Visigoths

From Hispanopedia
Route of the Visigothic campaigns in the time of Alaric I.
The Visigothic Kingdom and the provinces of Visigothic Hispania (625 to 711).

The Visigoths were a branch of the Gothic peoples, who in turn belong to the East Germanic peoples. They emerged from earlier Gothic groups (possibly from the Thervingi)[1] that had invaded the Roman Empire from 376 onward and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in the year 378.

Under the command of Alaric I they invaded the Italian Peninsula and sacked Rome in the year 410; later they settled in the south of Gaul as foederati of the Roman Empire, where they established a kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, which extended its authority to Hispania, taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In the year 507 they were defeated by the Franks of Clovis at the Battle of Vouillé, after which the Visigothic Kingdom was confined to Hispania, together with a territory located beyond the Pyrenees: Septimania. The Visigoths were a ruling minority over the Hispano-Roman population, separated from it fundamentally by their religious beliefs, since they were Arian Christians, while the local population was Roman Christian. The conversion of King Reccared made the coexistence of both peoples possible, and the kingdom consolidated its power with the support of the Church.

The Visigoths did not fully dominate the Iberian Peninsula until the end of the 7th century. The Alans, a people of Iranian origin, the Vandals and the Suebi occupied territories in Hispania. The first two, with the Vandals predominant, moved to Africa, where they created a powerful state centered on Carthage. As for the Suebi, they created their own kingdom in Gallaecia, with its capital at Braga, and were not defeated until 585. In the Pyrenean stretch the Vascones put up tenacious resistance to Visigothic rule, and it seems that the Cantabri and the Astures did so as well, although the sources on this are scarce. In the region of the province of Carthaginensis a precarious Roman administration was maintained under Visigothic sovereignty, until in the 6th century it was reconquered by the Empire and became the province of Spania, which after a century fell once again into the hands of the Visigoths.

The kingdom of the Visigoths was afflicted by frequent succession disputes, which made possible its defeat by the Muslim invaders from North Africa (711). Its last king was Roderic, and although centers of resistance remained in Septimania and in Asturias, the Visigothic people disappeared as such, mixed with the Hispano-Romans and replaced by the Umayyad caliphate.

Thervingi and Greuthungi

Gutthiuda, the territory of the Thervingian confederation[2] on the Danube in the 4th century.

The division of the Goths is mentioned for the first time in 291, where the Thervingi appear.[3] This first mention took place in a panegyric to the Emperor Maximian (285–305), delivered in the year 291 or shortly afterward (or perhaps delivered in Trier on April 20, 292)[4] and traditionally attributed to Claudius Mamertinus,[5] which says that the "Thervingi, another division of the Goths" (Tervingi pars alia Gothorum) joined the Taifals to attack the Vandals and the Gepids. The term "Vandals" may be mistaken and actually refer to the Victohali, because around the year 360 the historian Eutropius relates that Dacia was then (nunc) inhabited by the Taifals, Victohali and Thervingi.[6]

Contemporary references to the Gothic tribes used the terms Vesi, Austrogothi, Tervingi and Greuthungi. Most scholars have concluded that the terms Vesi and Tervingi were both used to refer to one particular tribe, while the terms Ostrogothi and Greuthungi were used to refer to another. Herwig Wolfram indicates that the primary sources do not mix the names of the peoples: they mention on the one hand the pair Thervingi–Greuthungi and on the other the pair Vesi–Ostrogoths, and not in any other combination, although occasionally all four names are listed as Gruthungi, Austrogothi, Tervingi, Visi.[7] According to Herwig Wolfram, in the Notitia Dignitatum the Vesi are equated with the Thervingi in a reference to the years 388–391;[3] this is not clear in the Notitia itself. There is a great scholarly debate over the identification of the Vesi with the Thervingi and of the Greuthungi with the Ostrogoths. That the Thervingi were the Visigoths and the Greuthungi the Ostrogoths is also indicated by Jordanes,[1] who identified the Visigothic kings from Alaric I to Alaric II as the heirs of the 4th-century Thervingian judge Athanaric; and the Ostrogothic kings from Theodoric the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungian King Ermanaric. This interpretation, however, although widely accepted among present-day scholars, is not universal.

