Download PDF | [Cambridge Medieval Textbooks] Bernard F. Reilly - The Medieval Spains, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
244 Pages
This book traces the political evolution ofthe Iberian peninsula from a collection of late Roman imperial provinces to the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies of the fifteenth century. That evolution is explained initially as a product of the interaction of the geography of Iberia and the successive invasions of it by the Visigoths in the fifth and sixth centuries and the Muslim invasion of the eighth century. The character ofthe Muslim organization of peninsular society is discussed and its failure to achieve a stable political order is assessed.
The rival cultures of Iberia came increasingly under the influence of Europe north of the Pyrenees and, as the peninsula developed agriculturally and institutionally, acted as the vanguard of that western European culture. Nevertheless, the different opportunities offered by the peculiarities of terrain and the relative weakness ofthe Islamic power confronting theln led to the emergence of the variety ofChristian kingdoms whose partial consolidation had only just begun by the late Middle Ages.
AT THE EDGE OF EMPIRE
The political and cultural entity that constitutes modern Spain did not exist in antiquity and came into being during the medieval period only gradually. The Iberian peninsula was populated far back into the Paleolithic period but those shadowy, indigenous peoples of Iberia had been overlaid in part and in turn by Phoenecian, by Carthaginian, by Greek, and by Celt. But of these intruders none had brought unity until Rome gradually had extended her control over all of its peoples, beginning with the Second Punic War (2 18-20I Be). During the next six hundred years Roman rule there became an imperial order and the fundamental structure of the Roman Empire was always the province. Still at the beginning ofthe Middle Ages Ibe~a was simply a collection of Roman provinces politically, the westernmost peninsula of the Roman world geographically, and a participant in a common culture which we style classical. The geography had imposed its conditions upon the Romans as it had and would upon everyone who attempted to govern Iberia. By European standards, the Iberian peninsula is large, more than 58 I ,000 square kilometers.
That is more than four times the size of England and a little bigger than France. Iberia is also very dry, on the average, with an annual precipitation ofless than 1,000 millimeters. The westerlies offthe Atlantic see that the northern and western coasts are mostly well watered, but the mountains of Cantabria in the north and of Galicia and Portugal in the west drain the Atlantic winds ofmost oftheir moisture before they reach the interior. There a central meseta averages 600 meters above sea level and constitutes almost half of the peninsula. The coastlands of the south and the east belong to the drier world ofthe Mediterranean. The agricultural civilization of Iberia, then, has always depended upon its river valleys to collect the precious water that is otherwise so scarce. Iberia has lived by its five great river basins.
The first and greatest of these is that ofthe Guadalquivir River whose 842 kilometers drain a watershed of 58,000 square kilometers. Since Phoenecian, Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman approached the peninsula from the east, which coast offers only one good entree to that land mass, it was usually simpler to sail through the "pillars of Hercules" and land at Cadiz. This originally Phoenecian port controlled the entrance to the Guadalquivir which was navigable all the way to modern Seville and, intermittently, to Cordova. But the river provided life-sustaining water from the eastern foothills of the Sierra de Cazorla with their towns of Ubeda and Baeza down through what would much later become the seat ofthe caliphate at Cordova. This basin and the narrow strip of coast along the Mediterranean to the south became the Late Roman Imperial province of Baetica. Its center was at Hispalis (Seville) and its northern limits were formed by the mountains ofthe Sierra Morena and the lower reaches ofthe Guadiana -River. Just north of these two lies the watershed of the Guadiana River, 839 kilometers long and draining a basin of 69,000 square kilometers. However, its flow is the weakest of all of the major rivers, much weaker than that of the Guadalquivir despite its considerable extent to the east.
