The Visigothic kingdom

El reino visigodo

415–711. After Germanic peoples crossed into Hispania in 409, the Visigoths, who had sacked Rome in 410, settled first in southern Gaul and then in the peninsula,…

What happened

After Germanic peoples crossed into Hispania in 409, the Visigoths, who had sacked Rome in 410, settled first in southern Gaul and then in the peninsula, ruling it from Toledo. A small Arian Christian elite governed a Catholic, Latin-speaking Hispano-Roman majority until King Recared's conversion in 589 united the two faiths. The kingdom produced Isidore of Seville, whose encyclopaedia summed up ancient learning for the Middle Ages, and in 654 a single law code, the Liber Iudiciorum, for all its subjects. Weakened by disputed successions, it collapsed within a few years of the Muslim landing of 711. Later Christian kings in the north claimed to be its heirs.

Its events

  1. 8 May 589: The Visigoths become Catholic
  2. c. 600–636: Isidore of Seville writes down the ancient world
  3. 654: One law for Goths and Romans
  4. 711: The Muslim conquest

Sources

  1. Visigoth — World History Encyclopedia
  2. What motivated Reccared's conversion to Catholicism? — BADDO project, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  3. St. Isidore of Seville — Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent)
  4. At the Origins of the Hispanic Legal Tradition: A Translation and Commentary of the Book of Judgments (Damián Fernández) — American Council of Learned Societies
  5. Muslim Spain (711-1492) — BBC Religions