Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

122 5. the western kingdoms
conversion to Arian Christianity had taken place at some unknown period.
However, communications were maintained by sea with the west coast of
France and the Loire valley. Contacts with Tours, including the despatch
from there of some relics of St Martin, played a part in the conversion of
the Sueves from Arian to Catholic belief. Another important participant in
this poorly reported process was the Pannonian ascetic Martin, who established
a monastery at Dumio (Guimarães) and subsequently became
bishop of Braga. The dating of these events is uncertain but must have preceded
the holding of the first council of the Catholic bishops in the Suevic
kingdom at Braga in 561. This was in the third year of the reign of a king
Ariamir. By the time of the holding of a second council in 572 the monarch
was Miro (570–83). Politically the Suevic kingdom was still overshadowed
by that of the Visigoths, and Miro died while aiding the Visigothic king
Leovigild in the latter’s civil war with his son Hermenegild. When Miro’s
son Eboric (583–4) was overthrown by a certain Audeca, Leovigild invaded
the kingdom in 585. As the Chronicle of John of Biclar describes it, he
‘placed the people of the Sueves, their treasure and their homeland under
his power, making it a province of the Goths’. 21 It was never re-established.
v. visigothic spain, 456,601
The permanent extension of Visigothic power into the Iberian peninsula
resulted from the campaign undertaken by Theoderic II (453–66) against
the Sueves in 456. Much of Baetica, Carthaginiensis and southern Lusitania
came under Visigothic rule as a consequence, and Tarraconensis was added
as the result of campaigns carried out by the generals of the next Visigothic
king, Euric (466–84) in 474/6. Only northern Lusitania and Gallaecia then
remained outside the kingdom, which continued to be centred on
Toulouse. References in the marginalia to two manuscripts of the Chronicle
of Victor of Tunnuna, which have been ascribed to an otherwise lost
‘Chronicle of Zaragoza’, suggest that a more intensive Visigothic settlement
of Spain took place in the 490s. This may have facilitated the survival
of the kingdom in the aftermath of the battle of Vouillé in 507. While
most of the Visigothic territories in Gaul were then overrun by the Franks
and the Burgundians, Spain was retained and Narbonne and then
Barcelona replaced Toulouse as the royal centre.
After Alaric II’s death at Vouillé the kingship was taken by his illegitimate
son Gesalic (507–11), but he was subsequently ejected by Ostrogothic
forces sent by Theoderic to install his grandson Amalaric (511–31). This
king, the son of Alaric II by his marriage to Theoderic’s daughter
Theodegotha, was still a child, and effective power seems to have remained
21 Chronicon anno III Mauricii, 2, ed. J. Campos (1960) 93.
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