Visigothic Hispania
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The Visigothic Hispania is the name of the historical period that covers the settlement of the Visigothic people in the Iberian Peninsula, between the mid-century V and early VIII century.
History
Germanic invasions in Hispania
From the III century to the V, two Germanic peoples had crossed the Iberian peninsula, the Suevi and the Vandals, as well as an Iranian people, the Alans, who still exist in Ossetia, in the Caucasus mountains. Around 409 or 410, there is news of the entry through the Pyrenees of an undetermined number of Suevi (about 30,000, although there is no consensus among historians), the Germanic people with the greatest cultural complexity, occupying the northwest of the peninsula., which is Gallaecia, with capital in Braccara Augusta, present-day Braga (Portugal).
The chronicler Hidacio, speaking above all of the occupation of Gallaecia by the Suevi, speaks of all kinds of outrages and brutalities:
The barbarians who had penetrated the Spains devastated them in bloody struggle [...] The barbarians rage in the Spains, and the scourge of the plague, the tyrannical exacting steals, and the soldier plunders the wealth and maintenance kept in the cities; a terrible hunger reigns, and the beasts destroy even the strongest men.C. Sánchez Albornoz and A. Viñas: Spanish Historical Readings.
Nevertheless, historians currently consider that the sources of the time should be looked at prudently, analyzing not only what is written but also the purpose that the author pursued in his time with said work, subjecting them to critical judgment.
Galicia was occupied not only by the Suevi, but also by Asdingo vandals. The Alans moved towards Lusitania and Carthaginense. With the silingo vandals in the area of Bética, only the province of Tarraconense remained in the hands of the Roman Empire. Precisely in order to recover lost dominance in the Iberian Peninsula, the empire made an agreement with the Gothic king Walia so that they would be the ones to defend the rights of Rome against these Germanic tribes. Thus, in 416 the Visigoths entered as allies of Rome, through a foedus, defeating the Alans and part of the Vandals, with which the Empire regained control of the most Romanized regions. (Betica and the south of Tarragona).
The Emperor Honorius in 418 removed them from the rich Mediterranean, relocating them to Aquitaine. The Suevians then occupied a good part of the peninsula, with their capital in Emérita Augusta, present-day Mérida. The Vandals defeated them at Mérida but, around 429, they went to Africa. The Alanos occupied the center and east of the Peninsula, and ended up being absorbed by the Hispano-Roman population.
In this situation, the Western Roman Empire had recovered at least nominal control of the Peninsula, except for the area dominated by the Suevi, who consolidated their kingdom in the west. Around the year 438, the Swabian king Requila undertook a determined activity to conquer the rest of Hispania, taking over Lusitania, Carthaginense and Baetica. His successor, Requiario, will take advantage of the disturbances of the Bagauda movement to advance towards the area of Zaragoza and Lérida. Such action prompted the Roman Empire to once again ask the Visigoths, through their King Theodoric II, for the necessary help to control Hispania. The Visigothic troops crossed the Pyrenees and in the autumn of 456 they took Astorga, the capital of the Suevian kingdom, and captured King Requiarius, leaving the rest of the Suebi in the territory comprised of Gallaecia in the current Galicia, part of Asturias and León and the northern half of Portugal. The Swabian kingdom remained independent until the late VI century. The rest of the peninsula remained in the hands of the Visigoths, becoming part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Tolosa, with Tolosa as its capital (Toulouse, present-day France). The waves of conquest followed one another later, but now to occupy spaces where the Roman Empire still dominates.
In the year 476, the Visigoths had already settled in the Iberian Peninsula and in 490 the bulk of the migrations from the north ended.
The turbulent sixth century
The Visigoths did not control the entire Iberian Peninsula. In the northwestern part was the kingdom of the Suevians. The entire Cantabrian coast from the mountains to the sea, an area little Romanized, was dominated by Astures, Cantabrians and Vascones. The Visigothic monarchy experienced a moment of weakness during the VI century. At least two kings are assassinated successively, Teudiselo and Agila I, and in different areas of the peninsula there are uprisings of landowners against royal authority (Córdoba, Seville and Mérida, these last two capitals of the kingdom).
