621-636] Swinthila. Sisenand 175 Sisebut died in 621, and was succeeded by his son Recared II who reigned for a few months only. He was followed by Duke Swinthila, who had greatly distinguished himself as a general in the wars of Sisebut. He pursued and completed the military policy of the latter, conquering (629) the algarves, the last province in the possession of the Byzantines. Thus, with the exception of a few unimportant districts in the north, which had no regular government, such as Vasconia, the Pyrenees of Aragon, and possibly some other places in mountainous parts, whose inhabitants remained independent, the Goths at last succeeded in reducing the country to one united State. Swinthila also fought against the Vascons, and on one occasion defeated them. As a military base for his control over the district, he built the fortress of Oligitum, which some geographers take to be the same as the modern Olite, in the province of Navarre. If Swinthila had stopped short at this point, he would certainly have retained the goodwill of his contemporaries, and the epithet of "father of the poor" applied to him by Isidore of Seville; but it is probable that Swinthila was too sure of his power when he ventured to deal with the problems of internal policy, and that his failure affected the judgments passed on him. As a matter of fact, Swinthila did nothing more than what Liuwa and Leovigild had done before him, when he shared the government of the kingdom with members of his own family, namely: his son Recimir, his wife Theodora, and his brother Geila. Why was Swinthila not permitted to do this, seeing that it had been tolerated in the former kings? Whether he set about it with less caution than his predecessors, or shewed more severity in suppressing the conspiracies, we do not know. The fact is that he not only lost the crown in 631, whilst struggling against the party of a noble called Sisenand, who, with an army of Franks, advanced as far as Saragossa, but that the chroniclers of the period call him a wicked and sensual tyrant. He did not die in battle- his defeat was mainly due to treachery nor did he lose his freedom. In 633, to judge from a canon of the Fourth Council of Toledo, he was still alive, but of his end we know nothing. The political problem was still unsolved; and we shall see that the kings did not abandon the intention of making the crown hereditary. Of Sisenand, who reigned for six years, and died in 636, we know nothing more important than that he summoned the Council already referred to, which condemned Swinthila for his "evil deeds" and passed canons relating to the Jews. These canons indicate a change of policy in the clergy, which is all the more interesting, because, as we have said before, the Council had for its president Isidore of Seville. On the one hand, in agreement with the doctrine of this prelate, it censured the use of violent measures to enforce a change of religion (Canon LVII); but, on the other hand, it accepted and sanctioned those conversions which 176 Chintila. Chindaswinth [636-646 had been brought about through fear in the time of Sisebut. It thus obliged those who had been baptised to continue in their new faith, instead of accepting, in accordance with the views of Isidore, the Constitution of Honorius and Theodosius (416), which permitted the Jews who had become Christians by force and not from religious motives, to revert to their former religion. With regard to the succession to the throne, the principle of free election by the assembly of nobles and bishops was established by Canon LXXV. In accordance with this principle, Chintila was elected king in 636. Nothing of importance occurred during the four years of his reign except the summoning of the fifth and sixth Councils of Toledo. The canons of the first are chiefly concerned with the King, the respect due to his person, and some of his prerogatives, and furnish striking evidence of the uneasiness caused by the ambition of the nobility, who were endeavouring by violent means to wrest the crown from the elected king. The Sixth Council, held in 637, which laid stress on the same subjects, also issued a decree dealing with the Jews (Canon III), which again enacted that all who had not been baptised should be driven out of the kingdom. In order to prevent relapses to their former religion, the king forced them to sign a document (placitum) on confession of faith, in which, on the pain of the most terrible curses, they bound themselves to live in accordance with the doctrine and practices of Christianity; and to renounce Jewish customs. Moreover, to enforce this policy, the same canon obliges all future kings to swear that they will not permit the Jews to violate the Catholic Faith, nor countenance their misbelief in any way, nor "actuated by contempt or cupidity" open up the path of prevarication "to those who are hovering on the brink of unbelief." In 640, despite Canon LXXV of the Fourth Council of Toledo, Chintila was succeeded by his son Tulga, though the outward form of election was observed. This explains why his brief reign was disturbed by conspiracies and insurrections. We do not know for certain whether it was in consequence of his death or through