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

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ingemar Nordgren" <ingemar at n...>
wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:
>
> Hi Dirk,
>
> Yes I know what you write. It is true about Alaric II but he was
> rather an exception. Of course both he and Leovigild tried to grab
as
> much power as possible but it was not that easy until the king had
> papal support weakening the resistance from the Visigothic
chieftains
> who tried to stay in power.



Hi Ingemar,

this is exactly what I find hard to believe. Papal support was of
little value to the Catholic Visigothic kings of the 7th century. The
Catholic Visigothic church tried to remain as isolated from Roman
influence as possible. During the whole 7th century the Papal Office
in Rome sent only a couple of letters to the Spanish church and when
they did they were in one particular instance addressed to a Bishop
who had died several years earlier, which demonstrated that the Pope
was almost completely uninformed about the events in Spain. Thus, it
is very difficult to see why and how a Visigothic Catholic king could
derive support from a Pope who was not informed, but even
deliberately excluded from developments in Spain.

As I said the reemergence of strong central royal power after almost
a century of chaos at the end of the 6th century took place under the
Arian king Leovigild, who greatly curtailed the power of the
Visigothic elites who until then had run things and appointed and
disposed of kings at will. I know you have a certain personal dislike
of Catholics, but the persecution of the Jews and the Visigothic
nobles in Spain in the 7th century was not primarily due to the
conversion to Catholicism, but it was the result of the emergence of
a stronger central kingship which happened already in Arian times.
However, I agree that the conversion to Catholicism did reduce the
king's reliance on the Visigothic nobles, which was, however, a good
thing. After all the period of the early 7th century was one of
greatest strength and success of the Spanish/Visigothic state.







The balance shifted in an unhappy way
> leaving the way free for the king to run for power like his fellow
> Catholic kings and don't say the Toledo councils did not matter.




The councils where called in relatively infrequently and they dealt
mostly with church matters.

Cheers
Dirk





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