ESPAÑA
The Visigothic Kingdom
Original
Visigothic Pillar
that used to support the old altar in the church at Rennes-le-Château
(Languedoc-Roussillon, Fr.)
It can now be found in the museum there and is shown here. (Photo Andrew Gough)
1. The Ruler and the The Court |
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Back
to Spain
The Visigothic kingdom was a
Western European power from the fifth to eighth century, one of the successor
states to the Western Roman Empire, originally created by the settlement of
the Visigoths under their own king in Aquitaine (southern Gaul) by the Roman government
and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian peninsula. From 407 to 409 the Vandals, with the
allied Alans and Germanic tribes like the Suevi, swept into the Iberian
peninsula. In response to this invasion of Roman Hispania, Honorius, the
emperor in the West, enlisted the aid of the Visigoths to regain control of
the territory. In 418, Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving
them land in Gallia Aquitania on which to settle. This was probably done
under hospitalitas, the rules for billeting army soldiers. The
settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would
eventually expand across the Pyrenees and onto the Iberian peninsula. The Visigoths’ second great king,
Euric, unified the various quarreling factions among the Visigoths and, in
475, forced the Roman government to grant them full independence. At his
death, the Visigoths were the most powerful of the successor states to the
Western Roman Empire. The kingdom maintained independence from the Byzantine
Empire, the attempts of which to re-establish Roman authority in Iberia
(Spania) failed. The Visigoths also became the
dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula, quickly crushing the Alans and
forcing the Vandals into north Africa. By 500, the Visigothic Kingdom,
centred at Toulouse, controlled Aquitania and Gallia Narbonensis and most of
Hispania with the exception of the Suevic kingdom in the northwest and small
areas controlled by the Basques. In 507, the Franks under Clovis I
defeated the Visigoths in the Vouillé and wrested control of Aquitaine. King
Alaric II was killed in battle. In or around 589, the Visigoths, under Reccared
I, formerly Arian Christians, converted to the Nicene faith. In their
kingdom, the century that followed was dominated by the by the most extensive
secular legislation in Western Europe, the Liber
Iudiciorum, promulgated by king
Chindasuinth (642-653) which formed the basis for Spanish law throughout the Middle Ages.His
co-regent and successor held the important Council of Toledo (653). In 711 or 712 the Visigoths, including their
king and many of their leading men, were killed in the Battle of Guadalete by
a force of invading Arabs and Berbers. The kingdom quickly collapsed
thereafter for unexplained reasons. Gothic identity survived the fall of the
kingdom, however, especially in the Kingdom of Asturias and the Spanish Mark,
but the “Visigoths” as a nation disappeared. |
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Heraldry
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1. The Ruler |
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In Roman times the de jure ruler of Hispania
was the Roman emperor in so far as he was the sovereign of the Roman Empire.
After the Visigothic king Euric
(466-484) had been granted full independence by the Roman government in 475,
the de jure sovereign of Hispania was this Visigothic king and his
successors. The king was elected, and had to be a Goth. He ruled with the advice of a “senate”,
comprised of the bishops and lay magnates. The Visigothic
kings, as the Roman Emperors before, were represented by their images,
that is to say, a portrait of the ruler with the insignia of his power. This image
was printed generally on coins but also on the royal seals and could be
displayed as a statue or on a relief. An early example of such a Visigothic image
is the signet-ring of king Alaric II, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna. It shows the king in armoury surrounded by the legend ALARICUS REX GOTHORUM. |
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A remarkable
portrait of a Visigothic king is in the Santa Maria Quintanilla de la
Vinas in Burgos. The dating of this church proves to
be especially complicated by a restoration in the ninth or tenth
century. Furthermore, a later re-building incorporated the
original apse and transept, preserving only some of its
reliefs in situ. As one of the reliefs seems to refer to
the conversion of the Visigothic king to the Niceaean creed in 586 (see below)
the reliefs may be ascribed to the post-arian era, that is to say between 586
and 714. The first of the reliefs shows a Visigothic king, maybe Leovigild
(568-586), the last Arian king of Spain. |
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Image of a Visigothic king on a relief from the church of Santa Maria
Quintanilla de la Vinas. The sovereignty of the king is symbolized by the two
angels who personalize the phrase “by the Grace of God (Heaven)”. |
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In his time, Byzantine ceremonial was introduced in the court.
