14. Denmark's History - The Goths in Spain and the Arian Faith

The Western Goths in Spain.

We left the Goths in Gaul when their king Alaric 2. fell in the battle of Vougle south of Poitiers in 507 AD, and almost all their areas in Gaul were lost to the Franks. The King's men brought his five-year-old son, Amalarik, over the Pyrenees to Spain. However, thanks to an alliance with Theodoric the Great in Italy the Western Goths retained a narrow strip of land in Gaul along the French Mediterranean. Theodoric the Great was the guardian for Amalarik but in practice, his general, Theudis, ruled the country as a king.

When Theoderik died in AD 526 Amalarik was 24 years old. He was recognized as the ruler of all Goths west of the Rhone, and the Western Goths royal treasure was sent from Ravenna to Narbonne, where the young king held his court.

Amalarik managed to be married to the Frankish princess Clotilda, and thus he had neutralized the Franks, his dangerous northern neighbors - he thought. But Clotilda was a devout Catholic, and prior to the wedding, she had managed to secure that she was allowed to keep her own religion among the Arian Goths. This promise, however, was broken, and Clotilda sent her bloodstained scarf to her brother, King Hildebert of Paris, indicating that she had been wronged.

A Frankish king was always ready to seize an excuse to attack his weaker neighbors; before long a strong Frankish army was marching against Narbonne. The Goths were defeated and fled to Spain. The capital was taken and Hildebert returned to Paris enriched with the Gothic treasures, and with the loot from the Arian churches. King Amalarik were killed in a church in Barcelona on orders from Theudis, whom the people then elected as their king.

Leovigild was one of the Goths great kings. He was an able general, who subjugated The Suebi, who still lived in the northwest of Spain. He wrested from the Emperor's soldiers several of the cities, which they still held. He built fortresses, founded cities and gave new laws. During his reign, Goths and the Roman native began to feel as inhabitants of one kingdom.

But Leovigild is best known because he tragically killed his own son, Ermengild. The prince married a Frankish princess, Ingunthis, daughter of Sigebert and Brunihild. As a Frankish princess, she was of course Catholic. However, Leovigild's queen Goiswintha was a stubborn arian and pressed the young princess with many means to be converted to the Arian faith. For the sake of keeping the peace's the king sent the young couple to southern Spain, which Ermengild was tasked to govern on behalf of the king.

Not long after, Hermengild was persuaded by his wife and his uncle Leander, who was Catholic bishop of Seville, to leave his ancestral faith and convert to the catholic faith. Thereafter he made common cause with the remains of the imperial army and took charge of a rebellion against his heretic father.

With prayers and persuasion, the king sought to bring his favorite son to his senses, but Ermengild refused to listen. Eventually, the King had to mobilize the army, and before long the last rebels were besieged in Seville. The siege lasted for two years and thousands of people starved to death. When the city fell, the son fled to Cordova, but his new Roman friends from Constantinople betrayed him to his father - against an appropriate payment. King Leovigild found his son in a church; he begged his father for mercy, and the father burst into tears and hugged his son in his arms. The king asked him to stay in Valencia as a private person and keep out of politics, which the son promised to do.

But not one year had passed before King Leovigild heard that his son had broken his promise and was on his way to the Franks. He had left his wife to the Greek officers from Constantinople; and it seems to have been his intention to get the Franks to help him in an attempt to depose his father. He was captured by the king's men in Tarragona south of Barcelona and thrown into a dungeon. Messengers from his father, the king, promised him repeatedly freedom and rehabilitation if only he would give up his new faith. But Ermengild dismissed contemptuously all pleas and called the Arian bishop for the devil's servant. Kong Leovigild commanded then that his son should be killed. An executioner was immediately sent to the prison, and the prince was killed with a blow of an ax without previous trial.

When Leovigild died, he was succeeded by his second son, Reccared, who already had qualified as an able general, who had triumphed over the Franks. He showed wisdom and energy as a ruler. Reccared saw clearly that the Goths would draw the short straw in the confrontation with the Catholic Church's growing power. He decided to convert to the Catholic faith and encourage the Goths to follow his example. The Goths would then get the same religion as the great majority of their subjects.