the success of one of these insurrections that in May 642 the throne was occupied by one of the nobles-Chindaswinth, who boldly faced the political problem with energetic measures like those of Leovigild. Thus 700 persons, of whom the greater part were nobles, chosen from amongst those who had taken the most active part in conspiracies or shewn signs of political ambition, or proved themselves dangerous to the king, were slain, or reduced to slavery. Many others contrived to escape, and took refuge in Africa or in Frankish territory, and there they doubtless attempted to stir up fresh insurrections, to which reference is apparently made in one of the canons of the Seventh Council of Toledo, summoned by Chindaswinth in 646. This canon imposed heavy penalties, viz. excommunication for life and confiscation of property, on the rebels or emigrants including the clergy, who should try to obtain the support of foreign countries. 642-654] Receswinth 177 against their native land; it also exhorted the monarchs of these countries not to allow the inhabitants of their dominions to conspire against the Visigoths. By this means Chindaswinth achieved his purpose, for, throughout his reign (642-653) there was not a single insurrection. On the other hand, supported by the Catholic clergy, who both from doctrinal and practical points of view had always favoured the principle of hereditary succession to the throne, he in 649 admitted to a share in the government his son Receswinth or Recceswinth, who from that time onwards was virtually king, and succeeded his father in 653, without going through the form of election. When Chindaswinth died, the rebellious nobles thought that the moment had come to take revenge, and, relying on the general discontent which was due to increased taxation and on the ever-restless Vascons, they rose in arms, and with a large force advanced as far as Saragossa, under the command of a grandee called Froja. Receswinth prepared for war, and ultimately succeeded in defeating them, taking Froja prisoner. But the country must have been profoundly agitated, and the throne threatened by very serious dangers, seeing that Receswinth, instead of taking advantage of his victory to inflict severe punishment on the rebels, and subdue them once for all, came to terms with them, granted an amnesty, promised to reduce the taxes, and yielded the question of election. Hence the significance of the Eighth Council of Toledo, held in 653, at which, after having caused himself to be released from the oath which he had taken to shew himself inexorable towards the rebels, he confirmed the above-mentioned Canon LXXV of the Fourth Council. By this canon it was decreed that, on the death of the King, the assembly of prelates and nobles should elect as his successor a man of high rank, and that the person of their choice should bind himself to maintain the Catholic religion and to prosecute all Jews and heretics. This latter part of the Royal oath is a revival of the anti-Semitic policy. The speech or tomus regius read before the Council is very bitter, and proves that in spite of all the preceding measures there was still in Spain a great number of unconverted Jews, or that even those converted still observed the rites of their own religion. The Council refused to take measures against the non-converted, but in 654, the king, on his own account, issued various laws which rendered more intolerable the legal position of the Hebrews of all classes. These laws obliged all Jews who had been baptised to sign a new placitum, similar to that of the time of Chintila, which imposed on apostates the penalty of being stoned and burnt alive. Whilst, in this way, the Visigothic kings were gradually widening the gulf between Jews and Christians, on the other hand they were. lessening the differences between the Visigoths and the Spanish-Romans, and just as Recared had arrived at uniformity of religion, so did Chindaswinth and Receswinth aim at uniformity of law. The ground was well C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. VI. 12 178 Laws of Chindaswinth [c. 654 prepared, for, on the one hand, the principles of Roman jurisprudence had gradually crept into the Visigothic private law, and on the other, the Councils of Toledo had created a common system of legislation of the utmost importance. A proof of the agreement at which the two legal systems had arrived in some cases is furnished by the Visigothic formulae of the time of Sisebut, found in a manuscript at Oviedo. According to the prevalent opinion of legal historians, this unification was completed by Chindaswinth's abolition of the Lex Romana or Breviarium of Alaric II, to which the Spanish and Gallo-Romans were subjected, and by the specific repeal of the law of Roman origin which forbade marriage between people of different races, though we know that such marriages did take place, like that of Theudis. The accepted theory has recently been modified by the revised opinion of the critics, which ascribes to Receswinth the abolition of the Lex Romana formerly ascribed to his father. In any case, the reign of Chindaswinth was a period of great legislative activity so far as unification is concerned. This activity