian bishops, even if they had been dedicated when already Catholic. Perhaps in practice matters were not so clear, and there was resistance to transfers of control over property, hence this insistence. Finally, the canons of the Council of Toledo guaranteed the power the bishops tried to project themselves as having. The difference was that now, in 589, there was a pact by virtue of which kingdom was Catholic. Councils in successive years continued to underline the image of bishops as authentic leaders in their geographical and social surroundings. As seen in the previous chapter, the kingdom included the bishops in its channels for negotiation and the imposition of the system wherever possible, for instance, in tax matters. Indeed, the bishops exhorted the political powers not to intrude into their network of properties. For example, they demanded that neither judges nor tax collectors (a iudicibus uel actoribus publicis) should attempt to levy taxes (in diuersis angariis) on the dependents of bishops and clerics. From a political angle it was highly significant that Reccared issued regulations requiring whatever had been agreed to in the council to be obligatorily complied with in his kingdom. It is probable that this insistence was an indication that not all were being observed as the bishops and king would have wished. However, the line of action was aimed at the control of property by the bishops, even against pressure from taxation agents, and at the inclusion of the prelates in certain decision-making mechanisms of the kingdom. In confirming the outcomes of the council, Reccared went back to the idea of unity. He projected the kingdom’s unity as lying in himself but also in all the bishops of Spania: episcopos omnes Spaniae.25 However, in all this there are shades and nuances. Reccared announced his personal conversion to Catholicism in 587. John noted not just that Reccared catholicus deo iuuante efficitur (becomes Catholic, with the help of God) but also that he convinced the Arian bishops. He had already hinted to the Goths and the Sueves (incorporated into the kingdom two years before) that there would be a conversion. What John was keen to stress was the idea of political unity around Catholicism: gentemque omnium Gothorum et Sueuorum ad unitatem et pacem reuocat Christiane ecclesie (he brings the people of Goths and Suevi to the unity and peace of the Christian church). He further wished to highlight that Reccared had returned properties that his predecessors

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had confiscated (aliena a precessoribus direpta et fisco sociata). On the same lines, he also records that he founded and financed churches and monasteries (ecclesiarum et monasteriorum conditor et ditator). Although exiled by Leovigild, John did not emphasize this aspect. In contrast, he did seem to want to highlight religious conflict in his mention of Sunna’s rebellion, as well as of another revolt, by bishop Uldila and the former queen Gosvinth in Toledo. The high point in Reccared’s apotheosis, built up by John, comes in his account of the Third Council of Toledo in 589. He goes into the structure of the council, even alluding to the king’s tomus. He expressly mentions Leander’s prime role in the council, also mentioning Eutropius, abbot of the Servitano monastery in the area of the present-day province of Cuenca. In his chronicle, John compares Reccared with the emperors Constantine and Marcian. This is the point at which John does refer to the fact that Arianism had caused damage. At this moment he looks back over the previous period in an attempt to heighten the famous apotheosis of Reccared with which the chronicle comes to a close. He decided to add only a mention of the king’s victory over the rebellion of Argimund, which is not given a religious coloring.26 The Reccared depicted by Isidore has various points of interest. In the first version of his chronicle of around 615, he recorded that the Goths, thanks to the king (Reccaredo principe innitente), had returned to the Catholic faith (reuertuntur), harking back to a tradition that Isidore set in times before the progression of Catholicism among the Goths. In the later revision he gave the title “most religious” to Reccared, assigned him a role as prime mover (religiosissimo principe prouocante), and changed the verb to converted (conuertuntur). According to the new dating suggested by José Carlos Martín, De uiris illustribus might be one of Isidore’s first works (ca. 604–608), as against Carmen Codoñer’s dating (ca. 615– 618) in her edition. In this work, Leander is a leading light in the conversion of the Goths. After giving priority to his profile first as a monk and then as a bishop, Isidore places his brother at the center of the process of conversion of the Goths to Catholicism. He also alludes to Leander’s role in the second edition of the chronicle. In contrast, in the HG he no longer refers to this prime part.27 The Reccared that Isidore constructed in his HG was the champion of Catholicism. After mentioning that he succeeded his father, Isidore stresses that he was respectful of religion, to be understood as the Catholic version (cultu praeditus religionis). He is directly contrasted with the negative exemplum of his father, who is presented as inreligiosus (irreligious). One favored force of arms and the other, faith. Reccared is the absolute protagonist in the Goths’ conversion, totius Gothicae gentis populos. Additionally, when alluding to the Third Council

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of Toledo, Isidore focuses attention on Reccared. He then discusses at some length his military successes and the virtues of his character. He also records the return of formerly confiscated property, mentioned by John. However, unlike the latter, Isidore lays responsibility for the confiscations not on predecessors generally but on Leovigild himself. He highlights two clearly opposed exempla.28 This version of Reccared was the ideal of symbiosis between king and bishops praised by Isidore in his Sententiae. For the present, it was what he and his colleagues expected from Suinthila’s reign, during which he extended his HG. Years later, Isidore was to vary what he said about Suinthila. This happened at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, under Isidore’s leadership and in the reign of Sisenand, who had overthrown Suinthila in a military coup. It was claimed in the council that Suinthila was aware of the crimes he had committed (scelera propria metuens) and that he had himself renounced power (se ipsum regno priuauit). All of this was stated without any mention of Sisenand’s coup. Furthermore, the bishops excommunicated Suinthila, his wife, and children, along with his brother Geila and his wife. All these actions were taken by Isidore to the fore, the same Isidore who some seven years earlier had extended his HG to the greater glory of this same Suinthila.29 In his HG, Isidore finally distilled the use of the past for the ideological construction of the regnum among his elite audience. This was not only in the episodes selected here. There are also the condensed messages in two pieces of his work, De laude Spaniae and Recapitulatio. Both texts give the Goths supposed roots in the Bible by presenting them as descendants of Magog. Furthermore, they are brought into Roman history as the winning side in the tale. As pointed out in the section on ethnicity, the Goths are indeed central to Isidore’s approach. There is a difference here from the part assigned to the Franks by Gregory in his Historiae, where they are subsumed within the principal role given to Christianity and the bishops. In Isidore’s model, the Goths defeated the Romans and are entitled to govern Spania.30 A specific shared memory was thus built up on the ideas of political and religious unity. This was an exclusivist viewpoint. A blanket of supposed unanimity was deployed where in reality there were hidden divergences that at times are now very hard to detect. This is what happens, for instance, with beliefs other than Christian ones. These emerge on a very few occasions in the documents, as laconic references in councils like the visible peaks of isolated, concealed icebergs. Moreover, in the case of Arian Christianity, the total victory of Catholicism wore away recollections of coexistence and of ideological strug gles with Arian ecclesiastical structures. The sixth century was a time of religious tensions. From an

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archaeological angle, Alexandra Chavarría Arnau has very recently noted that the burgeoning of churches and baptisteries in the sixth century in Iberia may perhaps have to do with a need for religious identity. It is also known that there were polemical theological works. To go no further afield, Isidore himself mentions that some had been written by his brother Leander. However, this corpus of combative ideological and theological works has not survived. This is likely because after the event it ceased to arouse interest. At a later stage, in Gaul, the source known as Fredegar was to state that in reality Reccared had ordered (iussit) all Arian books (omnes libros Arianos) to be collected and stored in a single place (quos in una domo conlocatis) and then burned (incendio concremare). It is not known if this is exactly what happened. However, it is certain that theological strug gles moved to another front after Reccared. The next enemy would be Judaism, as discussed earlier. The Gothic elite’s pact with the Catholic bishops implied a point of no return, the essential basis for the invention or ideological designing of the kingdom and the construction of a tale of its formation.31 Control of the past permitted hegemony over collective memory. There was political and also ideological competition in the Gothic kingdom at the end of the sixth century. The elites that came out on top created a linear history, as noted previously. This history, drawn up by bishops and monks, was able to get through to the court circles of Toledo or Seville. It reached the elite directly: groups in the palace, magnates, bishops and the upper clergy, and monks, all of whom could have access to copies of the books in which it took shape. However, through councils the bishops transmitted ideology to local circles as well. Sermons were an ideal route for broadcasting messages emanating from court levels. However, it was not all smooth sailing. In the remainder of this section a look will be taken at local worlds. It is harder to get close to the building up of shared memories at local levels. There are fewer written sources, sometimes none. At times archaeological remains give an insight into how collective memories were constructed or rather how there was social segmentation of them. At others there are textual records that allow access to unusual situations. For instance, there are the local representations of the construction of the unitary model of the regnum just discussed. This is what occurs in Emerita.32

* * * As seen in the first two chapters, Emerita had been a key node in late Roman Hispania and a landmark for Gothic interests in Iberia from the late fifth century onward. From an archaeological point of view, it was also noted that this is one

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of the best documented examples we have of the transition from a Roman ciuitas into the new post-Roman world in which forums, temples, and other spaces used by the powers that be had been swept aside in favor of new, essentially ecclesiastical, uses. In Leovigild’s day some in the city (perhaps with Bishop Masona among them) must have taken the side of the rebel Hermenegild because Leovigild was obliged to attack the city in 582. Half a century later, this site of friction was chosen as the initial or founding point for a new era by the groups then dominant in order to construct a local memory through a devotional text. This is the Vitas sanctorum patrum Emeretensium (VSPE), a hagiographic text written in Emerita in two phases, one around the 630s and another, more or less a revision of the first phase, some decades later. However, the core of the text was drawn up in the 630s by a cleric from the monastic and ecclesiastical complex of Saint Eulalia, outside the city walls. Eulalia was the local martyr, above whose supposed burial place a mausoleum was built in the fourth century and a basilica in the fifth century. A complex was created including the basilica, the burial zone, and monastic structures, and from this the VSPE emanated. The work is divided into five opuscula, specifically dealing with monks and bishops.33 The VSPE strove for effect and was full of dramatic elements but also liturgical in so far as some parts of them would be read in ceremonies for the saint, as was usual in saints’ Vitae. They promoted a collective memory that was fixed in a text. In the VSPE a narrative was designed on the basis of Eulalia’s cult. This amounts to saying what gave importance to the complex to which the author was attached. The important role played by Emerita in the context of Arian power structures in sixth-century Iberia should not be forgotten. The Arians are the big losers in this work. However, mention is made of the resistance they had to Reccared’s conversion, for example, with revolts against Masona. Moreover, the hagiography includes very diverse oral traditions, for instance, about young Augustus, who belonged to the same religious community of Saint Eulalia as the author, or about a drunken monk from the monastery of Cauliana, harking back to oral tradition, which the author uses to show his desire for verisimilitude. Oral tradition is strongly present in the work.34 Nevertheless, from the start the author evokes the Dialogi of Gregory the Great as a benchmark. In the preface he also tries to suggest that his tales about the miracula of Emerita provide veracity for the Dialogi themselves. A specific sentence of Gregory’s when referring to Reccared’s conversion is brought into play. The bishop of Rome had written that Reccared followed not his perfidious father but his martyred brother (non patrem perfidum, sed fratrem martyrem sequens). For its part, the VSPE uses and adjusts the phrasing, so it becomes, qui

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non patrem perfidum, sed Xpum sequens. In other words, the memory of Hermenegild was suppressed, as had been done by John and Isidore. Hence, the memory fixed and the past invented by the summit of bishops and monks who triumphed at the Third Council of Toledo, as codified by John and then Isidore, was transferred into local memory. Into the collective memory of one of the principal ciuitates of the kingdom was poured the idea of Leovigild as perfidious, but above all, Hermenegild’s conversion was concealed. Naturally, Reccared appeared in this local memory as the champion of Catholicism.35 However, focus on one place permits some of the cracks in the general model of the regnum in local memory to be spotted. For example, Reccared’s authority was flouted at this local level by Bishop Masona. It was suggested above that Masona had participated in Hermenegild’s rebellion. Years later he attended the Third Council of Toledo. Nevertheless, between these events he defied a sentence proclaimed by Reccared against Vagrila, one of the plotters against the winning side. Masona complied with the king’s sentence only in part, finally granting the plotter his freedom. This happened in 587–588, when there were various revolts in the kingdom against Reccared in both Iberia and Septimania. One of the most intractable was in Emerita, where the magnates acted as leaders, among them Segga and the future king Witteric. Witteric was “ future” in these events in 587 because he reigned between 603 and 610. However, he was “former” for the author and the audience for the VSPE, as the first version of this work was completed in the 630s. Despite focusing on local matters, the VSPE, with all its rhetorical and hagiographical apparatus, allows a glimpse of these cracks in the model claiming sole and total triumph for Reccared.36 Yet another crack in the court memory of the regnum is to be found in the local memories of the Saint Eulalia complex, which reveal internal tensions within Catholic bishoprics themselves. Paulus, one of Masona’s predecessors in the Catholic see of Emerita, had met with opposition within the very power structures of the local Catholic church. However, he managed to install his nephew Fidelis as his successor, thanks to a huge financial payment into the ecclesiastical funds. Masona himself, toward the end of his life, faced opposition from one of the strong men of the church, Eleutherius. The hagiographer presents this conflict as bound up with divine intervention, which allowed Eleutherius’s death to be foretold by Masona. Nonetheless, archaeology demonstrates that Eleutherius was interred in the Saint Eulalia burial ground. His funeral inscription (Figure  5) was found during excavations. This means that there were groups that supported his burial in the area of the principal locus, even if not in the part reserved for bishops. The Emerita text allows the spotlight

Figure 5. Funerary inscription for Eleutherius, archdeacon, at the Church of Saint Eulalia, Mérida. Courtesy of Isaac Sastre de Diego.

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to be directed onto internal conflicts even within the groups who had come out winners in the strug gles that took place in the late sixth century in Iberia. These groups supported the projection of an image of the recent past as an absolutely straight line. Despite this, however, even their own texts allow detection of the fragility of this linear version.37 Had the archaeologists not found Eleutherius’s tombstone, it might perhaps have been thought that he was not buried in the Saint Eulalia complex. Groups with influence over the decisions on burials in this complex decided to allow Eleutherius to be interred there. However, years later he was depicted in a very negative way in the VSPE. This is a clue to the conflict for control over local memory. For some, Eleutherius had to be presented as a villain, which is how he appears in the VSPE. Others had enough influence to bring about his interment in the Saint Eulalia complex. In reality, burial grounds were the principal arena for the fixing not just of family but also of collective memories in urban and rural communities. At this stage, in the early years of the seventh century, churches had consolidated their role as the linchpin of funerary memory. Those directing them decided what groups and individuals should have the privilege of being buried within them or in their immediate surroundings. Sometimes memories were projected directly from royal power, as happened with the consecration, or maybe reconsecration, of the church of Saint Mary in Toledo by Reccared in 587. This occurred in the same period in which he announced his conversion and had to confront resistance from sectors with considerable power in crucial enclaves in the kingdom. He was not the only king to build or encourage the construction of churches. Apart from this, as noted above, episcopal complexes burgeoned. Sometimes archaeology has detected them with a degree of clarity, as in Barcino or Valentia. In other cases sources mention them, as in the Emerita of the VSPE. In the countryside ecclesiae were founded by bishops but also by laymen. It was a way of investing in power and religion and of consolidating the memory of the bishops or magnates who established them. Councils make several references to such private churches in attempts to make sure they do not escape episcopal jurisdiction.38 In the world of the peasantry, historians lack the perspective provided by texts. It has been seen that these were communities with inequalities and stratification. Within this inequality, memories rooted in funerary arrangements were also unequal. It was noted previously that at the top of the social scale of peasantry some individuals were buried in much better graves than those of the majority. Toward the bottom of the scale, many were interred in considerably more modest tombs, without grave goods. Yet others were dumped in disused grain storehouses or on garbage dumps, being excluded from the peasant community

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cemetery. Peasant memories would have not been fixed solely in oral traditions, which can no longer be traced. They also emerged in the ostentation of the betteroff groups who marked their territories within the hierarchy of burial grounds. They can even be seen in cave interments in natural sites occupied in zones hitherto peripheral, which seem to have their origins in immediately postRoman centuries, even if their greatest upsurge came later.39 The social memory emanating from the central power was built on histories and chronicles. These were accessed by the cultured elite, whether lay or ecclesiastical. This aristocracy gradually became homogeneous as the sixth century advanced, similar to what happened in Merovingian Gaul, as has been observed by Peter Brown. Its territoriality was projected from the councils. From them, church networks transmitted echoes of this memory down to smaller local worlds. Naturally, the elite group here was more modest than in Toletum, Emerita, or Barcino. Its interests were also more modest. Leander, John, and Isidore created a given vision of the past. It is probable that the wretches dumped after death in disused village grain stores at this same time had no access to this past. However, the aspiration of the bishops and the magnates supporting them was to project it. Churches and the sermons delivered in them and the cult of saints and their materialization in relics contributed to this. It was noted earlier that in phases of conflict relics were the object of attention from Catholics and Arians alike and that the bishops later verified their definitive transfer into Catholic control. There are many references to the role of relics in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia, which is not surprising. Councils discussed them, and control over them is demonstrated by inscriptions. Among many other instances an illustrative example is that of Bishop Pimenius of Assidona (Medina Sidonia) in the south. Pimenius had attended the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, an event referred to extensively here, though this was not his only time at a council. Chance has brought to light inscriptions in which Pimenius dedicated various churches, providing them with relics of saints. Pimenius’s case is striking because of the existence of a corpus of inscriptions. However, it cannot have been at all exceptional (Figure 6); in fact, there are other inscriptions about dedications of churches with relics, and there are sure to have been many more that have not survived to the present. Control of worship and the relics of saints implied hegemony over narratives about these holy figures who were a beacon of hope for the common folk. Possession of their relics gave dominion over their tales. All this gelled in Vitae (if there were such), in oral traditions, and the material presence of such hopes organized around liturgy and the relics concerned. In the world of villages and hamlets some churches have been

Figure 6. Inscription for Bishop Pimenius of Assidona, dedication of church with relics, at Alcalá de los Gazules, Cádiz. Courtesy of Isaac Sastre de Diego.

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located, but the scenery of such settlements in the sixth and seventh centuries was in no way replete with such religious buildings. The impression is gained that this was a process in its early stages. The network of churches in the countryside was just beginning to come into existence. With it came the possibility of transmitting in a comprehensible form to the people attending these churches a given worldview, created by central elites. Local powers would try to worm their way not merely into the best social and economic places but also into those ruling over collective memories. Perhaps it is for this reason that some years after the time span covered by this book, the bishops who gathered in Emerita in 666 recalled the need to remember who had built specific churches. Competition to have a place in the memories was now just a question of time.40

* * * The invention of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia was the outcome of an ideology of power created by the Catholic bishops. Once the aristocracy and the Gothic kingdom had been converted to Catholicism, the bishops provided the system with a religious justification for its existence and for its monarchy. In this invention it was essential to project a view of the past and to create a new history, applying the concept of Providence from late Roman Christian history. However, this was done with a new keynote, none other than a supposed superiority of the Goths over the Romans in their history. In this project ethnicity played an evolutionary role. Ever since the period of settlement inside the empire, the pairing of Gothi and Romani had gradually evolved. In fact, the Goths themselves had been in reality a heterogeneous mix, including diverse amalgams politically recognized under the generic name of Gothi ever since the fourth century and above all since the fifth century. During the period of the construction and invention of their kingdom in Iberia, in the sixth and seventh centuries, ethnicity and the concept of the gens Gothorum opened out into a semantic generality, reaching a conclusion with the idea that all the subjects of the reges Gothorum were Gothi. Invention was possible only on the basis of construction, which is the other great process that this book has attempted to explain. The invention of the kingdom was not an abstract chimera of figures, such as John, Leander, Isidore, or Braulio. Rather, once it had begun, it had concrete consequences, because it was the ideological sustenance justifying a system of supra-local power between the late sixth and the early seventh century.