He called together bishops from both churches and urged them to lead a public discussion in which they argued for their respective faith. He was eager to know the truth, he said. Scholars on both sides unfolded all their oratorical skills, and when the discussion was finished, the king proclaimed his conviction that the Catholic faith was the right one because it was backed by overwhelming evidence from Scripture and many miracles. Not only Gothic laymen but even clerics, including many bishops, quickly followed the king's example.

During Reccareds reign the Frankish King Guntram tried to conquer the Gothic areas in the Southern Gaul. A huge army invaded the Narbonnese province and besieged the city of Carcassonne. Reccared's general named Claudius gave the Franks such a crushing defeat that they never again tried to attack southern Gaul, and the Gothic kingdom remained like before.

Reccared died of disease in the year 601 AD and the Goths chose his young son Leuva as the new king. He ruled only for two years until a nobleman named Witerik overthrew him, and got himself elected king. Leuva got his right hand chopped off and soon died in prison.

It is said that Witerik wanted to reintroduce the Arian religion. He reigned for seven years, until he was killed at a banquet in the year 610 AD and then buried in unconsecrated soil. His successor, Gundemar, ruled for only two uneventful years.

Then Sisebut was elected king in 612 AD. In his time, almost all the remaining Greeks were forced to abandon their possessions in Spain. The Goths had already sold the Greeks as slaves, but King Sisebut bought them free with his own money.

He was the first Gothic king, who ever persecuted Jews. "Baptism within a year or flogging, exile and confiscation of goods;" Such was the choice that Sisebut asked Jews to face. Thousands of Jews pretended they accepted the gospel. Until then, the Jews had supported the Goths, as both groups stood in a certain antagonism to the Catholic majority, but the forced conversions during Sisebut turned them into enemies, and when the kingdom later was invaded by the Moors, they eagerly supported the attackers.

When Sisebut died in AD 621, his general Swinthila was elected king. He was the first king, who reigned over the entire Iberian peninsula. The Greeks from Constantinople, whose territory Sisebut limited to a small stripe of land, became under Swinthila subjects in the Gothic kingdom, and their soldiers served in the Gothic armies. The rebellious Basques were brought to complete submission. Swinthila sought to limit the power of the nobility and clergy. Ordinary people showed their affection by calling him "the poor's Father".

When Swinthila appointed his son Reccimer to his fellow king without asking the nobles and clergy, they rebelled led by a nobleman named Sisenanth. By promising the Frankish king Dagobert a famous jeweled gold bowl from the Gothic royal treasury, he achieved the Franks' support for the insurgency. It was about a gold bowl or similar piece, richly studded with jewels, which weighed five hundred pounds. Aetius had given it to Thorismund, as part of his share of the spoils from the victory over Attila in 453 AD.

As agreed the Franks marched down in Spain, Swinthila's followers gave up, and Sisenanth was crowned in Saragossa. The Frankish army then returned to Paris, and Dagobert sent trusted ambassadors to pick up the promised gold bowl. Sisenanth handed them the precious object, as he had promised. But the Goths became so indignant and outraged at the thought of losing their famous treasure that they by force took it back from the Frankish ambassadors and triumphantly brought it back to Toledo. Sisenanth did not dare not oppose the will of the people, and he had to pay the Franks a large sum of money in compensation.

The general trend after the Goths had accepted the Catholic faith was that the clergy got still more power. In the year 633 AD 69 bishops confirmed Sisenanth's right to the throne. The bishops decreed then that in the future when a king died, his successor would be chosen by a council of nobles and clergy. A king, who was trying to raise his son to royal dignity without the council's approval, would suffer eternal damnation. It was also decided that from now on, priests and bishops should be free of all taxation.

Kindila was elected as his successor in 638 AD. During his time bishops got even more power. It was determined that every future king before the coronation had to take an oath not to tolerate heretics or Jews in his kingdom. Moreover, kings should be of noble Gothic descent.