To the gothic royal insignia, the sword and the standard, were added a
throne, a crown, a sceptre and the purple mantle of the Roman Emperors. Crowns can be seen on a coin of king Chindasvinth
(642-653) and his co-regent Reccesvinth (649-672). The development of the
crown was broken off in Spain by the conquest of the Iberian peninsula by the
Omayyads in 714. Gold triens of the Visigotic king Chindasvinth (642-653) Ø 19 mm. L.: CHINDASVINTUS R(E)X (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) |
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At the end of
the sixth century the Visigothic court was styled in a Byzantine way.
Officials of the court were responsable for the execution of the royal
private and public policy. The main public officials were the comes
notariorum (royal secretary), comes thesaurorum (aerarii custos,
Treasurer) and the comes patrimonii (master of the private purse). The
main private officials were the comes spathariorum (dux militium regis
(commander of the royal guard)), comes scanciarum (steward), comes
stabuli (master of the stables / connétable) and the comes cubiculi
(great chamberlain). Of these
officials we do not have a list of insignia as is the Notitia Dignitatum
for the officials of the Late Roman Empire. Nevertheless we have this harness
pendant, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which shows two lions
confronted reguardant. This may have been the insignia of the comes
stabuli as in later times such lions were the emblem of a megas dux
and a maximus ammiratus, offices that have evoluated from the Roman
office of Magister Æquitum.
A very fine example of such lions is on the socalled Sicilian Coronation Mantle. For the time
being there is, alas, no evidence whatsoever that confirms this hypothesis. |
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Harness Pendant with Confronted Beasts, 500–600 Visigothic, Brass, leaded;
8.9 Î 7.6 cm MMA
(1990.52) Above
the heads of the beasts is the loop through which a harness strap could be
passed. |
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Sun-relief in the Church of Santa Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas. The legend reads: (h)OC EXIGVVM EXIGVA OFF(ert) DO(mina) FLAMMOLA VOTUM D(eo) (This small
vow/vowed gift the unworthy (exigua) lady Flammola offers to God). From
times immemorial the common symbol of any empire was the sun. The idea was
developed in Mesopotamia and in Egypt in the third millennium B.C. and was
continued in the successive empires all over the world. The symbol of the
Roman Empire seems to have been a golden sun radiant, sometimes also a golden
disc. The sun-symbol most of the time was displayed as a halo behind the head
of the imperial princes. Only in a very few cases, as on a mosaic in the San
Vitale in Ravenna from the middle of the sixth century A.D., the symbol was
displayed in an achievement, the supporters being two angels. In this relief
in the aforementioned church of Santa
Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas, the sun is personalized as a men’s bust with a
halo radiant behind his head, with the word SOL as an explanation. The
supporting angels make it: The God-given (Visigothic) Empire. |
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Moon-relief in the Church of Santa Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas. The third
relief from the Church of Santa Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas
is of the personification of the moon in a clipeus, supported by two
angels. The idea of the moon or crescent as a symbol of the state, or the
statal complex of the administrative, military and religious powers, was
developed in Hellenistic times in the Near East and was adopted by the
Sassanians and the Romans in the first centuries A.D.. The only known crescent supported by two
angels is on a relief above the great iwan
(niche) in Taq-i Bustan (north of Kirmanshah, Luristan, Iran) from the time of Khusraw II
(590-628) and contemporary with our relief. The moon is always,
in all empires over the world, female and consequently always associated with
the empress or wife of the ruler. Our relief is in line with this tradition.