Conclusion

In 693, the bishops who gathered in Toledo decided that it was not suitable for there to be clerics in churches unless they had at least ten serfs. The network of urban and rural churches exerted religious, social, and economic influences. Its basis had been set up in the days of the Roman Empire, but during the sixth and seventh centuries its growth in Iberia was exponential. As noted in the Introduction, this book concentrates on a time horizon running from the late fifth through the mid-sixth century, because this was the period with the direct antecedents of the regnum Gothorum, on the one hand, and its phase of consolidation in the former Roman Hispania, on the other. Nonetheless, excursions into earlier and later periods in time have been included to show the origins and consequences of this process. The fact that a reference has been made to the very last phase in the kingdom’s history (693) in this conclusion is precisely to act as a sign of later developments in the construction and invention of the kingdom, the latter being something that I argue was essentially completed during the period covered by this book. This reference from near the end of the kingdom to the now extensive properties of the ecclesiae is very revealing. They were probably the structures that had grown most strongly during the Visigothic era in Iberia. A few years after the 693 meeting, the Gothic kingdom was wiped away by the assault of the Muslims. In the later growth of the medieval Christian kingdoms in northern Iberia, bishops and monks were to play an essential role. For centuries the Visigothic period was used as an exemplum, a model that could be used to justify seeking political, religious, and territorial unity. This led to a certain mythology that lasted for centuries. As stated in the Introduction, any equating of Visigothic Iberia with modern Spain is an academic aberration that corresponds to a search for collective identities in the remote past of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as happened in other European countries in the modern and contemporary periods. This book has attempted to explain that the former provinces of Roman Hispania did not make the transition smoothly into a single political unit. In fact,

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the past was used to form a basis on which to design a fictitious concept of a linear progression toward a supposed absolute unity grounded in the monarchy and the Catholic religion. This is what has here been termed the “invention” of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia. This was an ideological project created by the monastic and episcopal elite of Iberia, at a specific period between the late sixth and early seventh century. This project put forward a simplistic and linear account of the complex process of anchoring the kingdom, here called the “construction” of the kingdom. This tale took the form of narrative histories, chronicles, letters, and lives of saints, produced by the elite to be consumed by this same elite. Historiography proved particularly useful. The presentation of a given view of the past implied a message for the present of those creating it. The past in question was projected as a moral, religious, and pastoral benchmark, as well as a political one. In its turn, such an invention was possible thanks to very specific historical circumstances, that is, the “construction” of the kingdom. The center of gravity of the regnum Gothorum established in southern Gaul gradually tilted over a number of decades into Iberia, the fringe of territory of Septimania being retained. Little by little the Gothic kings associated their regnum with a geopolitical concept that in the texts from the late sixth and early seventh centuries is called Spania. In reality, its supposed unity was based on a pact between sectors of the Gothic aristocracy and Catholic bishops and magnates. Both sides were emerging powers in the changes that took place in the fifth century, and both ended up as participants in the system that the texts recognize as the regnum Gothorum. The concept of gens Gothorum was gradually altered until it finally became associated with the totality of the inhabitants of the realm. The invention of the kingdom was a motivating force for ideological power emanating from the elite. Nevertheless, the system, the regnum Gothorum, was not just an ideological, political, and legal category. In practice there were negotiations, impositions, cessions, and pacts between differing levels of powers. Thanks to recent archaeological excavations, it is now known that in the countryside there was an upsurge in notables of intermediate power, residing in castella. Similarly, today it is known that in the rural landscape peasant settlements had emerged, with differences between their social strata, especially noticeable in the archaeological record of burials in the sixth and seventh centuries. The most powerful elites must still have dwelt in the ciuitates. It is from their world that the majority of extant literary sources emanate. However, below this elite superstructure, networks of regional and local power were in operation. At times these local networks also crop up in the written sources: this was observ-

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able in the analysis undertaken of sixth- and early seventh-century texts. As late as 702, only a few years before the fall of the Gothic kingdom, King Egica mentioned in one of his laws a list of intermediate levels in territorial hierarchy besides cities. Several of these have been put under the spotlight in this book. This new hierarchical structuring of territory in the context of post-Roman social and political changes seems from the texts to have left little room for peasant autonomy. However, it should not be forgotten that these sources give only a partial perspective because of their origin among the elite. The overall picture that emerges from combining historiographical, legislative, and hagiographic information with the new material record from archaeology is that the elites tried to intrude into even the smallest structures in peasant organization. At times the peasantry must have managed to keep some areas of autonomous management. At others this was not so, and the elites would have achieved their purpose of extending their patrocinium, so often mentioned in the sources. This would appear to be the explanation for the discovery of prestige items in settlements. Such finds can be understood only in terms of the incorporation of some part of the peasant sector into networks going beyond the local level and distributing these same prestige goods that sporadically turn up in the burial deposits of hamlets and villages. The invention of the kingdom was possible on the basis of a historical process: the kingdom’s construction, replete with negotiations and conflicts. The network of urban and rural ecclesiae played its part in favor of this invention. The decisions adopted by bishops were in a number of cases the result of previous negotiations with magnates and the kings themselves. The official format for such decisions took the shape of canons from councils. This ideological material was passed on in cities by the bishops themselves to their priests and deacons, through ceremonies, processions, and sermons. From there it was relayed to local clerics, who in turn spread it in smaller churches in spoken sermons that have not survived to the present. This was not a uniform network; naturally, there were tensions. After all, quite a few ecclesiae were private. However, the core of the project enjoyed various mechanisms for diffusion: orality for the unlettered masses and “literacy” for the elites. Obviously, in the end only written texts survived, these being today’s sources. They lived on thanks to being copied in the Middle Ages because of their interest as supposed benchmarks for the historical authority of later Christian realms. Relationships between the central power and local notables, which can be traced through such indicators as taxes paid, confiscations, donations, conflicts, and negotiations, formed a constantly shifting background within which the

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system operated. This system did not succeed in providing itself with stable mechanisms in practice, not even for the question of royal succession, which provoked irony on the other side of the Pyrenees, as can be seen from a reading of Gregory of Tours or Fredegar. Nevertheless, it did have a sufficient basis in its construction and invention for it to endure for around two centuries.

Chronology

453–466 466–484 472/474 476 484–507 507 507–511/3 ca. 508–526 526–531 ca. 527/531 531–548 548–549 ca. 549–555 ca. 555–567 ca. 567–571/2 ca. 568–571/2 ca. 571/2–586 ca. 585 586–601 ca. 587 589 ca. 600 601–603 603–610

Reign of Theoderic II, Gothic king in Toulouse Reign of Euric Campaigns of Gothic troops in Iberia Deposition of Romulus Augustulus; end of the Western Roman Empire Reign of Alaric II Battle of Vouillé Reign of Gesalec Influence of Theoderic the Great, Ostrogothic king, in the Visigothic kingdom Reign of Amalaric as autonomous king Second Council of Toledo Reign of Theudis Reign of Theudisclus Reign of Agila Reign of Athanagild Reign of Liuva I Reign of Leovigild with Liuva I Reign of Leovigild Conquest of the Suevic Kingdom Reign of Reccared Council of Arian bishops and conversion of the king to Catholicism Third Council of Toledo and conversion of the kingdom to Catholicism Death of Leander; Isidore succeeds him as bishop of Seville Reign of Liuva II Reign of Witteric

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610–612 612–621 621 621–631 ca. 625 631–636 633 636–639/640 636 638 639/640–642 642–653 646 649–653 653–672 653 654

C h ron ol o gy

Reign of Gundemar Reign of Sisebut; persecution of the Jews Reign of Reccared II Reign of Suinthila Expulsion of the imperial troops Reign of Sisenand Fourth Council of Toledo Reign of Chintila Death of Isidore; Fifth Council of Toledo Sixth Council of Toledo Reign of Tulga Reign of Chindaswinth Seventh Council of Toledo Reign of Recceswinth with Chindaswinth Reign of Recceswinth Eighth Council of Toledo Edition of the Liber Iudiciorum or Leges Visigothorum

A b b r e v i at i o n s

AEspA AHDE AnTard AyTM CAH CCSL Chron. Gall. EME FW Get. HG ICERV JRS LV MGH AA Epist. SRM NMS ÖAW P&P PBSR PL RBPh Settimane SHHA SHHM VSPE VSAe

Archivo Español de arqueología Anuario de historia del derecho Español Antiquité tardive Arqueología y territorio medieval The Cambridge Ancient History Corpus Christianorum: Series latina Chronica Gallica Early Medieval Europe Formulae Wisigothicae Getica Historia Gothorum José Vives, Inscripciones Cristianas de la España romana y visigoda, rev. ed. (Barcelona: CSIC, 1969) Journal of Roman Studies Leges Visigothorum Monumenta Germaniae historica Auctores antiquissimi Epistolae Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum Nottingham Medieval Studies Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Past and Present Papers of the British School at Rome Patrologia latina Revue Belge de philologie et d’ histoire Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo Studia historica: Historia antigua Studia historica: Historia medieval Vitas sanctorum patrum Emeretensium Vita sancti Aemiliani

Notes

chapter 1 1. Corpus Inscriptiones Latinarum II 4109 = II2 /14 947. Meritxell Pérez Martínez, “El final del imperio romano de Occidente en Tarraco: La inscripción de los emperadores León I y Anthemio (467–472 d.C.),” Pyrenae 45.2 (2014): 117–38. This should be compared with the situation of Roman dislocation in the center of the Iberian Peninsula during the fifth century, a process for which, see Pablo C. Díaz, “La ocupación germánica del valle del Duero: Un ensayo interpretativo,” Hispania Antiqua 18 (1994): 457–76; Julio Escalona, “Patrones de fragmentación territorial: El fin del mundo romano en la Meseta del Duero,” in Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder en el norte de la Península Ibérica durante la Antigüedad tardía, ed. Urbano Espinosa and Santiago Castellanos (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 2006), 165–99. On Hydatius and his pessimism, see Richard W. Burgess, “From Gallia Romana to Gallia Gothica: The View from Spain,” in FifthCentury Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? ed. John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 19–27; Pablo C. Díaz, “Extremis mundi partibus: Gallaecia tardoantigua: Periferia geográfica e integración política,” in Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder, 201–15, esp. 201–5. 2. The figures quoted for barbarians in Hispania at the start of the fifth century are very variable, running from tens of thousands to two hundred thousand, a range that seems excessive, as noted by Javier Arce, Bárbaros y romanos en Hispania, 400–507 A.D. (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2005), 71. See Pablo C. Díaz, “Los bárbaros y la Península Ibérica: El caso suevo en su contexto—A vueltas con la identidad,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V–VIII, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Santiago Castellanos (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015), 59; he also insists on how speculative the figures used by some authors are. Among those offering numbers, see Javier Pampliega, Los germanos en España (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1998). On the presence of barbarians in Hispania, there is an overall analysis in Pablo C. Díaz, “Barbarians in 5th Century Hispania,” in Le trasformazioni del V secolo: L’Italia, i barbari e l’Occidente romano, ed. Paolo Delogu and Stefano Gasparri (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 184–211. 3. Jord. Get. 244. Chron. Gall. 511, 78 and 79, in the edition by Burgess quoted in the bibliography. On the context of the Gothic kingdom in Gaul, see Ralph W. Mathisen and Hagith S. Sivan, “Forging a New Identity: The Kingdom of Toulouse and the Frontier of Visigothic Aquitania (418–507),” in The Visigoths. Studies in Culture and Society, ed. Alberto Ferreiro (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–62; Ana María Jiménez Garnica, Nuevas gentes, nuevo imperio: Los godos y Occidente en el siglo V (Madrid: UNED, 2010). Isid. HG 34. On the idea that Euric controlled the greater part of Iberia, see José Orlandis, Historia de España: La España Visigótica (Madrid: Gredos, 1977), 61; Edward A. Thompson Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire (Madison:

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University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 192; Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain (409–711) (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 31–33. On the limited nature of the Visigothic presence in fifth-century Hispania, see Michael Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 204–6; and Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 264, 266, 297. 4. For the inscription relating to the bridge in Mérida there are various editions, but see José Luis Ramírez Sádaba and Pedro Mateos Cruz, eds., Catálogo de las inscripciones cristianas de Mérida, number 10 (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romana, 2000). Documentation on this text and its problems can be found in the journal Pyrenae, as for example the linkage with Euric as a chronological reference in Javier Arce, “La inscripción del puente de Mérida de época del rey Eurico (483 d.C.),” Pyrenae 39.2 (2008): 121–26; Arce, Esperando a los árabes: Los visigodos en Hispania (507–711) (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2011), 301–7; Manuel Koch, “Nunc tempore potentis Getarum Eurici regis: El impacto visigodo en Hispania a través de la inscripción del puente de Mérida (483 d.C.),” Pyrenae 39.2 (2008): 137–42. Among this documentation is Isabel Velázquez, “El puente de Mérida: Algo más que un problema de traducción,” Pyrenae 39.2 (2008): 127–35, agreeing with Arce in seeing the reference to Euric as a chronological element but differing over certain philological aspects. Kulikowski takes a similar line, holding that the inscription in no way proves that Salla is evidence for a supposed stable domination by Euric: Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 206. On the kingdom of the Sueves and its context, into which the campaigns of the Gothic king Theoderic II intruded, see Pablo C. Díaz, El reino suevo, 411–585 (Madrid: Akal, 2011). There has recently been a very interesting interpretation of the discourse of “public persuasion” comparing the inscription with texts by Sidonius Apollinaris from Euric’s period: Damián Fernández, “Persuading the Powerful in Post-Roman Iberia: King Euric, Local Powers, and the Formation of a State Paradigm,” in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, ed. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 107–28; see also Fernández, Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300–600 CE (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 166–68. In Mérida, excavations in recent years have discovered what the archaeologists call the “Visigothic reinforcement” of the Roman city wall, finds that the author of this book was able to view in situ, explained by Santiago Feijoo Martínez, Javier Martínez Jiménez, and Isaac Sastre de Diego, to whom I wish to express my gratitude. The bibliographic reference best elucidating this association made by archaeologists working on sectors of the Mérida city wall in the area of the amphitheater is Santiago Feijoo Martínez and Miguel Alba Calzado, “La decadencia de Mérida en el siglo IX,” in Bataliús III: Estudios sobre el reino aftasí, ed. Juan Zozaya Stabel-Hansen and Guillermo Kurtz Schaefer (Badajoz: Gobierno de Extremadura, 2014), 93–110, with dating of what they call the “Visigothic reinforcement” to the era of Euric being mentioned on page 94. My thanks to Isaac Sastre de Diego for all the information and his helpfulness on this point. 5. Military campaigns in Consularia Caesaraugustana, 71 (494); 75 (497). The reference to the conquest of Tortosa and the sending of the head of Petrus to Zaragoza is in 87 (506). On changes in the philological and historical understanding of the text, see Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann, Victoris Tunnunensis Chronicon cum reliquiis ex Consularibus Caesaraugustanis et Iohannis Biclarensis Chronicon (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); see also Roger Collins, “Isidore, Maximus and the Historia Gothorum,” in Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter (Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1994), 345–58; Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez, “Acerca de la denominada Crónica de Zaragoza,” Helmantica 177 (2007): 339–67. On the idea that they may have been the basis of Gothic migration onto the Meseta, from an archaeological perspective, but with nuances relative to earlier literature, see Gisela Ripoll, “Las necrópolis visigodas: Reflexiones en

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torno al problema de la identificación del asentamiento visigodo en Occidente según los materiales arqueológicos,” in Hispania Gothorum: San Ildefonso y el reino visigodo de Toledo (Toledo: Empresa Pública Don Quijote de la Mancha, 2005, 2006), 59–74. The traditional idea of a mass migration can be found in José Orlandis, Historia del reino visigodo español (Madrid: Rialp, 2006), 46; or in Luis A. García Moreno, Historia de España Visigoda (Madrid: Cátedra, 1989), 73–74, with a fair number of changes in emphasis in García Moreno’s “Alaric II et l’Espagne,” in Le Bréviaire d’Alaric: Aux origines du Code civil, ed. Michel Rouche and Bruno Dumézil (Paris: PUPSUniversité Paris-Sorbonne, 2008), 105–27. On the limited impact of the campaigns and the absence of any necessary link between them and the necropolis sites, see Adolfo Domínguez Monedero, “La ‘Chronica Caesaraugustana’ y la presunta penetración popu lar visigoda en Hispania,” Antigüedad y Cristianismo 3 (1986): 61–68; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 206—8; Manuel Koch, “Gotthi intra Hispanias sedes acceperunt: Consideraciones sobre la supuesta inmigración visigoda en la Península Ibérica,” Pyrenae 37.2 (2006): 83–104; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, 297; Arce, Esperando a los árabes, 34–36, although the latter does accept probable settlements in the wake of military incursions. 6. Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain; Josep María Gurt i Esparraguera and Isabel Sánchez Ramos, “Las ciudades hispanas durante la Antigüedad tardía: Una lectura arqueológica,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 183–202; Josep María Gurt i Esparraguera and Pilar Diarte Blasco, “Spolia et Hispania: Alcuni essempi peninsulari,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 17 (2011): 7–22; Damián Fernández, “City and Countryside in Late Antique Iberia,” AnTard 21 (2013): 233–41; José Avelino Gutiérrez, “The Other Iberian Peninsula: The Cities in Early Medieval Spain,” in New Directions in Early Medieval European Archaeology: Spain and Italy Compared, ed. Sauro Gelichi and Richard Hodges (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 135–84. 7. For the structure of property and management of the workforce in late Roman uillae, see Domenico Vera, “Forme e funzioni della rendita fondiaria nella tarda Antichità,” in Società Roman e impero tardoantico, vol. 3, ed. Andrea Giardina (Rome: Laterza, 1986), 367–447; Vera, “Le forme del lavoro rurale: Aspetti della trasformazione dell’Europa Romana fra Tarda Antichità e Alto Medioevo,” in Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fra Tarda Antichità e Alto Medioevo, Spoleto 45 Settimane (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1998), 293–338. For the end of the uillae in Hispania, the flagship work is Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, El final de las villae en Hispania (siglos IV–VII d.C) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). For aristocracies and productions in late Roman Iberia, see Damián Fernández, Aristocrats, 61–89, 90–119. 8. Hydat. 41; 81. For the historical context of the two references, see Díaz, El reino suevo, 165, 174. For a systematization of castella, and the appearance of many of them in the fifth century, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Early Medieval Landscapes in North-West Spain: Local Powers and Communities, Fifth–Tenth Centuries,” EME 19.3 (2011): 285–311; Quirós Castillo, “Defensive Sites of the Early Middle Ages in North-West Spain,” in Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval Europe, ed. John Baker, Stuart Brookes, and Andrew Reynolds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 305–39; Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales en el interior de Hispania: Registros campesinos del siglo quinto d. C. (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015), 79–86, 234–51. 9. The bibliography on the so-called “necropolis sites along the Duero,” which should no longer be so termed, is enormous, although a good overview can be found in Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Prácticas y ritos funerarios,” in El poblamiento rural de época visigoda en Hispania: Arqueología del campesinado en el interior peninsular, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013), 259–88; and Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes, 71–78, with an essential critical review. On similar lines, see Carlos Tejerizo García, “Las necrópolis

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altomedievales de la cuenca del Duero: Límites y posibilidades de estudio,” Estrat Crític 5.2 (2011): 410–25. Among many other works calling attention to the complexity of the phenomenon is the systematic critique by Ángel Fuentes Domínguez, La necrópolis tardorromana de Albalate de las Nogueras (Cuenca): Y el problema de las denominadas “Necrópolis del Duero” (Cuenca: Diputación Provincial de Cuenca, 1989). Attention had already been drawn to the heterogeneity of the matter by Fernando Pérez Rodríguez-Aragón, “Más allá de las ‘necrópolis del Duero’: Hacia un nuevo panorama de la Antigüedad tardía en el cuadrante noroeste peninsular,” in Los Finisterres Atlánticos en la Antigüedad, ed. Carmen Fernández Ochoa (Gijón: Electa, 1996), 223–29; and later in Fernando Pérez Rodríguez-Aragón and Magdalena Barril Vicente, “El cementerio tardorromano de Aguilar de Anguita y la problemática de las necrópolis con ajuares ‘tipo Simancas-San Miguel del Arroyo,’ ” Sautuola 16–17 (2010–2012): 215–37. Moreover, the ascription of artifacts from given fifth-century cemeteries to the barbarian peoples who invaded Hispania is still maintained to this day, attempts even being made to link some archaeological materials to one specific group or another, such as Vandals, Sueves, or Goths: see, for example, Jorge López Quiroga, “Elementos ‘foráneos’ en las necrópolis tardorromanas de Beiral (Ponte de Lima, Portugal) y Vigo (Pontevedra, España): De nuevo la cuestión del siglo V d. C. en la Península Ibérica,” Cuadernos de prehistoria y arqueología de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 27 (2001): 115–24; and Rafael Barroso Cabrera, Jorge Morín de Pablos, and Jorge López Quiroga, “La presencia ‘bárbara’ en Hispania en las necrópolis del siglo V d. C.,” Zona Arqueológica 11 (2008): 135–47. 10. For the origins of villages in Europe, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, ed., The Archaeology of Early Medieval Villages in Europe (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2009). For specific reference to Iberia, see Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Granjas y aldeas tardoantiguas y altomedievales de la Meseta: Configuración espacial socioeconómica y política de un territorio rural al norte de Toledo (ss. V–X d.C.),” AEspA 80 (2007): 239–84; Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “El registro arqueológico del campesinado del interior peninsular en época altomedieval,” in El poblamiento rural, 66–258; Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes; Carlos Tejerizo García, “La arqueología de las aldeas altomedievales en la cuenca del Duero (ss. V–VIII): Problemas y perspectivas,” Debates de Arqueología Medieval 3 (2013): 289–315; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas en la Cuenca del Duero durante la primera Alta Edad Media (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2017).

chapter 2 1. A different view is found in Edward Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969); Peter Heather, The Goths (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 190; and Edward James, Europe’s Barbarians, AD 200–600 (Harlow: Pearson, 2009), 77. On lines similar to those proposed here, there is Richard W. Burgess, “From Gallia Romana to Gallia Gothica: The View from Spain,” in FifthCentury Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? ed. John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 19–27; Michael Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); and Javier Arce, Esperando a los árabes: Los visigodos en Hispania (507–711) (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2011). For the 507 battle between Visigoths and Franks, see Chron. Gall. 511 86; Consul. Caesar. 88a; Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.37; Isid. HG 36. Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer, eds., The Battle of Vouillé, 507 CE: Where France Began (Boston: De Gruyter, 2012). 2. Theoderic announced the sending of troops to Gaul in 508, pro communi utilitate exercitum ad Gallias constituimus destinare, Cass. Var. 1.24.5–6. See also Consul. Caesar. 88a, year 507 (battle);