Kindila died in 640, and completely in accordance with the rules, he was succeeded by his son Tulga, who was likely to become a king quite by the bishops' taste. This did not prevent a nobleman named Kindaswinth to put himself in charge of a successful rebellion that brought him on the throne.

Kindasvinth was a strong-willed and determined ruler. He introduced a reign of terror in which both clergy and nobles got to feel that it was the king who was lord of the country. Two hundred Goths of the most prestigious families and five hundred of lower rank were sentenced to death for conspiracy against the throne. Many others were exiled, and their estates confiscated or donated the king faithful followers. All opposition was crushed, and the kingdom was brought to a state of peace and order, that it had not known before.

In 649 AD he was succeeded by his son Recceswinth, who seems to have inherited his father's energy but not his hardness. In his days it became law that the wealth, which a king had assembled during his reign, should belong to the royal office and thus future kings, and not inherited by an individual king's family. For 23 years Recceswinth controlled his people with such success that the kingdom enjoyed unbroken peace apart from a Basque rebellion, led by a Gothic nobleman named Froya. The leader was captured and executed, but the Basques' complaints were accepted, and they could then accept the Gothic king's rule.

But the main reason why Recceswinth deserves to be remembered is that he continued the work Leovigild and Reccared had begun, namely the integrating of the Goths and the other Spaniards in the one nation. Until his time intermarriage between the two peoples had been prohibited by law. Recceswinth abolished the ban. In addition, he abolished the use of Roman law; Until then, the Goths been convicted by Gothic law and the kingdom's other population by Roman law. He decreed that henceforth both Goths and the other inhabitants should be judged by Gothic law.

Around 672 AD, Recccswinth died in the castle Geneticos near Valladolid. The Kingdom's best men were gathered around his deathbed to discuss, who should succeed him. Everyone knew that difficult times were waiting, and they pointed unanimously on a nobleman named Wamba. But even after heavy pressure, Wamba excused himself on the ground that he was an older man, and did not have the strength required of a king in difficult times. Finally, an officer of the Royal Guard grabbed his spear and said, "Wamba, you must never leave this chamber except as a dead man or a king! "The assembly applauded, and then Wamba understood the seriousness of their recommendation and accepted.

Not long after Wamba ha been crowned in Toledo the message came that both the Basques and the kingdom's provinces in southern Gaul and north-eastern Spain were in open rebellion.

King Wamba sent his General Paul against the rebels in the Gallic provinces. But as soon as he had arrived in Narbonne, Paul called his officers together and encouraged them to abandon their allegiance to the foolish old man, who had allowed himself to be forced to accept the crown. It was suggested choosing Paul as king instead. The rebel Hilderic and his followers joined the proposal, and after a few weeks, Paul was crowned in Narbonne as king of the Goths.

When King Wamba received the news that his treacherous general had been accepted as king of the Gallic cities and a large part of northeastern Spain, he was engaged in a fight against rebellious Basques. Before long, he had suppressed the Basque revolt, and first then he led his troops into the rebellious provinces south of the Pyrenees. In short time all the towns had opened their gates, or they had been taken by storm. When Paul heard that Wamba was on his way against Narbonne, he withdrew to Nimes and left Narbonne to the rebel leader Wittimer's leadership.

Shortly afterwards Wamba showed up at the head of his army in front of Narbonne's walls and urged Wittimer to surrender. The call was contemptuously refused, and after a terrible battle, the city was taken. Wittimer and his followers were then whipped through the streets of Narbonne.

Then Wamba sent the army to attack Nimes. Paul and his men defended themselves bravely through a whole day. The next day the Goths received reinforcements, and after five hours of hard battle the gates were broken down and Wambas troops streamed into the city killing everything that came in their way. Paul and his men barricaded in the great Roman amphitheater, which ruins still can be found in Nimes; but they had not prepared enough supply of water and food and had to surrender within a few days. The leaders of the rebellion were punished by scalping and imprisonment for life.

King Wamba ruled wisely and decisively, and during his reign peace and prosperity reigned. He was no enemy of the Church, but he kept priests and bishops duly in check. He decreed that the clergy at all levels should be required to bear arms to defend the country as other citizens when it was needed. Wamba decreed also that men, who were born in slavery but were freed, also could serve in the army.

