68 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINexchange of letters between himself and his principal opponent in
the peninsula, the Byzantine Patrician Caesarius, governor of the
dwindling Imperial enclave centred on Cartagena. More surprising
are the letters of spiritual or pastoral guidance. One of these is ad-
dressed to Bishop Cilicius of Mentesa, who wished to resign his see
in order to become a monk, a decision over which the king sternly
remonstrated with him for the sake of his responsibilities towards his
flock. Another letter is addressed to one Teudila, who is thought to
be the king's own son. If this be so he must have been illegitimate as
Sisebut's successor Reccared II (620-21) was a child when his father
died, whereas this Teudila, as the letter makes clear, had just become
a monk. A final letter is directed to the young Lombard king Adaluald
(616-626), urging him to beware the snares of Arianism.^21
Limited as the remnants of this collection are they leave very firmly
the impression of a humane man, interested in a wide range of sub-
jects and with an unusual and highly developed sense of the obliga-
tions of his office. This led him on occasion to taking some striking
initiatives, as in his letter to Adaluald. Some of these may have been
ill-conceived, the product of a desire for speedy results. Thus the
fourth Council of Toledo, held in 633, twelve years after his death,
rebuked him posthumously for his having imposed baptism on the
Spanish Jews, irrespective of their willingness or preparedness to re-
ceive this sacrament. But Sisebut has left a more endearing image
in the brief note on his reign given by the Burgundian chronicler
known mistakenly as Fredegar, who, in relating his victories over the
Byzantines, wrote: 'The slaughter of the Romans by his men caused
the pious Sisebut to exclaim: "Woe is me, that my reign should wit-
ness so great a shedding of human blood". He saved all whom he
could from death.'22 His own death in 620 is veiled in obscurity. Not
even Isidore knew, or was perhaps prepared, to reveal the causes,
merely relating three conflicting contemporary opinions, that it was
due to natural causes, was the product of an overdose of medicine,
or was the result of poison.^23 If it were the last of these, such a king
surely deseIVed a kinder fate.
Braulio is one of the most immediately likeable characters to be
found in the history of Visigothic Spain. Of course, this may be due
in part to the fact that he is one of the few of whom even the outline
impression of their personality may be formed, owing principally to
the suIVival of his collection of letters, which is the only one to suIVive
largely intact. That of Isidore is diminutive and clearly truncated, and