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89 a, year 508 (Gesalec as king of the Goths); 94b, year 513 (for the allusion to Theoderic as king directly after Alaric II). The Ostrogothic intervention under Ibbas in 508 appears in Jord. Get. 302. See Laterc. Reg. Visig. 16 for the years of Gesalec’s rule. 3. Isid. HG 37–38. Consul. Caesar. 91a, year 510 (Ostrogoth attack and Gesalec’s exile). About Northern Africa in that age, see Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Procopius’s version of the siege of Carcassonne is in Procop. Bell. 5.12.40–43, and on Gesalec and Amalaric, see 5.12.43–49. See Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.37, who as usual sets a religious interpretation on Clovis’s victory. On the possible capital city status of Barcelona in Gesalec’s kingdom, see Arce, Esperando a los árabes, 28. On the influence of the Ostrogoths, see Ramón de Abadal, Del reino de Tolosa al reino de Toledo (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1960); Dietrich Claude, Geschichte der Westgoten (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970), 36ff; Heather, Goths, 232ff; Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 243ff; Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain, 409–711 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 41–46; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 261–66; Pablo C. Díaz, “La Hispania visigoda,” in Pablo C. Díaz, Francisco Javier Sanz Huesma, and Clelia Martínez Maza, Hispania tardoantigua y visigoda (Madrid: Istmo, 2007), esp. 335–37; Pablo C. Díaz and María Rosario Valverde, “Goths Confronting Goths: Ostrogothic Political Relations in Hispania,” in The Ostrogoths: From the Migration Period to the Sixth Century—An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Sam J. Barnish and Federico Marazzi (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), 353–76; Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 296–300; and Frank Riess, Narbonne and Its Territory in Late Antiquity: From the Visigoths to the Arabs (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 131–39. On Theoderic’s reign, see Wilhelm Ensslin, Theoderich der Grosse (Munich: Bruckmann, 1959); Thomas S. Burns, The Ostrogoths: Kingship and Society (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980); John Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); and Jonathan J. Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 4. Laterc. Reg. Visig. 17; Isid. HG 39; Consul. Caesar. 94b year 513. Procop. Bell. 5.12.43–49. Conc. Tarrac. 28–29; Conc. Gerund. 22–23. For the summonses by Theoderic and the refusals by Theudis to go to Ravenna, Procop. Bell. 5.12.52–54. 5. Respectively, Cass. Var. 5.39 and 5.35. Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 262–63; Díaz, “Hispania,” 340; Díaz and Valverde, “Goths,” 363. 6. Procop. Bell. 5.12.50–54. 7. Consular. Caesar. 115 a, a. 531; Procop. Bell. 5.13. 8. Amalaric’s marriage to Chlothild (who is not named until Hist. 3.10) is in Greg. Tur. Hist. 3.1. All the other details are in Hist. 3.10. 9. Isidore’s version is in HG 40, with some contradictions between the two accounts. For the key role played by Narbonne as the heart of the kingdom, see Riess, Narbonne. 10. Procop. Bell. 5.13.13; 5.12.50–52; Jord. Get. 302. On Cassiodorus’s influence on Jordanes, see Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); and Shami Ghosh, Writing the Barbarian Past: Studies in Early Medieval Historical Narrative (Leiden: Brill, 2016), esp. 39–59, with the most recent bibliography. The Vandal embassy is in Procop. Bell. 3.24.7–18. The siege of Zaragoza is in Cons. Caesar. 130a (541), and then in Greg. Tur. Hist. 3.29, and Isid. HG 41. On the possibility Theudis was involved in Amalaric’s death, see Heather, Goths, 277–78. On the campaign against Ceuta and later death of the king, see Isid. HG 42–43. On Theudis, see Pablo Fuentes Hinojo, “La obra política de Teudis y sus aportaciones a la construcción del reino visigodo de Toledo,” La España medieval 19 (1996): 9–36, with this author suggesting the possibility

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that Seville was the capital city on the basis of Procopius’s text recounting the Vandal embassy of 533; Luis A. García Moreno, Historia de España Visigoda (Madrid: Cátedra, 1989), 95–99; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 265, 272; and Díaz, “Hispania,” 344–46. 11. Theudis’s law de litigium expensis et commodis iudicum et executorum in the edition by Zeumer of the LV, ed. Karl Zeumer, MGH, Leges Nationum Germanicarum, 1. Leges Visigothorum (Hannover: Hahn, 1902 [2005]), 467–69. 12. For the Council of Toledo and the two letters by Montanus, use has been made of the edition by Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Félix Rodríguez, La colección canónica Hispana, IV concilios galos, concilios hispanos: Primera parte (Madrid: CSIC, 1984). On these letters, see Céline Martin, “Las cartas de Montano y la autonomía episcopal de la Hispania septentrional en el siglo VI,” Hispania Antiqua 22 (1998): 403–26, who deems it likely the bishops were from the Tarraconensis; Amancio Isla Frez, “Desde el reino visigodo y la ortodoxia toledana: La correspondencia de Montano,” SHHM 18–19 (2000–2001): 41–52, who points to the Suevian kingdom as the origin of the outsider bishops to whom Montanus refers. 13. For the ethnic viewpoint on Visigothic settlements and the supposed “Visigothic necropolises,” see Wilhelm Reinhart, “Sobre el asentamiento de los visigodos en la Península,” AEspA 18 (1945): 124–39. See Jorge López Quiroga, “La presencia ‘Germánica’ en Hispania en el siglo V d. C.: Arqueología y procesos de etnogénesis en la Península Ibérica,” Cuadernos de prehistoria y arqueología de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 30 (2004): 213–23. The works of Kazanski relating to Gaul have served as a benchmark for an “ethnic” reading of the necropolises: see Patrick Périn and Michel Kazanski, “Identity and Ethnicity During the Era of Migrations and Barbarian Kingdoms in the Light of Archaeology in Gaul,” in Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World, ed. Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer (Farnham: Ashgate, 2005), 299– 330. Concerning the supposed Gothic settlement at the end of the fifth century and potential recognition of it through archaeology, see Gisela Ripoll, “The Arrival of the Visigoths in Hispania: Population Problems and the Process of Acculturation,” in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, ed. Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 153–87; Ripoll, “Las necrópolis visigodas: Reflexiones en torno al problema de la identificación del asentamiento visigodo en Occidente según los materiales arqueológicos,” in Hispania Gothorum: San Ildefonso y el reino visigodo de Toledo (Toledo: Empresa Pública Don Quijote de la Mancha 2005, 2006); Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Romanos y visigodos en el valle del Duero (siglos V–VIII),” Lancia 6 (2004–5): 187–204; with some nuances Paul Reynolds also suggests a link between settlements in the late fifth and early sixth centuries and certain assemblages of artifacts, in Reynolds, “Material Culture and the Economy in the Age of Saint Isidore of Seville (6th and 7th Centuries),” AnTard 23 (2015): 163–210. The idea has even been put forward that in fact the material from the supposed Visigothic necropolises is of Ostrogothic type and would correspond to the material culture brought by the Ostrogoths accompanying Ibbas and Theudis in their campaigns first in Septimania and then in Hispania, who settled after the wars against Burgundians and Franks had come to a close; see Andreas Schwarcz, “Relations Between Ostrogoths and Visigoths in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries and the Question of Visigothic Settlement in Aquitaine and Spain,” in Integration und Herrschaft: Ethnische Identitäten und soziale Organisation im Frühmittelalter, ed. Walter Pohl and Maximilian Diesenberger (Vienna: ÖAW, 2002), 217–26. Ripoll later revised certain views in “Las necrópolis visigodas,” 59–74; Ripoll, “The Archaeological Characterisation of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo: The Question of the Visigothic Cemeteries,” in Völker, Reiche, und Namen im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Matthias Becher and Stefanie Dick (Munich: Fink, 2010), 161–79. In recent work Alexandra Chavarría Arnau has reviewed the idea of ethnic ascription of the necropolises on the Meseta: see Chavarría Arnau, “¿Castillos en el aire? Paradig-

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mas interpretativos ‘de moda’ en la arqueología medieval española,” in De Mahoma a Carlomagno: Los primeros tiempos (siglos VII–IX) (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2013), 131–66. 14. There are pertinent critical comments in Florin Curta, “Some Remarks on Ethnicity in Medieval Archaeology,” EME 15.2 (2007): 159–85; Curta, “Medieval Archaeology and Ethnicity: Where Are We?” History Compass 9.7 (2011): 537–48; Andrew Reynolds, Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burial Customs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Guy Halsall, “Ethnicity and Early Medieval Cemeteries,” AyTM 18 (2011): 15–25. For criticism of the traditional idea of “Visigothic necropolises,” there had already been some explicit doubt from historians such as Collins, Visigothic Spain, 174–86; and Heather, Goths, 207. A conclusive revision is to be found in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Dove sono i visigoti? Cimiteri e villaggi nella Spagna settentrionale nei secoli VI e VII,” in Archeologia e storia delle migrazioni: Europa, Italia, Mediterraneo fra tarda età romana e alto medioevo, ed. Carlo Ebanista and Marcello Rotili (Cimitile: Tavolario Edizioni, 2011), 159–81; Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Prácticas y ritos funerarios,” in El poblamiento rural de época visigoda en Hispania: Arqueología del campesinado en el interior peninsular, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013), 259–88. Critical reviews by Antonel Jepure are to be found in “Researching Gothic Immigrants in Spain: An Archaeological Dilemma,” in Foreigners in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Dieter Quast (Mainz: Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, 2009), 181–96; Jepure, “El ocaso del paradigma visigodo,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V–VIII, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Santiago Castellanos (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015), 239–48. See other views in Barbara Sasse, “Westgotische” Gräberfelder auf der iberischen Halbinsel: Am Beispiel der Funde aus El Carpio de Tajo (Torrijos, Toledo) (Mainz: P. Von Zabern, 2000). Specifically for the northern part of the Meseta, see Carlos Tejerizo García, “Ethnicity in Early Middle Age Cemeteries: The Case of the ‘Visigothic Burials,’ ” AyTM 18 (2011): 29–43; Tejerizo García, “Etnicidad, identidad y poder en la meseta durante la Alta Edad Media: Reflexiones desde la arqueología,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania, 221–38. For the Tarraconensis, see Jordi Roig Buxó, “Necrópolis de época visigoda, ajuares funerarios y depósitos humanos anómalos de los s. V–VIII en la Tarraconense oriental (Cataluña): ¿Indicadores de ‘etnicidad’ y/o nivel económico? e indicios arqueológicos de desigualdad y exclusión social,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania, 333–93. About the complexity of the whole problem, see Damián Fernández, Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300–600 C.E. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 190–92; and Pilar Diarte-Blasco, Late Antique and Early Medieval Hispania: Landscapes Without Strategy? (Oxford: Oxbow, 2018), 138–43. 15. Matthew Innes, “Land, Freedom and the Making of the Medieval West,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (2006): 39–74. The idea of access to landed property can be noted in Ernest T. Gaupp, Die germanischen Ansiedlungen und Landtheilungen in den Provinzen des römischen Westreiches (Breslau: J. Max, 1844). The views about access to rents and taxes rather than the land itself were defended by Walter Goffart, Barbarians and Romans A.D. 418–584: The Techniques of Accommodation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); and with some nuances by Jean Durliat, “Le salaire de la paix sociale dans les royaumes barbares,” in Anerkennung und Integration: Zu den wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen der Völkerwanderungszeit 400–600, ed. Herwig Wolfram and Andreas Schwarcz (Vienna: ÖAW, 1988), 21–72, esp. 55ff for the Visigothic settlement in Gaul. Among work critical of these positions, see, for instance, Samuel J. B. Barnish, “Taxation, Land and Barbarian Settlement in the Western Empire,” PBSR 54 (1986): 170–95; and Wolf Liebeschuetz, “Cities, Taxes and the Accommodation of the Barbarians: The Theories of Durliat and Goffart,” in Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. Walter Pohl (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 135–51. The political keys are discussed in Ralph W. Mathisen

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and Hagith S. Sivan, “Forging a New Identity: The Kingdom of Toulouse and the Frontier of Visigothic Aquitania (418–507),” in The Visigoths: Studies in Culture and Society, ed. Alberto Ferreiro (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–62. See overviews on settlements in Wolfram, History of the Goths, 222ff. Ana M. Jiménez Garnica, “Settlement of the Visigoths in the Fifth Century,” in The Visigoths: From the Migration Period to the Seventh Century—An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Peter Heather (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 93–115, concentrating on the fifth century but covering Iberia in the sixth century on p. 109. On laws governing access to lands and an exhaustive analysis of these, see Alfonso García Gallo, “Notas sobre el reparto de tierras entre visigodos y romanos,” Hispania 1.4 (1941): 40–63. Regarding the question of the retention of these laws into the seventh century but no longer with the significance of a sharing out between Goths and Romans, rather in the general sense of properties, see Luis A. García Moreno, “El término ‘sors’ y relacionados en el ‘Liber Iudicum’: De nuevo el problema de la división de las tierras entre godos y provinciales,” AHDE 53 (1983): 137–75. On access by Goths in the sixth century as a conquest and in actual practice, see Díaz, “Hispania,” 347–48. On the fact that the laws on land sharing were not applied, see Arce, Esperando a los árabes, 43–44, with this author believing that there was widely dispersed settlement. On the changes in ethnic matters in these laws and their retention into the sixth and seventh centuries, see Heather, Goths, 296. See other recent points of view in Wolf Liebeschuetz, “Goths and Romans in the Leges Visigothorum,” in Integration in Rome and in the Roman World, ed. Gerda de Kleijn and Stéphane Benoist (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 89–104, esp. 92; and Erica Buchberger, Shifting Ethnic Identities in Spain and Gaul, 500–700: From Romans to Goths and Franks (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 85–86. 16. Jord. Get. 303; Greg. Tur. Hist. 3.30; Consul. Caesar. 133a; on Agila, Consul. Caesar. 134a; Greg. Tur. Hist. 3.30; 4.8; Isid. HG 45–46; and on Athanagild see 47. A different view from that put forward here about the uprising in Córdoba is given by Luis A. García Moreno, “La emigración goda a España: Una perspectiva nobiliaria,” Zona Arqueológica 11 (2008): 97–107, esp. 102. The pact between Athanagild and the empire definitely occurred, and years later Reccared tried to obtain a copy of its text, with no success: Greg. Reg. Ep. 9.229. For the dating both of the Chronicle and especially of Isidore’s Historia Gothorum, use is made of the suggested chronology of José Carlos Martín Iglesias, “La Crónica Universal de Isidoro de Sevilla: Circunstancias históricas e ideológicas de su composición y traducción de la misma,” Iberia 4 (2001): 199–239. See also Luis A. García Moreno, “¿Por qué Isidoro de Sevilla quiso escribir una segunda versión de su Historia gothorum?” in Famille, violence et christianisation au Moyen Âge : Mélanges offerts à Michel Rouche, ed. Martin Aurell and Thomas Deswarte (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005), 387–408; Isabel Velázquez, “La doble redacción de la Historia Gothorum de Isidoro de Sevilla,” in L’ édition critique des œuvres d’Isidore de Séville: Les recensions multiples, ed. María Adelaida Andrés Sanz, Jacques Elfassi, and José Carlos Martín (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2008), 91–126. On the Byzantine presence in Iberia, see Margarita Vallejo Girvés, Bizancio y la España tardoantigua (ss. V–VIII): Un capítulo de historia mediterránea (Alcalá de Henares: University of Alcalá, 1993); Hispania y Bizancio: Una relación desconocida (Madrid: Akal, 2012); and Jamie Wood, “Defending Byzantine Spain: Frontiers and Diplomacy,” EME 18.3 (2010): 292–319. 17. An interpretation of Leovigild’s campaigns is given in the chapter on negotiations. References to the main substance of the details on Leovigild are in Bicl. 6, 10, 17, 20, 24, 27, 32, 35, 46, 50, 53, 54, 57, 60, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 73, 74, 79; Isid. HG 48–51; HS 91; Chron. 403–5; Greg. Tur. Hist. 4.27–28, 4.38, 5.38, 6.18, 6.43; 8.28; 8.30; Greg. Dial. 3.31; Moral., Praef.; Venant. Fort. Carm. 6.5. The boy Athanagild fell into the hands of imperial forces, and his grandmother Brunhild then attempted to get him back, Epist. Austr. 27, 28, 43, 44, 45, 47; see Margarita Vallejo Girvés, “ ‘Un asunto de chantaje’: La familia de Atanagildo entre Metz, Toledo y Constantinopla,” Polis 11 (1999):

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261–79. On John of Biclar’s ideological perspective, besides the analyses by Cardelle de Hartmann and Collins in the edition quoted in the final list, see also Pedro Juan Galán Sánchez, El género historiográfico de la Chronica: Las crónicas hispanas de época visigoda (Cáceres: University of Estremadura, 1994). On Reccopolis, see Lauro Olmo Enciso, “Recópolis: Una ciudad en una época de transformaciones,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 41–62. On the possibilities regarding clothing used by the king, see Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 298–300; María Rosario Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercicio del poder real en la monarquía visigoda: Un proceso de cambio (Salamanca: University of Salamanca, 2000), 189–95; Javier Arce, “Leovigildus rex y el ceremonial de la corte visigótica,” in Visigoti e Longobardi, ed. Javier Arce and Paolo Delogu (Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2001), 79–92; Luis A. García Moreno, Leovigildo: Unidad y diversidad de un reinado (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2008), 87–95. On Leovigild’s need to increase his support among the Gothic magnates and the marriage to Gosvinth, see Luis A. García Moreno, “History Through Family Names in the Visigothic Kingdoms of Toulouse and Toledo,” Cassiodorus 4 (1998): 163–84, esp. 169–71. On the political context of Leovigild’s reign, relations with the Franks, Hermenegild’s revolt, and connections with the Eastern Roman Empire, see Walter Goffart, “Byzantine Policy in the West Under Tiberius II and Maurice: The Pretenders Hermenegild and Gundovald (579–585),” Traditio 13 (1957): 73–118; Vallejo Girvés, Bizancio; Vallejo Girvés, Hispania y Bizancio; and García Moreno, Leovigildo. On the various options for interpreting the texts on the position of the Sueves, see Pablo C. Díaz, El reino suevo (411–585) (Madrid: Akal, 2011), 148–50; and Roger Collins, “Gregory of Tours and Spain,” in A Companion to Gregory of Tours, ed. Alexander Callander Murray (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 498–515, esp. 511–14. The law mentioned is LV 3.1.1 antiqua; see Hagith Sivan, “The Appropriation of Roman Law in Barbarian Hands: ‘Roman-Barbarian’ Marriage in Visigothic Gaul and Spain,” in Strategies of Distinction, 189–203, esp. 202–3. 18. Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.38, 6.18, 6.34, 6.45, 7.9–10, 7.15, 8.28, 8.30, 9.1, 9.15, 9.16, 9.20, 9.28, 9.31– 32. Bicl. 73, 74, 79, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93; Isid. HG 52–56; VSPE 5. On the connection between Reccared’s advance toward Septimania and the transfer of Hermenegild from Valencia to Tarragona, and his execution, see Luis A. García Moreno, “La coyuntura política del III Concilio de Toledo: Una historia larga y tortuosa,” in Concilio III de Toledo: XIV Centenario, 589–1989 (Toledo: Arzobispado Toledo, 1991), 271–96; García Moreno, Leovigildo, 165–67; and Santiago Castellanos, Los godos y la cruz: Recaredo y la unidad de Spania (Madrid: Alianza, 2007), 138–39. Among the ten or so letters between Gregory the Great and personalities in Iberia, see esp. Greg. Reg. Ep. 1.41 and 9.228–30. On the tensions between Gregory the Great and Reccared, see Pablo C. Díaz, “Gregorio Magno y el reino visigodo: Un conflicto de poderes,” in Gregorio Magno, L’ impero e i “regna,” ed. Claudio Azzara (Florence: Sismel-Galluzzo, 2008), 58–80. On matrimonial projects for Reccared, see Janet Nelson, “À propos des femmes royales dans les rapports entre le monde wisigothique et le monde franc à l’époque de Reccared,” in Concilio III de Toledo, 465–76. On Rigunth, Chlodosind, and especially Brunhild, see Nelson, “Queens as Jezebels: Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History,” in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: Hambledon, 1986), 1–48; Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751 (London: Routledge, 1994), 120–36, 169–75. In general, for Gregory of Tours’s take on Iberian matters, see Edward James, “Gregory of Tours, the Visigoths and Spain,” in Studies on Medieval Spain and Christendom in Memory of Richard Fletcher, ed. Simon Barton and Peter Linehan (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 43–64; and Collins, “Gregory of Tours.” The overall aspects of Reccared’s reign, including relations with the Merovingian kingdoms and conversion to Catholicism, together with details of the uprisings, are covered in Castellanos, Los godos y la cruz, 269–93. On the comparison of Reccared with

