The development of church/state relations in the Visigothic Kingdom during the sixth century

250 Pages·2016·1.7 MB·English

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Spring 2016
The development of church/state relations in the
Visigothic Kingdom during the sixth century
(507-601)
Jason Matthew Osborne
University of Iowa
Copyright 2016 Jason Matthew Osborne
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3156
Recommended Citation
Osborne, Jason Matthew. "The development of church/state relations in the Visigothic Kingdom during the sixth century (507-601)."
PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2016.
https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3156.
Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of theAncient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH/STATE RELATIONS IN THE VISIGOTHIC
KINGDOM DURING THE SIXTH CENTURY (507-601)

by

Jason Matthew Osborne

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in the
Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

May 2016

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Michael E. Moore
Copyright by

Jason Matthew Osborne

2016

All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

____________________________

PH.D. THESIS

_________________

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of

Jason Matthew Osborne

has been approved by the Examining Committee for
the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Interdisciplinary Studies at the May 2016 graduation.

Thesis Committee: ____________________________________________
Michael E. Moore, Thesis Supervisor

____________________________________________
Katherine Tachau

____________________________________________
Glenn Storey

____________________________________________
Denise Filios

____________________________________________
Paul Dilley
To my beloved wife, Ginger, who makes things possible
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my committee for all of their help, both through the
comprehensive exam process and the dissertation. I would especially like to thank my
director, Professor Michael Moore for his patience and support over the years and
Professor Katherine Tachau for her encouragement and for opening my eyes to the wide
and wonderful world of medieval paleography. I would also like to thank Professor Craig
Gibson and Professor Rob Ketterer in the Department of Classics for not giving up on me
when it would have been easy to do so. Although she will never be able to see the final
product, I especially want to thank Professor Carin Green who gave me so much
encouragement and support over the years and without whom I am not sure I could have
made it this far.
I would also like to thank the faculty and staff of the Departments of Classics and
History at the University of South Carolina who offered me a scholarly community as well
as classes to teach, especially Professor Mark Beck. Professor Erik Doxtader has been
especially accommodating in helping me maintain a flexible schedule so that I could
finally finish.
Above all others, though, I thank my beloved family. My wife, Ginger who
would never have let me quit and my children, Nick and Parker, who help me keep the joy
for life that makes all struggles worthwhile. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Pat
and Danny, who gave me the confidence to believe in myself and my brothers Danny,
Steven, J. R. and Brent and my sister Kellie, each of whom who (not-so)gently encouraged
me by continually asking when I would be finished.
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ABSTRACT

In the year 589 Reccared, king of the Visigoths, called together leaders of the
Catholic Church and the Visigothic nobility to meet at the Third Council of Toledo. That
council marked a dramatic change in the Visigothic Kingdom and began a collaboration
between the Catholic Church and the Visigothic royal government that would come to
define the kingdom, and has forever colored our view of the history of Spain. This
dissertation attempts to place the events that occurred at the Third Council of Toledo into
the larger context of the sixth century and shows that the union between the Catholic
Church and the Visigothic royal government that occurred at Toledo III was the result of
a connection between two longstanding forces in society: the efforts of a small number
of provincial bishops to purify society through strict, orthodox Catholicism and the
efforts of a few Visigoth monarchs to centralize the kingdom and create a political entity
that would be the natural heir to official Roman legitimacy in the west as well as offer a
counterbalance to the Eastern Roman Empire. Further, it draws some connections
between the work of the Catholic Church in the Suevic Kingdom, the other Germanic
Kingdom that existed on the Iberian Peninsula during the sixth century, and the the Third
Council of Toledo. Finally, it shows that in the immediate aftermath of the Third Council
of Toledo the bishops were disappointed to find that the introduction of coercive power
as a tool of instruction for bishops proved largely unworkable in the short term which led
them to abandon some of their new found powers.

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PUBLIC ABSTRACT

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between the Catholic Church and the
Visigothic Kingdom during the sixth century and attempts to show that the relationship
that developed resulted from the intersection of the ambitions of a small number of
provincial bishops to purify society with the ambitions of a few Visigothic monarchs to
centralize their authority and create a sense of “Roman-style” legitimacy for their
kingdom. It further shows that although at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 the
bishops and the Visigothic king Reccared established a working relationship that greatly
increased the power of the Catholic Church in society, in the closing decade of the sixth
century the bishops found that wielding the Bible and the sword was not so easy as they
had hoped.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: The Roots of Visigothic Ambitions: From the Migrations to the Conversion
of the Visigoths under Reccared ....................................................................................... 16
Chapter 3: The Catholic Church in the Visigothic Kingdom Before Reccared ............... 64
Chapter 4: The Catholic Church in the Suevic Kingdom .............................................. 107
Chapter 5: The Third Council of Toledo ....................................................................... 134
Chapter 6: From the End of Toledo III until the Death of Reccared ............................. 186
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 217
Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 220

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1

Chapter 1: Introduction

During the course of the 6th century the Visigothic Kingdom underwent radical
changes that ended with the creation of a fairly centralized, religiously and politically
united kingdom that encompassed nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula and parts of
southern Gaul.1 It was unique among the Germanic kingdoms of the early medieval
period in that by the end of the 6th century it was able to maintain fairly stable borders
and was able to defend itself successfully against all invaders until the Arab conquest at
the beginning of the 8th century. The question of how this came to be and the overall
nature of the Visigothic Kingdom has been much discussed over the centuries, but still
much remains to be said. The main reason for this is that past and current scholars have
tended either to write large surveys of Visigothic history or have written more specialized
monographs that have focused heavily on some aspects of the kingdom while avoiding
detailed analyses of other aspects. Specifically, specialized monographs have tended
either to focus on the fifth century era or on the later sixth and early seventh century
period beginning with the Third Council of Toledo (589) and have had far less to say on
the first 80 or so years of the kingdom during the sixth century. This is understandable
since most of the extant sources date from either the fifth century or the period following
the Third Council of Toledo, and there is just more material to work with. Nonetheless, it

1 The term “Visigoth” is a much more popular designation in the modern era than during late antiquity or
the Middle Ages. Visigoths and Romans alike tended to use the term “Goth” and rarely distinguished
between the “Visigoths” who came to dominate the Iberian Peninsula and the “Ostrogoths” who came to
dominate the Italian Peninsula. The reasons for the distinctions between the two tribes of Goths are fairly
complex and there has been a great deal of argument over the years on this topic, but it is not germane to
my argument, so I will say very little on the matter. This dissertation will follow the main trends in
scholarship and at times will interchange the terms “Visigoth” and “Goth.”