102 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINfollowers by successive kings. They, in turn, are likely to have settled
their own supporters and families on the newly acquired lands. Such
Goths will have retained a military potential, to be used in service in
the cities under the comes or on a larger scale under the provincial
dux. Along the frontiers with the Franks and in the Basque regions a
permanent military presence will have been needed, whereas in other
parts, once the internal disorders of the sixth century had passed
from memory, the military functions of the counts must have de-
clined, and in the course of the seventh century a far greater degree
of integration between those of Roman and those of Visigothic de-
scent in the population become possible, leading to the breaking
down of the functional and administrative distinctions that had pre-
viously existed.
It would be valuable to know if, and to what degree, the Visigothic
settlement created a moderately stable local Gothic aristocracy to
exist side by side with the longer-standing Roman one that we know
was still in being. If so, mutual co-operation between sectors of both
in the furtherance or protection of their local interests against the
outside interference (that might be represented by the king, or even
the Church) may be a reasonable surmise, and a better guide to an
understanding of the intense local particularism that marks the whole
history of early Medieval Spain than any explanation based upon
ideas of fierce racial disharmony. In the Visigothic period it would be
interesting to know where the counts fitted into such a context. Were
they largely drawn from the ranks of the local aristocracy or were they
principally Palatine officials sent from the court or another part of
the kingdom? In Merovingian Gaul the local nobility was trying by
the early seventh century to obtain something of a monopoly on such
offices, but there is no knowing if a parallel development occurred in
Spain.
We are no better informed about the administrative staff and pro-
cedures that the counts had available to them. However, it does look
as if the practice of issuing charters to grant or confirm possession of
land was being employed by the king by the late sixth century, in a
way very similar to be found in the ninth and tenth centuries. It also
seems likely, as is certainly the case in that later period, that the local
count had a role to play in the process. There is a reference in the
Lives of the Fathers of Merida to Leovigild granting an estate together
with the slaves attached to it to the African hermit Nanctus. Interest-
ingly, this is described as being done by the issue of a written deed,