For Wolfram there is continuity between the Thervingi and the Visigoths, and between the Greuthungi and the Ostrogoths. The Gothic defeats in the time of Claudius II and Aurelian would have caused the Goths to split.[8] East of the Dniester remained the Greuthungi,[9] and on the Lower Danube the Thervingi, together with other peoples such as the Taifals or Sarmatians,[10] formed a confederation of peoples headed by a judge, Athanaric. From this confederation of peoples the Visigoths would emerge. For Heather, on the contrary, the division of the Goths was brought about by the invasion of the Huns: the Visigoths would result from a mixture of Thervingi and Greuthungi, and followers of Radagaisus, who settled south of the Danube at the end of the 4th century; while the Ostrogoths would be the result of the union of the forces of Theodoric II and Theodoric the Great at the end of the 5th century.[11] Roger Collins believes that the Visigothic identity arose from the Gothic War (376–382), when a body of Thervingi, Greuthungi and other "barbarian" contingents formed a federated army in the eastern Balkans that did not integrate into Roman society,[12] and which therefore could not be recognized solely as Thervingi.

Wolfram indicates that Vesi and Ostrogothi were the terms each tribe used to describe itself, the Vesi being the 'good ones' and the Ostrogoths the 'Goths of the rising sun'; while Tervingi and Greuthungi were geographical identifiers with which each tribe would describe the other tribe,[13] which would explain why these latter terms fell out of use after the year 400, when the Goths had been displaced by the invasions of the Huns.[3]

The term Visigoth is an invention of the 6th century. Cassiodorus, who was a Roman in the service of King Theodoric the Great, invented the term Visigothi to match that of Ostrogothi; thus, since he thought that the latter term meant eastern Goths, he invented a term to designate the western Goths.[14] The term Visigoth was used in the Visigothic Kingdom itself, as it appears in its diplomatic relations with Italy in the 7th century.[15]

History

Gothic invasions of the Roman Empire in 267–269.

During the 3rd century the Gothic peoples, the Greuthungi and the Thervingi, carried out raids against the Empire, notably those of 251 (against Moesia and Thrace), of 258–259 (against the coast of the Black Sea, the Propontis, the islands of the Aegean, Ephesus, Athens and other places) and of 269 (against Crete, Cyprus, Thessalonica and other places). Between the years 270 and 273, the Roman Emperor Aurelian abandoned Dacia, the region north of the Danube, and around 300 the Thervingi undertook the occupation of the territory,[16] and entered the service of the Romans as mercenaries.

The treasure called "Hen with golden chicks," discovered in Pietroasele, Romania, attributed to the Visigoths.[17]

Penetration into the Roman Empire

Around the year 370 the Greuthungi were ruled by a King named Ermanaric or Ermrich, the first historical king of the Amal dynasty, who in 375 had to confront the Huns led by Balamber. Ermanaric, by then an old man, was gravely wounded in an assassination attempt and committed suicide in the face of imminent defeat; he was succeeded by Vithimiris, whose attempt to resist the Huns was unsuccessful and who was himself killed, so that the Greuthungi were subjugated by the Huns.

But the Thervingi under the command of Alavivus and Fritigern, who numbered some two hundred thousand, gathered on the northern bank of the Danube and asked the Empire, against which they had fought a few years earlier, to accept them into its territories and grant them lands on which to settle. This group was allowed to settle on the southern bank of the Danube and in the Balkans (Thrace and Moesia). But the exploitation to which they were subjected by imperial officials and Roman military commanders created a situation that was unbearable to their pride. Fritigern and the great Visigothic landowners lodged complaints, and the Roman general Lupicinus attempted to assassinate Fritigern during a banquet; the attempt failed and Lupicinus was killed. Fritigern and the Visigoths rebelled (377) at Marcianopolis (Moesia Inferior), defeating the imperial forces at the Battle of Adrianople (August 9, 378), in which the Emperor Valens died. His successor, Theodosius, after fighting them for some time, made peace with them (381), but had to settle them more firmly within the Empire and give them an important role in the army.