Wamba was the Goths' last great king. Some believe that society had evolved into an actual feudal society, where the once numerous class of free men, who were the army's elite warriors, had been reduced to a few in number group of very wealthy landowners, and people's daily life was controlled by a host of priests, monks and bishops.

Seven years after the rebellion of the Gallic provinces, perhaps around 680 AD, he abdicated and was followed by Erwig, who was anointed and crowned by Archbishop Julian of Toledo. During his whole reign, Erwig was little more than a puppet in the hands of the Archbishop. Erwigs legislation was mostly about to cancel the laws that Wamba had given. The penalties for those, who evaded military service, were relaxed; Priests and bishops were no longer required to take part in the defense of the kingom. Those who had been guilty of rebellion against the former ruler were given back their lost titles and estates; and all payable taxes at the end of the first year of Erwig's rule was canceled. The unfortunate Jews, whose conditions to some extent had been moderated during Wamba's rule, became now more suppressed than ever.

This year, 687 AC, a great famine ravaged the country. Erwig considered it as God's punishment for his crimes. He retreated to a monastery, where he died the same year.

Kong Erwig had appointed Wamba's nephew Erica, as his successor, and given him his daughter as a wife. But in return, Egica had to swear that he would protect the queen mother and the whole royal family and all their property.

Erica's first act as king was to call together the kingdom's council of noblemen and clergy. He asked them the question: "When I was married to King Erwigs daughter he forced me to swear that I would always protect his widow and children in the enjoyment of their property. But when I was anointed king, I vowed to pursue equal justice to all my subjects. It is impossible for me to keep both oaths, because much of the wealth that Erwig left, was won by extortion. In order to protect his crown, Erwig reduced many noblemen to slaves and seized their property. They or their heirs will now demand compensation. My Coronation oath leads me to comply; but the oath, which I took to Erwig, prohibits this. I ask you, venerable fathers, tell me what it is my duty to do."

The bishops responded that the promise to the nation infringed private obligations. They also added that since Erwig by appointing Egica as his successor, had been the cause that he took the other oath, thus had released him from his previous obligations that were incompatible with this. In this way, Egica managed to overcome his predecessor's carefully conceived plans for his family's interests.

Egica died in 701 AD and was succeeded by his son Witica. The new king pardoned many, whom his father had exiled, and rehabilitated them with their estates. Egica had forced many other wealthy people to sign debt documents as debtors to the Treasury; Witica ordered these papers burned publicly. There seems to have been a financial crisis for the treasury in the first year of his government period; Maybe it was because of the king's excessive generosity toward tax debtors.

It looks as if Witica was loved by the people and hated and feared by the clergy because he tried to reform the church. An ecclesiastical writer complained that Sindered, the Archbishop of Toledo, "inspired by a zeal for holiness, but not by desire for knowledge", disobeyed the king's orders by continuing to harass and persecute men of high status among the clergy. It has been made probable that he encouraged priests to marry, and he showed some understanding for the Jews. It makes it easier to understand why he later in later time religious literature has been accused of all sorts of terrible crimes, and that he should have been the big culprit, whose wickedness drew the wrath of heaven down on the unfortunate nation.

Witica died in AD 710 leaving behind two minor sons. He pointed to one of his sons as successor, but the kingdom's council preferred a nobleman named Roderic, who was the army commander. Perhaps they knew that storm clouds were gathering over Gothic Spain.

No one knows much about how it could be that a warlike nation like the Goths in Spain in such a short time could be overrun by a Muslim army.

There are myths that tell of the disunity of the Goths, how Roderic avenged his father, who had been blinded by the cruel King Witica. Another myth tells of Count Julian, who commanded Cetua, the Gothic outpost in Africa. When Julian learned that King Roderic had misused his daughter, the beautiful Florinda, he made common cause with the Muslims and showed them how they could invade Spain. Led by a Berber chief named Tarik and guided by Julian they immediately set sail and landed at Gibraltar, which they since have called Jebel Tarik.

