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

[Ingemar Nordgren]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:

Hi Dirk,

You wrote:

> But when the Visigothic kings were Arians, Arianism was the
> mainstream chruch in Spain. Adopting Catholicism, i.e. the religion
> of the vast majority of the Hispanic population facilitated the
> integration of the Visigoths, which was an important precondition for
> the great success of the Franks.

Yes Arianism was the official mainstream in the Gothic realm on the
Iberian peninsula but there were also non-Arians among the native
population as you state. The conversion indeed facilitated the
integration of the Visigoths into the  native majority population and
also with the surrounding countries. This is just why the Visigoths
lost their ethnicity and became only part of the Iberian population
and also adopted a Romanic language. Of course the Visigothic state,
based on a ruling small ethnicity, could not survive when they were
integrated with the old Roman and Iberian nobility  who just cared for
their own land-properties and did not care at all of the Gothic
ethnicity, and the later Gothic landowners reasoned in the same way
since the cult no longer was differing them from the rest. Maybe they
were not primarily tolerant before of free will but they at least then
had to consider support from all groups in society. Now they could
point to the Catholic church what the persecutions of other beleivers
concerned and wash their hands. After Clodvig also the Franks were
lured to be Catholics and Pippin even cleverly used that to support
the pope and hence opening for Charlemagne to be crowned by the pope
to Roman emperor. Maybe that was the original idea of Reccared but it
did not work out since they were too small in their own population
and, as stated, from then on the Visigoths began to drop their own
ethnicity. It is not surprising at all that they lost to the Moors then.

Best greetings
Ingemar









------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/wWMplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    gothic-l-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/