Alaric I, the first to rule over all the Visigoths, an important raider into the Roman Empire. 1894 photographic reproduction of a painting by Ludwig Thiersch.

The Visigoths played a prominent part in the civil wars of 388 (against Magnus Maximus) and 394 (against the pagan Eugenius). When Theodosius died (January 17, 395), his empire was divided: the East went to his son Arcadius and the West was assigned to his second son, Honorius, who was only 11 years old, for which reason Theodosius had designated as his Regent the general Stilicho, head of his army. The Visigoths were ruled by Alaric I, whom Jordanes stated belonged to the lineage of the Balti, as a means of increasing his prestige.[18] Alaric attacked Constantinople and ravaged Greece between the years 395 and 398. General Stilicho managed to drive them out of Greece, but the Emperor, fearful of the general's power, appointed Alaric governor of Illyricum, thereby securing five years of peace (396 to 401).

Galla Placidia, born in the year 391 and daughter of Theodosius, had been betrothed since childhood to a son of Stilicho when the Visigoths led by Alaric entered northern Italy in the year 401. Stilicho was executed in the revolts after the year 406, and Galla's betrothal was annulled. Alaric invaded Italy with his army, marched on Rome and imposed a Roman, Attalus, as ruler. He was unable to subdue Honorius, although in August 410 he was able to enter Rome, and his Goths sacked it, also obtaining Galla Placidia as the most important part of the booty. He then headed south to occupy Sicily with the intention of controlling Africa, the main center of Roman provisioning. He died shortly after attempting to cross the sea, and his successor, Ataulf, abandoned this attempt and turned back north, but, seeking an agreement with Honorius in order to serve him, he married his captive Galla Placidia at Narbonne in the year 414.

Statue of Ataulf. He agreed with Honorius to leave Italy in exchange for the granting of the government of Gaul.

The sack of Rome

In 401 Alaric marched against Rome but was defeated near Pollentia (April 6, 402) and afterward at Verona. Stilicho probably negotiated with Alaric for his help against other barbarians such as Radagaisus, and it is believed that he was offered confirmation as Magister militum and governor of Illyricum, with boundaries that conflicted with the territorial claims of the East. The Roman nationalist party, perhaps instigated by the government of Constantinople, accused Stilicho of preparing to hand the Empire over to Alaric and hatched a plot. A revolt of troops broke out that forced Stilicho to take refuge in a church, and he was killed at the moment he came out (after being promised that his life would be spared if he came out) by Olympius, on the orders of the Emperor Honorius (August 23, 408). Alaric returned to Italy and obtained new concessions from Honorius, who had established himself at Ravenna, but once the Visigoths had withdrawn, Honorius did not keep his promises. The Visigoths marched on Rome and supported the proclamation of a usurper named Priscus Attalus (409), who was of Ionian origin and probably an Arian, and who granted Alaric the title of Magister militum.

But Attalus would not or could not keep his promises, and the Visigothic King returned to Rome and laid siege to it. For the first time in its history since the Gallic invasion, Rome fell to a foreign King. After it was taken by Alaric, he deposed the usurper (August 24, 410) and his men sacked the Eternal City for three days, after which they abandoned it, taking with them Attalus and Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius. From Rome they moved south, devastating Campania, Apulia and Calabria. Alaric died at the siege of Cosenza (410) and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Ataulf. Ataulf agreed with Honorius to leave Italy in exchange for the granting of the government of Gaul (territories that were escaping Rome's control, since they had submitted to Constantine). The fall of Rome was a very hard blow for the Roman world of that time, because the Eternal City was believed to be impregnable.

Idealized effigy of Wallia. National Library of Spain.