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Constantine in the sources, see Castellanos, “Creating New Constantines at the End of the Sixth Century,” Historical Research 85.230 (2012): 556–75. In addition, for diplomatic relations and the role of queens and princesses, see Amancio Isla Frez, “Las relaciones entre el reino visigodo y los reyes merovingios a finales del siglo VI,” La España Medieval 13 (1990): 11–32; and Isla Frez, “Reinas de los godos,” Hispania 64 (2004): 409–34. 19. Isid. HG 57–58 (Liuva II and Witteric), 59 (Gundemar), 60–61 (Sisebut), 62–65 (Suinthila); Chron I. 415–416 and II.415–416 (Sisebut); II. 416b–417a (Suinthila); Etym. 5.39.42 (Sisebut). Epist. Wisig. 15–16. Fredeg. 4.30–31 (Witteric); 4.33 (Sisebut). On the offensive actions of the Vascones toward the zone of the River Ebro in the Tarraconensis, perhaps see the reference by Braul. ep. II in the new edition by Ruth Miguel and José Carlos Martín; see the final list of sources. For the full political context of these reigns see García Moreno, Historia; and Díaz, “Hispania.” 20. Fredeg. 4.73 (Suinthila); Chron. a. 754, 16, gives an image of Suinthila that is very different from that put forward both by the bishops at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, 207–23, and by Fredegar. On all these matters, see Luis A. García Moreno, “La oposición a Suintila: Iglesia, monarquía y nobleza en el Reino Visigodo,” Polis 101 (1991): 13–24. Fredeg. 4.73 (Sisenand); Chron. a. 754, 17, describes Sisenand as a usurper. Fredegar. 4.82 (Chintila, Tulga, Chindaswinth, Recceswinth). Chron. a. 754, 19 (Tulga). External problems but also internal fissures, in LV 2.1.8 (Chindaswinth). On the reigns of the mid-seventh century as a turning point, see García Moreno, Historia, 161; Céline Martin, La géographie du pouvoir dans l’Espagne visigothique (Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2003), 175–83; and Díaz, “Hispania,” esp. 422–50.

chapter 3 1. Fredeg. 4.82. 2. ICERV 287. Jacques Fontaine, “Une épitaphe rythmique d’un contemporain d’Isidore de Séville: L’éloge funèbre du Wisigoth Oppila,” in Aevum inter utrumque: Mélanges offerts à Gabriel Sanders, ed. Marc Van Uytfanghe and Roland Demeulenaere (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1991), 163–86; Esteban Moreno Resano, “La representación épica del combate y de la muerte del guerrero en el epitafio de Opilano (año 642),” Habis 42 (2011): 299–316. 3. On the problems of building up explanations solely from laws, see Domenico Vera, “Schiavitù rurale, colonato e trasformazioni agrarie nell’Italia imperiale,” Scienze dell’Antichità 6–7 (1992–1993): 291–339, esp. 320. 4. On the appropriate handling of leges as material for social studies, see Patrick Wormald, “Lex scripta and verbum regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Peter H. Sawyer and Ian N. Wood (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1977), 105– 38. The reference is to LV 5.4.7. 5. Conc. Tol. I, ca. 400, c. 10. Here the magnates appear as domini vel patroni in their twin dimensions, economic and personal, of hegemony over their dependents. 6. The idea of protofeudalization appears in Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, “El ejército visigodo: Su protofeudalización,” in Investigaciones y documentos sobre las instituciones hispanas (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1970), 5–56; Luis A. García Moreno, “El estado protofeudal visigodo: Precedente y modelo para la Europa carolingia,” in L’Europe héritière de l’Espagne Wisigothique, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Christine Pellistrandi (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1992), 17–43, with previous bibliography about this debate; and for the suggestion of feudalism in the Visigothic era, see Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la Península Ibérica (Barcelona: Crítica, 1978). See the comments on this discussion in Chris Wickham, Framing the Early

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Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 99. On property structures in late Antiquity, see Domenico Vera, “Strutture agrarie e strutture patrimoniali nella tarda antichità: L’aristocrazia romana fra agricoltura e comercio,” Opus 2 (1983): 489–533. Sam J. Barnish, “Transformation and Survival in the Western Senatorial Aristocracy, c. AD 400–700,” PBSR 56 (1988): 120–55, continues to be essential reading on post-Roman aristocracies. For Hispania, see Enrique Ariño Gil and Pablo C. Díaz, “La economía agraria de la Hispania romana: Colonización y territorio,” SHHA 17 (1999): 153–92. With regard to trade with Mediterranean regions and how this can be traced through pottery, see Paul Reynolds, Hispania and the Roman Mediterranean AD 100–700: Ceramics and Trade (London: Duckworth, 2010). A descriptive account of the aristocracies may be found in Karl Fiedrich Stroheker, “Spanische Senatoren der spätrömischen und westgotischen Zeit,” in Germanentum und Spätantike (Zurich: Antemis, 1965), 54–87. For the aristocrats in Iberia, see now Damián Fernández, Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300–600 C.E. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). On the foundations of the aristocracy and large estates in the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania, see also Biagio Saitta, Società e potere nella Spagna visigotica (Catania: Tringale, 1986); García Moreno, “El estado protofeudal.” For references to property-owning magnates in the Leges, see Paul D. King, Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 183–86. See Dietrich Claude, Adel, Kirche und Königtum im Westgotenreich (Sigmaringen: Vorträge und Forschungen, 1971), 80–90; Wickham, Framing, 219–32; Pablo  C. Díaz, “La Hispania visigoda,” in Pablo C. Díaz, Francisco Javier Sanz Huesma, and Clelia Martínez Maza, Hispania tardoantigua y visigoda (Madrid: Istmo, 2007), 257–611, esp. 463ff. On the transfer of ownership in the West arising from settlement, apart from what was noted in Chapter  2, see Matthew Innes, “Land, Freedom and the Making of the Medieval West,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (2006): 39–74. 7. Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, El final de las villae en Hispania (siglos IV–VII) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007); Chavarría Arnau, “Villae tardoantiguas en el valle del Duero,” in De Roma a los bárbaros: Poder central y horizontes locales en la cuenca del Duero, ed. Santiago Castellanos and Iñaki Martín Viso (León: Universidad de León, 2008), 93–113; Chavarría Arnau, “Dopo la fine delle ville: Le campagne ispaniche in epoca visigota (VI–VIII secolo),” in Dopo la fine delle ville: Le campagne dal VI al IX secolo, ed. Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, and Marco Valenti (Mantua: SAP, 2005), 263–85. See also Tamara Lewit, “‘Vanishing Villas’: What Happened to Élite Rural Habitation in the West in the 5th–6th c.?” Journal of Roman Archaeology 16 (2003): 260–74. Among other work on Italy by Vera, in relation to the question of changes in the system of villae and processes of property concentration as a mechanism explaining the end of the model— always with the caution that he himself affirms that Italy was a very special case within the West as a whole—see Domenico Vera, “Dalla ‘villa perfecta’ alla villa di Palladio: Sulle trasformazioni del sistema agrario in Italia fra Principato e Dominato,” Athenaeum 83 (1995): 189–211, 331–56; Vera, “Essere ‘Schiavi della terra’ nell’Italia tardoantica: le razionalitá di una dipendenza,” SHHA 25 (2007): 489–505. 8. LV 3.1.5. On Bertram of Le Mans and his properties, see Ian N. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751 (London: Routledge, 1994), 207–8; Bryan Ward-Perkins, “Land, Labour and Settlement,” in CAH, 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425–600, eds. Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Michael Whitby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 315–45, esp. 341. For large ecclesiastical estates, information was brought together some time ago by Gonzalo Martínez Díez, in El patrimonio eclesiástico en la España visigoda: Estudio histórico jurídico (Comillas: Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, 1959). On monks, see Pablo C. Díaz, Formas económicas y sociales en el monacato visigodo (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1987).

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With regard to the situation of the aristocracy during the fifth century in Hispania, see Díaz, “Barbarians in the 5th  Century Hispania,” in Le trasformazioni del V secolo: L’Italia, i barbari e l’Occidente romano, Paolo Delogu and Stefano Gasparri (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 183–214. For a look at the transformation of relationships between the ciuitates and their environs, see Díaz, “City and Territory in Hispania in Late Antiquity,” in Towns and Their Territories Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Gian P. Brogiolo, Nancy Gauthier, and Neil Christie (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 3–35. On where aristocrats lived in Visigothic-era Hispania see Amancio Isla Frez, “El lugar de habitación de las aristocracias en época visigoda, siglos VI–VIII,” AyTM 14 (2007): 9–19, esp. 11. 9. LV 2.1.9. 10. LV 8.1.1. 11. In general, see Claude, Adel, Kirche. LV 5.3.1 antiqua. On patrocinium in Visigothic Hispania, essential reading is Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo. LV 6.4.2 antiqua, y LV 8.1.4 (Chindaswinth). The military laws of Wamba and Erwig fall outside the scope of this work. They are LV 9.2.8 and 9.2.9, on which see Dionisio Pérez Sánchez, El ejército en la sociedad visigoda (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1989); and Amancio Isla Frez, Ejército, sociedad y política en la Península Ibérica entre los siglos VII y XI (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa- CSIC, 2010), esp. 53–59. The reference to Theudis is in Procop. Bell. 5.12.50. On the nature of these troops, see Javier Arce, Esperando a los árabes: Los visigodos en Hispania (507–711) (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2011), 105–6, which is highly critical of the views of Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 45. 12. LV 2.2.8 antiqua. LV 2.2.2 (Chindaswinth). 13. LV 5.3.3 and 5.3.4, both antiquae. 14. See the edition by Javier Fortacín quoted in the final bibliography. See also Simon Corcoran, “The Donation and Will of Vincent of Huesca: Latin Text and English Translation,” AnTard 11 (2003): 215–21. Essential reading on the donatio and testamentum is Pablo C. Díaz, “La estructura de la propiedad en la España tardoantigua: El ejemplo del monasterio de Asán,” Studia Zamorensia 6 (1985): 347–63; and Díaz, “El testamento de Vicente: Propietarios y dependientes en la Hispania del s. VI,” in “Romanización” y “Reconquista” en la Península Ibérica: Nuevas perspectivas, ed. María J. Hidalgo de la Vega, Dionisio Pérez Sánchez, and Manuel J. Rodríguez Gervás (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1998), 257–70. On the location of Vincent’s properties and their dispersion, and historical and archaeological perspective on the documentation, see Enrique Ariño and Pablo C. Díaz, “Poblamiento y organización del espacio: La Tarraconense pirenaica en el siglo VI,” AnTard 11 (2003): 223–37. This book was in preparation for publication when new documents from San Martín de Asán were published: see Guillermo Tomás Faci and José Carlos Martín-Iglesias, “Cuatro documentos inéditos del monasterio visigodo de San Martín de Asán (522–586),” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 52 (2017): 261–86. 15. Tomás Cordero Ruiz and Iñaki Martín Viso, “Sobre los usos y la cronología de las pizarras numerales: Reflexiones a partir del caso del yacimiento de Valdelobos (Montijo, Badajoz),” AEspA 85 (2012): 253–66. 16. The sale of the portio de terra by Gregorius to Desiderius on Piz. 40, Isabel Velázquez, Las pizarras visigodas (Entre el latín y su disgregación: La lengua hablada en Hispania, siglos VI– VIII) (Valladolid: RAE-Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2004), 89, 220– 34; Piz. 45 is on pp. 251–60; Piz. 54, Velázquez, Las pizarras, 288–91, see also comments by Velázquez on p. 97. Piz. 103, Velázquez, Las pizarras, 362–68, and 101, with important philological comments that have been taken into consideration here on this letter from Faustinus to Paulus. Scholars tend to think that slates with accounts refer to rents. Wickham, Framing, 224;

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Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Romanos y visigodos en el valle del Duero (siglos V–VIII),” Lancia 6 (2004–2005): 187–204; Chavarría Arnau, “¿Castillos en el aire? Paradigmas interpretativos ‘de moda’ en la arqueología medieval española,” in De Mahoma a Carlomagno: Los primeros tiempos (siglos VII–IX) (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2013), 131–66. Without excluding the idea that some instances, such as Valdelobos, record rents paid to domini, the view that some sets of slates are possibly fiscal reference has been put forward by Pablo C. Díaz and Iñaki Martín Viso, “Una contabilidad esquiva: Las pizarras numerales visigodas y el caso de El Cortinal de San Juan (Salvatierra de Tormes, España),” in Between Taxation and Rent: Fiscal Problems from Late Antiquity to Early Middle Ages / Entre el impuesto y la renta: Problemas de la fiscalidad tardoantigua y altomedieval, ed. Pablo C. Díaz and Iñaki Martín Viso (Bari: Edipuglia, 2011), 221–50; Iñaki Martín Viso, “The ‘Visigothic’ Slates and Their Archaeological Contexts,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 5.2 (2013): 145–68; Martín Viso, “Huellas del poder: Pizarras y poblados campesinos en el centro de la Península Ibérica (siglos V–VII),” Medievalismo 25 (2015): 285–314. 17. Martínez Díez, El patrimonio eclesiástico; Carles Buenacasa Pérez, “Les condicions de vida del camperolat eclesiàstic visigot: Entre la servitud i el miratge de la llibertat,” Estudis d’Història Agrària 17 (2004): 215–30; Díaz, Formas económicas y sociales. Concilio XVI de Toledo, a. 693, c. 5: ut ecclesia quae usque ad decem habuerit mancipia super se habeat sacerdotem. 18. Isid. HG 44. 19. For details of each case and references, see Chapter 4. 20. Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales en el interior de Hispania: Registros campesinos del siglo quinto d. C. (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015), 31, 217–18, 275. Essential reading on this is Chris Wickham—not just his Framing, already mentioned, but his later summary in “Rethinking the Structure of the Early Medieval Economy,” in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 19–31, esp. 23. 21. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, ed., The Archaeology of Early Medieval Villages in Europe (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2009). A paradigm case is the occupation of caves; for a specific instance, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Alberto Alonso Martín, “Las ocupaciones rupestres en el fin de la Antigüedad: Los materiales cerámicos de Los Husos (Laguardia, Álava),” Veleia 24–25 (2007): 1123–42. 22. Jordi Roig Buxó, “Formas de poblamiento rural y producciones cerámicas en torno al 711: Documentación arqueológica del área catalana,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 121–44. See also Roig Buxó, “Asentamientos rurales y poblados tardoantiguos y altomedievales en Cataluña (siglos VI al X),” in The Archaeology of Early Medieval Villages, ed. Quirós Castillo 207–51. For the Duero region, see Carlos Tejerizo García, “La arqueología de las aldeas altomedievales en la cuenca del Duero (ss. V–VIII): Problemas y perspectivas,” Debates de arqueología medieval 3 (2013): 289–315, referring to La Mata del Palomar. On the finds in Segovia province, besides La Mata del Palomar, see also Tejerizo García et al., “La construcción histórica de los paisajes en el sector central de la Cuenca del Duero: Primeros resultados de una prospección intensiva,” Territorio, sociedad y poder 10 (2015): 39–62. See Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas en la Cuenca del Duero durante la primera Alta Edad Media (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2017). See also Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “El registro arqueológico del campesinado del interior peninsular en época altomedieval,” in El poblamiento rural de época visigoda en Hispania: Arqueología del campesinado en el interior peninsular, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013), 66–258. For Asturias, see María B. San Pedro Veledo, “Desarrollo diacrónico de un microespacio entre la Antigüedad y la Edad Media (siglos IV–XII): El actual área de El Cristo (oeste de Oviedo),” Territorio, sociedad y poder 4 (2009): 47–64; Margarita Fernández Mier,

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“Changing Scales of Local Power in the Early Medieval Iberian North-West,” in Scale and Scale Change in the Early Middle Ages: Exploring Landscape, Local Society, and the World Beyond, ed. Julio Escalona and Andrew Reynolds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 87–117; Fernández Mier, “La articulación social de la Alta Edad Media asturiana,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V–VIII, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Santiago Castellanos (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2016), 181–200. On the Basque Country, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Arqueología de los espacios agrarios medievales en el País Vasco,” Hispania 69.233 (2009): 619–52. For Galicia, see Paula Ballesteros Arias, “La arqueología rural y la construcción de un paisaje agrario medieval: El caso de Galicia,” in Por una arqueología agraria: Perspectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medievales hispánicas, ed. Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), 25–39. 23. Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales, 275. One of Vigil-Escalera Guirado’s most relevant pieces of work was “Granjas y aldeas tardoantiguas y altomedievales de la Meseta: Configuración espacial, socioeconómica y política de un territorio rural al norte de Toledo (ss. V–X d. C.),” AEspA 80 (2007): 239–84. A very brief summary of his ideas in respect to the center of Iberia is to be found in Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Formas de poblamiento rural en torno al 711: Documentación arqueológica del centro peninsular,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 189–201, which pays particular attention to the final stages of the Visigothic period. On networks, besides this and other work by Vigil-Escalera Guirado, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Early Medieval Landscapes in North-West Spain: Local Powers and Communities Fifth-Tenth Centuries,” EME 19.3 (2011): 285–311. See also Quirós Castillo and Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Networks of Peasant Villages Between Toledo and Velegia Alabense, Northwestern Spain (V–Xth Centuries),” Archeologia medievale 33 (2006): 79–130; Vigil-Escalera Guirado and Quirós Castillo, “Un ensayo de interpretación del registro arqueológico,” in Quirós Castillo, El poblamiento rural de época visigoda, 357–99. There is greater insistence on the influence of the powerful over the world of villages in Lauro Olmo Enciso, “The Materiality of Complex Landscapes: Central Iberia During 6th-8th Centuries A.D.,” in New Directions in Early Medieval European Archaeology: Spain and Italy Compared, ed. Sauro Gelichi and Richard Hodges (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 15–42, esp. 22 and 39; and in Fernández, Aristocrats, 223. 24. On the presence of grain stores as a mechanism for accumulating and managing farm surpluses in the villages of post-Roman Iberia, essential reading would be the joint publication Horrea, Barns and Silos: Storage and Incomes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, Giovanna Bianchi, and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013). The villages in the Salamanca area referred to here are described in Enrique Ariño Gil, “La cultura material de los asentamientos rurales del valle medio del Duero entre los siglos V y VIII: El final del reino visigodo y el origen de al-Andalus,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 205–22. On animals in settlements and the possibilities they offer of gaining current and future information about the post-Roman peasantry, see Idoia Grau-Sologestoa, “El registro faunístico de los asentamientos rurales altomedievales,” in Quirós Castillo, El poblamiento rural de época visigoda, 329–56. 25. See Roig Buxó, “Formas de poblamiento,” 121–44, esp. 128–31, for what he interprets as serfs excluded from cemeteries and thrown into disused grain stores. Roig Buxó’s 2015 publication referred to here is “Necrópolis de época visigoda, ajuares funerarios y depósitos humanos anómalos de los s. V–VIII en la Tarraconense oriental (Cataluña): ¿Indicadores de ‘etnicidad’ y/o nivel económico? e indicios arqueológicos de desigualdad y exclusión social,” in Quirós Castillo and Castellanos, Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania, 333–93. For cases of funerary deposits outside buildings and necropolises in the center of Iberia, see Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Prácticas

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y ritos funerarios,” in Quirós Castillo, El poblamiento rural de época visigoda, 259–88; and VigilEscalera Guirado, “Invisible Social Inequalities in Early Medieval Communities: The Bare Bones of Household Slavery,” in Social Complexity in Early Medieval Rural Communities: The NorthWestern Iberia—Archaeological Record, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016), 113–23. 26. Piz. 129, Velázquez, Las pizarras, 432–33, and on the question of rustici, 92–94. 27. LV 1.2.3 makes an extremely generic comment about the universality of compliance with the law: tam urbanis quam rusticis fertur. The other references mentioned are in LV 3.3.9 (Recceswinth revised by Erwig) and 6.1.5 (Chindaswinth revised by Erwig). Mentions of mancipia, servi, and ancillae can be found, for example, on Piz. 22: seru suum[um]; Piz. 42: [a]ngilla, (for ancilla); Piz. 103: ipsos mancipios; Piz. 111: seruos tu[os]; on Piz. 103 comments were made somewhat earlier about property management. On very similar lines to that proposed here for an understanding of these references as a diversity of forms of land management, including not just slaves but also tenants, see Iñaki Martín Viso, “La sociedad rural en el Suroeste de la Meseta del Duero (siglos VI–VII),” in Espacios de poder y formas sociales en la Edad Media: Estudios dedicados a Ángel Barrios, ed. Gregorio del Ser Quijano and Iñaki Martín Viso (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2007), 171–88, esp. 173–75. The reference to Nanctus is in VSPE 3.37–55; Masona’s distributions to cives and rustici are in VSPE 5.3.27. See Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Monasterios, campesinos y villae en la Hispania visigoda: La trágica historia del abad Nancto,” in Mélanges d’Antiquité tardive: Studiola in honorem Noël Duval, ed. Catherine Balmelle, Pascale Chevalier, and Gisela Ripoll López (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 113–25. The reference to the rusticus who attacked Fructuosus is in Vita Fructuosi 11. 28. The key piece of work by Domenico Vera highlighting the preponderance of tenants over slaves at the end of Antiquity is “Forme e funzioni della rendita fondiaria nella tarda Antichità,” in Società romana e impero tardoantico, vol. 3, ed. Andrea Giardina (Rome: Laterza, 1986), 367– 447. See also Vera’s later work, including critical commentary in “Le forme del lavoro rurale: Aspetti della trasformazione dell’Europa romana fra Tarda Antichità e Alto Medioevo,” in Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fra tarda Antichità e Alto Medioevo, Spoleto 45 Settimane (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1998), 293–338, esp. 295–97 and 337. On the changes affecting late Roman slavery, see C. R. Whittaker, “Circe’s Pigs: From Slavery to Serfdom in the Later Roman World,” Slavery and Abolition 8.1 (1987): 88–122; Chris Wickham, “Marx, Sherlock Holmes, and Late Roman Commerce,” JRS 78 (1988): 187–93; and Wickham, Framing, 259–62. On these changes and their later outcomes, with references to Visigothic Iberia, see Alice Rio, Slavery After Rome, 500–1100 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), esp. 3–10, 62–63, 145–46. See Fernández, Aristocrats, 207–15. 29. Isid. Sent. 4.47.1. Vid. supra notes 9–12. On this, see comments by Pablo C. Díaz, “Sumisión voluntaria: Estatus degradado e indiferencia de estatus en la Hispania visigoda (FV 32),” SHHA 25 (2007): 507–24, esp. 511–12. 30. On these aspects see the previous section. Furthermore, it can be added that LV 6.5.8 insists once again on this image of the set of dependents as vel patrocinio aut in servitio, subject to a patrono uel domino. For Bloch’s ideas on this, see Marc Bloch, “Comment et pourquoi finit l’esclavage antique,” Annales: Économies, sociétés, civilisations 2.1 (1947): 30–44 and 161–70. Among the first to comment on this was Charles Verlinden, in L’esclavage dans l’Europe médiévale (two volumes, one published in 1955, the other in 1977), with the first volume, Péninsule Ibérique-France (Bruges: De Tempel: 1955) of special interest ; as well as Pierre Bonnassie, “The Survival and Extinction of the Slave System in the Early Medieval West (Fourth to Eleventh Centuries),” in Bonnassie, From Slavery to Feudalism in South-Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University