found expression in numerous amendments and modifications of the older Visigothic Laws compiled by Recared and Leovigild and in the promulgation of other new ones. Ninety-eight or ninetynine laws, clearly the work of Chindaswinth, are recorded in the texts which have come down to us, and all of them shew the predominating influence of the Roman system. Moreover, as his son Receswinth leads us to understand in one of his own laws, Chindaswinth began to make what was in fact a new code. Receswinth, therefore, did little more than conclude and perfect the work begun by his father, that is to say, he codified the laws which were in force in Spain, in their twofold application, Gothic and Roman. They formed a systematic compilation, which was divided into two books and bore the title of Liber Judiciorum, afterwards changed to that of Liber or Forum Judicum. The date of it is probably 654. Two copies of this Liber have been preserved; in the modern amended editions it is known by the name of Lex Reccesvindiana (Zeumer). It is a collection of laws made expressly for use in the courts and therefore it omits several provisions referring to legal subjects or branches of the same for instance a great part of the political law, for as a rule this does not affect the practice of the courts. But the fifteen chapters of Book 1, which refer to the law and the legislator, form an exception to this; they are the reflection, and 1 De remotis alienarum gentium legibus, II. 1. This law, which occurs in several manuscripts and editions of the Visigothic codes, prohibits the use of the Roman legislation in Spain. Nevertheless, there are some historians (Helferich, Stobbe, Gaudenzi, Ureña) whom this revised opinion does not satisfy, and who consider that the amendment or repeal of the Lex Romana is earlier. They go so far as to assert that it was the work of Leovigild and that the law of Receswinth is nothing more than a ratification of the former decree. Nevertheless, the accepted opinion, of which Zeumer is at present the chief exponent, is still the best supported and the most popular. 672-681] Wamba 179 in some cases the literal copy of the contemporary doctrinal texts of political philosophy - for instance, of Isidore of Seville. It is probable that Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, was one of the compilers of the new code, if not the chief. Receswinth subsequently made other legal provisions, both in the Councils and outside them. Receswinth died in 672, after reigning for 23 years. Wamba was elected as his successor. Almost the whole of his reign was spent in warfare. He fought first against the Vascons, who made a fresh rebellion, quickly suppressed; then against a general Paulus who, together with Randsind, duke of Tarragona, Hilderic, count of Nîmes, and Argebald, bishop of Narbonne, had incited all Septimania and part of Tarragona to rebellion; and lastly, against the Muslims. The rebellion of Paulus was promptly quelled and punished, and Wamba recovered possession of Barcelona, Gerona, Narbonne, Agde, Magdalona, Béziers and Nîmes, which had constituted the chief centres of disaffection. The war against the Muslims, who had already obtained temporary possession of North Africa, originated in their invasion of the southern coast of Spain, and in particular of the city of Algeciras. The invaders were driven back, and their fleet was destroyed. The experience gained by Wamba, especially on the occasion of Paulus' rebellion, must have shewn him how necessary it was to strengthen the military organisation of the State, to inspire his people with a warlike spirit, and above all, to enforce compulsory service in the army, which appears to have been evaded by some of the nobles and clergy. This need was met by a law passed in 673, which together with three others bearing on civil and ecclesiastical matters, was added to the code of Receswinth. By this law, all who refused to serve in the army and all deserters were deprived of the power to bear witness. Despite all the prestige which Wamba's victories had procured for him, and the mental energy shewn in all his actions, the fundamental weakness of the Visigothic State, namely, the want of agreement between its political elements, appeared once more, and in 680 Wamba was dethroned in consequence of a conspiracy headed by Erwig, one of the nobles, with the assistance of the metropolitan of Toledo. To preserve himself from a similar fate, Erwig adopted a mild and yielding policy, and sought the help of the clergy. In accordance. with this policy, he revoked the severe penalties of Wamba's military law, which had displeased the nobles, and restored its victims their ancient nobility. On the other hand, besides persecuting the partisans of Wamba, Erwig made new laws against the Jews, in order that the Judaeorum pestis might be wholly exterminated, subjecting the converts to minute regulations that he might assure himself of their religious faith, and to the non-converted he granted the term of 12 months-from 1 February 681-in which to receive baptism under penalty of banishment, scourging, and the loss of all their hair. These laws, although very severe, were milder than those of Receswinth, seeing that they |