54 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINsees.^46 Reccared, Leovigild's son and successor was converted to
Catholicism under the guidance of Bishop Leander of Seville. With
this change in royal attitude, the local strength of the Arians was
undermined.
It took two years from the conversion of Reccared for the assem-
bling of the Third Council of Toledo in May 589. The summoning of
a council took time, with communications in the peninsula as bad
and as slow as they must have been, but time was also spent in other
ways. By the time the council met on 8 May it had been made clear
that those Arian bishops who were prepared to anathematise their
former beliefs and accept those of their Catholic colleagues would be
confirmed in possession of their sees, even if this meant having two
bishops in one diocese. The Arian bishops of Barcelona, Valencia,
Viseo, Tuy, Lugo, Oporto and Tortosa all publicly renounced their
former beliefs at III Toledo, and went on subsequently to sign the
acts of the council with the other Catholic bishops. Thus two bishops
of Lugo came to be amongst the signatories. The subsequent careers
of the former Arian bishops are unclear, as too few councils were
held between 589 and 633 for us to be able to detect them from their
signatures. One of them, however, Bishop Ugnas of Barcelona, con-
tinued to hold his see until some time after 614, as in that year he
signed the acts of II Barcelona.^47
It is notable that all of these Arian bishops who appear at III To-
ledo come from only two regions: Galicia and Catalonia. It has been
suggested with much plausibility that as the Suevic kingdom in Galicia
had converted from Arianism to Catholicism (c. 560), these Arian
bishops from that region were ones imposed by Leovigild after his
conquest of the Sueves in 585. Why Catalonia should be so well rep-
resented, having two Arian bishops recorded contemporaneously in
Valencia, is not so clear. Ugnas in Barcelona may have had no Catho-
lic rival, as he is the only bishop to sign for that see in 589, but both
Tortosa and Valencia had Catholic bishops as well as Arian, thus
giving the last named city three prelates.
Other Arian bishops were not prepared to submit in the way those
present at III Toledo had. It is possible that the Arian bishops were
required to undergo a period of penance before being admitted to
the fellowship of the Catholics and restored to their offices. "I:his was
certainly expected of Sunna, the Arian bishop of Merida, who re-
fused. Being involved in a plot against his Catholic rival Masona and
probably the king, he was banished and went to try to preach Arianism