Settlement in Gaul

Main article: Germanic invasions of the Iberian Peninsula

The Visigoths under Ataulf left Italy (412) and, in exchange for lands for peace, went to central and southern Gaul and later to northern Hispania. Ataulf's long and complex struggles to dominate southern Gaul occupied him for several years (411 to 414). In 414 King Ataulf, who after an alliance with Honorius and with the Magister militum Constantius had gone back to acting on his own account, married Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius, who had been abducted by Alaric. Constantius was sent to the area and the Visigoths were defeated at Narbonne. Constantius managed to divert Ataulf toward Hispania (which allowed him to keep southern Gaul), and the Visigoths entered Tarraconensis in 415.

That same year Ataulf was assassinated in Barcelona. Wallia, his successor, tried to settle his people in Africa, but a storm ruined his plans. The Visigoths, short of provisions, proposed an alliance with the Roman Empire, in whose name they would undertake to fight the Suebi, Alans, Hasding Vandals and Siling Vandals, who occupied the provinces of Hispania (except Tarraconensis),[citation needed] and to hand over Galla Placidia; in exchange Honorius would send them supplies. Thus the Visigoths wiped out the Siling Vandals of Baetica and the Alans of Lusitania, but Honorius changed his plans and resettled the Visigoths in Gaul in 418.

Visigothic Kingdom

Kingdom of Toulouse around the year 500 (inaccurate, but useful for comparison).
Main article: Visigothic Kingdom

Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse

Main article: Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse

In 418, by virtue of a pact, they settled in the Roman province of Aquitania Secunda in southern Gaul and succeeded in founding a kingdom with its capital at Tolosa (present-day Toulouse).

They intervened as allies of the Empire to subdue other tribes in Hispania, and in 451 they took part in the defeat of the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

The height of Visigothic power was reached during the reign of Euric (466–484), who completed the conquest of Hispania, except for Gallaecia (held by the Suebi until 585, the year in which Liuvigild conquered it).

In 507 Alaric II was defeated at Vouillé by the Franks of Clovis I, losing all his possessions north of the Pyrenees except Septimania or Gallia Narbonensis (with a Gallo-Roman population). This province, of vital importance for the trade of the period, remained until the end in the hands of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. The cities of Narbonne and Toledo (the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania) were the poles of Visigothic policy.

Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo

Conversion of Reccared I from Arianism to Catholicism, by Muñoz Degrain. Palace of the Senate, Madrid.
Visigothic kings (Chindasuinth, Recceswinth and Egica) according to the Codex Vigilanus.
Votive crown of King Recceswinth.
Main article: Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo

The Visigoths entered the peninsula in 427 under the command of Theodoric I, charged with subduing other Germanic peoples in exchange for lands. They cornered the Suebi in Gallaecia, wiped out the Alans and forced the Vandals to move to Africa.

After a period of Ostrogothic domination, Amalaric restored the independence of the kingdom and established the capital at Narbonne, until the Franks entered Narbonensis and he fled to Barcelona. Later Toledo (the ancient Toletum) would become the new Visigothic capital of Hispania.

Under the reign of Athanagild the Byzantines established themselves in the Levante, and they were not expelled until the reign of Suintila in 625. During the reign of Liuvigild the Visigothic state was consolidated, and the Suebic Kingdom was incorporated into it. His successor Reccared converted to Catholicism, and under his reign the Third Council of Toledo took place.

King Recceswinth imposed (around 654) the Visigothic law common to both Gothic and Roman subjects, who until then had lived under different legal codes (see Germanic laws). The Councils of Toledo became the main force of the Visigothic State, as a consequence of the weakening of the monarchy.

Wamba Renouncing the Crown (Juan Antonio Ribera, 1819).

Under Liuvigild the territorial unification of the Iberian Peninsula took place, and marriages with Hispano-Romans were permitted. Under Reccared religious unification took place. Arianism was abandoned and the kingdom officially converted to Catholicism, beginning a distancing from the Church of Rome (favorable to Byzantium, as heir of the Roman Empire). From then on, the ethnographic differences between Goths and Hispano-Romans dissolved, and various Gothic customs were abandoned. Under Recceswinth legislative unity was achieved under a single Code of Law, the Liber Iudiciorum.

