30 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINtreatment of Roman statute law was directly in the tradition and
following the lines of known praetorian prefectural legislation. It is
quite conceivable, that the late Roman officials had similar powers
and responsibilities in respect of the vulgar law. Thus the activities of
Euric in his Code may well have been as much within a recognisable
Roman legal context as those of Alaric II with his Breviary.
These detailed considerations of the legal work, particularly of Euric
but also of Alaric, have been necessary in order to suggest how closely
within a continuing late Roman governmental tradition the early
Visigothic kings of Spain and Gaul were working. Their powers and
their responsibilities, which, under the guidance of Roman advisers,
they took seriously, derived from the way they had fitted themselves
closely into the pre-existing structures. They governed as delegates of
an Empire, that, in the west at least, no longer existed. But it was on
the basis of treaties and agreements made with that Empire, and titles
granted by it, that they exercised authority over their Roman subjects.
Having subsumed the rolt;s and fulfilling the functions of both
Praetorian Prefect and Master of the Soldiers, their rights and their
duties were clear. Amongst these the provision and maintenance of
good law were clearly not the least, certainly in the minds of Euric
and Alaric II.
There are many features of the Romano-Gothic society of this
period that it would be pleasant to know more of, but the evidence
is limited. Certain features that will be discussed in the context of the
sixth and seventh centuries, such as royal finance, the natures of the
Roman and Gothic aristocracies, and so on, could be relevant to this
period too, but the absence of documentation prevents this being
more than speculation. However, one thing is clear, and that is that
the Church benefited from the relatively benevolent rule of the
Visigothic kings in the late fifth century, even though they themselves
were Arians, and Euric has something of an undeserved reputation as
a persecutor of Catholics, at least in Gaul. The Goths as a whole were
Arians, divided from the Catholics by their lack of belief in the co-
eternity and equality of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father.
But they had their own places of worship in their separate settle-
ments, and it is likely that the Arian liturgy was still conducted in the
Gothic language. The Visigothic court at Toulouse in the late fifth
century has been considered a possible place of origin for the extant
fragmentary Gothic manuscripts of the Gospels, although the claims
of Ostrogothic Italy are also stronger.^44 Thus contact between Arians