At the end of 552 Emperor Justinian I had already completed the campaign to conquer the Ostrogothic kingdom, agreeing that same year to the request for help formulated in 551 by the rebel Visigoth Atanagildo in exchange for a coastal strip from Alicante to the Portuguese south-Atlantic coast, including North Africa and the Balearic Islands. The new conquered territory was called the Province of Spania, and its capital was established in Carthago Spartaria, present-day Cartagena, controlling a good part of the Hispanic Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar, and with it trade. The eastern collaboration was decisive in decanting the civil war in the Spanish peninsular kingdom in favor of that candidate against Agila. But territorial compensation was never a platform for the conquest of ancient Hispania. In fact, the areas granted in 552 began to dwindle in the following decades, especially during the reign of Leovigildo, until their disappearance around 624 already in the time of King Suintila.
At the end of the reign of Teudis, the capital was moved to Toledo and with Atanagildo this transfer was consolidated. Thanks to the determined political action of Leovigildo (573-586), in the second half of the century VI a strengthening of the monarchy, with achievements in various fields. He achieved a certain level of stability for the monarchy with currency reforms, restoring sovereign control over territories that had declared themselves independent in the second half of the VI century. , the conquest of the Swabian kingdom, as well as against Byzantine installations, many of which passed back into Visigothic hands.
However, Leovigildo's claim to unify their kingdoms religiously, based on Arianism, failed. He lived the worst hours with the uprising of his son Hermenegildo in the south, converted to Catholicism. Peace will not be restored until 584 with the defeat of his son at the hands of his father. His son and his successor Recaredo (586-601), Hermenegildo's brother, achieved that religious unity, but taking Catholicism as a basis. In the transcendental III Council of Toledo, the king and Baddo, his wife, manifested their conversion. It is considered that, after this conversion, the Visigothic culture in Hispania reached its zenith.
The dark years of the seventh century
The relative peace that was breathed with Leovigildo and Recaredo, is once again truncated. Liuva II, Witerico, Gundemaro and Recaredo II follow one another and of them, the one who is not assassinated, even being a minor, dies under strange circumstances. Only Suintila (621-631), a great general, ended up expelling the Byzantines in 624.
Recesvinto (649-672) will be recognized for his short-lived legislative work (Liber iudiciorum), improved by Wamba, but which will have a notable influence on local charters from the 19th century X.
Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom
In a letter to King Ethelred of Mercia, dated 746-747, Saint Boniface attributed the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom to "the moral degeneracy of the Goths." For E. A. Thompson, who is the one who comments on this in the prologue to Los gothos en Hispania (1969), «it is not at all evident that modern research, at the point at which it finds itself, has gone very deep further".
Around 710 there were clashes for the throne after the death of Witiza. The pretenders to the crown, Roderico (known as Don Rodrigo) and Agila II, the first in the south and the second in the north of the peninsula, are in extreme positions. It is agreed that Witiza had agreed before his death the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula for control of the kingdom. Others maintain that it was Agila II, but maintain that the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate, after having conquered North Africa, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered Toledo, defeating and killing Rodrigo in the battle of Guadalete (or Laguna de la Janda). His entrance is unstoppable and two years later they besiege Zaragoza.
Through a series of capitulations, a noble Visigoth belonging to the palatine circles, Teodomiro, managed to maintain considerable autonomy in the Kingdom of Tudmir, a vast territory around the city of Orihuela, in the current provinces of Murcia and Alicante.