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Press, 1991), 1–59; the calculations on the proportion of “slavery” in the laws is on p. 16, and arguments about punishments on pp. 17–22; King also appears to understand references to servi as meaning slaves, although he adds that the former category of coloni are included as well: see Law and Society, 160ff, esp. 160–61; among the second groups would be, among others, Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo; Dionisio Pérez Sánchez, “Legislación y dependencia en la España visigoda,” in Hidalgo de la Vega, Pérez Sánchez, and Rodríguez Gervás, “Romanización” y “Reconquista,” 227–45; María Isabel Loring and Pablo Fuentes Hinojo, “Esclavitud y servidumbre en el tránsito del mundo antiguo al medieval,” in Hidalgo de la Vega, Pérez Sánchez, and Rodríguez Gervás, “Romanización” y “Reconquista,” 248–56. 31. There is a good overview in Wendy Davies, “On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages,” in Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage, ed. Michael L. Bush (London: Longman, 1996), 225–46; Alice Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish Formulae, c. 500–1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 213–16; and Rio, Slavery After Rome. On these aspects see the previous section. As noted earlier, LV 6.5.8 once more insists on picturing all dependents taken together as vel patrocinio aut in servitio. 32. Rio, Legal Practice, 216–37. 33. Luis A. García Moreno, “Composición y estructura de la fuerza de trabajo humana en la Península Ibérica durante la Antigüedad tardía,” Memorias de historia antigua 1 (1977): 247–56; García Moreno, “From Coloni to Servi: A History of the Peasantry in Visigothic Spain,” Klio 83 (2001): 198–212; Pablo C. Díaz, “Propiedad y explotación de la tierra en la Lusitania tardoantigua,” SHHA 10–11 (1992–1993): 297–310; Díaz, “Hispania visigoda,” 470ff; Santiago Castellanos, “Terminología textual y relaciones de dependencia en la sociedad hispanovisigoda: En torno a la ausencia de coloni en las Leges Visigothorum,” Gerión 16 (1998): 451–60. 34. To some extent this is the case for Detlef Liebs, “Sklaverei aus Not im germanischrömischen Recht,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 118.1 (2001): 286–311. Even King, whose approach is strongly based on the reading of the laws, accepts that situations of slavery in Visigothic Hispania were very diverse: King, Law and Society, 162. 35. For the West as a whole, see Julia M. H. Smith, Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History, 500–1000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 153. 36. Wickham, Framing, 231, 259–64, esp. 262, 526. 37. Oros. 7.40.6; Soz. HE 9.11; Zos. 6.4.3. María Victoria Escribano Paño, “Usurpación y defensa de las Hispanias: Dídimo y Veriniano (408),” Gerión 18 (2000): 509–34. Differing views are to be found in Rosa Sanz, “Aproximación al estudio de los ejércitos privados en Hispania durante la antigüedad tardía,” Gerión 4 (1986): 225–64, esp. 240; Dionisio Pérez Sánchez, “Defensa y territorio en la sociedad peninsular hispana durante la Antigüedad tardía (ss. V–VII),” SHHA 16 (1998): 281–300; and Javier Arce, Bárbaros y romanos en Hispania, 400–507  A.D. (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2005), 41, 43. About the private armies in late Antiquity, see Noel Lenski, “Schiavi armati e formazione di eserciti privati nel mondo tardoantico,” in Ordine e sovversione nel mondo greco e romano, ed. Gian Paolo Urso (Pisa: ETS, 2009), 145–75. 38. Cass. Var. 5.39. Loring and Fuentes Hinojo, “Esclavitud,” 250. 39. Díaz, “Estructura”; Díaz, “Testamento”; Díaz, “Hispania visigoda,” 475–76. Vid. supra. n. 13. 40. This whole set of laws has been studied with very different approaches by King, Law and Society, 160ff, esp. 167–69; and by Amancio Isla Frez, “Los fugitivos y el título sobre ellos del Liber Iudicum,” AyTM 8 (2001): 113–24. 41. LV 5.4.15 antiqua (sale of a servus having undisclosed property); 5.4.13 (Chindaswinth), 10.1.17 (Chindaswinth).

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42. On Riccimir of Dumio’s testamentum, see Santiago Castellanos, “El testamento de Ricimiro de Dumio en el contexto de la consolidación episcopal de la Hispania tardoantigua,” Hispania antiqua 22 (1998): 427–37; and Carlos Buenacasa Pérez, “Espiritualidad vs racionalidad económica: Los dependientes eclesiásticos y el perjuicio económico a la iglesia de Dumio en el testamento de Ricimiro (656),” Polis 16 (2004): 7–32. The options in the codices are to be found in the edition of the records of Councils by Martínez Díez and Rodríguez on p. 546 (see the list of sources at the end of this book). 43. Manumissions by Masona are in VSPE 5.13.1–21. The allusion to Gaudentius is in the First Council of Seville of the year 590, canon 1. Inviolability of ecclesiastical property was a general principle: see Martínez Díez, El patrimonio eclesiástico; Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo; Buenacasa Pérez, “Les condicions de vida.” The reference comes from the Fourth Council of Toledo of 633, canon 70. An example is the Council of Mérida in the year 666, canon 20, insisting on this same idea. On the Council of Mérida, see Díaz, “Propiedad y explotación,” 307– 8. On freed slaves in the Visigothic kingdom of Iberia, see Dietrich Claude, “Freedmen in the Visigothic Kingdom,” in Visigothic Spain: New Approaches, ed. Edward James (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), 159–88; and Rio, Slavery After Rome, 89–93. 44. Edorta Córcoles Olaitz, “About the Origin of the Formulae Wisigothicae,” Anuario da Facultade de Dereito da Universidade da Coruña 12 (2008): 199–222; Las Formulae Wisigothicae: Aproximación a la práctica jurídica visigoda (Lecce: Grifo, 2010), referring to the problems of medieval manuscript transmission and traditional positions which this writer refutes. 45. FW 2.6 y 4.9. 46. FW 3.7–9; FW 5.12. 47. LV 5.4.10 antiqua. 48. A systematic overview of references to people selling themselves in the West is to be found in Alice Rio, “Self-Sale and Voluntary Entry into Unfreedom, 300–1100,” Journal of Social History 45.3 (2012): 661–85. See also Rio, “Freedom and Unfreedom in Early Medieval Francia: The Evidence of the Legal Formulae,” P&P 193 (2006): 7–40; and Rio, Legal Practice. 49. FW 32. See Díaz, “Sumisión.” 50. Braul. VSAe 18; 20; 21. On the terminology, see Julio Escalona Monge and Tomás M. Rodríguez Cerezo, “El léxico sobre relaciones de dependencia en un texto de época visigoda: Un ensayo metodológico,” SHHA 6 (1988): 201–10; Santiago Castellanos, Poder social, aristocracias y “ hombre santo” en la Hispania visigoda: La “Vita Aemiliani” de Braulio de Zaragoza (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 1998). 51. Vera, “Schiavitù rurale, colonato,” esp. 317–19, with the bibliography on the debate about late Roman colonate. In general, on the increase in types of tenures related to changes in the colonate, see Walter Goffart, “From Roman Taxation to Mediaeval Seigneurie: Three Notes (Part I),” Speculum 47.2 (1972): 165–87. 52. Eduardo Pérez Pujol, Historia de las instituciones sociales de la España goda, vol. 4 (Valencia: Vives Mora, 1896), 231–45, esp. 238. He does appear to advocate its existence in Visigothic Hispania, although without naming it as such, see Buenacasa Pérez, “Les condicions de vida,” 215– 30, esp. 217–18. The possible inclusion of the former category of coloni in the group termed servi was also defended, although with different arguments, by Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo. On the complexity of the problem, which could also be summed up as simplicity with which the explicit category of coloni disappeared in the Visigothic kingdom, see García Moreno, “Composición” and “From Coloni to Servi”; Díaz, “Testamento,” esp. 266–67, and “Hispania visigoda,” esp. 476–77; Castellanos, “Terminología.” For King’s opinion, see Law and Society, 161. 53. Vincent, Donatio 32–38; Testamentum 2.13–14; Conc. Seville II, c. 3.

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n ot es to pages 56 – 60 54. FW 36. On these references, see esp. Díaz, “Testamento,” 264, and “Hispania visigoda,”

55. LV 12.2.14 (Sisebut, general), and 12.2.13 (Sisebut to Southern bishops). LV 12.2.12 (Reccared), LV 5.7.2 antiqua in which the terms servus, mancipium, and ancilla are used. 56. Finally, see LV 2.2.8 antiqua. On the possibility that the individuals who were simply dumped in burials not in funerary contexts in settlements might have been slaves, see note 25. See isotope studies on Gózquez in Maite Iris García-Collado, “Food Consumption Patterns and Social Inequality in an Early Medieval Rural Community in the Centre of the Iberian Peninsula,” in Social Complexity, ed. Quirós Castillo, 59–78. On socioeconomic differences and the zooarchaeological data, see Idoia Grau-Sologestoa, “Faunal Remains and Social Inequality in the Basque Country During the Early Middle Ages,” in Social Complexity, ed. Quirós Castillo, 47– 58; Grau-Sologestoa, “Socio-Economic Status and Religious Identity in Medieval Iberia: The ZooArchaeological Evidence,” Environmental Archaeology 22.2 (2016): 189–99. 57. Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 163; Vera, “Essere ‘schiavi,’ ” 497. On the difficulty of studying peasant owners of smallholdings in the West as a whole, see Ward-Perkins, “Land, Labour and Settlement.” On the majority situation of unfree among tenants in Iberia, see Wickham, Framing, 526, 562.

chapter 4 1. Patrick Wormald, “Lex scripta and verbum regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Peter H. Sawyer and Ian N. Wood (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1977), 105–38. Sam Koon and Jamie Wood, “Unity from Disunity: Law, Rhetoric and Power in the Visigothic Kingdom,” European Review of History 16.6 (2009): 793–808. 2. LV 2.1.4. Conc. VIII Tol. a. 653, Prooemium 32–34, Tomus regius, 154–55. Isidore had already mentioned the divine origin of royalty as he ended his Historia Gothorum with Suinthila: Isid. HG 62; see also Isid. Etym. 11.1.25; Sent. 3.49.3–4 (divine origin of royal power); 3.51.1–6 (relationship between the king’s power and the Church). Pablo C. Díaz and María Rosario Valverde Castro, “The Theoretical Strength and Practical Weakness of the Visigothic Monarchy of Toledo,” in Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middles Ages, ed. Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 59–93; María Rosario Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercicio del poder real en la monarquía visigoda: Un proceso de cambio (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2000), 224. Pablo C. Díaz, “La dinámica del poder y la defensa del territorio: Para una comprensión del fin del reino visigodo de Toledo,” in De Mahoma a Carlomagno: Los primeros tiempos (siglos VII–IX) (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2013), 167–205. 3. Conc. V Tol. a. 636, c. 3: the king had to come from the Goticae gentis nobilitas; Conc. VI Tol. a. 638, c. 17: genere Gotus. The binary opposition of Goths and Romans was used extensively by Edward Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969); the topic of Visigothic feudalism is covered in Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, Estudios visigodos (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1971); on protofeudalism see Luis A. García Moreno, “El estado protofeudal visigodo: Precedente y modelo para la Europa carolingia,” in L’Europe héritière de l’Espagne Wisigothique, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Christine Pellistrandi (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1992), 17– 43; on loyalty and dependence, see Dietrich Claude, Adel, Kirche und Königtum im Westgotenreich (Sigmaringen: Vorträge und Forschungen, 1971); and Claude, “The Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of the King in the Visigothic Kingdom,” Classical Folia 30 (1976): 3–26; for central power with many weaknesses, see Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la

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Península Ibérica (Barcelona: Crítica, 1978); for strong central power, see Jean Durliat, Les finances publiques de Dioclétien aux Carolingiens (284–889) (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1990); and to some extent also Pierre Bonnassie, “Society and Mentalities in Visigothic Spain,” in From Slavery to Feudalism in South-Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 60–103, esp. 90–91. For more details and an assessment of the state of the question, see Céline Martin, La géographie du pouvoir dans l’Espagne visigothique (Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2003), 13ff. See Valverde Castro, Ideología, besides earlier works: for example, Abilio Barbero, “El pensamiento político visigodo y las primeras unciones regias en la Europa medieval,” Hispania 30 (1970): 245–326; Marc Reydellet, La royauté dans la littérature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire à Isidore de Séville (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1981); Suzanne Teillet, Des Goths à la nation gothique: Les origines de l’ idée de nation en Occident du Ve au VIIe siècle (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1984); and among other essays on the functioning of the realm, the following are of particu lar interest: Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain, 409–711 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004); Michael Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Pablo C. Díaz, “La Hispania visigoda,” in Pablo C. Díaz, Francisco Javier Sanz Huesma, and Clelia Martínez Maza, Hispania tardoantigua y visigoda (Madrid: Istmo, 2007), 257–637; Javier Arce, Esperando a los árabes: Los visigodos en Hispania (507–711) (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2011). 4. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, line 51 of the edition by Martínez Díez and Rodríguez. On Reccared presented as a new Constantine, see Santiago Castellanos, “Creating New Constantines at the End of the Sixth Century,” Historical Research 85.230 (2012): 556–75. On the association between the king and the divine origin of royalty, see Valverde Castro, Ideología, 196–215, with the same bibliography as before. On the administration of the kingdom, see Luis A. García Moreno, “Estudios sobre la organización administrativa del reino visigodo de Toledo,” AHDE 44 (1974): 5–155. 5. IV Conc. Tol. 633 c. 75, and then alongside other items, Conc. V Tol. 636 c. 2 (Chintila’s descendants), 4 (excommunication for plotters) and 5 (curses); Conc. VI Tol. 638 c. 12, 14, 16, 17, 18. Barbero and Vigil, La formación, 126–54, with a systematic study of references to royal fidelity in the history of the kingdom, together with Valverde Castro, Ideología, 215–25; see Pablo C. Díaz, “Rey y poder en la monarquía visigoda,” Iberia 1 (1998): 175–95, esp. 188; Díaz, “Visigothic Political Institutions,” in The Visigoths—From the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Peter Heather (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 321–56. On the anointing of kings in the Visigothic realm, see Valverde Castro, Ideología, 205–8, with references and bibliography. On the topic of the gens and its political evolution, see Chapter 5. On Sisenand’s plot, see Fredegar. 4.73; on Chindaswinth’s plot against Tulga, see Fredegar. 4.82. 6. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, c. 2; the other expression appears in lines 619–20 of the edition of the council’s records, in Martínez Díez and Rodríguez. Further expressions of this sort are listed by Martin, La géographie du pouvoir, 84–85. 7. Isid. HG 51. Díaz, “Visigothic,” 336–37; Valverde Castro, Ideología, 189–95; Javier Arce, “Leovigildus rex y el ceremonial de la corte visigótica,” in Visigoti e Longobardi, ed. Javier Arce and Paolo Delogu (Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2001), 79–92. 8. Bicl. 20; Isid. HG 45. 9. Bicl. 27 (Sappi), 35 (Aspidius); Isid. HG 49. Pablo C. Díaz, “City and Territory in Hispania in Late Antiquity,” in Towns and Their Territories Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Gian P. Brogiolo, Nancy Gauthier, and Neil Christie (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 3–35, esp. 12; Díaz, El reino suevo (411–585) (Madrid: Akal, 2011), 125; Luis A. García Moreno, Leovigildo: Unidad y diversidad de un reinado (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2008), 56–58; Santiago Castellanos, “Redefiniendo el poder local en la ‘Hispania’ tardoantigua: Hacia el ‘loci senior,’ ”

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in Magistrados locales de “Hispania”: Aspectos históricos, jurídicos, lingüísticos, ed. Estíbaliz Ortiz de Urbina (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013), 333–48. 10. Bicl. 46 (Orospeda). Margarita Vallejo Girvés, Bizancio y la España tardoantigua (ss. V– VIII): Un capítulo de historia mediterránea (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá, 1992), 172–73; Vallejo Girvés, Hispania y Bizancio: Una relación desconocida (Madrid: Akal, 2012), 230– 31, 241; Francisco Salvador Ventura, “Los siglos VI y VII en el sur de Hispania: De período de autonomía ciudadana a pilar del reino hispano-visigodo,” in Hispania meridional durante la Antigüedad, ed. Francisco Salvador Ventura (Jaén: Universidad de Jaén, 2000), 183–203; Pablo C. Díaz, “En tierra de nadie: Visigodos frente a bizantinos—Reflexiones sobre la frontera,” in Bizancio y la Península Ibérica: De la Antigüedad tardía a la Edad Moderna, ed. Inmaculada Pérez Martín and Pedro Bádenas de la Peña (Madrid: CSIC, 2004), 37–60, esp. 53–54; García Moreno, Leovigildo, 78–80. With regard to Elo, which may be identified with the site at El Tolmo de Minateda, see Sonia Gutiérrez Lloret and Ignasi Grau Mira, “El territorio tardoantiguo y altomedieval en el Sureste de Hispania: Eio-Iyyuh como caso de estudio,” in Visigodos y Omeyas: El territorio, ed. Luis Callabero Zoreda, Pedro Mateos Cruz, and Tomás Cordero Ruiz (Mérida: CSIC, 2012), 171–98. 11. Bicl. 32; Isid. HG 49. Santiago Castellanos, Poder social, aristocracias y hombre santo en la Hispania visigoda: La Vita Aemiliani de Braulio de Zaragoza (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 1998). On Amaia as Peña Amaya, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Defensive Sites of the Early Middle Ages in North-West Spain,” in Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval Europe, ed. John Baker, Stuart Brookes, and Andrew Reynolds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 305–39. 12. The references in the Vita Aemiliani, as numbered in the edition by Cazzaniga, are in VSAe 33 (conquest of Cantabria); 9.14–15 (castellum Bilibium); 10.25–26 and 12.9 (Vergegio); 11.4 (Dircetii montis secreta); 16 (Amaia); 22 (a miracle such that nobody among the Cantabrians is unaware of it); 24.13–14 (Parpalines). For a different interpretation, claiming that Cantabria was a city, see García Moreno, Leovigildo, 64–70. For details of the historiographical discussions, see Juan José García González, “Incorporación de la Cantabria romana al estado visigodo,” Cuadernos Burgaleses de historia medieval 2 (1995): 167–230. Among the northern campaigns by Reccared, Sisebut, Gundemar, or Suinthila, without any aim at being exhaustive, it is possible to cite as an example Isid. HG 54; 59; 63 (Vascones); 61 (Asturians), among other references. On the whole set of allusions see the studies cited in the next note. 13. Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil, Sobre los orígenes sociales de la Reconquista (Barcelona: Ariel, 1974). For a critical overview of the state of archaeological knowledge of northern Iberia, see Iñaki Martín Viso, Poblamiento y estructuras sociales en el norte de la Península Ibérica: Siglos VI–XIII (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2000); Luis R. Menéndez Bueyes, Reflexiones críticas sobre el origen del reino de Asturias (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2001). For an essay on the north, see Santiago Castellanos, “Astures, Cantabri, Vascones: The Peoples of the Spanish North During the Late and Post-Roman Period,” in Neglected Barbarians: The Smaller Barbarian Peoples of Early Medieval Europe, ed. Florin Curta (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 479–502; and for a wider time span, see Castellanos and Iñaki Martín Viso, “The Local Articulation of Central Power in the North of the Iberian Peninsula, 500–1000,” EME 13 (2005): 1–42. For a very recent review of the problem, see Pablo C. Díaz and Luis R. Menéndez Bueyes, “Romanos, visigodos e indígenas: Las comunidades del norte de Hispania en los inicios de la Edad Media [cuarenta años después],” Nailos 3 (2016): 161–89. 14. Isid. HG 51 (Leovigild), Fiscum quoque primus iste locupletauit primusque aerarium de rapinis ciuium hostiumque manubiis auxit; 55 (Reccared). Chindaswinth’s law is LV 2.1.8. Pablo C. Díaz, “Confiscations in the Visigothic Realm of Toledo: A Political Instrument,” in Expropria-