The two supporting angels make it: The God-given (Visigothic) State. In the symbolism of
the Visigothic State there is a clear distinction between the symbols of the
administration, the armed forces and the church. These are all of a Christian
Roman signature. |
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We know
from the Notitia Dignitatum that in Roman times the governor of the diocese
of Hispania was a vicarius in the Roman administrative hierarchy. His
insignia are depicted on fol. 84 of the Munich manuscript [1]. They consist of a socalled theca
which is the symbol of judicature and a table with a blue tablecloth, on
which are displayed a Liber Mandatorum (book of mandates) and a Codicillus
or official document of appointment, in the form of a scroll. On the Liber
Mandatorum are the letters Fl[oreas] int[er] all[ectos] com[ites] ordinis
P[opulusque].R[omanorum]., which would mean: Mayst thou prosper amongst the
chosen counts of the Roman People. [2] These
insignia are not, of course, the symbol of the Roman Christian
administration, but one of the symbols of the hierarchy of the
administration, the square cross being the symbol of this administration
itself. The square cross had the same symbolic value in the Visigothic
empire. |
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The
Square Cross.
From the
kingdom of the Visigoths we have specimina from Rennes le Château in Septimania
(see illustration in the head of this article) and Badajoz (Lusitania). [3] A remarkable rectangular cross is
on a relief in the Church of Santa Maria Quintanilla de la
Vinas (Burgos, Taraconensis).
In this case the rectangular cross is apparently exchanged for a square cross
which is passed by an angel to a king. Maybe this refers to the conversion of
Reccared from Arianism to Catholicism in 586. |
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Relief in the Church of Santa Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas (Burgos,
Taraconensis). King
with a sceptre with a rectangular cross, between two angels, one of which
uphelds a square cross. |
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Younger Visigotic
crosses are square crosses or latin crosses, the square crosses symbolizing
the christian administration. As such we see the square cross on a standard
of king Chindasuinth (642-653) and his son
Reccesuinth (649-653) on a gold triens
(third of a solidus) (see illustration above). Only a
few examples of Visigothic square
crosses are preserved. The main and most impressive examples are the five
square crosses of the 7th century socalled Treasure of Torredonjimeno, found in Jaen (Cartaginensis)
in 1926. The largest cross of the treasure measures 13 Î 14 cm and is of gold, set with
precious stones. This
treasure may have belonged to a dux (governor with judicial, military and
economical powers) of the Visigothic province of Cartaginensis,
or to a comes territori (administrator) of a territorium, a
part of a province. |
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Part of the Treasure of Torredonjimeno, Square cross, latin cross, necklace, letters.
Museo Arquelógico, Barcelona. |
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Visigothic golden cross,
set with precious stones. VII c. 140 Î 130 mm. Treasure of
Torredonjimeno, Museo Arquelógico,
Barcelona. Inv. nr 390. Other
Visigothic square crosses are the cross above the gate of the church of San Juan de Baños (Baños de la Cerreda (Palencia)),
build by king Reccesuinth and a stone cross from Caceres (Lusitania) [4] Other
Visigothic square crosses are the cross above the gate of the church of San Juan de Baños (Baños de la Cerreda (Palencia)),
build by king Reccesuinth and a stone cross from Caceres (Lusitania) [5] |
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B. The Army |
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Stone
relief of a Christogram between two pillars (Museo Arqueologico Nacional
de Arte Romano, Merida) |
The symbol of
the Roman armed force had been the thunderbolt of Jupiter and, later, in the
time of the Christian Roman Empire, the cypher of Jesus Christ, the christogram
XP. This may have been the symbol of the Visigothic army as well, and indeed
some examples of a Visigothic christogram are known from the successive capitals of the Visigothic
kingdom, Merida and Toledo. [6] These christograms are characterized
by the stroke at the upper right side of the pole which is a reduction of the
curl of the P. In particular the stone relief from Merida
with three christograms is of interest as it may have marked the
entrance of the headquarters of a Visighotic force in the royal palace. The
two peacocks are an indication for this because they symbolize the mandate of
the king. Even, if we take into account the lion in the locket of the central
christogram, this may have been the achievement of the headquarters or
staff of the royal guard, which would have consisted then of three centurii,
the first commanded by the comes spathariorum. Be it as it is, in any case the two or three
reliefs prove that the symbol of the armed force in Visigothic Spain was the christogram
borrowed from the Romans. |
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Drawing of a stone slab from Visigothic Spain, 6th century. The
original in the Museo Arqueologico Nacional de Arte Romano, Merida (Lusitania). Three christograms with pending A’s
and Ω’s under vaulted structures, the
central one charged with a locket with a beast (lion?) reguardant. Two
peacocks as ‘supporters’. The coin of Chindasvinth
(see above) suggests that the Visigothic standard in the 7th century was a
square cross on a pole, which would mean that the armed forces were
considered as a part of the administration. Such a situation had occurred
before in Constantinople where the command of the army had switched by and by
from the Master of the Soldiers (Magister Militum) to the supposed
more reliable Comes Domesticorum Peditum et Æquitum, who was a
member of the court. As such the task of the armed force was more of policing
than of defence. [7] |
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In the time of
the alliance of the Visigoths with the Romans the Visigothic army consisted
of legions of Roman fashion. King Liuvgildus changed its organisation, manned
now by civilians and Goths. A standing army of border troops was instituted
and provincial armed forces (thiufae), conscripted by dukes and
counts. Reccesuinth created a standing army in his Libro Iudiciorum. The provincial
and municipal army consisted of thiufas
or milliardas, commanded by a thiufadis. A
thiufas was divided in quingentenae, each divided in five centuri
of ten decuri. [8] The supervisor
of the army was the comes exercitus or praepostis hostis, and
was appointed by the king himself. As the standard
of the former Roman legions was an eagle-and-thunderbolt and the rank
insignia of the prefectus legionis was an eagle, the rank insignia of
a Visigothic comes exercitus or “leader of the host”, may have been
the same. [9] A
few of these rank insignia have been preserved. As there exist pairs of them,
we may suppose that they were worn at both sides of the collar of the military
mantle. A very famous and well documented specimen of such an eagle is in the
collection of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The design of this eagle is completely
different from the traditional Roman eagles which are in a more naturalistic
style and generally depicted in a sitting position. On the contrary, the Gothic eagles (as the Ostrogoths used
this kind of eagles too), are more of a stylized hellenistic type and to be
compared with the eagles on ancient Greek coinage. In fact, these Gothic eagles,
beak upwards, wings spread and pointing downwards, were the prototypes of the
eagles common in West-European heraldry after the beginning of the 12th
century. |
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Visigothic Eagle Fibula, (Extremadura, Lusitania)
6th century Gold over bronze, semiprecious stones, meerschaum Length: 14,4 cm. The
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD.Acquired by of Henry Walters, 1930 (54.421;
54.422) With
these Visigothic eagles, the story of rank
insignia of the Visigothic army is almost told. No such fibulae are found
which could have been the insignia of the lower ranks, for which griffins and
lions would have been appropriate. It is only in Ommayad times that such
symbols occur. |
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The Latin Cross. The catholic church maintained the ancient
territorial divisions of the Roman Empire and the ecclesiastical provinces in
Spain were the same as the Roman provinces before. These provinces were
Septimania, Galecia, Tarraconense, Cartaginense, Lusitania and Betica. The
capitals of these provinces (Narbona, Braga, Tarragona, Toledo, Mérida and
Sevilla) were the sees of the metropolitans. The six provinces were
divided in eighty-two dioceses and the same number of roman cities were
episcopal sees. After 681 Toledo, since 569 the capital of the kingdom, was
the see of the primate of the Visigothic church. |
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Part of the Treasure of Guarrazar, formerly in the Musée de Cluny,
Paris. 19th
century lithograph. In
the middle the crown donated by Reccesuinth with the pending letters RECCESVINTHVS REX
OFFERET. |
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After the
adoption of the nicaean creed, the symbol of the church in Spain was
unmistakably the latin cross, just like in the rest of Western Europe. This
can be explained from the fact that after 586 not the Visigothic king but the
pope of Rome was the head of the Spanish church. The
insignia of the spanish metropolitans seem to have been a golden pectoral
cross and a golden circlet or crown.[10] Such insignia have been found in
Guarrazar: Towards the close of 1858, or
early in 1859, in the course of excavations at La Fuente de Guarraz, near
Toledo, on the property of some private individual, a hoard of treasure of
great value and interest was brought to light. No particulars of the
discovery are recorded. It seems, however, that there were not found any
remains of a case or casket in which the relics had been enclosed; in several
parts the ornamentation had been filled with the soil in which they were found;
it has, therefore, been supposed that those relics of royalty had been buried
in some time of confusion without any enclosure. The spot where the crowns
were found was uncultivated land, which the peasants were breaking up when
the discovery was made. [11] The treasure, originally composed of
twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses, was partitioned, with some objects
going to the Musée de Cluny in Paris and the rest to the armouries of the Palacio
Real in Madrid (today in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain).
