Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

visigothic spain, 456,601 123
in the hands of Ostrogothic regents appointed by Theoderic. Only on the
latter’s death in 526 did Amalaric exercise personal rule. In 531 he was
defeated by the Franks near Narbonne and was murdered at Barcelona
while in flight. He was replaced by the Ostrogothic general Theoderic, also
known as Theudis (531–48), who had previously served as regent during
the minority of Amalaric. Little is known of his reign, but in his time the
Catholic church in Spain was able to hold a number of provincial councils.
An attempt to extend the kingdom into North Africa proved abortive.
Ceuta was occupied by a Visigothic army, but they were rapidly expelled by
eastern Roman forces. Theudis was murdered in consequence of an
obscure personal vendetta, a fate that also befell his successor, Theudisclus
(548–9).
A period of weakness for the monarchy ensued. The next king, Agila
(549–54), provoked a revolt in Córdoba and, in trying to suppress it, was
defeated, lost his treasure and had his son killed. Another Visigothic noble
called Athanagild (552–68) soon after rebelled against him in Seville. In 552,
during the course of the ensuing civil war, the emperor Justinian sent an
army to assist one of the parties, which then succeeded in establishing an
imperial enclave along the south-east coast of the peninsula from
Cartagena to Medina Sidonia, though not extending into the Guadalquivir
valley as is sometimes assumed. 22 Although this hostile presence never
developed into the full-scale attempt at imperial reconquest that had taken
place in Africa and Italy, this territory was not finally recovered by the
Visigothic kingdom until the mid 620s. After Justinian’s expedition, led by
Liberius, had established itself, the unsuccessful Agila was murdered by his
own men in Mérida. Athanagild, having reunited the kingdom and established
a new capital at Toledo, failed to make headway against the imperial
forces in the south-east. Since he lacked male heirs, another Visigothic
noble, Liuva I (568–73), was chosen as king on his death.
Faced with Frankish threats on the Pyrenees and in Septimania, the
new king established his brother Leovigild (569–86) as joint ruler, initially
with responsibility for the south. This new monarch was by far the most
effective Visigothic ruler since the fifth century. In a series of campaigns
in the 570s he regained some of the imperial territory in the south, reconquered
Córdoba, which had been lost by Agila, and suppressed various
independent local authorities that had come into being in the north of the
peninsula. He also fought against the Basques, and established a new
town in the middle of Spain, which he called Reccopolis after his second
son Reccared. In 579 he set up his elder son Hermenegild as joint ruler in
the south, but in 580 the latter broke free of his father’s control. When
Hermenegild began to negotiate with the emperor and, probably in 582,
22 Thompson (1969) 320–34.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008