The river partially formed the border between the provinces of Baetica and Lusitania as it largely does that of modern Spain and Portugal. Its center was at Emerita (Merida), the highest point to which it was navigable, and its northern border was constituted, in good measure, by the mountains -of Toledo. Joined to the Guadiana basin in the Late Roman province of Lusitania was the Portuguese coastline as far north as Portucale (Oporto) and the lower portion of the watershed of the Tajo River. This latter basin comprised some 81,000 square kilometers and the river itselfstretches for more than I, 100 kilometers. It was useful for agriculture and stockraising but it drops down from the central plateau to the coastal plain of Portugal and to Santarem and Lisbon so steeply that it is hardly useful for transportation much beyond the former. To the north the Tajo basin was bounded by the great central chain of the Guadarrama Mountains and to the east by the Sierra de Albarricin. Like Baetica, Roman Lusitania too was easiest of approach from the Atlantic. On the eastern side of the peninsula, of the two provinces oriented toward the Mediterranean, only Tarraconensis offered easy access to the interior. Tarraco (Tarragona), its capital, sat in the basin ofthe Ebro River.
This watershed of 85,000 square kilometers and its 928 kilometers long heart stretched, between the Pyrenees to the north and the Sierra de Albarracin to the south, from the mountains of Cantabria to the Mediterranean below Dertosa (Tortosa). It was a world in its own right as well as a province. The volume of water that the Ebro carries is the second greatest of the five rivers of Iberia and its flow is the most regularly distributed over the year. Carthaginensis, on the other hand, took its name from its port at Carthago (Cartagena) which had little hinterland itself. The province included the major portion of the eastern Mediterranean coast and fronl there stretched northwest up onto the central meseta of Murcia, La Mancha, and Castilla La Nueva. At its northwestern end it even included most of the Duero River basin. That latter watershed of 98,000 square kilometers is essentially broken into two parts by the violence ofits drop from the plateau down to the Atlantic at Oporto.
Its 700 kilometer length in Spain and its 200 kilometer length in Portugal are, socially, two separate rivers. B,oth supply the essential water but only the latter is navigable for a short distance from the Atlantic. But if the province of Carthaginensis was a unit in some sort it had to be held together by administrative means. It had no such natural artery or center as had Baetica, Lusitania, and Tarraconensis.
The same may be said ofthe fifth province, Gallaecia, in the far northwest. Bounded by the Duero to the south, the Atlantic to the west, and the Bay ofBiscay to the north, it stretched inland through the mountains to the edge ofthe meseta ofCastilla la Vieja at Asturica Augusta (Astorga). It had a capital at Braccara Augusta (Braga) but geography oriented the province, essentially a group of mountain valleys and a narrow coastal plain, towards the Atlantic and the ports of Portucale (Oporto) and the more northerly Iria Flavia (Padron). Were it not for the stubborn inventiveness ofRome, Gallaecia would have been merely what was left over from the remainder ofthe peninsula. Indeed, Iberia's geography predisposed it to remain a series ofseparate human communities. The coasts, except as one of the great riverine systems reached them, everywhere were separated from its interior by substantial mountain ranges. The coasts themselves differed.
Those ofthe Bay of Biscay, Galicia, and northern Portugal were well watered, even lush, while those of southern Portugal and the Mediterranean were dry, semi-desert. The first group lacked a navigable river for access to the interior. On the other hand, the rivers of the second group led only into their own watersheds. If mountains divided the coastlands from the interior, the Guadarrama divided the northern meseta in the Duero basin from its southern counterpart in the basin ofthe Tajo. The mountains of Toledo divided the Guadiana basin from that of the Tajo. Finally, the Sierra Morena divide the Guadiana basin from that of the Guadalquivir. Even in our own times, the motor car, the railroad, and the airplane, only partially suffice to draw these well-defined regions together into one human community. The Romans had to attempt to unite it by means of roads alone. Surely, the most significant material improvement made by Rome in Iberia was the construction of a comprehensive network of roads which covered and connected most of its physical surface.