Subsequently most of the Treasure of Guarrazar was stolen and has
disappeared. Æ Taking into account the large number
of crowns in the original treasure, and the crown clearly donated by
Reccesuinth himself, the crowns can be linked to the 8th Council of Toledo in
653. Of the sixty bishops attending this council, 24 were Goths and 36 Romans
(hispanics), the first number very near to the number of crowns of the
treasure. In that case we can imagine the crowns suspended above the seats of
the bishops, the pectoral crosses pending on their breasts. We even may
assume that the most precious of these crowns, the one donated by
Reccesuinth, belonged to the reigning metropolitan of Toledo, St. Eugenio II (646-657). The missing of the 34 or 36 other episcopal
insignia, clearly of the Roman bishops, may be explained by the fact that
these were not crowns or circlets but croziers. The crozier appeared
in the sixth century but is clearly inspired by older Roman Christian
examples. [12]
The Roman croziers, if they were really used during the Council
of Toledo, must have been preserved in the treasuries of the different
episcopal sees. [13]
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© Hubert de Vries 2008-10-30
[1] Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, München, Clm. 10291.
[2] Also …. PR[imi] = … of the first rank.
[3] Pilar con cruz
patada-escultura visigoda-s VI1 (35832 ad Badajoz Merida Museo Nacional de arte
romano)
[4] Cruz visigoda con
inscripcion paleocristiana- s VII -procedente de Alconetar-Caceres (26335 ad
Madrid Museo Arqueologico Nacional-coleccion).
[5] Cruz visigoda con
inscripcion paleocristiana- s VII -procedente de Alconetar-Caceres (26335 ad
Madrid Museo Arqueologico Nacional-coleccion).
[6] Marble
slab showing a relief of a standard with a christogram between two human
figures. (151308 Madrid coleccion particular. Placa Visigoda con crismon y dos figuras humanas-s VII/VIII-marmol. The picture has to be flipped horizontally!)
Maybe this slab is better dated in the 6th - 7th C.
[7] The vexillum of the Comes
Domesticorum Peditum et Æquitum as on the Anastasius Diptich (517) showed a
square cross within a bordure.
[8] The contemporary (from 480 ca until 660)
Byzantine army consisted of legions of 5000, commanded by a merarch,
fifths of a legion commanded by a chiliarch, cohorts of 500, commanded
by a tribune, centurii of 100 commanded by a hecatontarch, and
decurii, commanded by a decarch. The thiufadis should have been
equal to a chiliarch.
[9] The insignia of the general officers the
christogram within a crown of laurel. No such insignia seem to exist in the
Visigothic empire after independence in 475.
[10] The generally accepted opinion is that they
‘had originally been offered
to the Roman Catholic Church by the Kings of the Visigoths in the seventh
century in Hispania, as a gesture of the orthodoxy of their faith and their
submission to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.’
[12] The mitre as an insignia of a Roman
bishop was only introduced in the middle of the 11th century.
[13] The Goths had a privileged social position in
Visigothic Spain, they did not pay taxes, they were of different religous
origin (Arian) and they had their own special laws and rights. This may also
explain why the insignia of the Goth and Roman bishops were so different.