THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 53the kingdom that was based on consent rather than force. Thus it was
imperative that the conflicts in the different regions of the peninsula
caused by royal involvement should be resolved as speedily as pos-
sible. The power of the Arians, who were probably in the minority
throughout most if not all of the peninsula, had been artificially
increased. As in Merida, the results must have been intense local
conflict. But the new strength of the Arians was essentially ephem-
eral, depending as it did upon active royal support. When this was
removed with the death of Leovigild in 586, they were left defenceless
before a Catholicism reinvigorated by intellectual conflict.
The end of Visigothic Arianism was rendered inevitable by the
personal conversion of King Reccared (58~01), announced in 587,
soon after his accession. Theologically the position of the two sides
had grown closer since the Arian synod of 580. The modification of
the Arian stand on the Trinity and the abolition of the necessity for
rebaptism for converts, which had probably won over several Catho-
lics in the last years of Leovigild, could also facilitate a move in the
opposite direction away from Arianism, so long as the Catholics did
not prove too doctrinaire over the requirements for readmission to
the fold. As has been explained, the division between the two creeds
in terms of the racial separateness of Roman and Goth had long since
broken down. What remained at issue was power at the local level. In
towns and cities such as Merida, Arian parties had been strengthened
or even created during the reign of Leovigild, on royal initiative. The
combination of an Arian bishop and various Gothic nobles, together
with influential converts from Catholicism, may well have become the
politically dominant one, with royal backing, in many Spanish towns
in the early 580s, overshadowing the Catholic bishop and his support-
ers. This is the picture that emerges from the account of the Lives of
the Fathers of Merida. There must have been sharp regional variations,
for in some areas the Arian groups may have been powerful for con-
siderably longer, whilst in others they may not have emerged at all,
despite royal promotion. There is insufficient evidence to provide a
full perspective on this.
The weaknesses of the Arian position in the sixth century, and the
rapidity with which it disappeared after 589, suggest that it was on the
wane and its short-lived flourishing under Leovigild largely an artifi-
cial growth. It is even possible that Leovigild himself was moving
towards compromise with the Catholics in the years 584 to 586. He
appears to have allowed them to refill a number of vacant episcopal