The prime purpose of this road system was military, i.e., to speed the movement of troops, their supplies and replacements, and the communications essential to their coordination. Although the Roman dominance in Iberia was not challenged during the first four centuries ofthe Christian Era, nevertheless that road system was constructed as a precaution and maintained as a convenience. In all the centuries after the disappearance of Rome from the peninsula, it was to ren1ain the basic con1munication, commercial, and military grid of every Iberian society down to the coming of the railroad. In part, it was a coastal network. From the port of Padron in Galicia it ran sough through Braga, Coimbra, Santarem, and Lisbon in Portugal, and thence south and east to Seville. From that point it continued on to Algeciras, Malaga, and to Almeria, where it turned north through Cartagena, Denia, Valencia, Tortosa, Tarragona and Barcelona, and from there around the eastern end ofthe Pyrenees into what was then Roman Gaul. Since no attack was ordinarily to be envisaged from the sea, this linking ofthe major seaports ofthe perimeter must largely have served to facilitate the shuttling oftroops between them when it could not be done more expeditiously by boat, that is, in winter.
It is significant that the one coast not included in this network was that of Cantabria. Romanization among the tribes ofthe north there was so slight that it could not produce even this basic index of empire. Seville was the southern center of this network. Not only did the coastal road from Galicia and Portugal touch there before continuing on around the peninsula to Barcelona and Narbonne but one great interior artery ran diagonally and northeast from it to Toledo, Saragossa, and then on to Barcelona. This most strategic route linked the valley of the Guadalquivir, the Tajo basin, and the Ebro valley.
To hold it was to dominate the richest and most cultivated half of Iberia. Second only to it w~s the system that emanated from Merida, after coming east from Santarem and Lisbon. From this second hub of the south, one branch ran up the valley ofthe Guadiana to unite with the road from Seville. Yet another crossed the mountains of Toledo by Trujillo and then passed through Talavera de la Reina to join the Seville road at Toledo. Between the two the valley ofthe Guadiana was joined finnly to that ofthe Guadalquivir and that ofthe Tajo. Of course a road ran south from Merida to Seville but yet another ran north to fork off to the northwest to Braga and to the northeast through Salamanca and Zamora to Astorga. At Zamora it was joined by a spur of the T oledo-Saragossa road that crossed the Guadarrama by way ofthe pass of Navacerrada and Segovia. At Astorga (Asturicas Augustae) both of these north-south routes joined the east-west road that led from Padron (Iria Flavia) in Galicia through Lugo, then Astorga and Leon, and on to Pamplona and to Gaul by way ofthe pass at Roncesvalles. This road was to become the Camino de Santiago when that pilgrimage came to be established after the ninth century.
For the Romans, however, it tied the northern plateau and the valley ofthe Duero to the Atlantic coast and to the Guadiana and Guadalquivir basins. Since a spur of it also led east to Saragossa and Tarragona, the Duero basin was connected with that of the Ebro as well. This brief sketch of the road network of imperial Rome in Iberia illustrates well the pervasive character of its civilization in the peninsula. But even the most casual contemporary traveler will be struck by the extent and the monumental character of Roman building there as it endures down to the present. However, perhaps the most impressive testimony to the attraction of things Roman are the Iberian idioms, Catalan, Gallego, Portuguese and Spanish. As early as the first century AD the Greek geographer Strabo asserted that the inhabitants of Baetica had forgotten their own language. While that appears to have contained some literary exaggeration, four centuries later they, along with the other inhabitants ofthe peninsula, would indeed have done so.
The one certain exception is the Basques. There was no system of Roman roads in Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and Alava. Nor do they appear in High Aragon or the Pyrenaen valleys of Catalonia. Likely, the indigenous idiom lingered on there as well as in northern Galicia and Asturias. One might say that the Romans subdued the tribes of the Cantabrians and the Pyrenees but hardly that they conquered them. Rome found Iberia a world of villages and made it a world of cities. Again that is true except in the mountains ofthe north. Everywhere else four centuries ofRoman administration seems fairly to have dissolved the old tribal structures and to have replaced them with civil and economic ones. When, in turn, that Roman order should have collapsed, the old tribalism proved to have no power to regenerate itself.
