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Eleven: The Earlier Sixth Century and the Goths in Spain
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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Eleven The Earlier Sixth Century and the Goths in Spain 256 † he growing Christianization of the physical and social world of the fifth and sixth centuries is undoubtedly their most significant feature, with church power extending into the void left by the decay of older forms of urban authority . The old municipal institutions did not simply disappear. Some continue to be attested where sources exist, and in much of the peninsula, political life devolved to the level of the civitas in the absence of any more effective power. For this reason, it is very difficult to impose any shape on the history of the Spanish provinces as a whole during the first seven decades of the sixth century. They were a continuation of the confused pattern of local developments that we have seen in the later fifth century. Only with the accession of the Gothic king Leovigild does Spanish history develop a certain unity once again. Most of our evidence for the earlier sixth century deals with the activity of Gothic kings and derives from the very late sixth or the seventh century, when a Gothic kingdom encompassed almost the whole of the peninsula. That fact has consequences: the Gothic kings bulk far larger in our sources than they did in the history of the peninsula as a whole, with the result that we can all too easily retroject late sixth- or seventh-century Gothic strength into the earlier parts of the sixth century. But to do so is misleading. For the Spanish provinces, the sixth century opened much as the previous one had closed. The Gothic kings may have claimed hegemony over the peninsula, but there is little evidence that such claims were widely accepted. Even in Tarraconensis, Gothic control was precarious , as the campaigns against the “tyrants” Burdunelus and Petrus had shown.1 The church council of Agde, held in 506 under King Alaric’s patronage, provides similar evidence of this weakness.2 The council met on 10 September 506, under the presidency of Caesarius of Arles.3 As a council of Nicene bishops within the Gothic kingdom, the bishops who met at Agde set about confirming the authority of earlier councils and creating a uniform discipline for the kingdom’s church.4 Though twenty-four bishops, eight priests, and two deacons represented most of the churches of the Gothic kingdom, they counted no Spaniards among their number. Provisions were made for a further council in the following year, at which Spanish confratres might attend, but their total absence from Agde is telling.5 That it caused concern at all suggests that royal claims to Tarraconensis, and perhaps to Spain as a whole, were broadly known and acknowledged, that the Spanish confratres were regarded as belonging to Gothic kingdom; at the same time, their absence from Agde itself suggests that Spain, Tarraconensis included, lay outside the Gothic kingdom in practical terms.6 Spain and Theodoric the Great This situation only changed with the great upheaval of 507, when Alaric’s monarchy was overthrown on the battlefield of Vouillé. Thereafter , Gothic kings were forced first to reside in Spain while attempting to reconquer Gaul, then to make Spain their chief field of activity. Alaric’s downfall was rapid. During 506 and 507, he and the Frankish king Clovis edged toward war.7 The Ostrogothic king Theodoric, brother-in-law of Clovis and father-in-law of Alaric, sought to downplay the causes of dispute and forestall the outbreak of open conflict, calling on the Burgundian king Gundobad to help him restrain his neighbors.8 He promised Alaric support, but only if he sought arbitration , and threatened Clovis with war if he did not show similar restraint .9 Alaric and Clovis met on an island in the Loire river, but failed to patch up their differences, and so Theodoric’s efforts came to The Earlier Sixth Century and the Goths in Spain 257 [54.81.185.66] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:27 GMT) naught.10 Clovis marched south, Gundobad chose to stand with Clovis , and Theodoric’s fear that the Visigoths were not up to the fight proved fully justified.11 Alaric’s kingdom stood behind him and Apollinaris , the grandson of Sidonius, headed a contingent of Arvernian aristocrats in the battle against Clovis.12 The Frankish and Gothic armies met near the town of Poitiers, far to the north of Toulouse, at a site called Voglada, Vogladum, or the campus Vogladensis, traditionally...