Classical historiography assumes that several noble Visigoths, as well as a part of the Visigothic population fleeing from the Muslims, escaped to the north of the peninsula, specifically to Asturias, populated by the Astures, of Celtic origin, outside from Muslim control, although there could have been a governor in the coastal area (current Gijón), Munuza, but the Muslims never came to dominate the mountains, which did serve as a refuge for the Christian resistance, and one of them, an officer of Rodrigo, who was called Pelayo in the battle of Guadalete in 711, managed to defeat a Muslim conquest expedition in the battle of Covadonga in 722. Don Pelayo, who now had the collaboration of the Astures, former enemies of the Visigoths, since they had previously tried to subdue them, was elected Prince of the Astures and thus became the first King of Asturias, and the creation of a small but iron core of resistance that will lead to the Reconquest and the formation of the first Christian kingdoms. On the other hand, other historians doubt the battle and do not know the exact location of the skirmish, nor have they been able to find out the specific date, which It covers a period between the years 718 and 722. The Reconquest was present in writing from the Chronicle of Albeldense (Chronicon Albeldense or Codex Conciliorum Albeldensis seu Vigilanus) (year 833), is one of the few preserved sources of study of the final period of the Hispano-Visigothic monarchy, the invasion and establishment of the Umayyad power in the peninsula, and the genesis of the Kingdom of Asturias, the Franco-Belgian historian Adeline Rucquoi, says: The Reconquest is a reality and it has its history.
By the IX century, the entire peninsula, with the exception of the aforementioned north of the peninsula, would come under Muslim rule. There are other minority theories to explain the end of the Visigothic kingdom replaced by Muslim dominance.
Society of Visigothic Hispania
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E. A. Thompson affirms in his fundamental work Los godos en Hispania (1969) that «the only continuous source of information on the reigns of the kings of the Iberian Peninsula from Gesaleic to Liuva I (507-568) It is the History of the Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Swabians of San Isidoro de Sevilla».
Demographics
In any case, the Goths must have formed a minority that was supposed to begin to be integrated into Hispano-Roman society. Their number has not been specified exactly by any historian, but the most reliable calculations speak of between 150,000 and 200,000 Visigoths installed on the peninsula, out of a population that did not reach nine million, according to San Isidoro de Sevilla. Other sources speak of 85,000-100,000 Visigoths out of a population of six million Hispano-Romans.
An archaeological study of the Visigothic population has recently been carried out, estimating a figure for the Visigothic population of between 130,000 and 150,000 people, which would represent between 3% and 4% of the total Hispanic population.
The Visigoths settled mainly in the area of the Northern Plateau, especially in the center of the Duero river basin, a sparsely populated area with little urbanization.
This is the time when Roman construction materials were reused for basilicas, churches and other civil constructions (see Visigothic Art).
This is a society that has been considered pre-feudal or in transition to feudalism, because it concurs in a series of characteristics that would be typical of later stages of the Middle Ages and that differentiate it from Roman Hispania. In the first place, a gradual social ruralization took place, abandoning the big cities in some points and creating smaller population centers around the Roman villas. On the other hand, there is a tendency towards self-consumption and ties of personal dependency develop that anticipate feudalism. Thus, the Gardingos depended on the kings as clients. The nobles, in turn, had the bucellarians. And the settlers depended on the great owners of the land.
Slavery was replaced by colony at this time, as a form of relationship regarding the exploitation of the land, which had already begun in the Lower Empire. The settlers formed the broad social mass. The humble, small freeholders, were a social class in decline. The upper class was made up of the potentates, the large noble landowners, both Gothic and Hispano-Roman. The harshness of the living conditions of the lower classes ended up producing peasant revolts on occasion, which were sometimes confused with heresies such as Priscillianism.
There is a difference within society between the Visigoths and the Hispano-Romans, each governed by their own laws. However, over the centuries there was a trend towards the fusion of both social groups, allowing mixed marriages. An attempt to put an end to legal diversity was the Liber iudiciorum (published in 654), in which an attempt was made to collect Roman law together with the already stately practices that had been imposed in the peninsula around property rights.
Arians, Catholics and Jews
Religiously, the Visigoths followed the Arianism that had spread in the Roman Empire in the IV century., although there were no significant clashes with the Catholics, who made up the majority of the Hispano-Roman population. In the Councils of Toledo, especially during the third held in 589, the division caused by Arianism was resolved thanks to the conversion of Recaredo. This process, not without ups and downs, led to a unification of both confessions. The situation favored full integration between the Gothic and Hispano-Roman communities and the appearance of fundamental figures of the new culture such as Isidoro de Sevilla, bishop, and whose Etymologies are considered by some to be the first great work of the Middle Ages. The church gained great social influence, legitimizing the kings from 672 and the bishopric of Toledo would become the most important of all the peninsulars.