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tions et confiscations dans les royaumes barbares: Une approche régionale, ed. Pierfrancesco Porena and Yann Rivière (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2012), 93–112. 15. Conc. V Tol. a. 636, c. 6; Conc. VI Tol. a. 638, c. 14, 15. LV 5.2.2, by Chindaswinth. On royal donations, with further examples of council decisions and laws, see Barbero and Vigil, La formación, 107–22; Valverde Castro, Ideología, 273–74. 16. VSAe 18 (Sicorius); 20 (Tuentius); 21 (Eugenius); 22 (Nepotianus, Proseria); 23 (Maximus); 24 and 29 (Honorius); 33 (Abundantius and senatus). On the possible connection between the archaeological deposit that could be identifiable as the Parpalines of the VSAe and Honorius’s power structures cited by Braulio in the VSAe, see Urbano Espinosa, “El enclave ‘Parpalines’ de la ‘Vita Sancti Aemiliani’: Espacio rural y aristocracia en época visigoda,” Iberia 6 (2003): 79–110. 17. I have written about these details in Los godos y la cruz: Recaredo y la unidad de Spania (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2007). Monographic studies include Roger Collins, “Merida and Toledo: 550–585,” in Visigothic Spain: New Approaches, ed. Edward James (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), 189–219; Pablo C. Díaz, “Propiedad y poder: La Iglesia de Lusitania en el siglo VII,” in Los últimos romanos en Lusitania, ed. Agustín Velázquez, Enrique Cerrillo, and Pedro Mateos (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, 1995), 49–72; Díaz, “La rue à Merida au VIe siècle: Usage sacré et usage profane,” in La rue, lieu de sociabilité? Rencontres de la rue (Rouen: Université de Rouen, 1997), 331–40; Díaz, “Mérida tardoantica: L’apoteosi di una città cristiana,” Reti Medievali Rivista 11.2 (2010): 67–79 (http://www.rivista .retimedievali.it); Ian N. Wood, “Social Relations in the Visigothic Kingdom from the Fifth to the Seventh Century: The Example of Mérida,” in The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Peter Heather (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 191–208; Javier Arce, “The City of Mérida (Emerita) in the Vitas Patrum Emeretensium (VIth Century A.D.),” in East and West: Modes of Communication, ed. Evangelos Chrysos and Ian Wood (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–14; Santiago Castellanos, “The Significance of Social Unanimity in a Visigothic Hagiography: Keys to an Ideological Screen,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11.3 (2003): 387–419; Isaac Sastre de Diego, Mérida capital Cristiana: De Roma a al-Andalus (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, 2015). 18. VSPE 4.2.61–64 (the inheritance); 4.2.3–56 (the aristocratic couple and surgery performed by Paul), the reference to homines mali, the opposition, in 4.2.32–33. VSPE 5.10.1–8 (the plot by the Gothic comites together with the Arian bishop Sunna). External mentions of this and other revolts against Reccared are in Bicl. 87 (Segga and Sunna); 89 (Uldila in Toledo); 93 (Argimundus); Greg. Tur. Hist. 9.15 (Athalocus in Narbonne); and furthermore VSPE 5.12 for the revolt in Septimania. VSPE 5.11.86–114 (Vagrila). On exile in the Visigothic realm of Toledo, see Margarita Vallejo Girvés, “Los exilios de católicos y arrianos bajo Leovigildo y Recaredo,” Hispania Sacra 55 (2003): 35–47; and on the specific case of Merida, see Céline Martin, “L’évêque dans un petit navire: Bannissement et relégation dans les Vies des Saints Pères de Mérida,” in Échanges, communications et réseaux dans le Haut Moyen Âge, ed. Alban Gautier and Céline Martin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 45–55. 19. Reccared’s law is LV 12.1.2. On the administrative structure of the kingdom and on central and territorial posts of authority, see García Moreno, “Estudios”; Martin, La géographie du pouvoir; Díaz, “La dinámica del poder.” 20. Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain, 213–22; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain; José Avelino Gutiérrez González, “The Other Iberian Peninsula: The Cities in Early Medieval Spain,” in New Directions in Early Medieval European Archaeology: Spain and Italy Compared, ed. Sauro Gelichi and Richard Hodges (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 135–84; directed more toward the center of Iberia, see Lauro Olmo Enciso, “The Materiality of Complex Landscapes: Central Iberia During

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6th–8th Centuries A.D.” in Gelichi and Hodges, New Directions, 15–42. On the presence in cities of officials of the kingdom, see García Moreno, “Estudios”; Martin, La géographie du pouvoir; on changes in the relationship between cities and the surrounding rural territories, see Díaz, “City and Territory”; Damián Fernández, “City and Countryside in Late Antique Iberia,” AnTard 21 (2013): 233–41; Aitor Fernández Delgado, Javier Martínez Jiménez, and Carlos Tejerizo García, “Old and New Elites in the Visigothic Kingdom,” in Tough Times: The Archaeology of Crisis and the Recovery, ed. Elsbeth M. van der Wilt and Javier Martínez Jiménez (Oxford: BAR, 2013), 161–70; Javier Martínez Jiménez and Carlos Tejerizo García, “Central Places in the PostRoman Mediterranean: Regional Models for the Iberian Peninsula,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 28.1 (2015): 81–103. 21. Olmo Enciso, “Materiality,” 30–35; Ricardo Izquierdo Benito, “Toledo en torno al 711,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 375–86; Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Tumbas e iglesias en la Hispania tardoantigua,” Agira 7 (2015): 13–45; Rafael Barroso Cabrera et al., “El paisaje urbano de Toledo en la Antigüedad tardía,” Antiquité Tardive 23 (2015): 329–52. On the 587 inscription and the debate about its authenticity, together with an edition of its text, see Isabel Velázquez, “La inscripción de consagración de la catedral de Toledo,” in Excavaciones en el claustro de la catedral de Toledo, ed. M. Almagro-Gorbea et al. (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2011), 261–80, which gives the author’s version of its contents. On Reccopolis, see Bicl. 50; Lauro Olmo Enciso, “Recópolis: Una ciudad en una época de transformaciones,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 41–62 (this volume contains other very interesting pieces about this site). 22. On Gerona, see Gutiérrez González, “Other Iberian Peninsula,” 161; on Tarragona, see Josep María Macías Solé, “Tarracona visigoda ¿Una ciudad en declive?” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 293–301; Meritxell Pérez Martínez, “Tarraco a l’època visigótica: Història política i eclesiàstica,” in Tarraco christiana ciuitas, ed. Josep María Macias Solé and Andreu Muñoz Melgar (Tarragona: Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica, 2013), 97–110. On Barcelona, see Julia Beltrán de Heredia Bercero, “Barcino durante la Antigüedad tardía,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 275–91; Josep María Macías Solé, “La ‘ciudad arqueológica’ en el área catalana ante la irrupción del Islam,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 103–17. 23. On Segobriga, see Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón, Martín Almagro Gorbea, and Rosario Cebrián Fernández, “Segóbriga visigoda,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 221–41; Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón and Martín Almagro Gorbea, “Modificaciones urbanas en Segóbriga durante los siglos V–VII: Algunos ejemplos,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 213–26; on Valencia, see Albert V. Ribera i Lacomba, “La ciudad de Valencia durante el período visigodo,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 303–20; Albert V. Ribera i Lacomba and Miquel Rosselló Mesquida, “Valencia y su entorno territorial tras el 713: Epílogo visigodo,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 85–99. 24. Pedro Mateos Cruz, “Augusta Emerita, de capital de la Diocesis Hispaniarum a sede temporal visigoda,” in Sedes Regiae (ann. 400–800), ed. Gisella Ripoll López and Josep María Gurt Esparraguera (Barcelona: Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, 2000), 491–520; Miguel Alba Calzado and Pedro Mateos Cruz, “El paisaje urbano de Emerita en época visigoda,” Zona Arqueológica 9 (2008): 261–73; Pedro Mateos Cruz and Miguel Alba Calzado, “El paisaje urbano de Mérida en torno al año 711,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 27–35; Pedro Mateos Cruz and Luis Caballero, “El paisaje urbano de Augusta Emerita en época tardoantigua (siglos IV–VII),” in Actas Congreso Internacional 1910–2010: El yacimiento emeritense (Merida: Ayuntamiento de Mérida, 2011), 505–19; Miguel Alba Calzado and Pedro Mateos Cruz, “Los espacios domésticos en la ciudad visigoda de Emerita (ss. V–VIII),” in Actas Congreso Internacional 1910–2010, 521–46; Isaac Sastre de Diego, “El cristianismo en la Mérida romana y visigoda: Evidencias arqueológicas y fuentes escritas,” in Actas Congreso Internacional 1910–2010, 563–85; Isaac Sastre de Diego, Mérida capital cristiana.

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25. For a range of bibliographical references on the political pa norama in Emerita in Visigothic times, see note 17. For the passages on Leovigild’s intervention and his conflict with Masona, see VSPE 5.4.11–31, and for the latter’s exile, 5.7 and 5.8. The statement that Leovigild had to take Mérida in his campaign against Hermenegild is made in Greg. Tur. Hist. 6.18. On the revolt of Sunna and the magnates, see VSPE 5.10.1–8. The Vagrila episode is in VSPE 5.11.86–114. 26. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Early Medieval Landscapes in North-West Spain: Local Powers and Communities Fifth–Tenth Centuries,” EME 19.3 (2011): 285–311; Quirós Castillo, “Los castillos altomedievales del cuadrante noroccidental de la Península Ibérica,” in Los castillos altomedievales en el noroeste de la Península Ibérica, ed. Quirós Castillo and José María Tejado Sebastián (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2012), 17–27; Quirós Castillo, “Defensive Sites”; José Avelino Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas en el norte peninsular (ss. V–VIII),” in Las fortificaciones en la Tardoantigüedad: Élites y articulación del territorio (siglos V–VIII d. C.), ed. Raúl Catalán, Patricia Fuentes, and José Carlos Sastre Blanco (Madrid: La Ergástula, 2014), 191–214. 27. On the possibility that some castella formed part of border zones, see Enrique Ariño Gil and Pablo C. Díaz, “La frontera suevo-visigoda: Ensayo de la lectura de un territorio en disputa,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 179–90. On the possibility that other sites might be explained as a consequence of the presence of the central power, see Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones”; Olmo Enciso, “Materiality,” 26; 40. On the site at Gauzón, see Iván Muñiz López and Alejandro García Álvarez-Busto, “El castillo de Gauzón en la Antigüedad tardía: Una fortificación de la Asturias transmontana en época del reino visigodo,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 215–28. On the site at El Castillo de los Monjes, see José María Tejado Sebastián, “Castros altomedievales en el Alto Iregua (La Rioja): El caso de el Castillo de los Monjes,” in Quirós Castillo and Tejado Sebastián, Los castillos altomedievales, 163–92. On the possibility that such sites as Tedeja or Castillo de los Monjes were indeed a part of the politico-military actions by the kingdom, see the comparative study in José María Tejado Sebastián, “Comparación entre los espacios del valle del Ebro y la Meseta: La Rioja y Burgos en la Antigüedad tardía,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 95–120. 28. For Galicia, see Jorge López Quiroga, El final de la Antigüedad en Gallaecia: La transformación de las estructuras de poblamiento entre el Miño y el Duero (siglos V al X) (La Coruña: Fundación Barrie de la Maza, 2004); José Carlos Sánchez Pardo, “Castros, castillos y otras fortificaciones en el paisaje sociopolítico de Galicia (siglos IV–XI),” in Quirós Castillo and Tejado Sebastián, Los castillos altomedievales, 29–55. For País Vasco and La Rioja Alta, see Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, “Aristocracias, élites y desigualdad sociales en la primera Edad Media en el País Vasco,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 143–58. On Tintinolho (Portugal), see Catarina Tente and Iñaki Martín Viso, “O Castro do Tintinolho (Guarda, Portugal): Interpretaçao dos dados arqueológicos como fortificaçao do período pós-romano,” in Quirós Castillo and Tejado Sebastián, Los castillos altomedievales, 57–75. For Catalonia, see Jordi Roig Buxó, “Formas de poblamiento rural y producciones cerámicas en torno al 711: Documentación arqueológica del área catalana,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 121–44. For Andalucía, see Julio M. Román Punzón and José María Martín Civantos, “Aproximación al poblamiento tardoantiguo en Andalucía,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 57–78. On the castella of the Meseta zone, see Iñaki Martín Viso, Fragmentos del Leviatán: La articulación política del espacio zamorano en la Alta Edad Media (Zamora: Instituto de Estudios Zamoranos “Florián de Ocampo,” 2002); Martín Viso, “Castella y elites en el suroeste de la Meseta del Duero postromana,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 247–74; Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado and Carlos Tejerizo García, “Asentamientos fortificados altomedievales en la Meseta: Algunas

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distorsiones historiográficas,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 229–46; Angel Palomino Lázaro, María J. Negredo García, and Ramón Bohigas Roldán, “La fortaleza de Tedeja en Trespaderne y el castillo de Poza de la Sal (Burgos): Variables arqueológicas para el análisis de la articulación del poder local en el tránsito de la tardoantigüedad a la Alta Edad Media en la Castilla del Ebro,” in Quirós Castillo and Tejado Sebastián, Los castillos altomedievales, 263–90. 29. On the generally modest nature of these sites, although accepting the possibility of elite elements, see Enrique Ariño Gil, “La cultura material de los asentamientos rurales del valle medio del Duero entre los siglos V y VIII: El final del reino visigodo y el origen de al-Andalus,” Zona Arqueológica 15 (2011): 205–22. On the indicators of elite elements in the castella, essential reading is Martín Viso, “Castella y elites.” 30. For the geopolitical context of the Suevian kingdom, see Díaz, El reino suevo. On this site, see José C. Sastre Blanco and Raúl Catalán, “Un asentamiento fortificado en la tardoantigüedad: El castro de el Castillón (Santa Eulalia de Tábara, Zamora),” in Quirós Castillo and Tejado Sebastián, Los castillos altomedievales, 193–211; José C. Sastre Blanco, Patricia Fuentes Melgar, Raúl Catalán Ramos, and Óscar Rodríguez Monterrubio, “El poblado fortificado de El Castillón en el contexto del siglo V d. C.,” in Catalán, Fuentes, and Sastre Blanco, Las fortificaciones, 329– 52; José C. Sastre Blanco, Patricia Fuentes Melgar, Óscar Rodríguez Monterrubio, and Manuel Vázquez Fadón, El yacimiento arqueológico de el Castillón (Santa Eulalia de Tábara, Zamora): Un enclave tardoantiguo a orillas del Esla (Valladolid: Glyphos, 2015). 31. Santiago Castellanos, “La construcción del poder político visigodo y los horizontes locales: Canales de participación y de hostilidad,” in De Roma a los bárbaros: Poder central y horizontes locales en la cuenca del Duero, ed. Santiago Castellanos and Iñaki Martín Viso (León: Universidad de León, 2008), 145–70; Fernández, “City and Countryside”; Martínez Jiménez and Tejerizo García, “Central Places.” Along these lines, seeing the castella as vital to the political dynamic, see for the Duero region Pablo C. Díaz, “La ocupación germánica del valle del Duero: Un ensayo interpretativo,” Hispania Antiqua 18 (1994): 457–76; Díaz, “Sedes episcopales y organización administrativa en la cuenca del Duero (siglos IV–VII),” in Castellanos and Martín Viso, De Roma a los bárbaros, 123–43; Julio Escalona Monge, “Patrones de fragmentación territorial: El fin del mundo romano en la Meseta del Duero,” in Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder en el norte de la Península Ibérica durante la Antigüedad tardía, ed. Urbano Espinosa and Santiago Castellanos (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 2006), 165–99; Martín Viso, Fragmentos del Leviatán; Martín Viso, “Castella y elites.” For the northwest and the integration as key points of ciuitates and castella of the Suevian kingdom into the Visigothic realm from the end of the sixth century onward, see Pablo C. Díaz, “El Parrochiale Suevum: Organización eclesiástica, poder político y poblamiento en la Gallaecia tardoantigua,” in Homenaje a José María Blázquez, vol. 6, ed. Jaime Alvar (Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 1998), 35–47; Díaz, “Extremis mundi partibus— Gallaecia tardoantigua: Periferia geográfica e integración política,” in Espinosa and Castellanos, Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder, 201–15. 32. LV 9.2.6 antiqua. For Gallaecia and the relationship between territorial landmarks, such as ecclesiae and later Visigothic coinage mints, essential reading would be Pablo C. Díaz, “Acuñación monetaria y organización administrativa en la Gallaecia tardoantigua,” Zephyrus 57 (2004): 367–75. A summary of the debates on the Goths’ fiscal immunity and the difficulties it caused can be found in Luis A. García Moreno, “Algunos aspectos fiscales de la península ibérica durante el siglo VI,” Hispania Antiqua 1 (1971): 233–56. On the passing of the former properties of the res priuata into the fiscus of the Gothic kingdom, see Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil, “Algunos aspectos de la feudalización del reino visigodo en relación con su organización financiera y militar,” in Barbero and Vigil, Sobre los orígenes sociales de la Reconquista (Barcelona: Ariel, 1974), 107–

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37. On the rather fragmentary survival of Roman fiscal systems in post-Roman Europe, see Walter Goffart, “From Roman Taxation to Mediaeval Seigneurie: Three Notes (Part I),” Speculum 47.2 (1972): 165–87; Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 96–98; but with a view that there was more continuity in Durliat, Les finances publiques, 95ff. For the Frankish world, see Walter Goffart, “Old and New in Merovingian Taxation,” P&P 96 (1982): 3–21; Goffart, “Frankish Military Duty and the Fate of Roman Taxation,” EME 16.2 (2008): 166–90. For Ostrogothic Italy, see Shane Bjornlie, “Law, Ethnicity and Taxes in Ostrogothic Italy: A Case for Continuity, Adaptation and Departure,” EME 22.2 (2014): 138–70. 33. Isid. HG 51 (Leovigild), 55 (Reccared); VSPE 3 (Nanctus). I undertook a comparison between the use of tax matters in projecting an image of kings in Isidore and Gregory of Tours, in Castellanos, “Merovingios y visigodos: La tributación como recurso historiográfico,” in Entre el impuesto y la renta: Problemas de la fiscalidad tardoantigua y altomedieval/Between Taxation and Rent: Fiscal Problems from Late Antiquity to Early Middle Ages, ed. Pablo C. Díaz and Iñaki Martín Viso (Bari: Edipuglia, 2011), 147–62. 34. On the origins of the comes patrimonii, see García Moreno, “Estudios,” esp. 35–38. For changes in the tax system and then the major reform by Recceswinth, see María Rosario Valverde Castro, “Monarquía y tributación en la Hispania visigoda: El marco teórico,” Hispania Antiqua 31 (2007): 235–51. On the period of Leovigild and Reccared as a turning point in taxation, see María Rosario Valverde Castro, “La ideología fiscal en el reino visigodo de Toledo,” in Díaz and Iñaki Martín Viso, Entre el impuesto y la renta, 163–87; on this question and the relations with local powers, see Santiago Castellanos, “The Political Nature of Taxation in Visigothic Spain,” EME 12.3 (2003): 201–28; Castellanos, “Tributa and Historiae: Scale and Power at a Turning Point in Post-Roman Spain,” in Scale and Scale Change in the Early Middle Ages: Exploring Landscape, Local Society, and the World Beyond, ed. Julio Escalona Monge and Andrew Reynolds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 187–214; Damián Fernández, Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300– 600 C.E. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 198–207; Fernández, “Statehood, Taxation, and State Infrastructural Power in Visigothic Iberia,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 242–71. 35. For instance, there was discussion about the Goths’ exemption on the basis of LV 10.1.15 and 16, both of them antiquae, which in fact retain older elements relating to land distribution for a much later period in order not to lose taxes drawn from them. The law of Chindaswinth mentioned is LV 5.4.19. More systematic and detailed analyses of the tax structures of the Visigothic kingdom may be found in Barbero and Vigil, “Algunos aspectos de la feudalización”; García Moreno, “Estudios”; García Moreno, “Dos capítulos sobre administración y fiscalidad del reino de Toledo,” in De la Antigüedad al Medievo, siglos IV–VIII (Madrid: Fundación Sánchez Albornoz, 1993), 291–314; Castellanos, “Political Nature”; Valverde Castro, “Monarquía y tributación”; Valverde Castro, “La ideología fiscal”; Iñaki Martín Viso, “Prácticas locales de la fiscalidad en el reino visigodo de Toledo,” in Lo que vino de Oriente: Horizontes, praxis y dimensión material de los sistemas de dominación fiscal en Al-Andalus (ss. VII–IX), ed. Xabier Ballestín and Ernesto Pastor (Oxford: BAR, 2013), 72–85. 36. LV 12.1.2. As Martin states in La géographie du pouvoir, 159, it is possible that the fiscal nature of the law has been exaggerated, but nevertheless there is an undeniable mention of fiscal matters in it. Conc. III Tol. c. 18, in the edition by Martínez Díez and Rodríguez. On the possibility of an interpolation, useful arguments can be found in Joaquín Mellado, “Intervención episcopal en la política judicial y fiscal de Recaredo (problemas filológicos y jurídicos),” AHDE 65 (1995):