The new order of the Suevi and the Visigoths, fragile as it was, would instead triumph. Now it is true that the Roman cities in Iberia 'were largely political and administrative devices. As generally elsewhere in the world of the western Mediterranean, those cities seldom had any important industry and often not even a commerce beyond that ofvictualing the government and its garrisons. The major ports are an obvious exception. The ordinary city was populated by officials, civil servants, soldiers, small merchants, artisans, and slaves, and their families. In addition they boasted a number of elite families, possessed of a city dwelling as well as of a rural villa, but whose agricultural estates furnished their essential source of wealth. Such cities could, then, support a polite society which could in tum patronize literary and artistic expression and see to the education of its own members.
This social world was nurtured by Roman government and law and Iberian products of it, such as Seneca and Marcial, Trajan and Hadrian, moved easily in the higher circles of the imperial Mediterranean. Nevertheless the massive reality which supported it was the world of agriculture and the countryside. The population of Roman Iberia at its height is ordinarily estimated at 6,000,000. Cadiz, its largest city boasted but 65,000 and Tarragona, the next largest, only 27,000. The total population of its ten largest cities would aggregate but 175,000. That is, roughly ninety-six percent ofits inhabitants were rural. Now both the Roman conquest and the Roman market had reoriented significant pornons ot that agncwture from a ~UbS1S(enCe [0 a casn-crop basis. The villa had become the most important form of agricultural organization and a few material remains of those rural institutions have even been discovered in central Asturias beyond the Cantabrians. As never before, Iberian wheat, olive oil, and wine, in addition to its wool, fish oil, and livestock, moved in the Mediterranean market. Mining was similarly affected as Iberian gold, silver, iron, copper, and lead, were worked for shipment over long distances. To both the former and the latter, new Roman techniques had been applied and worked major expansion and improvement. These innovations were especially notable in the realm of irrigation in agriculture and mechanics in mining. Generally speaking, Iberia benefited materially and socially from the imposition ofthe Roman order. However, it would also suffer from Rome's decline. Yet, before that decline became critical, Rome provided the highway for the dissemination ofthe Christian religion to Iberia. Probably arriving in the peninsula before the end ofthe first century, Christianity there had become widely enough diffused to produce authentic martyrs by the times ofDecius, Valerian, and finally Diocletian (AD 285-3°5). When the first visible council of the Spanish church was celebrated at Elvira before AD 313, no less than nineteen bishops attended to represent their diocese. If most of these units were clustered in Baetica, nevertheless diocese already existed at Braga, Leon, Saragossa, and Barcelona. But like the cities, their invariable habitat, none were found in the mountains of the Cantabrian chain or in the high valleys ofthe Pyrenees.
THE TIME OF TROUBLES The larger aspects of the decline of the Late Roman Empire are well known and the developments in Iberia were not particularly distinctive. From AD 250 plague was endemic for about fifteen years. Beginning roughly about AD 260 the collapse ofthe imperial frontier on the Rhine resulted in the penetration of Germanic tribesmen even into Iberia. The major invasion route was around the eastern end ofthe Pyrenees and the valley ofthe Ebro was the region which suffered most. Tarragona, Lerida, Saragossa, and Pamplona were attacked. Other groups of invaders may have entered by way of Roncesvalles and pillaged their way down the valley ofthe Duero, visiting their wrath·in tum upon Palencia, Valladolid, Leon, and Astorga. Lusitania and Baetica suffered less severely but Coimbra and Merida were also attacked. Curiously in all this, there is no record of organized resistance. In all probability the invaders were able to recruit in the peninsula among the margins ofthe rural population, from decaying tribal groups, and even disaffected regular troops. When this storm had worn itself out.and order had been restored, here as throughout the empire after AD 286 under Emperor Diocletian, the population of the peninsula had clearly begun to shrink to an estimated size of about 4,000,000 on the eve of the fifth-century invasions.
A concomitant decline of commerce can be best measured in the physical shrinkage evident in the acreage ofport cities. In general, the political and economic preeminence of cities over the country districts so typical of the classical world was failing as well. Both cause and effect of this phenomenon was the growth ofthe villa into great latifundia in the more favored agricultural regions ofthe river valleys and the reduction ofsmall proprietors to economic and legal, even military, dependence on the Late Roman magnate class which owned the fOt:TIer. As with the invasions of the third century, those of the fifth century were prepared by the decrepitude of the imperial government itsel£ But this time they were visited upon an Iberia with less power of absorption and assimilation.
