Early Medieval Spain. Unity in Diversity, 400–1000 (2E)

THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 41

before 589 there are no references to named Arian bishops at all,

with the exception of Sunna of Merida in the 580s.^21 It seems clear

that the hold of Arianism on the Goths was weakening during the

course of the century, and that it was Catholicism if anything that was

presenting the active challenge. The monk John of Biclar, later Bishop

of Gerona, was a Gothic convert to Catholicism and the best known

Catholic bishop of the metropolitan see of Merida in this century was

the Goth Masona. One of his Gothic successors, the bishop Redemptus,

may also have been a pre-589 convert. The names of other converts,

though not their careers, may be gleaned from dated inscriptions.

Whatever the percentage of the population this represented, and it

was probably a relatively small one, a movement of Gothic conversion

from Arianism to Catholicism was taking place gradually throughout

the sixth century, prior to the accession of Leovigild.

Periods of open conflict between the proponents of the two theo-

logical systems, as occurred in the second half of that king's reign,

were previously rare. The Arian king Theudis (531-548) was praised

by Isidore of Seville for the degree of tolerance that he extended to

the Catholic Church. Of the few provincial councils that are known

to have taken place in Spain before 589, nearly half were held during

his reign: I Barcelona in 540, Lerida in 546 and Valencia also in 546

(this last is wrongly dated in some manuscripts to 549) .22 It is inter-

esting to note, on the authority of the preambles to the acts of the

latter two councils, that the king was probably officially named

Theodoric rather than Theudis, as he was known to Isidore. Mter the

holding of these two councils in 546 there occurs a gap of forty years

before the next recorded council, that of III Toledo in 589. This has

been interpreted by some historians as indicating royal prohibition of

such assemblies of Catholic bishops. However from the reign of Agila

to the middle of that of Leovigild conditions inside the peninsula

deteriorated in respect of internal order and security.

Leovigild

IT was the career of Leovigild that really altered the standing of the
Visigothic monarchy in the peninsula. He restored it to a position of
strength that it had not enjoyed since the days of Euric and Alaric II.
It is fortunate that the literary evidence for Leovigild's reign, whilst
by no means considerable, is at least fuller than that for his immedi-
ate predecessors. In particular, the whole period of his rule is covered