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837–47. The version of De fisco Barcinonensi is the edition by Vives. Specifically on the De fisco Barcinonensi, see Damián Fernández, “What Is the De fisco Barcinonensi About?,” AnTard 14 (2006): 217–23. On the role of bishops in taxation in the Gothic kingdom, see Pablo C. Díaz, “Propiedad y poder”; Dionisio Pérez Sánchez, “Las transformaciones de la Antigüedad tardía en la Península Ibérica: Iglesia y fiscalidad en la sociedad visigoda,” SHHA 17 (1999): 299–320; Castellanos, “Political Nature”; Valverde Castro, “Monarquía y tributación”; Valverde Castro, “La ideología fiscal.” 37. Félix Retamero, “Panes et siliquae: Las condiciones de la producción de moneda en el Regnum Gothorum,” in Arce and Delogu, Visigoti e Longobardi, 117–32; Retamero, “La moneda del regnum Gothorum (ca. 575–714),” in Díaz and Martín Viso, Entre el impuesto y la renta, 189–220; Ruth Pliego Vázquez, La moneda visigoda, I, Historia monetaria del reino visigodo de Toledo (c. 569–711); II, Corpus (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 2009), 215–27. On the association between findings of gold coins of the kingdom in urban and rural power centers, see Iñaki Martín Viso, “Circuits of Power in a Fragmented Space: Gold Coinage in the Meseta del Duero (Sixth–Seventh Centuries),” in Escalona and Reynolds, Scale and Scale Change, 215–52; Martín Viso, “La moneda y la articulación política del regnum gothorum,” in Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V–VIII, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Santiago Castellanos (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015), 101–24. 38. Iñaki Martín Viso, “Tremisses y potentes en el nordeste de Lusitania (siglos VI–VII),” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 38.1 (2008): 175–200; Martín Viso, “Circuits of Power”; Martín Viso, “Huellas del poder: Pizarras y poblados campesinos en el centro de la Península Ibérica (siglos V–VII),” Medievalismo 25 (2015): 285–314; Tomás Cordero Ruiz and Iñaki Martín Viso, “Sobre los usos y la cronología de las pizarras numerales: Reflexiones a partir del caso del yacimiento de Valdelobos (Montijo, Badajoz),” AEspA 85 (2012): 253–66. Among the various pieces of work by Martín Viso on these slates, besides those cited in the note, of particu lar interest is his “The ‘Visigothic’ Slates and Their Archaeological Contexts,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 5.2 (2013): 145–68. Jointly with Pablo C. Díaz, they proposed, for instance, that the set of slates associated with the site at Salvatierra de Tormes in the Salamanca province might be the traces of a possible river passage toll: see Pablo C. Díaz and Iñaki Martín Viso, “Una contabilidad esquiva: Las pizarras numerales visigodas y el caso de el Cortinal de San Juan (Salvatierra de Tormes, España),” in Díaz and Martín Viso, Entre el impuesto y la renta, 221–43. With regard to these slates, the benchmark linguistic work is by Isabel Velázquez, in particu lar her edition, commentaries, and introductory study included in Isabel Velázquez, Las pizarras visigodas (Entre el latín y su disgregación: La lengua hablada en Hispania, siglos VI–VIII) (Valladolid: RAE–Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2004). Her edition has been followed here. The reference to angarias on slate 5 is an element of taxation appearing elsewhere in the LV, for example, in LV 12.1.2 by Reccared, reference to which was made earlier. The era(ra)rio is on slate 97. See Fernández, Aristocrats, 204–7; and details of the fiscal context in Castellanos, “Political Nature”; Valverde Castro, “Monarquía y tributación”; Valverde Castro, “La ideología fiscal.”

chapter 5 1. Isid. Sent. 3.49.3. Although Cazier’s edition, used here and listed in the bibliography, opts for the traditional dating around 633, it has been suggested that the work might have been produced earlier, around 614; see José Carlos Martín Iglesias, La renotatio librorum domini Isidori de Braulio de Zaragoza (†651) (Logroño: Fundación San Millán de la Cogolla, 2002), 277–78.

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2. On literary production by laypersons in post-Roman kingdoms, see Yitzhak Hen, Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 89–99. With particu lar reference to the Visigothic kingdom and Sisebut, especially the latter, see Hen, “A Visigothic King in Search of an Identity: Sisebutus Gothorum gloriosissimus princeps,” in Ego Trouble: Authors and Their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Richard Corradini, Matthew Gillis, Rosamond McKitterick, and Irene van Renswoude (Vienna: ÖAW, 2010), 89–99. On the importance of ethnic and religious elements in the ideological constructs of this period and their contradictions and interconnections, see Helmut Reimitz, “The Providential Past: Visions of Frankish Identity in the Early Medieval History of Gregory of Tours’ Historiae (Sixth–Ninth Century),” in Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World: The West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, 300–1100, ed. Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, and Richard Payne (London: Routledge, 2016), 109–35. The use made here of the term “invention” is similar to that in the book by Wolfram Drews, The Unknown Neighbour: The Jew in the Thought of Isidore of Seville (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 267–69. 3. On councils in the kingdom, see Pablo C. Díaz, “Concilios y obispos en la Península Ibérica (siglos VI–VIII),” in Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell’alto medioevo, LXI Settimane di Studio della Fondazione Centro di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2014), 1095–58. On episcopal power and the political backdrop in general for the period under consideration, see Rachel Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589–633 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000). On understanding of spoken Latin in these centuries, see Michel Banniard, Genèse culturelle de l’Europe, Ve–VIIIe siècle (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1989), 196–200; Banniard, Viva Voce: Communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en Occident latin (Paris: Institut des Études Augustiniennes, 1992). For the specific case of Visigothic Iberia, see Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, “Problemas culturales en la Hispania tardorromana y visigoda,” in De la Antigüedad al Medievo, siglos IV–VIII (Madrid: Fundación Sánchez Albornoz, 1993), 9–32. 4. Roger Collins, “Literacy and the Laity in Early Mediaeval Spain,” in The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 109–33. In general, see Rosamond McKitterick, “The Pleasures of the Past: History and Identity in the Early Middle Ages,” EME 22.4 (2014): 388–405. Although it covers later periods than those covered by this book, see also Patrick J. Geary, “Land, Language and Memory in Europe, 700–1100,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 9 (1999): 169–84. A specific analysis of the combination of oral and written tradition is to be found in Matthew Innes, “Orality and Literacy in an Early Medieval Society,” P&P 158 (1998): 3–36. Also for later periods, see the collective contributions gathered in Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes, eds., The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). On the conservative role of culture in the early Middle Ages, see Paul Fouracre, “Cultural Conformity and Social Conservatism in Early Medieval Europe,” History Workshop Journal 33 (1992): 152–61. 5. Leand. Hom. This was delivered at the Third Council of Toledo. The reference to the separation of peoples, on the one hand, and the kingdom united, on the other, is in Conc. III Tol., Homilia in laudem ecclesiae, 186–89; 254. 6. Isid. Vir. ill. 28. Bicl. 91. On monasticism in the Visigothic era, among other works by him, see Pablo C. Díaz, “Las fundaciones monásticas en la Península Ibérica (siglos VI–VIII),” in Monachesimi d’Oriente e d’Occidente nell’Alto Medioevo 64 Settimane (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2017), 463–93. 7. Brian Croke, “Latin Historiography and the Barbarian Kingdoms,” in Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century A.D., ed. Gabriele Marasco (Leiden:

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Brill, 2003), 349–89; notes that the principal case studies do not include any from Gothic Iberia. For the influence of Cassiodorus on Jordanes, besides this work by Croke, among a very extensive range of books, see Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, “Making a Gothic History: Does the Getica of Jordanes Preserve Genuinely Gothic Traditions?” Journal of Late Antiquity 4.2 (2011): 185–216; Andrew H. Merrills, History and Geography in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), esp. 101–69; Shami Ghosh, Writing the Barbarian Past: Studies in Early Medieval Historical Narrative (Leiden: Brill, 2016), which brings together the main arguments and publications. On what is now known as the Consularia Caesaraugustana, see the introduction by Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann in the edition listed in the bibliography. Moreover, to understand how far this was a source made up of juxtapositions of differing materials, see Juan A. Jiménez Sánchez, “Acerca de la denominada Crónica de Zaragoza,” Helmantica 177 (2007): 339–67. 8. For general overviews of historiography in the Visigothic realm, especially about John and Isidore, see Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, “Historiography in Visigothic Spain,” in La storiografia altomedievale, vol. 1, 17 Settimane (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1970), 261–311; Richard W. Burgess and Michael Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time: The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD—Volume I: A Historical Introduction to the Chronicle Genre from Its Origins to the High Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), esp. 187–98. On John of Biclar, see the introduction to the edition by Cardelle de Hartmann cited in the bibliography, a crucial work. Further, see Pedro J. Galán Sánchez, El género historiográfico de la chronica: Las crónicas hispanas de época visigoda (Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, 1994). 9. Leand. De inst. 31; Isid. Vir. ill. 29. For Isidore’s historiographic approach, see José Carlos Martín Iglesias, “La Crónica Universal de Isidoro de Sevilla: Circunstancias históricas e ideológicas de su composición y traducción de la misma,” Iberia 4 (2001): 199–239; Joaquín Martínez Pizarro, “Ethnic and National History, ca. 500–1000,” in Historiography in the Middle Ages, ed. Deborah M. Deliyannis (Brill: Leiden, 2003), 43–88; Jamie Wood, The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories of Isidore of Seville (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Wood, “Religiones and Gentes in Isidore of Seville’s Chronica maiora,” in Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West, ed. Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 125–68; Ghosh, Writing, esp. 80–86. Further, see Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1982); Fontaine, Isidore de Séville: Genèse et originalité de la culture hispanique au temps des Wisigoths (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000); Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, “Introducción general,” in José Oroz and Manuel A. Marcos Casquero, San Isidoro de Sevilla, Vol. 1, Etimologías (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1993), 7–257; Merrills, History, 170–228. I have written about biographical aspects and the political context of Isidore in Santiago Castellanos, “Isidoro de Sevilla: Obispo y política en el reino godo de Hispania,” in Autoridad y autoridades de la iglesia antigua, ed. Francisco Salvador Ventura et al. (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2017), 519–30; Castellanos, “Isidore of Seville: Historical Contexts,” in A Companion to Isidore of Seville, ed. Andrew Fear and Jamie Wood (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 21–41. 10. Isid. Vir. ill. 31. The chronology of Isidore’s works accepted here is the dating calculated by Martín Iglesias, La renotatio. On the possibility that Maximus, author of a historiola according to Isid. Vir. ill. 33, may have been the author of the short version of the HG, see Roger Collins, “Isidore, Maximus and the Historia Gothorum,” in Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter (Vienna-Munich: Oldenburg, 1994), 345–58; however, it is most likely that the first version of the HG was also by Isidore, who in any case would have con-

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sulted earlier sources. A good summary of the problem is given in José Carlos Martín Iglesias, “Máximo de Zaragoza,” in La Hispania visigótica y mozárabe: Dos épocas en su literatura, ed. María Adelaida Andrés Sanz et al. (Salamanca: Universidad de Extremadura-Universidad de Salamanca, 2010), 178–80. See also, apart from the study in the edition by Cristóbal Rodríguez Alonso listed in the bibliography, Luis A. García Moreno, “¿Por qué Isidoro de Sevilla quiso escribir una segunda versión de su Historia gothorum?” in Famille, violence et christianisation au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offerts à Michel Rouche, ed. Martin Aurell and Thomas Deswarte (Paris: Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005), 387–408; on this topic of the double composition of the HG essential reading would be the works by Isabel Velázquez, “La doble redacción de la Historia Gothorum de Isidoro de Sevilla,” in L’ édition critique des œuvres d’Isidore de Séville: Les recensions multiples, ed. María Adelaida Andrés Sanz, Jacques Elfassi and José Carlos Martín (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2008), 91–126; Velázquez, “Revisiones de autor y de copistas en las obras de Isidoro de Sevilla: A propósito de la Historia Gothorum,” AnTard 23 (2015): 67–79. 11. Helmut Reimitz, History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550– 850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 50–57; on Gregory and Isidore, 10–11; on both, 256. On these questions in Isidore, see Wood, Politics; Wood, Religiones. On the influence of Gregory on Isidore, see Wood, “A Family Affair: Leander, Isidore and the Legacy of Gregory the Great in Spain,” in Isidore of Seville and His Reception in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Fear and Jamie Wood (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), 31–56. On contacts of Gregory with the Visigothic kingdom, see Josep Vilella, “Gregorio Magno e Hispania,” in Gregorio Magno e il suo tempo, XIX Incontro di Studiosi dell’Antichità Cristiana, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 33 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1991), 167–86; Pablo C. Díaz, “Gregorio Magno y el reino visigodo: Un conflicto de poderes,” in Gregorio Magno, L’ impero e i “regna,” ed. Claudio Azzara (Firenze: Sismel-Galluzzo, 2008), 59–80. 12. Isid. Etym. 19.23, for example. On the role of contemporary nationalisms and their views of the post-Roman world, see the book by Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also Susan Reynolds, “Our Forefathers? Tribes, Peoples, and Nations in the Historiography of the Age of Migrations,” in After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History—Essays Presented to Walter Goffart, ed. Alexander Callander Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 17–36. The essential propositions of the ethnogenesis model may be found, among many other works, in Herwig Wolfram, “Origo et religio: Ethnic Traditions and Literature in Early Medieval Texts,” EME 3.1 (1994): 19–38; and in particular on the Goths in Wolfram, History of the Goths, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Walter Pohl, “Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity,” in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, ed. Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 17–69; Pohl, “Aux origines d’une Europe ethnique: Transformations d’identités entre Antiquité et Moyen Âge,” Annales. HSS 1 (2005): 183–205, 93–101; a very different point of view is shown in Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). Other critical views are expressed in Michael Kulikowski, “Ethnicity, Rulership, and Early Medieval Frontiers,” in Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis: Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Florin Curta (Brepols: Turnhout, 2005), 247–54; Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489– 554 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Work by these and other authors, with their conflicting approaches, can be found in Andrew Gillett, ed., On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002). On the concept of gens, see Hans-Werner Goetz, “Gens: Terminology and Perception of the ‘Germanic’ Peoples from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages,” in The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages:

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Texts, Resources and Artefacts, ed. Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 39–64. Essential reading would be the excellent reflections by Patrick Geary, “Ethnic Identity as a Situational Construct in the Early Middle Ages,” in Patrick Geary, Writing History: Identity, Conflict, and Memory in the Middle Ages, ed. Florin Curta and Cristina Spinei (Bucarest: Romanian Academy, 2012), 19–32. On archaeological materials and ethnicity, see the comments by Florin Curta, “Some Remarks on Ethnicity in Medieval Archaeology,” EME 15.2 (2007): 159–85; Curta, “Medieval Archaeology and Ethnicity: Where Are We?” History Compass 9.7 (2011): 537–48; and Guy Halsall, “Ethnicity and Early Medieval Cemeteries,” AyTM 18 (2011): 15–28. 13. See Chapter 2 for works on the history of the Goths and specifically on the supposed “Visigothic necropolises.” 14. The figures are in Gisela Ripoll López, “The Arrival of the Visigoths in Hispania: Population Problems and the Process of Acculturation,” in Pohl and Reimitz, eds., Strategies of Distinction, 153–87, esp. 161; Ripoll inclining to accept a total of around 130,000. This number is seen as exaggerated in J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, “Goths and Romans in the Leges Visigothorum,” in Integration in Rome and in the Roman World, ed. Gerda de Kleijn and Stéphane Benoist (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 89–104, esp. 99. 15. Mark A. Handley, “Tiempo e identidad: La datación por la era en las inscripciones de la España tardorromana y visigoda,” Iberia 2 (1999): 191–201; Handley, Death, Society and Culture: Inscriptions and Epitaphs in Gaul and Spain, AD 300–750 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2003). 16. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, 11. 17. Bicl. 20; 54; 84; 90; 91. 18. Isid. HG: De laude Spaniae. Similar ideas in Recapitulatio; Conc. IV Tol. a. 633, c. 75. 19. Isid. Vir. ill. 31; VSPE 5.2.2–3 (Masona), 5.10.1 (Sunna); 5.14.18 (Renovatus); Conc. V Tol. a. 636, c. 3, 7, the declaration by Chintila is in the edition by Vives after the episcopal signatures, Conc. V Tol. a. 638, c. 12. LV 2.1.8 (Chindaswinth). For later stages, among other examples see Conc. Emerit. a. 666, c. 3. On all these questions, see Dietrich Claude, “Remarks About Relations Between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans in the Seventh Century,” in Pohl and Reimitz, Strategies of Distinction, 117–30; Isabel Velázquez, “Pro patriae gentisque Gothorum statu (4th Council of Toledo, canon 75, A. 633),” in Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut, and Walter Pohl (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 161–217; Liebeschuetz, “Goths and Romans”; Céline Martin, “La notion de gens dans la péninsule Ibérique des Vie–VIIe siècles: Quelques interprétations,” in Identité et ethnicité: Concepts, débats historiographiques, exemples (IIIe–XIIe siècle), ed. Pierre Bauduin, Véronique Gazeau, and Yves Modéran (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 75–89; Manuel Koch, Ethnische Identität im Entstehungsprozess des spanischen Westgotenreiches (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012); Erica Buchberger, Shifting Ethnic Identities in Spain and Gaul, 500–700: From Romans to Goths and Franks (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017). 20. For Recceswinth’s words in the tomus, see VIII Conc. Tol. a. 653, 186–87, and a similar idea in his law LV 12.2.3. The law that mentions the question of societas is LV 12.2.15. Isid. Sent. 3.49.3. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, c. 14. LV 12.2.12 (Reccared). 21. Isidore’s allusion to a general conversion in the fourth and fifth years of Sisebut’s reign is in Isid. Etym. 5.39.42. Conc. IV Tol. a. 633, c. 57. On the use of force rather than reason, see Isid. HG 60. LV 12.2.13–14 (Sisebut). Essential reading on the kings’ policies toward Judaism is Raúl González Salinero, Las conversiones forzosas de los judíos en el reino visigodo (Madrid: CSIC, 2000). For Isidore’s treatise on the Jews, there is an interesting study in Eva Castro Caridad and Fran-

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cisco Peña Fernández, Isidoro de Sevilla: Sobre la fe católica contra los judíos (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 2012). On Jews in Visigothic Iberia, among many other works, see Luis García Iglesias, Los judíos en la España Antigua (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1978); Luis A. García Moreno, Los judíos de la España Antigua (Madrid: Rialp, 2005); Drews, Unknown Neighbour. 22. Isid. Chron. 1.405; 2.405. Bicl. 64. For these dates it is crucial to consult the commentaries and edition by Martín Iglesias, whose version is followed here and is listed in the bibliography, in addition to his article “La Crónica Universal.” Isid. HG 49. 23. For these two paragraphs, Isid. HG 50; Greg. Moral. in Iob, Præf. 24. On Masona’s banishment, VSPE 5, and for that of John of Biclar, Isid. Vir. ill. 31; 28 (Leander). Bicl. 57 (Arian Council in Toledo). Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.38. Greg. Dial. 3.31; Moral. in Iob, Præf. Gregory’s recommendations to Leander about Reccared are in Greg. Reg. Epist. 1.41.30–31. For doubts about Leander’s journey, see Aloysius K. Ziegler, Church and State in Visigothic Spain (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1930), 30. For a detailed critique of Isidore’s version and the question of banishments, see María Rosario Valverde Castro, “Leovigildo: Persecución religiosa y defensa de la unidad del reino,” Iberia 2 (1999): 123–32; Margarita Vallejo Girvés, “Los exilios de católicos y arrianos bajo Leovigildo y Recaredo,” Hispania Sacra 55 (2003): 35–47. On Christianity as the reference framework for the Historiae of Gregory of Tours, see Helmut Reimitz, “Cultural Brokers of a Common Past: History, Identity, and Ethnicity in Merovingian Historiography,” in Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 257–301, esp. 261–66; and Reimitz, “Social Networks and Identities in Frankish Historiography: New Aspects of the Textual History of Gregory of Tours’ Historiae,” in Pohl and Reimitz, Strategies of Distinction, 229–68. On the use of emotions in the accounts written by Gregory of Tours, see Philip Rousseau, “Gregory’s Kings, the Theatre of the ‘Modern,’ and the Endurance of Romanitas,” in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, ed. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 209–29, esp. 215–16. On Gregory of Tours and Iberia, see Roger Collins, “Gregory of Tours and Spain,” in A Companion to Gregory of Tours, ed. Alexander Callander Murray (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 498–515. On the aspects commented on in relation to Gregory the Great, see Díaz, “Gregorio Magno,” esp. 68–73. 25. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, 5–11. The tomus handed over by Reccared and read aloud is in 51– 281. The bishops’ and magnates’ profession of faith are in lines 305–552. C. 9 (transfer of Arian churches to Catholics). Conc. II Caesar. a. 592, c. 1, 2, 3. Conc. III Tol. a. 589, c. 18 (full authority for bishops to control churches), c. 21 (limitations on taxation of church serfs); the allusion to all the bishops in Spania in line 938. On the Third Council of Toledo and its political backdrop, see Roger Collins, “¿Dónde estaban los arrianos en el año 589?” in Concilio III de Toledo: XIV Centenario, 589–1989 (Toledo: Arzobispado, 1991), 211–22; Luis A. García Moreno, “La coyuntura política del III Concilio de Toledo: Una historia larga y tortuosa,” Concilio III de Toledo, 271–96; Stocking, Bishops, 59–88; Santiago Castellanos, Los godos y la cruz: Recaredo y la unidad de Spania (Madrid: Alianza, 2007), 212–33. On the exaggerations typical in narratives about conversions, see Patrick Geary, “The Meaning of Religion and Conversion in the Early Middle Ages,” in Writing History, 33–43. 26. Bicl. 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93; Isid. Vir. ill. 31 (on John of Biclar); 32 (on Eutropius, who was also bishop of Valencia). On the possible location of the Servitano monastery, see Francisco J. Moreno Martín, La arquitectura monástica hispana entre la Tardoantigüedad y la Alta Edad Media (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2011), 205–6. On comparisons of Reccared and of Clovis in Merovingian Gaul with Constantine, see Santiago Castellanos, “Creating New Constantines at the End of the Sixth Century,” Historical Research 85.230 (2012): 556–75.