The story ofthe failure ofimperial government upon the death of Emperor Theodosius the Great (379-395), the rivalry of eastern and western portions, the revolt ofthe Visigoths in the Danube provinces, the ineffectuality ofHonorius in the west, and finally the ultimate collapse ofthe Rhine frontier in 407 is too familiar to need much telling here. By the summer of 409 the first contingents ofVandals, Suevi, and Alans, had threaded their way through the pass at Roncevalles and a Gennan future was in the making for Iberia. Notwithstanding, the peninsula would long continue to be involved with the death throes of the Roman Empire in the west. In fact, at the time of this invasion that empire was hopelessly divided. The Emperor Honorius in Ravenna was confronted by a former general of Roman Britain, Constantine, who had been proclaimed emperor and had subsequently made himself master of Gaul and Iberia. The latter's own general, Gerontius, had broken the power ofthe Roman troops loyal to Honorius in the peninsula but had then, in turn, revolted against Constantine and set up his own puppet emperor in Iberia. Gerontius concentrated his forces in the valley of the Ebro to defend against an attack by his previous master whose capital was at ArIes in Provence. He also invited the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi, then concentrated in Aquitaine, into western Iberia as his allies. They entered unopposed by the pass at Roncesvalles. Avoiding the valley of the Ebro, the Gennans took possession first ofthe valley ofthe Duero, then ofGalicia, and finally ofLusitania and Baetica. There was only scattered opposition and within two years they were settling as garrisons in and about the larger cities.
There, under a long familiar political and legal device, th~y kept their own identity intact under their kings but as foederati, i.e., allied peoples settled on Roman territory, were able to draw upon the resources ofthe Roman administration for maintenance and support. Meanwhile the Emperor Honorius had watched helplessly from Ravenna while the Visigoths, having broken through the defenses ofthe Upper Adriatic from the Balkans, swept the length of Italy itself, sacking Rome in 410. These circumstances encouraged Gerontius to march against Constantine at ArIes but his ambitions came to an abrupt end in 41 I. Following the death of Alaric in southern Italy the Emperor Honorius had come to tenns with the Visigoths and despatched them as allies, together with troops of his own, to the south of Gaul. Faced by these forces, Gerontius' anny revolted and he was killed. Honorius' forces then forced the surrender of Constantine at ArIes. In Iberia the troops of Maximus, the puppet emperor set up by Gerontius, mutinied at the news, returning to their loyalty to Ravenna. Maximus fled to find refuge and obscurity among the Gennans of the peninsula. For the moment, the integrity ofthe Western Empire had been restored. For Rome, the question now became how to reassert its control in more than nominal fashion. To this end the Visigoths, now quarrelling among themselves and desperate for supplies, could be utilized. Under their king, Walia, they had already ventured into Iberia once in 4 I 4 without great result.
