This is episode 17 called Changing dynasties and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

• What was the ideal of good government in 7th century Christian Europe
• The early internal problems of Sisebut due to eclipses
• Sisebut’s campaign against Byzantine’s Spania, and why he decided not to completely expel them from Spain
• The start of a trend under Sisebut: anti-Jewish policies, fake conversions and the problem of crypto-Jews
• The passive role of the Church in the forced conversions of Sisebut
• Suintila’s successful campaigns against the Vascones and his success in ejecting the Byzantines from the Iberian Peninsula, which meant that Suintila became the first king of all Spain
• The failed attempts of Suintila to centralize and his overthrown led by Sisenand
• What was a agreed in the Fourth Council of Toledo to limit royal power while securing more strongly the position of the king
• The reigns of Chintila and Tulga where the position of the king was very weak, and an explanation of why was that the case
• The successful rebellion of 79-year-old Chindasuinth against Tulga
• Intellectual achievements of 7th century Visigothic Spain and why was Spain the intellectual and cultural center of Western Europe in that period
• Reflection on why 7th century Visigothic kings failed to centralize unlike Leovigild and Reccared

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 17 called Changing dynasties. In this episode you will learn about a period of turbulence for the Visigothic monarchy, with some ups and downs, as well as the intellectual life of Visigothic Spain. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

We left the previous episode with Sisebut becoming King of the Visigothic Kingdom. Few people in Spain know him, but Sisebut was actually an important king, because he promulgated pro-Catholic and anti-Jewish policies that defined the Visigothic Kingdom of the 7^th century. Many historians consider Sisebut the most learned king of the history of the realm, and he was one of the most pious ones too. Because of his literary education, he was familiar with the concepts of good government of 7^th century Europe. Those ideas came from the Eastern Roman Empire, so centralizing and caesaropapist policies were considered the ideal, as well as the idea of the Christian ruler having the duty to suppress sin and having high moral standards. For example, Christians disapproved performing arts, and Sisebut sent a letter to the metropolitan of Tarraconensis to reprehend him because that metropolitan liked performing arts, so we can see how Sisebut applied the ideal of caesaropapism. He was a close friend and patron of Isidore of Seville, who under his reign wrote his main works.

In 612, the first year of Sisebut’s reign, there were two eclipses. As you can imagine, in an era of ignorance and superstitions, the common people interpreted that as a bad sign from heaven. The year before there had been yet another two eclipses, so you can imagine that people were anxious. In a more global context, the Persians of the Sasanian Empire were invading the Eastern Roman Empire in a very devastating war, so certain scholars and clergymen said that the Apocalypse was going to happen soon. To make things worse for Sisebut, the pagans of northern Spain, heretics and nobles who opposed Sisebut took advantage of that and cause social unrest. To solve this issue and to, you know, avoid being overthrown or assassinated, Sisebut asked Isidore of Seville to write a text to explain, in a rational way, why the eclipses were happening. When Isidore finished the text, the learned king Sisebut replied Isidore and wrote his own explanation to those phenomena, using theories of the Greco-Roman tradition.

<figure class="aligncenter"><figcaption>De Natura Rerum, a treaty of Astronomy</figcaption></figure>

It’s impressive how Sisebut wrote that astronomic treatise while he was personally leading an expedition against the Cantabri and Vascones. They were not the only ones causing problems, as the Visigoths had to campaign against the Astures and Ruccones. The future king Suintila was the guy in charge of the campaign against the Ruccones, but I will talk about him later.

In addition to fighting the always trouble-making peoples of the north, Sisebut campaigned against the remnants of the Byzantine province of Spania in 614 and 615. As I said before, the Eastern Roman Empire was in a very weak situation, because the future emperor Heraclius revolted while the Sasanians were invading, so they didn’t care about what was happening in such a peripheral and strategically unimportant province like Spania. That’s why the Visigoths needed to seize the opportunity to expel them. During this campaign the Visigoths conquered most of Spania, including Ceuta and the second major city of the province, Málaga. Surprisingly, Sisebut accepted peace negotiations with the governor of Spania, even though he could have easily crushed them then. The letters that Sisebut and the governor exchanged luckily survive to this day, and we know that the governor agreed to recognize the territorial gains of the Visigoths and hand over the hostages they had captured in exchange for peace. But why Sisebut accepted this deal instead of demanding an unconditional surrender? The more likely explanation and according to the writings of Isidore of Seville, Sisebut heard about the unstoppable advance of the Zoroastrian Sasanians and how they conquered the sacred city of Jerusalem. Then, in an act of piety and mercifulness, he accepted to stop the bloodshed of more Christians. With that, Spania only consisted of the area that surrounded the stronghold of Cartagena and the Balearic Islands.

Now let’s focus on his religious policy, because Sisebut started a period of anti-Jewish policies that continued until the fall of the kingdom, and many Jews precisely helped the Muslims when they were conquering Visigothic Spain because of it. I said in the previous episode that there were already policies targeted against Jews with Reccared, but according to the law that Sisebut promulgated the previous law was being loosely applied. Just like Reccared, Sisebut aimed for the religious unity of the kingdom, of all its peoples, so no heresies or other religions were allowed. To achieve that, he forced the conversion of the Jews, which generated a new problem that continued until Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492: the problem of fake conversions, also known as marranos or crypto-Jews. That means that although those who stayed were forced to convert, they practiced Judaism in secret. The others that didn’t accept the forced conversion were expelled, with some moving to France and others to North Africa. The first law against Jews again banned marriage with Christians, it banned Jewish proselytism, and Jews were forbidden to own Christian slaves, otherwise half their properties would be confiscated. Then there were other laws that further discriminated Jews, like for instance their offspring was forced to be baptized. Jews in Spain weren’t a particularly wealthy group, so those policies again were not about economics, but about the idea that everyone living in a Christian kingdom must be a Christian. For Sisebut, he was enforcing his role of protection against the sin, just as the ideal caesaropapist Christian ruler would do.

Strangely enough, the Church didn’t put pressure on Sisebut to force the conversion of the Jews. It was entirely Sisebut’s idea, partly because of what I have just said but also because Jews in the Eastern Roman Empire collaborated with the Sasanian invaders. Isidore of Seville, who was the most influential bishop of the kingdom, didn’t approve the idea of forcing their conversion. But although he opposed it and much of the clergy did it too, they didn’t actively oppose those policies either while Sisebut was alive. They later criticized it, but again, as those who converted had received the sacred baptism, their conversion was irreversible. We can say that the Church in this case passively accepted the forced conversion of the Jews and later accepted the done deal.

Then in 621 King Sisebut died, probably by poisoning, and he was shortly succeeded by his son Reccared II, who died after a few days, probably assassinated by the ones who assassinated his father. Then there was an interregnum of 3 months and Suintila, the general who fought the Ruccones and Byzantines, was elected King of the Visigoths. The reign of Suintila can be clearly divided in two periods, the first five years of reign stood out for his military succes