The relationship with the Jews was always tense. Although at the beginning of the Visigothic period the problems were minor, the conversion to Catholicism would lead to greater discrimination against the Jews, which is why many of them converted falsely. Especially strict were Sisebuto and Égica, who confiscated their properties, accusing them of conspiring against the crown. The most common measures were the prohibition of mixed marriages, even in the case of converted Jews; the prohibition against Jews having Christian slaves and the constant economic reparations to which they were subjected for no reason.
Economy
Visigothic society was dominated by agricultural and livestock activities. At this point they continued the same economic activity of Roman Hispania, with the same crops, introducing some new ones, such as spinach or artichoke. Land exploitation continued to be organized around large villae. One village was divided into reserve and tame. However, the workforce was no longer slaves, but rather settlers, which had begun in the days of the Low Empire.
However, other features of Roman times changed. Thus, the importance of large cities, commerce or mining disappears. The circulation of currency was scarce. The only trade of any importance was that of luxury products that came from the Mediterranean, and that was managed by international merchants.
Political institutions
The Monarchy
The king was the supreme head of the community. The monarchical institution had long been entrenched in the Visigothic people when they arrived in the Peninsula. The kings had to be of noble status and acceded to the throne through an elective system in which the bishops and the palatine magnates intervened. But with this system only three kings were enthroned (Chintila, Wamba and Rodrigo). The association to the throne was, in practice, the most common way, along with usurpations, to seize power. The monarch was anointed by God and to Him he owed his legitimacy; Thus, royalty possessed a sacred character, which was supposed to deter any attempt to attack the king. But that was not enough and the assassinations of monarchs, rebellions, conspiracies and usurpations were bargaining chips in the Visigothic kingdom.
Next to the king was the Aula Regia, an advisory council made up of nobles.
Territorial administration
The Visigoths accepted the provincial division of Roman Hispania. At the head of the provinces they put the duces (singular, dux; in Spanish, «dukes») and at the head of the cities the comites (comes, «counts»).
Municipal institutions, on the other hand, fell into decline. The municipal curials, in charge of collecting taxes in the cities, continue and accentuate their fall. They are stripped of their tributary power and this falls into the hands of the duces and the comes. These will assume much of the administrative work of the kingdom and will govern provinces or regions with full powers in administration and justice. Beginning a process of protofeudalization.
Public Finance
It was made up of the Royal Treasury, the patrimony of the crown and the income from taxes.
The Royal Treasury was made up of the large amounts of gold, silver and jewels that the Visigoths had looted throughout their history. The person in charge of its custody was the comes thesauri and it went through various vicissitudes. After the defeat of Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507, the treasure passed to Ravenna in the custody of the Ostrogoths and was reinstated in 526 after the death of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great.
It was divided into two clearly differentiated groups (different locations):
- New treasure: gold and silver coins with which they paid the army, administration, etc.
- Ancient treasure: with the stored jewels of looting. Among these pieces was surely the "Mess of Solomon" and it is speculated that there was also the "Candelabra of the Seven Armies", both objects captured in the plunder to Rome by Alarico.
The Royal Treasury was a very important reserve for the Visigothic kingdom and its monarchs did not hesitate to use it to pay allies in their internal struggles.
The patrimony of the crown was immense and was made up above all by the large amount of land that the monarchs amassed. These came from various sources: those expropriated by the constant purges carried out among the nobility, deserted or uninhabited lands, and lands from the Roman treasury. These lands were leased to serfs who cultivated them and paid rent. All were administered by the count of the patrimony. In the VIII Council of Toledo under the reign of Recesvinto, a separation was established between the patrimony of the monarch and that of the State.
Taxes in the Visigothic kingdom is not a clear issue. Smallholders and serfs who cultivated royal lands are known to have paid tribute. It seems that there was also a tax on the clergy, but it did not continue over time. Jews were subjected to a special tax. Bishops and numerarii established the exchange of money into kind and officials of the central administration were in charge of its collection; at the head of the tax organization was the count of heritage.
Councils of Toledo
Between the years 400 and 702, eighteen councils were held in Toledo in which, assembled in assembly, the bishops of all the dioceses of Hispania submitted matters of both a political and religious nature for consideration, regardless of the power to which they were subjected. (Suevo, Visigoth or Byzantine).