Now asfoederati ofthe empire they were despatched into the peninsula in 416 in order to reclaim it for Rome. Walia's campaign succeeded brilliantly and, in a climactic battle not far north of Algeciras, he destroyed the armies of both the Alans and the Siling Vandals. Bereft of their kings and most of their military effectives, those two federations disintegrated and their surviving members were absorbed by the still potent Hasding Vandals under King Gunderic and the Suevi. Fearing too complete a success ofWalia, Rome now recalled him and, by virtue of a new pact or foedus, settled their allies permanently in the south of Gaul in the valleys of the Garonne and the region about Toulouse. There was a redistribution of lands in these areas in favor of the Visigothic king and his nobles and their followers. Gallo-Roman latifilndists were compelled to part with a portion of their holdings in return for the protection afforded by their new Visigothic neighbors. For a century yet, the Visigothic kingdom centered on the south of France In Iberia, Rome had recovered the basin of the Ebro and the coast of the Levant as far south as Cartagena as a result of their efforts. A new Roman force of about 4~500 was now despatched under the command of a "Count of Spain" who took up residence at Tarragona. Imperial authority had been restored to the Tarraconensis and the coastal area of the old Cartaginensis but Baetica, Lusitania, Galicia, and the inland reaches ofthe Cartaginensis, remained in the hands ofthe Suevi and the Hasding Vandals. These tribes ruled with the more or less reluctant cooperation ofthe great Hispano-Roman latifundists who were the other real power in the occupied areas. So Rome seemed disposed to leave matters until Gunderic ofthe Vandals undertook a war against the Suevi in 420 which might have ended in the conquest ofthe latter. This was not desirable from the Roman point of view and the troops from Tarragona marched west and forced the Vandals to conclude the struggle. In the following year a potentially more serious event occurred. With the acquiescence of Gunderic the old pretender to the purple, Maximu5, emerged from obscurity and reasserted his imperial dignity. Once again the army of the Ebro, this time heavily reinforced with Visigothic auxiliaries, marched into Baetica and scored initial victories over Maximus who was captured and sent to Ravenna to be executed by Honorius in 422. Subsequently, however, the Vandal Gunderic scored a crushing victory and immediately went over to the offensive against the empire.
While the Tarraconensis was to be held, the losses ofmen in 422 could not be made good and the death of Honorius in 423 further complicated defensive efforts. Cartagena fell in 424 and, having seized the makings of a fleet there, Gunderic even raided the Balearics in 425. In 428 it appears that he had wrested both Seville and Cordova from those elements of the population still loyal to Rome there. When Gunderic died in 428 he had become master of all Iberia but for Galicia held by the Suevi and the Tarraconensis. However, his brother Genseric, who succeeded, was to organize the successful invasion of the province of Africa in 429 and the V.andals crossed the straits of Gibraltar and disappeared from Iberian history. The resulting vacuum in the peninsula could not be filled by Rome. The province of Africa, the granary of Rome, at all costs must be protected from Genseric. Simultaneously servile revolts erupted in Gaul and the Visigoths threatened to move south into the Narbonensis and Provence. All these problems left free rein to the Suevi in Iberia even though the total numbers of the tribe did not exceed 25,000 souls. Reinforced by recruits from among the depressed lower orders of Hispano-Roman society, they carried on a war of attrition against the Hispano-Roman nobility and bureaucracy. Under their king, Rechila, the Suevi gradually expanded from their strongholds in Astorga, Lugo, Oporto, and Braga, from Gal~cia south into Lusitania and even Baetica. In 439 Rechila took Merida and by 441 Seville as well. At precisely this juncture new and most serious slave revolts broke out in Gaul but this time also in the Tarraconensis. It was another five years before a magister militum, one Vitus, could be spared for Iberia. At the head of an anny composed largely of Visigoth allies, he marched south into the valley of the Guadalquivir only to meet defeat there at the hands ofRechila in 446. That victorious king of the Suevi died in 448 having achieved control of the entire peninsula except for the valley of the Ebro. Rome and Rome's Iberian allies and sympathizers must have now despaired of any full restoration ofimperial power there.
The fonner sought ways to hold the Ebro basin, the latter the best accommodation possible with the new masters. The new king ofthe Suevi, Recharius, almost immediately sought an alliance with the Visigoths. In 449 he journeyed by the pass at Roncesvalles to the court of Theodoric I, whose daughter he married. The trip to Gaul was marked by Suevic pillaging of much of the northern Tarraconensis and the return around the eastern end of the Pyrenees was accompanied by the sack of Lerida and the environs of Saragossa. The resulting confusion encouraged a new servile revolt in the valley whose highpoint was the capture ofTarazona and the execution of its bishop by the rebels. At thisjuncture, the defeat ofthe Huns at Chalons in 451, the death in that battle of the Visigothic Theodoric I, and the death of Attila himself in 453, all combined to momentarily restore the imperial position in Gaul. In Iberia, however, the best terms that a fonnal Roman embassy of the latter year could extract from the Suevi was an agreement to respect continued imperial rule in the Tarraconensis.