Religion

The Romans originally had an eight-day week; the seven-day week was introduced around 0 AD but did immediately become popular. First emperor Emperor Constantine stated in 321 AD that the week has seven days, most likely in connection with the victory of Christianity. The Germanic people, including the Goths, could probably have become acquainted with the seven-day week no earlier than about 200 AD. The naming of the days of the week after the ancient gods must surely have occurred before the tribes became Christian, which the Goths became around 370-380 AD. Therefore, we must assume that faith of the Ase-gods, Tyr, Odin, Thor and Freya in all probability was widespread among the Goths when they lived at the Black Sea.

Almost all the Germanic migratory peoples quickly converted to Christianity in the form of the Arian faith. Arianism was characterized by the thought that the Father (God) is eternal and uncreated, while the Son (Jesus) is derived from the Father and has not existed always and that the Father is superior to the Son.

The Christian cross appears on coins from the Eudoses Goths on Crimea after 311 AD. The Western Goths probably became Christians immediately upon their arrival to the Roman Empire in 376 AD. It is not known when the Eastern Goths became Christians, but when they arrived in Italy in 489 AD, they were convinced Arians.

Arius is said to have been inspired by John's Gospel verses 14 to 28, especially 28, where Jesus says: "You have already heard me say that I will leave you, and I will come back to you. If you really love me, you should be happy that I will go back to the Father, because he's bigger than me."

Contrary, the Catholic and Protestant thesis of the Trinity defines God as a unit composed of three units namely: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is only one God, who, however, is composed of three.

There is very little material preserved that may shed light over the Migration Age's Arian faith. Almost everything has long since been burned and destroyed by the Catholics. Already emperor Constantine decreed: "In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offense, he shall be submitted for capital punishment."

Society

The freed men were expected to fight in the army led by the free warrior and peasant, to whom they were connected. There is little evidence of rising career opportunities for the caste of the freed, but one can imagine that there may have been in periods when the army has suffered heavy losses. It required a complicated public ceremony for someone to be raised to a higher caste.

Freemen and freed could lose their status because of crimes and be reduced to thralls. Tacitus says that they could even lose their freedom by losing in a dice game.

The conditions of thralls are well illustrated in the story of Ulfilas, the Goth's Apostle.

In the third century, the Goths on the Black Sea coast did many voyages across the sea to Asia Minor, where they kidnapped thousands of people and took them as thralls back home to the Gothic areas in southern Ukraine and Romania. Among these were Wulfila's parents.

His name "Little Wolf" is clearly Gothic, indicating that the captives fairly quickly adopted Gothic language and culture. The fact that Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek to Gothic also shows that he was fully familiar with the Gothic language. Greek was probably his mother tongue. It is said that the young Wulfila grew up as a kind of junior minister in the thralls' Christian church in the otherwise pagan Gothic society. The thralls from Asia Minor were probably a largely independent group of peasants, who were obliged to provide a significant part of their production to their Gothic masters, but otherwise were more or less left to themselves.

It fits very well with Tacitus' description of the slaves' conditions in the Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine some hundred years before: "The rest of their slaves have not, like ours, particular employments in the family allotted them. Each is the master of a habitation and household of his own. The master requires from him a certain quantity of grain, cattle, or cloth, as from a tenant; and so far only the subjection of the slave extends. His domestic offices are performed by his own wife and children."

In fact, the thralls' conditions in the Gothic society and in the Germanic tribes as a whole remind on the Medieval tenant serfs, which probably, in fact, represented a very old institution.

When the Greek Priscus was on a diplomatic mission to Attila in Pannonia, that in Hungary, he found to his surprise a Greek fellow countryman in the Huns' camp. He told Priscus that he eight years earlier had been a businessman in the city of Viminacium, where he had been married to a rich woman and done well. But then came the Huns and burned the city and destroyed everything. He was captured and enslaved. His owner gave him the task to fight for the Huns against the Romans and the Akatziri tribe. He fought bravely and collected a large prey, which he presented his Hunnish master, who then rewarded him with his freedom. Now he lived among the Huns as one of them with Hunnish wife and children, and he was quite happy with this.