Among these issues, which were not strictly religious, were the rules for the election of kings, the approval of dethronements or the condemnation of rebels. It was in the councils, moreover, where they decided on the persecution of the Jews.
Ecclesiastical Division
For knowledge of the Visigothic ecclesiastical geography, several sources can be used, such as the Hitation of Wamba from the end of the VII century century, the signatures of prelates in the acts of the Councils of Toledo, the works of Idacio or Isidoro of Seville and the so-called Nomina sedium episcoplaium studied by Claudio Sánchez Albornoz.
The limits of the provinces coincided with the ancient Roman provinces, with the exception of the kingdom of the Suevi, whose territory was divided into two ecclesiastical provinces, whose capitals were Braga and Lugo. The Archdiocese of Braga included four dioceses that once belonged to Lusitania: Lamecum, Viseum, Conimbrica and Egitania. In the middle of the VII century they became dependent on Mérida.
At this time, Narbonensis was a region belonging to the Visigothic state, which had six metropolitan centers:
- Gallaecia, capital Braga.
- Lusitania, capital Merida.
- Bética, capital Seville.
- Cartaginense, capital Toledo.
- Tarraconense, capital Tarragona.
- Narbonense, capital Narbona.
Visigothic art of Hispania
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Architecture
Today we can still see different Visigothic religious constructions such as San Pedro de la Nave, in the town of El Campillo (Zamora), from the VII, the church of Santa María de Melque, in San Martín de Montalbán (Toledo), which was born as part of a monastic complex in the VII, and others, as detailed:
- the hermitage of Santa Maria, located in the burgalesa town of Quintanilla de las Viñas;
- the church of San Juan, in Baños de Cerrato (Palencia) of Latin basilical type;
- the churches of San Martín and Santa Comba de Bande, both of Orense and of a kind more or less Byzantine in the form of a Greek cross;
- the chapel of San Fructuoso de Montelius in Braga, Portugal;
- the church of Saint Lucia del Trampal in Alcuéscar, Cáceres;
- the crypt of San Antolín, in the Cathedral of Palencia.
The horseshoe arch, which would later be adopted by the Muslims, is characteristic of Visigothic architecture.
In terms of archaeological remains of Visigothic civil architecture, Recópolis stands out, an ancient city of Visigothic origin located near Zorita de los Canes (Guadalajara). It was ordered to be built by Leovigildo in honor of his son Recaredo in 578. It functioned as an important urban center, capital of a Visigothic province called Celtiberia, with imprecise limits, east of Carpetania (Toledo, the capital of the kingdom). The complex is considered "one of the most transcendental sites of the Middle Ages, as it is the only new city built by state initiative at the beginning of the High Middle Ages in Europe" according to Lauro Olmo Enciso, professor of archeology at the University of Alcalá. The remains of a palatine complex, a Visigothic basilica, houses and craft workshops have been identified.
Goldsmithing
Votive crowns and crosses
One of the most striking samples of Visigothic art in Hispania, is due to the discovery of the treasure of Guarrazar, it is a treasure of Visigothic goldsmiths made up of crowns and crosses that several kings of Toledo offered in their day as ex-voto. It was found between 1858 and 1861 in the archaeological site called Huerta de Guarrazar, located in the town of Guadamur, very close to Toledo. The pieces are distributed between the Cluny Museum in Paris, the Royal Palace Armory and the National Archaeological Museum, both in Madrid.
Of the crowns, the Crown of Recesvinto is the one that attracts the most attention due to its gold work and beauty, with letters hanging from it, on it you can read «Reccesvinthvs Rex offeret» («King Reccesvinto [it] offered her»).
Aquiliform fibulae
The aquiliform fibulas (eagle-shaped) that have been discovered in necropolises such as Duratón, Madrona or Castiltierra (towns in the province of Segovia), of great archaeological importance, are an unequivocal sign of the Visigothic presence in Spain. These brooches were used singly or in pairs, as a brooch or safety pin made of gold, bronze and glass to join the clothing, the work of the goldsmiths of Visigothic Hispania, archaeologically there is no doubt that these brooches belonged to the Visigothic people, present in Hispania from from the V century of our era. Those found in Alovera (Guadalajara) stand out, and can be seen in the illustration What is above these lines?
