The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia

Construction and Invention

Santiago Castellanos

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780812297423
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

The structures of the late ancient Visigothic kingdom of Iberia were rooted in those of Roman Hispania, Santiago Castellanos argues, but Catholic bishops subsequently produced a narrative of process and power from the episcopal point of view that became the official record and primary documentation for all later historians. The delineation of these two discrete projects—of construction and invention—form the core of The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia.Castellanos reads documents of the period that are little known to many Anglophone scholars, including records of church councils, sermons, and letters, and utilizes archaeological findings to determine how the political system of elites related to local communities, and how the documentation they created promoted an ideological agenda. Looking particularly at the archaeological record, he finds that rural communities in the region were complex worlds unto themselves, with clear internal social stratification little recognized by the literate elites.

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 It was decades since it had withdrawn from Britannia, and in the end it had lost control of a large part of Gaul, Africa, and Hispania.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.

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 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 particular attention during Theoderic II’s campaigns in 456 and 457, and it would not be strange for it to be decided that 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 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 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 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...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1. The Collapse of the Roman Empire in Hispania: Between the Texts and the Archaeological Revolution
• Chapter 2. Political Overview: The Beginnings of the Gothic Kingdom in Iberia
• Chapter 3. Structures of Power: Magnates and Dependents
• Chapter 4. Negotiating and Imposing: Kings and Local Worlds
• Chapter 5. Inventing a Kingdom: Projecting Messages
• Conclusion
• Chronology
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgments