158

 
Fig. 1. The Iberian Peninsula in the 5th Century A.D. (from Hydatius, Chronicon, ed. A. Tranoy, vol. 2
[Paris 1974] map 2).
     
159
Fig. 2. Military campaigns of Suevi and Visigoths in the 5th Century A.D. in Spain
(from Hydatius, Chronicon, ed. A. Tranoy, vol. 2 [Paris 1974] map 1).
This page intentionally left blank
 PRO PATRIAE GENTISQVE GOTHORVM STATV
(4TH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO, CANON 75, A. 633)1

Isabel Velázquez

Introduction

The study of the relationship between gens, rex and regnum, the main
topic of the Bellagio conference, has so many historical, political,
religious, social and cultural implications that it is necessary to
acknowledge the fact that the bibliography available can not be
encompassed.2 The case of Hispania and the Visigoths is particularly
remarkable due to the interest aroused by the long history of the
Visigothic monarchy from its arrival in Hispania after the battle of
Vouillé (Vogladum) in 507. That is why trying to tackle this question,
even superficially, sparks a certain degree of caution or apprehen-
sion, not only rhetorical. Thus, I am only going to deal with a num-
ber of points focusing on the scope of these terms and their possible
manifestations in 6th–7th-century Hispania, especially in the after-
math of the 3rd Council of Toledo, whose Proceedings are the first
to include the expression gens Gothorum.
It must be remarked, again on the issue of bibliography, that
modern historiography has been conditioned by several ideological
assumptions associated with the study of Germanic peoples, as some
scholars have pointed out.3 The same constraints, and others, are

1
This article is part of the research projects CAM 06/0050/00 and TEL 1999–395.
I am very grateful to Dr Gisela Ripoll for her comments and suggestions. I also
wish to thank Dr Francisco Rodríguez-Manas for translating the text into English
and Dr Ann Christys for revising it.
2
A large and significant part of this is mentioned in the Introduction to this vol-
ume. I refer the reader to it in order not to duplicate the information; this work
only includes quotations that are indispensable for its accurate documentation and
theoretical apparatus.
3
See some recent references to the development of studies on these topics and
various references in the fundamental studies of P.J. Heather, “The Creation of the
Visigoths”, The Visigoths. From the Migration Period to the Seventh Century. An Ethnographic
Perspective, ed. id. (San Marino 1999) pp. 1–72, here pp. 43–5; W. Pohl, Le origine
etniche dell’Europa. Barbari e Romani tra antichità e medioevo (Roma 2000), with a very
162  

also present in Spanish historiography.4 In fact, they have generated

a long-standing secular tradition that has always approached Hispania’s
Visigothic period as the genesis of present-day Spain: a tradition
worth studying both from the historical-political and from the liter-
ary points of view. Together with the survival of classical Roman
tradition, since the Middle Ages and with clearly ideological and
propagandistic manner since the start of Humanism and during the
Spanish Golden Age almost up to the present, there has been a need
to value and utilise Visigothic Hispania as a historical point of ref-
erence. It is well known that on more than one occasion attempts
have been made to identify the appearance of Spain as a modern
nation with that period. Likewise, Gothic monarchs have been regarded
as the first genuine Spanish monarchs in an uninterrupted contin-
uum.5 Furthermore, the 3rd Council of Toledo (589) has even been
considered as the act of foundation of the nation. This idea of unin-
terrupted continuity has pervaded literature and historiography for
centuries, even giving birth to cycles of medieval romances, such as
those that re-create the figures of kings Witiza and Rodrigo from a
literary standpoint. It has created a zeal for political and religious
continuity in the period of the first monarchs of León and Asturias;
it has had a tremendous influence on historians such as Jiménez de
Rada in the 13th century or humanists such as Ambrosio de Morales

interesting and insightful analysis of the ideology of the origins and new paradigms
in relation also to the situation in modern Europe, in pp. 1–16. For the key bib-
liography on the development of the studies, see again the Introduction to this vol-
ume by H.-W. Goetz.
4
As P. Díaz points out in his “Visigothic Political Institutions”, The Visigoths. From
the Migration Period to the Seventh Century. An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. P.J. Heather
(San Marino 1999) pp. 321–55, here p. 321: “[. . .] the historiographic debate over
the characterization of the Visigothic Kingdom as a state or as a form of state [. . .]
a topic certainly of interest, but which teaches us more about the history of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or about the different historiographic currents,
than about Visigothic history”.
5
For those who are interested, there are several statues of Gothic kings in the
gardens of the Plaza de Oriente and in the Parque del Retiro in Madrid, part of
a collection of the kings from Athaulf to Ferdinand VI, commissioned by King
Charles III in the eighteenth century. Recently, J. Fontaine has published two pho-
tographs of the statues of Liuvigild and Swinthila remarking that: “Tous ces rois
portent le costume militaire et théâtral de rois de tragédie, le même boublier, sur
le même piédestal, comme si les passions soulevées en leur temps s’étaient apaisées,
dans le seule affirmation d’une continuité de la royauté Hispanique, d’Athaulf aux
Bourbons” ( J. Fontaine, Isidore de Seville. Genèse et originalité de la culture Hispanique au
temps des Wisigoths [Turnhout 2000] p. 146 and fig. 33b).
   163

and many others including, for instance, a figure such as Saavedra

Fajardo in the 17th century, author of a Corona gótica, castellana y aus-
triaca.6 Another underlying problem of double identification, not just
between Visigothic Hispania and modern Spain, but also between the
latter and the kingdom of Castille, is sometimes apparent. It would
be very interesting for studying these issues in depth to analyse, on
the one hand, to what degree the Visigothic historical past and its
“mythicising” have moulded later periods, to ascertain what ideo-
logical, political, literary or even aesthetic purposes the use of sources
from the Visigothic era and the constant hankering for its kings, its
arts and its writers have had; to try to determine whether that past
has had any direct effect on specific events in successive periods. On
the other hand, it would also be interesting to analyse the opposite
process: how has the Visigothic era been approached and publicised?
In what way have later styles, aesthetic and literary canons, histor-
ical events and political postulates influenced, conditioned and, finally,
shaped whatever real knowledge of Visigothic Hispania we could have
arrived at?

The question of literary sources

One thing is certain: that there exists a direct relationship between

reality and the way in which it is recounted and transmitted and
that, on occasions, one exerts a powerful influence on the other and
vice versa. That is why the approach I intend to adopt in studying
the topic is, in fact, to tackle those written sources—broadly described
as literary—that “talk” about Visigothic Hispania in the 6th–7th cen-
turies, that deal with the gens Gothorum and their kings as well as the
regnum they established. I do not attempt to cover them all, only
those that I consider most relevant, which constitute our main source
of information—as far as the texts are concerned—on that period
and on how the Visigoths’ presence was then perceived; whether
they could be distinguished from other inhabitants of Hispania, whether
assimilation of one group by the other took place—and to what

6
“Gothic, Castilian and Austrian Crown”. See R. Menéndez Pidal, Los godos y
la epopeya española. “Chansons de geste” y baladas nórdicas (2nd edn., Madrid 1969), here
pp. 30–1.
164  

extent and how this was achieved. The crucial issue is, most of all,
whether the information those sources supply reflect real events or
whether, on the contrary, they convey each chronicler’s perception
of his or her personal reality. Did their writings exert any influence
on political developments or on the denouement of events? Did their
particular interpretation of facts, objective or otherwise, serve to alter
situations? And, most importantly, can we know with a reasonable
degree of certainty what they mean when they employ terms such
as gens, regnum, patria, reges; is what they describe what really hap-
pened or what they wanted to have happened?
From this premise, which stems from a more philological than
historical approach but which through reading and interpreting the
sources inevitably leads, nonetheless, to tackling the historical and
even political issues required by the topic, I believe that I address
one of the problems highlighted by H.-W. Goetz in his Introduction.
It is an issue that I regard as fundamental, that is the issue of sources,
not only because they are written in Latin (and Greek), from the
Roman standpoint, but also because “this is not only a question of
criticism of our sources”, but of the need to take into account con-
temporary authors’ perception of events.
Indeed, it is not simply a question of philological criticism of the
sources but of something more fundamental because, without an
analysis of both the form and content of the sources, treating each
text in relation to others, it is not possible to interpret accurately
the reality they convey. Moreover, the literary genres and type of
documentation to which they belong must also be taken into con-
sideration. Council Proceedings and legislation, especially the Liber
Iudicum or Lex Visigothorum for the period we are studying, are texts
of a legislative nature written in juridical language, in many cases
with a long Roman tradition and using technical terms that are
already standardised, but showing the evolution of some terms that
reflect the contemporary reality about which they are legislating. On
occasions, also, some were penned by the author himself, as we will
see in the case of the Council of Toledo, or they were written fol-
lowing the models and literary references found in the great Christian
authors such as Augustine, Jerome and Gregory the Great and
included biblical quotations. These circumstances make these sources
unique, both due to the way they were written and the particular
language and specific terms used.
   165

Turning to the authors of the chronicles7—without doubt the other

fundamental evidence for the period—, one must take into account
the fact that Chronicae such as those by John of Biclar or Isidore of
Seville are also part of a long tradition of Christian literature to
which they are indebted, a debt that is explicitly acknowleded by
John of Biclar. The chroniclers situated themselves within this tra-
dition with the aim of continuing universal history up until their
own times, although contemporary reality and their own personal
interests and circumstances led to the development of a new type of
history which focussed in practice on Hispania and her kings and
crystallised in works such as Isidore of Seville’s Historia Gothorum (or
De origine Gothorum, the title given to it by Braulius of Saragossa)
which because of its content and ideology has been categorised as
“national (or nationalist) history”.8 This work is itself linked to sev-
eral Historiae on the origins and history of the Gothic peoples that
appeared in late antiquity which shifted attention, by different means,
away from the history of the Roman Empire, starting with the Getica
of Jordanes, Cassiodorus’ Historia Gothorum (De origine actibusque Getarum),
Gregory of Tours’ Historiae or the later Historia Langobardorum of Paul
the Deacon. Thus we find a work such as Julian of Toledo’s Liber
historiae Wambae devoted entirely to this king’s rule and, in particu-
lar, to his victory over the tyrannus Paulus, to which was added a
Iudicium and an Insultatio in tyrannidem Galliae, in which the concept
of the literary genre has changed significantly. Together with this

7
For overviews of the works on Hispania: M.C. Díaz y Díaz, “Scrittori della
Penisola Iberica”, Dal Concilio di Calcedonia (451) a Beda. I Padri Latini, ed. A. Di
Berardino, Patrologia 4 (Genova 1996) pp. 61–118, and U. Domínguez del Val,
Historia de la antigua literatura latina hispano-cristiana, 4 vols. (Madrid 1998); J.N. Hillgarth,
“Historiography in Visigothic Spain”, La storiografia altomedievale, Settimane di studio
del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 17 (Spoleto 1970) pp. 261–311.
8
M. Reydellet, “Les intentions idéologiques et politiques dans la Chronique
d’Isidore de Seville”, Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire 82 (1970) pp. 363–400, here
p. 363; J. Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris
1959) pp. 816–7 and 867–8; id., “Conversion et culture chez les Wisigoths d’Espagne”,
La conversione al cristianesimo nell’Europa dell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del cen-
tro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 14 (1967) pp. 87–147, here pp. 117–8;
S. Teillet, Des Goths à la nation Gothique. Les origines de l’idée de nation en Occident du V e
au VII e siècle (Paris 1984) p. 463. Against, Hillgarth, “Historiography in Visigothic
Spain”, pp. 298–9. For the edition of the work cf. C. Rodríguez Alonso in Isidore
of Seville, Historia Gothorum, ed. C. Rodríguez Alonso [Las historias de los godos, ván-
dalos y suevos de Isidoro de Sevilla. Estudio, edición crítica y traducción] (León 1975) [hence-
forth: Hist. Goth.].
166  

type of works, the biographical genre is exemplified by Isidore of

Seville’s De viris illustribus and, later, by a work with the same title
by Ildefonsus of Toledo which, emulating Jerome and Gennadius’
models, replaced ancient pagan biography with catalogues of men
who achieved eminence by virtue of their faith or their role in the
history of the Church, to the point where political aims or histori-
cal circumstances rather than edifying goals or literary influences dic-
tate the selection criteria of the viri illustres included.9
In the case of many of these authors, one must also consider the
relationship between the persona of the writer and the character of
his work. These authors were powerful both culturally and politi-
cally, almost all of them members of the highest echelons of the
Church hierarchy; bishops and often prior to this abbots of monas-
teries. They all represent the period’s intellectual class; they epito-
mise cultural circles, at least those of the cultivated minority.10 They
intervene directly as well in politics and many of their names are
linked to those of rulers: Leander of Seville to Liuvigild and his sons
Hermenegild and Reccared, Isidore of Seville to Gundemar, Sisebut,
Swinthila and Sisenand, Eugenius of Toledo and Braulius of Saragossa
to Chindaswinth and Recceswinth, Julian of Toledo to Wamba.11 In
their capacity as high clergy of the Church, they participate per-
sonally in the councils and in the drawing-up of some of the most
important canons, where political affairs are settled together with the
definition of concepts of growing significance that are gradually acquir-
ing a theoretical formulation, such as gens, patria and regnum. As has

9
Among other things, his defence of Toledo’s preeminence as metropolitan seat
and urbs regia and focus of his interest. See J. Fontaine, “El de viris illustribus de
Ildefonso de Toledo: tradición y originalidad”, Anales Toledanos 3 (1971) pp. 59–96;
Ildefonsus de Toledo, De viris illustribus, ed. C. Codoñer [El “de viris illustribus” de
Ildefonso de Toledo. Estudio y edición crítica] (Salamanca 1972). On Toledo, I. Velázquez
and G. Ripoll, “Toletum, la construcción de una urbs regia”, Sedes regiae (ann. 400–800),
ed. G. Ripoll and J.M. Gurt with A. Chavarría (Barcelona 2000) pp. 521–78.
10
See Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique; id., Culture et spiritualité en
Espagne du VI e au VII e siècle (London 1986); M.C. Díaz y Díaz, De Isidoro al siglo XI.
Ocho estudios sobre la vida literaria peninsular (Barcelona 1976), here pp. 57–86 and pp.
89–115; C. Codoñer, “Literatura hispano-latina tardía”, Unidad y pluralidad en el
mundo antiguo. Actas VI Congreso Español de Estudios Clásicos 1 (Madrid 1983) pp. 435–65;
id., “La literatura”, Historia de España de Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Part 3,2: España visigoda
(Madrid 1991) pp. 209–67; I. Velázquez, “Ámbitos y ambientes culturales en la
Hispania visigoda. De Martín de Braga a Isidoro de Sevilla”, Studia Ephemeridis
Augustinianum 46 (1994) pp. 328–51.
11
Teillet, Des Goths à la nation Gothique, p. 543.
   167

been pointed out, their influence is felt even in the writing of the
7th century’s legislative work, the Liber Iudicum, for it is true that
there is mutual influence between Church and monarchy; there is
a certain degree of coexistence between both, a search for a power
balance, sometimes tipping in one or the other’s favour. Both pow-
ers coexist, however, and they restrain one another; the sources indi-
cate this in different ways and they must be interpreted according
to the information that the former provide and the manner in which
it is conveyed.12
One must take into account, likewise, how the text has been put
together13 and, when it entails writing about the past, how these
authors judge and report the origins of the Goths; how, from their
own reality, they create a history of former times for which they do
not possess scientific knowledge in disciplines such as anthropology,
ethnicity and so on, nor, on occasions, detailed information about
historical events or enough knowledge about the history of languages
and customs, relying instead on data inherited from Greek and Latin
Antiquity, which they garner, interpret and recreate in the light of
their religious beliefs both concerning the genesis of the world and
its different eras and the evaluation of the canons and cultural mod-
els of the past, and in the light of their clear and undisputed pas-
toral and educational vocation. They aim to write histories of times
and places both recent and further away that are expressed in a
credible way, that convey in the present a plausible image of what
the past must have been like.
Besides, as H.-W. Goetz recalls in his Introduction, it is well known
that our vision of that world is the product of authors belonging to
the Greek and Roman worlds. It is only from that perspective, there-
fore, that we can approach the period. Not only from the sources
“written in Latin”, although the author may have originated from
a different milieu as was the case with John of Biclar—of whom
Isidore of Seville remarks that he was a Goth14—, but above all,

12
Some discussion of this point in I. Velázquez, “Impronta religiosa en el desar-
rollo jurídico de la Hispania visigoda”, ‘Ilu. Revista de ciencias de las religiones 2 (1999)
pp. 97–121.
13
For remarks on what follows cf. Pohl, Origini etniche, pp. 16–38.
14
Isidore of Seville, De viris illustribus 31, ed. C. Codoñer Merino (Salamanca
1964) [henceforth: Isidore, De vir. ill.]: Iohannes Gerundensis ecclesiae episcopus, natione
Gothus, provinciae Lusitaniae Scallabi natus.