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27. Isid. Chron 1.408; 2.408; 2.408a; Vir. ill. 28. On a possible early date for Isidore’s De viris illustribus, see José Carlos Martín Iglesias, “El catálogo de los varones ilustres de Isidoro de Sevilla (CPL 1206): Contenidos y datación,” SHHA 31 (2013): 129–51. 28. Isid. HG 52–56. 29. Condemnation of Suinthila in Conc. IV Tol. a. 633, 207–23. 30. Isid. HG, De laude Spaniae; and fi nally, 66–70: Recapitulatio. Marc Reydellet, La royauté dans la littérature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire à Isidore de Séville (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1981); Fontaine, Isidore de Séville; María Rosario Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercicio del poder real en la monarquía visigoda: Un proceso de cambio (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2000), 195–225; Wood, Politics; Reimitz, “Providential”; Reimitz, “Cultural Brokers”; Reimitz, History. 31. Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.38; Greg. Dial. 3.31; Fredegar. 4.8. On the survival of paganism in the Visigothic kingdom, see Pablo C. Díaz and Juana M. Torres. “Pervivencias paganas en el cristianismo hispano (siglos IV–VII),” in El cristianismo: Aspectos históricos de su origen y difusión en Hispania, ed. Juan Santos, Ramón Teja, and Elena Torregaray (Vittoria: Universidad del País Vasco, 2000), 235–61; Rosa Sanz, Paganos, adivinos y magos: Análisis del cambio religioso en la Hispania tardoantigua (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 2003). On the connection between churches and religious tensions, see Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Finding Invisible Arians: An Archaeological Perspective on Churches, Baptism and Religious Competition in 6th Century Spain,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 23.2 (2017): 674–85; and Chavarría Arnau, A la sombra de un imperio: Iglesias, obispos y reyes en la Hispania tardoantigua (siglos V–VII) (Bari: Edipuglia, 2018). On the situation of Arianism in the sixth century, tensions during Leovigild’s time, and the end of Arianism in Iberia, see José Orlandis, “Problemas canónicos en torno a la conversión de los visigodos al catolicismo,” AHDE 32 (1962): 301–22; Orlandis, “El arrianismo visigodo tardío,” Cuadernos de Historia de España 65–66 (1981): 5–20; Castellanos, Los godos y la cruz, 191–267; Pedro Castillo Maldonado, “Intolerancia en el reino romano-germánico de Toledo: Testimonio y utilidad de la hagiografía,” Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones 7 (2008): 247–84; Castillo Maldonado, “Católicos y arrianos en la Hispania visigoda: La conformación de un sistema único de dominación,” in La iglesia como sistema de dominación en la Antigüedad tardía, ed. José Fernández Ubiña, Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas, and Purificación Ubric Rabaneda (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2015), 51–71. 32. In general, although they are essentially for a somewhat later period, it is crucial to consult the views of Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), esp. 9–10. See also Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; repr. 1996); James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); Elisabeth van Houts, “Medieval Memory in the Theory and Practice: Some Exploratory Thoughts in the Guise of a Conclusion,” in Making Thoughts, Making Pictures, Making Memories: A Special Issue in Honor of Mary J. Carruthers, Gesta 48.2 (2009): 185–91. 33. See Chapter 2. On the question of the phases of production of the VSPE, see the edition by Maya listed in the bibliography; see also Isabel Velázquez, Vidas de los santos Padres de Mérida: Introducción, traducción y notas (Madrid: Trotta, 2008). On Mérida in Visigothic times, besides the archaeological work mentioned in other chapters of this book, for political, social, and religious aspects, see Roger Collins, “Mérida and Toledo: 550–585,” in Visigothic Spain: New Approaches, ed. Edward James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 189–219; Juan  I. Alonso Campos, “Sunna, Masona y Nepopis: Las luchas religiosas durante la dinastía de Leovigildo,” Antigüedad y Cristianismo 3 (1986): 151–57; Ian Wood, “Social Relations in the Visigothic Kingdom

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from the Fifth to the Seventh Century: The Example of Mérida,” in The Visigoths: From the Migration Period to the Seventh Century—An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Peter Heather (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 191–208; Javier Arce, “The City of Mérida (Emerita) in the Vitas Patrum Emeretensium (VIth century A.D.),” in East and West: Modes of Communication, ed. Evangelos Chrysos and Ian Wood (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–14; Arce, Mérida tardorromana (300–580 d.C.) (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, 2002); Isabel Velázquez, “¿Hagiografía versus prosopografía? En torno a las Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium,” in Latinitas Biblica et Christiana: Studia philologica varia in honorem Olegario García de la Fuente (Madrid: Universidad Europea de Madrid, 1994), 497–506; Santiago Castellanos, “The Significance of Social Unanimity in a Visigothic Hagiography: Keys to an Ideological Screen,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11.3 (2003): 387–419; Pedro Castillo Maldonado, “In ecclesia contra ecclesiam: Algunos ejemplos de disputas, violencias y facciones clericales en las iglesias tardoantiguas hispanas,” AnTard 15 (2007): 263–76; Pablo C. Díaz, “Mérida tardoantica: L’apoteosi di una città cristiana,” Reti Medievali Rivista 11.2 (2010): 67–79; Isaac Sastre de Diego, Mérida capital cristiana: De Roma a alAndalus (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, 2015). 34. VSPE 1 (Augustus and oral tradition); 2 (monk from Cauliana and oral tradition). 35. VSPE Praef.; Greg. Dial. 3.31.7; VSPE 5.9.14–15 (tweaked sentence). 36. VSPE 5.11.86–114 (Vagrila). Bicl. 87 (Segga and Sunna); 89 (Uldila); 93 (Argimundus); Greg. Tur. Hist. 9.5 (Athalocus), and also VSPE 5.12 for the revolt in Septimania; VSPE 5.10.1–8 (Sunna and the magnates); 5.10.21–22 (Witteric as future king). 37. VSPE 4.4.17–23 (Paul to Fidelis); 4.5.1–4 (opposition to the Paul-Fidelis line); 5.13 (Eleutherius). On tensions and cliques in the churches of Mérida and other cities of the realm, see Castillo Maldonado, “In ecclesia contra ecclesiam.” For the tombstone, see Pedro Mateos Cruz, La basílica de Santa Eulalia de Mérida (Madrid: CSIC, 1999), 88; Sastre de Diego, Mérida, 161–62. The edition of the inscription is in José L. Ramírez Sádaba and Pedro Mateos Cruz, Catálogo de las inscripciones cristianas de Mérida (Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, 2000), 80–82, inscription no. 37. 38. Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994); Bonnie Effros, “Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation,” EME 6.1 (1997): 1–23. On the inscription from Saint Mary’s in Toledo (a. 587), its authenticity and an edition is in Isabel Velázquez, “Baselicas multas miro opere construxit (VSPE 5.1.1): El valor de las fuentes literarias y epigráficas sobre la edilicia religiosa en la Hispania visigoda,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 13.2 (2007): 261–69, esp. 263. On royal foundations, see Javier Arce, “Reyes visigodos y arquitectura,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 13.2 (2007): 255–60. Full documentation on council references to private churches is to be found in Gonzalo Martínez Díez, El patrimonio eclesiástico en la España visigoda: Estudio histórico jurídico (Comillas: Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, 1959). On the foundation of urban and rural churches, and their funerary side, see Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, “Churches and Aristocracies in SeventhCentury Spain: Some Thoughts on the Debate on Visigothic Churches,” EME 18.2 (2010): 160– 74; Chavarría Arnau, “Tumbas e iglesias en la Hispania tardoantigua,” Agira 7 (2015): 13–45; Chavarría Arnau, A la sombra de un imperio. See Damián Fernández, “Property, Social Status, and Church Building in Visigothic Iberia,” Journal of Late Antiquity 9.2 (2016): 512–41. 39. See Chapter 3. In particular, see Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “El registro arqueológico del campesinado del interior peninsular en época altomedieval,” in El poblamiento rural de época visigoda en Hispania: Arqueología del campesinado en el interior peninsular, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013), 66–258. On cave tombs in the Visigothic and later periods, for example, in the area of Ciudad Rodrigo in Salamanca province, see Iñaki

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Martín Viso, Después qu’esta çiudad fue destruyda: Ciudad Rodrigo y su comarca en la Alta Edad Media (siglos VI–XI) (Ciudad Rodrigo: Centro de Estudios Mirobrigenses, 2015); Martín Viso, “Comunidades locales, lugares centrales y espacios funerarios en la Extremadura del Duero altomedieval: Las necrópolis de tumbas excavadas en la roma alineadas,” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 46.2 (2016): 859–98. 40. Peter Brown, The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 167–71. In general, on the cult of saints, see Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). Conc. Emerit. 666, c. 19, Ed. Vives, 339: a quibus eas ecclesias constat esse constructas. The inscriptions relating to Pimenius are in ICERV 304, 305, 306, and 309. On relics in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia, see Santiago Castellanos, “Las reliquias de santos y su papel social: Cohesión comunitaria y control episcopal en Hispania (ss. V–VII),” Polis 8 (1996): 5–21; for accounts of how relics were found, see Pedro Castillo Maldonado, “Inventiones reliqiuarum en la Hispania tardoantigua: Análisis de sus actores,” Polis 16 (2004): 33–60.

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Index

Abundantius 40, 66, 139 Aemilianus 54, 64, 66 Agila 20, 22, 62, 68, 115, 126 Agiulf 27 Aistra 43 Alaric II 3–4, 9–11, 14, 29, 91, 115, 121, 123 Amaia 21, 40, 64, 76, 138 Amalaric 9–17, 29, 91, 115, 123 Ampelius 11, 49 Anthemius 1 Aregenses montes 21, 63 Argimund 101, 151 Arianism xi, 15, 22, 25, 72, 87–101, 150 Aspidius 40, 63, 137 Athanagild 20–23, 68–69, 115, 126 Athanagild child 22, 25, 126 Baddo 25, 99 Barajas 43 Barcino/Barcinona (Barcelona) 6, 10, 33, 36, 41, 69, 70, 78–81, 90, 107, 108 Bernardos 41, 73, 74 Braulio of Zaragoza xii, 40, 54, 64–67, 84, 110, 135–139, 144, 153, 158, 170 Brunhild 22–25, 98, 126–127 Bulgar 26–27 Burgundy 27 Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza) 3–4, 14, 28, 36–37, 54–55, 64, 84, 100, 120, 123 Can Gambús 45 Can Solà del Racó 45 Cantabria 21, 40, 64–66, 138 Canto Blanco 41 Carcassonne 10, 123 Cassiodorus 86, 123 Castellar del Vallés 45 Castellum Bilibium 64, 138

Catholicism xi, 12, 22–27, 60, 67, 78, 85, 88–89, 92, 96–102, 105, 110, 115 Ceuta 15, 20, 123 Childebert 12–14 Chilperic I 23, 25 Chindaswinth ix, xi, 28–36, 65, 68, 78, 94, 116, 128, 130, 133–139, 143, 148 Chintila 28, 30, 65, 94, 116, 128, 137, 148 Chlodosind 25, 127 Chlothar I 14 Chlothar II 27 Chlothild 12, 123 Church, churches 5, 12, 16–17, 20, 26, 37, 39, 51, 60, 62, 66–72, 76–78, 83–84, 87, 91–93, 97–113, 136, 149–151 Cities 5–9, 19–20, 31–33, 40, 44, 49, 59, 62–63, 69–71, 76, 92, 113, 140, 151 Claudius 26, 72 Clovis 4, 9–10, 123, 149 Clunia 69 Congosto 43 Constantine 60, 101, 128, 137, 149 Constantinople x, xii, 21–23, 62, 85–87, 93, 97, 99 Corduba (Córdoba) 20–23, 30, 33, 36, 40, 52, 55, 62–63, 76, 81, 92 Dehesa del Cañal 45 Dertosa (Tortosa) 4 Desiderius, slate 37, 130 Didymus 49 Diego Álvaro 37, 80 Domnella, slate 37 Duratón 17 Egara (Tarrasa) 41, 70 Egica 113 Egitania 79

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i n d ex

El Barrado 37 El Carpio de Tajo 17 El Castillón de Tábara 73–75 El Cortinal de San Juan 79–80, 131 El Cristo de San Esteban 73–75 El Pelícano 44, 80 Eleutherius 105–107 Emerita (Mérida) x, 3–4, 9, 20, 23–26, 33, 36, 40, 46, 51, 66–72, 79, 81, 103–107, 110, 141 Ermenberg 27 Erwig 3, 35, 45, 52, 130, 133 Ethnicity 17–19, 77, 82–84, 88–94, 102, 110, 124 Eulalia 69, 72, 104–107 Euric 2–5, 11, 14, 19, 29, 52, 91, 115, 119–120 Eutropius 86, 101, 149 Faustinus, slate, 37–39 Fidelis of Mérida 67, 105, 151 Florentina 86–87 Franks 4, 9–15, 29, 64, 88–89, 102, 122, 124, 127 Fredegar 30, 103, 114, 128 Fredegund 25 Fructuosus 46, 133 Fulgentius of Écija 87 Funerary record 4–7, 17–18, 37, 44, 70, 90, 107, 121, 124–125 Galsvinth 23, 98 Gaudentius of Écija 51, 135 Gerona xii, 11, 70, 85, 87, 97, 140 Gesalec 9, 10, 115, 123 Gosvinth 21–26, 98, 101, 127 Gózquez 18, 43, 44, 136 Gregorius, slate 37, 130 Gregory of Tours xiii, 10–14, 20–24, 77, 88, 97–98, 102, 114, 127, 143, 149 Gregory the Great x, xiii, 22–26, 54, 89, 97–99, 104, 127, 147, 149 Gundemar 27, 75, 116, 128, 138 Guntram 24, 26, 92 Hagiography 24, 26, 40, 46, 51, 64, 67–69, 72, 83–84, 94, 104–105, 113 Heldefred 3 Hermenegild xiii, 21–26, 84–88, 92, 96–99, 104–105, 127, 141 Hilltop settlements 6–7, 33, 40, 44, 62–64, 73–81, 112, 121, 138 Hispalis (Seville) 20–23, 33, 36, 81, 87

Honorius, magnate 40, 66, 139 Hydatius 2, 6, 7 Ibbas 10, 123–124 Ingund 22–25, 98 Isidore of Seville xii, xiii, 3, 5, 10–15, 19–28, 40, 46, 55, 60–66, 77, 83–90, 93–105, 108, 110, 115–116, 123, 126, 136, 143, 146–148 Italica 23, 55 John of Biclar xii, xiii, 21–24, 40, 62–66, 70, 76, 84–88, 92–102, 105, 108, 110, 127, 146 Jordanes 2, 14, 86, 123, 146 Justinian 13, 20 La Cárcava de la Peladera 41, 80 La Genestosa 79 La Mata del Palomar 41, 131 Ladera de los Prados 41 Land property 6, 18–19, 32–39, 46, 49–53, 65–66, 72, 76–77, 95–97, 100, 121, 129–130, 133 Leander of Seville xii, xiii, 22–26, 85–87, 91–103, 108, 110, 115, 149 Leo 1 Leovigild xii, xiii, 21–26, 46, 54, 59, 62–70, 75–77, 79–87, 91–92, 96–105, 115, 126–127, 138, 141, 143 Lerilla 79 Liuva I 21, 26, 115 Liuva II 26, 115 Liuverit 11 Los Husos 43 Madrona 17 Mantius, slate 38 Marcian 11, 101 Masona 26, 46, 51, 67, 72, 94, 97, 104–105, 133, 135, 141, 148–149 Matratius, slate 37 Medina Sidonia 21, 108 Meriacius, slate 38–39 Monnellus 55 Montanus of Toledo 15–17, 124 Nanctus 46, 77, 133, 143 Narbonne 10–13, 21, 26–27, 67, 123, 139 Navamboal 41 Navasangil 74, 79 Nepotianus 66, 139 Neustria 27

i n d ex Ologicus 59 Oppila 30–32, 37, 44 Orosius 7 Orospeda 21, 40, 63–64, 76, 138 Ostrogoths 9–11 14 18 123–124 Palencia 15–17 Pamplona 3 Parpalines 66 138–139 Patrocinium/Patronage 31, 35–36, 47, 53, 56, 113, 130 Paul of Mérida 40, 67, 105, 139, 151 Paulus, slate 37–39 Peasant 6–8, 31–32, 37, 40–48, 57–58, 62, 64, 75, 79, 107–108, 112–113, 132–134, 136. See also Villages Procopius x, xiii, 10–14, 17, 35, 124 Proseria 66, 139 Ravenna 12–14, 123 Reccared xii, 21–29, 56, 62, 65–72, 75–78, 81, 84–115, 126–127 Reccared II 27, 116 Recceswinth ix, xi, 29, 34, 45, 59–61, 77, 81, 94–95, 116, 128, 143, 148 Reccopolis 21, 59, 70, 140 Renovatus 94, 148 Riccimir of Dumio 51, 135 Rigunth 25, 127 Rome x, 2, 11, 22, 48, 87, 89, 95, 98, 104 Sabaria 21, 63 Scipio 78 Segga 105, 139, 151 Segobriga 71, 140 Septimania 14, 24, 26, 62, 94, 99, 105, 112, 124, 127, 139, 151 Sicorius 54, 66, 139 Sidonius Apollinaris 3, 120 Sigibert 22–25 Simplicius, slate 37 Sisbert 23, 24 Sisebut 15, 27, 52, 56, 65, 75, 83, 95–97, 116, 128, 136–138, 145, 148

183

Sisenand 28, 65, 96, 102, 116, 128, 137 Slavery 6, 31, 34–39, 45–58, 66, 78, 95, 133–137 Soto 43 Sueves 1, 2, 5, 7, 16, 22–23, 64, 73, 87, 91–92, 100, 120, 122, 127 Suinthila 27–28, 65, 88, 96, 102, 116, 128, 136, 138, 150 Sunna 72, 94, 101, 139–141, 148, 151 Tarraco (Tarragona) ix, 1–4, 11, 33, 70, 119 Taxation 60, 76–82, 100, 143–144, 149 Theodegotha 10 Theoderic, Ostrogothic king 9–14, 49, 115, 123 Theodoric II 2–3, 115, 120 Theudis 11–19, 29, 35, 69, 77, 115, 123–124, 130 Theudisclus 15, 19, 26, 40, 115 Tintinolho 73, 79 Toletum (Toledo) 13–17, 21–36, 43–44, 51, 59–62, 65–70, 78–108, 111 Tolosa (Toulouse) 4, 9 Tuentius 54, 139 Tulga 28, 30, 116, 128, 137 Vagrila 67, 105, 139, 141, 151 Valdelobos 37, 79, 131 Valentia (Valencia) 6, 23, 33, 69, 71, 107 Valentinus, slate 37 Vega Baja 69–70, 165 Venantius Fortunatus 23 Vergegium 64, 138 Verinianus 49 Victoriacum 59 Villages 6–7, 18, 40–44, 47, 57–58, 108, 119, 122, 132. See also Peasants Vincent of Huesca 36–37, 44, 50, 55, 57, 130 Vincentius 3 Vouillé 9, 91, 115 Wamba 35, 61, 130 Witteric 26, 105, 115, 128, 151 Zaballa 43 Zorita de los Canes 21, 70 Zosimus 49

Acknowledgments

I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the University of León in Spain for permitting me to take sabbatical leave because I had been offered a position as a Guest Research Professor at the University of Notre Dame in the United States in 2016. I wish to thank the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame for nominating me to that position and allowing me to enjoy its spectacular libraries and the human and academic ambiance of that institution. For the work done in León it was essential to acquire bibliographic materials, which was made possible by research project HAR2013-47889-C3-3-P of the Ministry of the Economy of the Government of Spain, of which this book is a part. Many thanks to those colleagues who loaned me images: their names appear in the captions. Certain aspects of this book have been presented in seminars at or around (before and after) the period I spent at Notre Dame. In particular, I would like to thank those colleagues and students who attended seminars that I gave at the New York University and the University of Florida in the United States, the Universities of Oxford and London in the United Kingdom and Hamburg in Germany, and in meetings in Boston and in Atlanta in the United States, since these allowed explanation and discussion of some of the specific ideas recorded in this book. The author’s gratitude also goes to the University of Pennsylvania Press and specifically to my editors: Deborah Blake, for her faith in these ideas from the first moment, and to Noreen O’Connor-Abel, for her work during the editing process.