THE SEVENTH-CENTURY KINGDOM 97arrived, ofVisigothic. One such family was probably based at La Cocosa,
not far from Merida, where a substantial villa of Late Roman founda-
tion, with evidence of occupation continuing into the Visigothic period,
has been unearthed.^15 Relations between the aristocracies, Roman
and Gothic, and the local bishops could be close, as evinced in the
case of Merida in the support given by Claudius, the Dux or Duke of
Lusitania, to Masona, matched by the aid of various Visigothic comites
or counts to his Arian rival Bishop Sunna. However, the limitation of
our evidence means that we lack any real indication of the power and
influence of these men in their localities, or of their wealth. Our view
is an essentially clerical, indeed episcopal, one.
Unlike fifth-and sixth-century Gaul, where the existence of a con-
siderable number of aristocratic episcopal dynasties can be easily
shown, the scantiness of information makes it impossible to assert
that the bishops were or were not largely drawn from a limited number
of aristocratic families, who thereby continued to exercise some of
the local influence of their secular forebears. However, the anteced-
ents of so few of the Spanish bishops of these centuries are known
that no such deductions may be made. Fructuosus, Bishop of Braga
(c. 650) and a noted monastic founder, is known from his Life to have
been the son of a Visigothic duke, but such a detail is a rarity.16 There
are a few episcopal dynasties to be found: Braulio of Zaragoza (631-
651) succeeded his brother John (c. 619-631) in that see and their
father appears also to have been a bishop, though of a different city.
However, the previous social standing of the family is completely
unknown. What is fairly striking are the number of aliens who come
to acquire bishoprics. We have already encountered Paul and Fidelis
in Merida and Martin in Braga, but it is also worth noting that Leander
and Isidore of Seville were members of a family of refugees from Byzan-
tine Spain. Indeed the fact that they both had Greek names might
suggest that the family originally came from much further east than
that. All of this suggests that, in the sixth century at least, southern
Spain was still functioning as part of a much wider Mediterranean
world and that the local aristocracies had not obtained the virtual
monopolies on episcopal office that may be found in the Auvergne
and other parts of southern Gaul at this time.^17
As has been pointed out above, power at the local level was in a
large measure manipulated and articulated through the cult of the
patron saints. But exactly how and why devotion to the martyrs and
other saints came to be so passionate and generally accepted a part