46 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINand Ingundis named their only child Athanagild. However, the
effects of this may not have been what Leovigild envisaged, when he
then established his son as subordinate king in the south of the
peninsula, with his capital at Seville. For in that same year Hermenigild
rebelled. According to John of Biclar, this was at the instigation of his
step-mother Gosuintha.^30
In practice, this rebellion of Hermenigild was no more than a
repudiation of his father's authority over Baetica and southern
Lusitania, where it is clear that at least the cities of Cordoba, Italica,
Merida and Seville gave their allegiance to the new king. Why
Gosuintha had a part to play in this is by no means obvious. Accord-
ing to Gregory of Tours the queen had treated her granddaughter
Ingundis, Hermenigild's new wife, very badly upon her arrival at the
Visigothic court, attempting forcibly but unsuccessfully to make her
renounce her Catholic beliefs in favour of her ancestral Arianism.^31
As a result some scholars, following the traditional association of
Hermenigild's conversion with his revolt, have interpreted John's words
as meaning it was in reaction to Gosuintha, rather than as a conse-
quence of her prompting. However, the chronicler is clear enough,
and, as it can be shown that Hermenigild continued an Arian after
his revolt, an alternative explanation is necessary. It is conceivable
that Gosuintha urged Hermenigild to rebel in order to set up an
independent kingdom for the heirs of Athanagild.
Whatever may have been the cause of the revolt, there was to be no
violence between father and son for three years. Leovigild appears to
have accepted the situation with apparent equanimity and in 581
went to campaign against the Basques in the north-east of the penin-
sula. Here he founded another new town, Victoriacum, the modern
Olite.^32 At no stage after his initial declaration of independence in
579 does Hermenigild seem to have made any further move to in-
crease his territories at his father's expense. As has been mentioned,
this rebellion has always been seen as a Catholic reaction to Leovigild's
attempts to impose Arianism as the norm for religious unity within
the kingdom. However, a close examination of the evidence reveals
that Hermenigild, whose death as a Catholic is rightly recorded in
both Gregory of Tour's History and in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory
the Great (written in 593) probably did not convert from Ar.ianism
until about 582.33 He was known to be a Catholic by the time Gregory
wrote Book VI of his History, almost certainly in 584, but was not one
when Bishop Leander of Seville parted from the future pope in