This is episode 19 called Visigothic Twilight and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

• The succession of Recceswinth and the rebellion of Paul against Wamba
• The social problems that late 7th century Visigothic Kingdom was facing
• The coup of Erwig and Julian of Toledo to disqualify Wamba as king
• Why Julian of Toledo supported the coup and his fervent antisemitism
• The weakness of Erwig and the backstabbing of his successor Egica
• The ruthless rule of Egica and his brutal antisemitic policies
• The weak rule of Egica’s son Wittiza and the famines and plagues of his rule
• The coup of Roderic (Rodrigo in Spanish), and the emergence of the pretenders Agila II in northeastern Spain and Oppas, leaving the Visigothic Kingdom divided right before the Muslim conquest
• Final thoughts on the key political features of the Visigothic Kingdom

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 19 called Visigothic Twilight. In this episode you will learn about the last years of the Visigothic Kingdom, from the reign of Wamba to the succession of King Wittiza, right before the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

On the same day Recceswinth died in September 672, a noble named Wamba was elected king. This Wamba had been a courtier in the court of Recceswinth since his early reign, so it’s obvious that he was part of the noble faction loyal to Chindasuinth’s family. Wamba initially opposed his own election arguing that he was too old, but he was forced to take the crown anyway. However, Wamba demanded to be crowned and anointed in Toledo, to make the succession as legitimate as possible. That didn’t prevent revolts though, as the kingdom was in a fragile state.

Wamba first led an expedition against the Vascones, but when he arrived in modern La Rioja, he heard news of a noble rebellion in the edges of Septimania. This may not have been an attempt to usurp the throne, but rather a plot to hand Septimania over the Franks. King Wamba immediately sent part of his army to suppress the rebellion, although as we will see it would have been smarter to have led that army himself. Instead, that army was led by Paul, someone that Wamba trusted, as he had also appointed him Duke of Narbonensis. Paul had been a man of the inner circle of the court of Recceswinth too, but it seems that he was disappointed with the election of Wamba, since, as soon as he left Wamba fighting the Vascones, Paul started a conspiracy against the King too. Paul obtained the backing of the Duke of Tarraconensis and the rebels of Septimania to support his claim on the Visigothic throne. Actually, it seems like Paul attempted to be recognized as king of the eastern half of the kingdom, while accepting the rule of Wamba in the western half, but this unrealistic offer was refused by Wamba and his supporters. Cowabunga it is!

In a week Wamba pacified the Vascones and he marched towards Tarraconensis. Apparently, the royal army quickly conquered the strongholds of Barcelona and Girona, and then Wamba divided his army in three columns to regain control of the Pyrenees and Septimania. The ground offensive was combined with a naval blockade and Wamba successfully conquered town after town. The properties of Paul and the other leaders of the rebellion were confiscated, and they were sent into exile.

Even though Wamba had put down the rebellion, it was quite revealing of the weakness of central power and the increasing desire of autonomy of the local elites. Another issue that worried the King was that it was increasingly difficult to recruits troops. Much like before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the local population didn’t seem compromised with the defense of the kingdom from both internal and external threats. The nobility wanted more autonomy, while the peasantry was living in very poor conditions and many ran away from the land of their lord. Wamba promulgated a law that forced everyone near an attack to participate in the defense of the realm. Those who didn’t honor their duty could face the confiscation of their property and the loss of their right to testify. We don’t know to what extent this law was enforced, but it seems that confiscations were quite numerous. Wamba also appointed several people of humble origin in key administrative positions, and he took measures to limit the excessive growth of ecclesiastical assets. So, to summarize, Wamba was the kind of king that took measures to strengthen royal power.

The end of the reign of Wamba is quite confusing. One source tells us that Wamba started feeling ill in 680 and asked to be tonsured, which disqualified him as a monarch. He signed a document making Erwig his successor and asked the powerful bishop of Toledo, Julian of Toledo, to anoint Erwig as soon as possible. However, another source claims that it was all a palace coup led by Erwig and Julian of Toledo. They apparently administered a narcotic to Wamba and they tonsured him while he was drugged. By the time Wamba recovered, he had no choice but to accept that he could no longer be a king. Since Wamba didn’t want to be the king since the beginning, it was probably okay for him to live the rest of his days without fearing for his life. The story of the conspiracy seems more plausible, as that would explain why Erwig was anointed so quickly.

<figure class="aligncenter"><figcaption>Julian of Toledo</figcaption></figure>

Julian of Toledo supported the coup because Wamba had created a new see in Toledo to curb the authority of the metropolitan. Wamba had given the Praetorian Church of Saint Peter and Paul to the new bishop, which is very significant because in that church Wamba himself had been anointed and it was the church from where kings departed for war. Of course, that bishopric was immediately eliminated once Wamba was removed from power. But who was this bishop of Toledo? Julian of Toledo was like a second Isidore of Seville in terms of influence in both the politics of the Visigothic Kingdom and within the Spanish Church, and he was a very prolific writer too. Julian of Toledo descended from a family of Jewish conversos, but he was fervently anti-Jewish. He advocated for harsher measures against Jews, and the late Visigothic kings listened to his antisemitic rhetoric that was not so different to that of Hitler. King Erwig for instance called for the “root extirpation of the Jewish plague”, while his successor Egica called for the “enslavement of all Jews”. Julian of Toledo justified the antisemitic policies comparing Jews to a disease, saying that a good Christian king should remove them before they spread the disease. Truly Nazi levels of antisemitism.

But let’s talk about Erwig and his reign. Erwig was the cousin of Recceswinth, and his father was an Armenian or Persian Christian that fled to the Visigothic Kingdom after the Muslim conquest of his birthplace. Upon his rise to the Visigothic throne, Erwig summoned the bishops of the realm in the Twelfth Council of Toledo and rapidly issued a revision of the Visigothic Code of Recceswinth. Among the new laws there were 28 directed against Jews, which included forced conversions as King Sisebut had attempted in the early 7^th century, but there were more extreme measures. Some of these include the obligation of Jewish conversos to show up every Saturday in the presence of a clergyman or a civil officer, or the mutilation of the genitals of those who circumcised or were circumcised after the law was promulgated. Ouch. As Erwig was worried that those laws wouldn’t be enforced, he threatened with fines the bishops and judges who didn’t implement them. Aside from those laws, Erwig made concessions to the clergy and nobility, for instance eliminating the laws of Chindasuinth that banned violence against slaves. That certainly didn’t help restoring social order and calming the common people. Social tensions were very serious, especially because there was a succession of bad harvests that caused widespread famines. By the way, according to a chronicle written later, the Umayyad Caliphate already sent scouts to the coasts of Spain, a prelude of their conquest two decades later. That might be the reason why the Visigoths started paying more attention to the Strait of Gibraltar and militarizing Ceuta, the key North African stronghold of the Strait.

During the reign of Erwig there was an unusual amount of Councils of Toledo, so the Twelfth Council of Toledo was followed by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Councils of Toledo. In the Thirteenth the properties of the rebels of 672 were restored to the original owners, which suggests that Erwig wanted to reconcile with that part of the nobility, maybe in an at