Plates and Belt Buckles
The plates and belt buckles found in Spain are objects with a double function, for daily and ornamental use, a symbol of rank and distinction of Visigothic women, they are large and rectangular buckles. Some pieces contain exceptional Byzantine-style lapis lazuli inlays. Those found in the Visigothic necropolis of Castiltierra (Segovia), from the V-VII, are made of cast bronze and iron, with vitreous paste decoration following the technique of honeycombed enamel mosaic or Cloisonné, is a technique that can use inlays of precious stones, glass or other materials.
Historians such as G. G. Koenig see in the pieces from Spain, characteristics similar to the Danubian style of clothing of the centuries V -VI. According to Professor Michel Kazanski, Director of Research at the French National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS), this it developed north of the Black Sea around 400 AD, and was later brought to the West by Germanic peoples.
There is quite a lot of variety in the decoration, the gold and silverware pieces from the Visigothic tombs of Aguilafuente (Segovia) are noteworthy, especially those found in the tomb of a woman, believed to be from the VI, in which the buckle was accompanied by two fibulas and several characteristic jewels of the Visigothic female costume. In the Visigothic necropolis there are also bracelets of different metals, pearl necklaces and earrings, inlaid with colored glass. All these jewels have been found in tombs in central Visigothic Hispania, such as the Madrona necropolis (Segovia), which has a fairly varied set of these ornamental elements. The Aguilafuente site consists of more than two hundred tombs.
Linguistic influence on the Spanish language
For the Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula, language was not a distinguishing factor between them and the Hispano-Romans (who lived in the territory before their arrival); both groups spoke the same language, Vulgar Latin. Despite this, the original Gothic language and other aspects of the culture of the Visigoths had a linguistic impact on some aspects of Spanish today. In other words, there are linguistic reflections of the social contact between the Hispano-Romans and the Visigoths in the Spanish language today.
Phonetically, there are no traces. However, there are traces of their language in the morphology and lexicology of Spanish. For example, certain words retain the Gothic suffix -ing, which would become -engo. We can see examples of this in the words "ancestry" and "royalty."
Certain types of words reflect the two cultures and their own languages; We can see the linguistic influence of the Visigoths in Spanish in words related to commerce, agriculture, industry, housing, and law. Initially, the words were likely loan words from the Gothic language, but gradually developed to be more similar to Spanish and easier to pronounce for a vernacular Latin speaker and, later, for a Spanish speaker.
The Hispano-Romans also took words from the Goths and adapted them to their vernacular language; for example, the word soap is derived from a Gothic word: saipo → sapone → soap. The Visigoths introduced a concept for the Hispano-Romans (in this case, the new concept of soap) and adapted the original Gothic word (from saipo) to make it easier to pronounce and more similar to a Romance language., also from the Gothic word reiks comes "rich". Other words in the Spanish language come from Gothic words related to the military or diplomatic. The word "war" replaced the Latin word bellum. «War» derives from the Gothic language as follows: werra → guerre → war, the word «guard» derives from Gothic wardja , the word "truce" derives from the Gothic triggwa.
Of particular interest is the impact of the Visigoths on anthroponymy, which is a branch of onomastics that studies proper names. In fact, many common Spanish names have their origins in the Gothic language due to the presence of the Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula for more than two hundred years. For example, the name "Fernando" is derived from a combination of two Gothic words: frithu ('peace') and nanth (' daring'). Gradually the Hispano-Romans adapted them to form a new name, Fridenandus, and finally they became "Fernando". We can also see this process in the name «Álvaro», which derives from the words all and wars, which mean 'everything' respectively. and 'Forewarned'. «Alfonso» is composed of a combination of all and funs ('preparado'). More anthroponyms of Gothic origin are Rodrigo, (from hrod, 'fame, glory', and reiks, 'powerful, rich', means 'warrior', 'famous warrior'), Rosendo, Argimiro, Elvira, Gonzalo, Alberto, etc.