Procopius wrote in his section on the Justinian's wars in Persia, where the Heruli served in the Emperor's army: "And the Persians, shooting into the masses of enemies in the narrow opening, killed a large number without difficulty, and especially Heruli, who first had attacked the enemy with Narses and mostly fought without protection. For Heruls have neither helmets or breastplates or other protective armor except for a shield and a thick jacket that they bind on themselves before going into battle. And actually, Herulian slaves go to battle even without a shield, and when they have proven that they are courageous men of war, then their masters allows them to protect themselves in battle with shields. Such it is customary among the Heruli."

Huns and Heruls were probably neither Goths nor Germanics, but it is known that - at least the Huns - very rapidly absorbed Germanic customs, names and in general Germanic culture. It is quite likely that such an ascending career for a thrall also could have taken place among Goths and Germanics in general. The very word "freedman" tells us also that there were career opportunities, even for thralls. Some Germanic laws ruled, however, that unfree men did not fight in the army, it is said.

The last Goths

Several modern European nations and landscapes have preserved the names of the original migration people, who settled there. France was founded by the Franks, the name Hungary contains the memory of the Huns, Burgundy recalls the Burgundians, Andalusia got its name from the Vandals, and Lombardy was the place, where the Lombards settled. But few places carry memories of the Goths, who was still the most numerous and most famous of them all. However, Toulouse is said to have been named by them as Tølløse.

But they have generously spread their genes throughout southern Europe and thereby contributed to that the Europeans look like they do.

Several authors have written about Eudoses and Heruli (probably Jutes and Heruls), who lived in the Crimea and then launched seaborne raids to Asia Minor; however, they do not tell the which ancient sources, they rely on - but there is a quote from the contemporary anonymous "Periplus Ponti Euxini": "In the area of Sindian bay (now Anapa) to Pagrea bay (now Gelengik), where in the past a people called Kerketa (Circassians) or Toritae lived, now lives a people called Eudusians, who speaks Gothic or a remote Tauric language". However, this describes a coastline not in the Crimea, but on the other side of the Kerch Strait.

However, Goths in the Crimean are amply documented. They may have been Eudoses, let's say Eudoses Goths. They were not very many, but they held out longer than the big Gothic peoples.

Walafrid Strabo was a French monk who lived from 808 to 849 AD He mentioned that the Goths, who spoke Teutonic, still lived in the Balkans in his time and used the Gothic translation of the Bible.

In 1433 AD troops from Genoa attacked the nation Gothia in the Crimea, which was led by Prince Alexis. The war lasted until 1441 AD and Genoa conquered some important ports.

In 1436-37 AD an Italian Giosafat Barbaro visited Crimea and noted: "Behind the island of Capha that is situated at the Great Sea, is Gothia, and after that Alania that runs parallel with the island against Mocastro, as I have said before. The Goths speak German, which I know from a German, my servant, who was with me there because they understood each other well enough like we understand a man from Furlan or from Fiorentine." Other travelers do not mention the Goths, so maybe it has only been a minority in the Crimea, who still spoke Gothic.

In 1446 AD the Ottoman Turks for the first time showed up off the Crimean coast. In 1453 AD the Turks conquered Constantinople, and dark clouds massed up over all groups in the Crimea. In 1475 AD first Genoa's possessions and later the nation Gothia was conquered by the Turks. Laudivius da Vezzano wrote: "After the Turks' conquest of Caffa (Genoese) Turks attacked the Goths, who live beyond the Danube, to take their fortified cities, and brought their army to these. The city's inhabitants defended themselves, however, every day more and more boldly, so that it was uncertain, who would prevail. Now, do you know the result of the tragic war that took place on the Tauric peninsula (Crimea)."

A German "gun master", Jørg of Nuremberg, who was imprisoned by the Turks for many years, also described the Goths' last battle in the capital Theodoro in 1475 e.Kr: "Then the Turks marched against the city Santodero, where there were three kings and 15.000 men, old and young. But they could not take it and had to withdraw with loss. So three months later they surrendered voluntarily. The Turks killed the kings and all the people."