[gothic-l] Re: Visigoths not "Booted Out"

Tue Jul 20 08:40:11 UTC 2004

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "F.E.J.D. IV" <visigoth at a...> wrote:
> James,
> You seem to be somewhat confused about this period of history.
> The Visigoths were absolutely not as you say "booted out of Spain".
> Neither is there evidence of any meaningful emigration outside of
> Spain after their defeat in 711. Rather- after Guadalete, a great
many
> of remaining Visigoths retreated to Asturias, an area never occupied
> by the moors.

The available sources suggest that most Visigoths, who had at any
rate become Hispanics by that time, remained where they were after
the defeat of Guadalete.

It is from Asturias that an organized resistance against
> the moors (see covadonga) began under the leadership of Pelagius,
> attested in period documents to have been a Visigoth noble and one
of
> King Roderick's bodyguards.

This is mostly unattested to be honest. The battle of Covadonga was
probably nothing more than a minor skirmish with no military
significance. (See a lengthy discussion with involvement of a
professional historian on the Germanic-L) Pelagius is only in sources
that post date the period by several centruries made into a bodyguard
of Roderich. Contemporary sources descibe him as minor chieftain and
leader of '30 wild donkeys). He may have been a chieftain of some
mountain people in the Asturias region. In fact, the resistance that
grouped together in Asturias was possibly not carried by refugee
Visigoths, but by the local Asturians who had always been independent
minded.

Fafila, the son of Pelagius was actually
> recognized as Rex Gothorum (King of the Goths) by the Pope after his
> father's death.

Can you please provide the evidence for this.

Roderick was of course the last king of the Toletan
> Gothia.

The terms Toletan Gothia is rather strange, as the Visigoths were
keen to integrate into the Hispanic/Romanic majority population since
the begining of the 7th century. In fact the council documents of the
late Visigothic kingdom show that they dropped the name Goths almost
completely around the middle of the 7th century and replaced it by
Hispanic.

 I might also add that some Visigoths were allowed to stay-on
> in their lands in Castile, (North-Central Spain)and elsewhere after
> the moorish invasion, however, the conditions under which they
existed
> became increasingly intolerable and led to what is termed as the
> "Martyr's Movement".

'Some Visigoths' is a mild understatement. Visigothic leaders even
retained large semi-independent princedoms under the Moors like
Theodemir/Thudmir. We know that Moorish leaders married into the
royal Visigothic family and much of the hardship was felt by both
Moors/Moslems conqueres and the Spanish natives, because it was due
to a string of draughts and famines that struck Spain in the early
8th century. The 'Marty's Movement' is the invention of later
revisionists, as is the story that the defeat at Guadalete was almost
insignificant and quickly reversed by organised resitance from
Asturias. The fact is that the Visigothic kingdom collapsed entirely
after this one battle, because it had been very weak and devided for
many decades. Economic decline of the Visigothic kingdom started
around the 640s AD and by the time the Moors arrived much of the land
was impoverished. Instead, the Moslems ruled much of Spain very
succesfully for many centuries.

The intolerable conditions leading to the
> Martyr's Movement caused many individuals, the majority being
> Visigoths, to migrate northward to Asturias and Leon in northern
> Spain. By that time a considerable amount of territory had already
> been retaken from the moors. The latter migration is well documented
> in period documents once archived at the library of the monastery of
> Sahagun and subsequent onomastic research. (Fortunately, there is a
> wealth of documentation in Spain even from the time of the
Visigoths,
> which unfortunately has not yet been fully exploited by
researchers).
> A paper, based on such documents and whose findings further support
> the stated migration was recently published and accounts for a
sudden
> dearth of Gothic names in the Visigothic area under Moorish control
> and a subsequent flood of Gothic names in the areas under Christian
> control to the north in Asturias and Leon. I will present some
> highlights of that paper at a later time.

We are looking foreward to this. But you should note that
Visigothic/Germanic names in the 7th and 8th centuries are no longer
indication of Visigothic/Germanic ethnicity. Dietrich Claude has
shown that Visigothic/Germanic personal names were adopted by the
local Romano-Hispanic majority population already in the 6th century,
while in turn Visigoths adopted Romanic names. Hence, a increase in
Visigothic personal names in Asturias in the 8th century would only
show that Spaniards from the south arrived there.

Cheers
Dirk

>
> Cheers,
> F.E.J.D.
>
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "James Young" <daddio52 at s...>
wrote:
> > The Visigoths had just been booted out of Spain and the Franks
didn't
> > want them. Some of them probably went back to their old homeland
from
> > Roman days. I wonder if they had to get permission from
> > Constantinople? The Turks still hadn't gotten to Turkey.
> >
> > Kon52476

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