VISIGOTHS

The Visigoths (Good Goths) were located in central Germany when they first came into contact with Roman traders and soldiers in the first century B.C. They were an Indo-European people who seemed to have originated in Poland and not in Scandinavia, as some ancient historians believed. Around 300 B.C. some of these people left Poland for unknown reasons and began migrating south through the Balkans. When they reached the borders of the Roman Empire, the ancestors of the Visigoths found it easier to settle down than to continue south by fighting the Romans, and there they stayed, along the Danube River on the borders of the Roman Empire. They were small farmers, growing mostly wheat and barley.

Throughout the Roman Imperial period, the ancestors of the Visigoths constantly traded with the Romans and intermittently fought with them. Both sides benefited from this exchange of goods and information. It was through this contact that the Visigoths encountered new technologies and products, such as blown drinking glasses and bottles, writing, and poured concrete. In about A.D. 300 the Visigoths converted to Christianity through the missionary work of Roman Arians. The Visigoths also taught the Romans their own military techniques, and in the fourth century A.D. many Roman soldiers on the Rhine and Danube were buried carrying Gothic weapons and wearing Gothic clothing and jewelry.

Starting in about A.D. 200, however, the situation of the Visigoths became untenable. The Huns, leaving their homeland in eastern Siberia, had migrated across Asia and were sweeping down through Europe, pushing refugees ahead of them. The Visigoths, attacked by the Huns, tried desperately to move across the Danube into the safety of the Roman Empire but found themselves trapped between two powerful opponents. Perhaps as a result, they began to develop a more formal identity and leadership. In A.D. 378 the Visigoths took advantage of Roman military mistakes to kill the Roman emperor Valens at the battle of Adrianople, cross the Danube, and take over a piece of the Balkans within the empire. The Romans were unable to push the Visigoths out but refused to provide the refugees with food, seeds, or tools so that they could reestablish themselves as farmers.

A generation later, the Visigoths were still in the Balkans, struggling as refugees and growing increasingly angry. Their leader, Alaric, demanded food and supplies from the Roman emperor Honorius in Ravenna, but Honorius did nothing. In response, Alaric took his entire people and began moving toward Rome. Meeting no serious opposition, Alaric's army sacked the city of Rome in A.D. 410. The Visigoths stayed only three days, because Honorius immediately cut off food supplies to Rome. When they left, the Visigoths headed south down the Italian coast, apparently hoping to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Africa. Most of Italy's food came from Africa, and the Visigoths thought of it as a promised land. In the toe of Italy, however, a bad storm destroyed the boats they were planning to use, and the Visigoths hesitated, having no experience with seafaring and frightened by the storm. Unexpectedly, Alaric died. Alaric's brother-in-law Ataulf (Ataulphus or Adolf) took over and led the Visigoths back up north and past the Alps into southern France.

In A.D. 409, however, the Vandals, Alans, and Sueves had invaded Spain. Honorius now invited the Visigoths to counterattack and get rid of these people in exchange for the right to settle in southern France. Ataulf accepted the contract, and the Visigoths wiped out the Alans and some of the Vandals. At this point, in A.D. 415, Honorius belatedly realized the danger that the Visigoths would cross from Spain to invade Africa; fearing that the Visigoths would cut off the food supply of Rome, and he hastily recalled them to France, leaving the remaining Vandals and Sueves in place in Spain.

The Visigoths were happy to settle down in southern France, establishing their capital at Tou-louse. It seems that they received tax revenues from the whole area, although it is unclear by what mechanism. By the death of King Theoderid in 451, they had established a kingdom essentially independent of Rome and even proposed their own candidate for emperor in the 450s. The Visigoths fought alongside Roman generals against Attila and the Huns in the 460s. Under King Euric (r. 466–484), they established their own laws, with separate codes for the Goths and for their Roman subjects.

After the Vandals abandoned Spain for Africa in A.D. 429, however, the Visigoths gradually expanded into the power vacuum in Spain. At the same time, the Frankish king Clovis was pushing southward from his base in northern France. In A.D. 507 Clovis defeated the Visigoths at the battle of Vouillé and killed the Visigothic king Alaric II. The Visigoths ceded southern France to Clovis and took over Spain instead, establishing their new capital at Toledo in central Spain.

With the death of Alaric, the Visigoths were left with a child king, Amalaric. Amalaric's grandfather was the powerful Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ruler of Italy. Theodoric announced that he would act as regent for his grandson, and in this way the Ostrogoths dominated Spain and the Visigoths for the rest of Theodoric's long life, until A.D. 526. Even after Theodoric died, Amalaric soon was assassinated in favor of another Ostrogothic ruler, Theudis (r. 531–548).

A civil war starting in 549 resulted in an invitation from the Visigoth Athanagild, who had usurped the kingship, to the Byzantine emperor Justinian I to send soldiers to his assistance. Athanagild won his war, but the Romans took over Cartagena and a good deal of southern Spain and could not be dislodged. Starting in the 570s Athanagild's brother Leovigild compensated for this loss by conquering the kingdom of the Sueves (roughly modern Portugal) and annexing it, and by repeated campaigns against the Basque separatists. Leovigild's son, Reccared, converted from Arianism to Catholicism, which did much to wear down the old distinctions between Hispano-Roman and Visigoth. This newfound unity found expression in increasingly severe persecution of outsiders, especially the Jews.

After Reccared's death, the seventh century saw many civil wars between factions of the aristocracy. Despite good records left by contemporary bishops, such as Isidore and Leander of Seville, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish Goths from Romans, as the two became inextricably intertwined. Despite these civil wars, by A.D. 625 the Visigoths had succeeded in expelling the Romans from Spain and had established a foothold at the port of Ceuta in Africa.

In the late 600s, however, the great Islamic conquest of the Mediterranean coast was in full swing. The Moors, recently converted to Islam, seized the port of Ceuta, attacking unexpectedly on Easter Sunday in 711. Then, in a reprise of the events of the late 500s, one of the Visigothic parties to a civil war invited the Moors to help him, and the Moors invaded Spain. They found no army that could mount any serious opposition, and by 712 Spain was firmly under Moorish control. The Visigoths, by then entirely assimilated with the Romans, retreated to the Pyrenees, from where they began the long, slow process of reconquest.

VISIGOTHS

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