At the end of the 7th century, the internal struggles for power between two great branches of the nobility and the clergy were continuous. In addition, the social and economic crisis brought the Visigothic Kingdom to a critical situation of control. King Wamba, successor of Recceswinth, was fighting the Vascones in the north of the Peninsula when a new rebellion arose in Septimania, and although he managed to pacify it, he was deposed in strange circumstances. The conflicts became widespread during the reigns of Egica and Wittiza. When the last king, Roderic, attained the throne, his rivals turned[clarification needed] to the North African Muslim leader Tariq ibn Ziyad, who, with his victory (711) at the Battle of Guadalete, near Medina Sidonia, began the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Between the years 716 and 725, the Muslims conquered Septimania, the last Visigothic province, putting an end to the Visigothic Kingdom and inaugurating the Islamic period in the history of Spain and of Portugal.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Heather 2011, pp. 52–57, 300–301.
  2. ↑ Wolfram 1990, p. 91.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Wolfram 1990, p. 24.
  4. ↑ Guizot, I, 357.
  5. ↑ Genethl. Max. 17, 1.
  6. ↑ Vékony 2000, p. 156, citing Eutropius, Brev., 8, 2, 2.
  7. ↑ Wolfram 1990, pp. 24–25.
  8. ↑ Wolfram 1990, pp. 57, 128.
  9. ↑ Heather 2011, p. 44.
  10. ↑ Wolfram 1990, p. 93.
  11. ↑ Valverde Castro 2000, p. 19.
  12. ↑ Collins 2005, pp. 24–25.
  13. ↑ Wolfram 1990, pp. 25, 69.
  14. ↑ Wolfram 1990, p. 25.
  15. ↑ Wolfram 1990, p. 26.
  16. ↑ Burns 1991, p. 30.
  17. ↑ Odobescu 1889, p. 1-100.
  18. ↑ Valverde Castro 2000, p. 35.

Bibliography

  • Amory, Patrick (2003). People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 52152 635 3.
  • Bachrach, Bernard S. (1973). "A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy 589-711". American Historical Review. 78, no. 1: 11–34.
  • Burns, Thomas S. (1991). A History of the Ostro-Goths. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253206008.
  • Collins, Roger (1991). La conquista árabe, 710-797 (in español). Barcelona: Crítica.
  • — (1992). Law, Culture, and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Great Yarmouth: Variorum. ISBN 0 86078 308 1.
  • — (2005). La España visigoda: 419-711 (in español). Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN 84 8432 636 5.
  • Constable, Olivia Remie (1997). "A Muslim-Christian Treaty: The Treaty of Tudmir (713)". Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 37–38.
  • Constable, Olivia Remie; Adams, Jeremy duQ. (1997). "Visigothic Legislation concerning the Jews". Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 21–23.
  • Cortés Copete, Juan Manuel (December 2007). "Una princesa entre bárbaros: Gala Placidia". Historia National Geographic (in español) (46): 80–89.
  • García Moreno, Luis A. (1999). Ferreiro, Alberto (ed.). "Spanish Gothic consciousness among the Mozarabs in al-Andalus (VIII-Xth centuries)". The Visigoths. Studies in Culture and Society. Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill: 303–323.
  • Glick, Thomas F. (1979). Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages: Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Heather, Peter (2011). Empires and Barbarians. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9780330540216.
  • Hillgarth, J. N. (2010). The Visigoths in History and Legend. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-0-88844-166-9.
  • Odobescu, Alexandru (1889). Le Trésor de Pétrossa. Étude sur l'orfèvrerie antique (in français). Éditions J. Rothschchild.
  • Valverde Castro, María R. (2000). Ideología, simbolismo y ejercicio del poder real en la monarquía visigoda: un proceso de cambio (in español). Universidad de Salamanca. ISBN 9788478009404.
  • Vékony, Gábor (2000). Dacians-Romans-Romanians. Toronto: Matthias Corvinus Publishing. ISBN 1-882785-13-4. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
  • Wolfram, Herwig (1990). History of the Goths. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520069831.
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