But the final ruin ofimperial authority in Iberia was the work ofRome itself In 454 the general, Aetius, who had restored Roman authority in Gaul was assassinated by the directive of the Emperor Valentinian III, who feared the fonner's ambitions. Scarcely six months later Valentinian was himself assassinated by disgruntled associates ofAetius. Thus perished the last member ofthe house of Theodosius the Great and with him any last hopes for the restoration ofimperial power in the west generally. In Iberia the inheritors of that mantle were to be the Visigoths. The new Visigothic king, Theodoric II (453-466), would support the GalloRoman Avitus, a new pretender to the imperial dignity, and invade the peninsula in his name in 456. At a great battle near Astorga he crushingly defeated the Suevi, occupied that city, Braga, and Oporto, and captured and executed Recharius, the Suevic king. When Avitus was defeated and killed in Italy, Theodoric had to return to Gaul but the anny left behind consolidated Visigothic control in Baetica, Lusitania, and Cartaginensis. That force comprised a series of garrisons whose commanders shared power with the Hispano-Roman nobility and bishops. These local troops mounted campaigns almost yearly against the Suevi who, under their new king Remismundus, were able to reconstitute their old kingdom in the province of Galicia and·later in the north of Lusitania. In 468 the Suevi even held Lisbon. Nevertheless, Remismundus recognized a vague overlordship ofthe Visigoths. In 466 Theodoric II was murdered in Toulouse by his brother, Euric (466-484), who succeeded to both the throne and the ambitions of the former. In Italy the imperial dignity had become a trifle, awarded by the barbarian magister fftilitum Ricimer to the currently most useful Roman noble. Those circumstances allowed the Visigoths in Gaul to impose their own authority, first in the Narbonensis and then in Provence. That done, they controlled the access to Iberia completely. On the death ofRicimer in 472, Euric took advantage of the compounded confusion in Italy to despatch two annies into the Tarraconensis. When the Dux Tarraconensis there, Vincencius, joined himself and his few remaining troops to the Visigoths, Roman authority vanished finally from the peninsula. Then in 476 another barbarian n1agister militum, Odoacer, fonnally abolished the imperial dignity in the west and any likelihood of its return disappeared.
Iberia was now very unequally divided between Suevi and Visigoth but the Hispano-Roman magnates were necessary to each and increasing cooperation between Roman and Germans must be assumed. This state of affairs continued until the very end of the reign of Alaric II (484-5°7), son ofEuric. There was lingering rebellion against the new Visigothic rule in Tarraconensis but, without any clear alternative, that initiative never had any real chance of success. On the other hand, Alaric II mounted an energetic program of rule. His advisers and judges prepared"a simplified code of Roman law, the famous Breviarium, which was promulgated in 506 for the better governance of his kingdom. A general council ofthe Catholic bishops ofthe realm took up the matters ofrefonn and reorganization at Agde in 506. It is important to notice that none of the thirty-four bishops in attendance held sees in Iberia. The kingdom of the Visigoths was still very much a Gallic entity with a peninsular appendage. To protect his realm against the increasingly aggressive Franks to the north, Alaric mounted an extensive policy of alliances. He himself married a daughter of the Ostrogothic Theodoric the Gre~t. He also sought the support of the Burgundian kingdom. Then, in 5°7, disaster struck. The Visigothic anny was roundly defeated at Vouille in the northern Aquitaine by the Franks under Clovis and Alaric II himself died on the field. Simultaneously, the Burgundians reversed their attitude and invaded the Visigothic realm. In short order, Aquitaine, Gascony, and the Auvergne, were absorbed into the Frankish kingdom, whose annies went on to besiege Carcassone. The Burgundians held ArIes under siege and took Narbonne. All of Provence and the Narbonensis seemed about to fall and the Visigoths to become another of those Germanic tribal confederations that would vanish from sight after a resounding military defeat.
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