the Emperor Maurice, and thus happily passes out of the history of the times.

The projected marriage between Reccared and Regunthis had been broken off, partly on account of the death of her father Chilperic in 584, and partly from the reluctance of her relatives to part with her rich dowry. And Gunthram of Burgundy, freed from the restraint of Chilperic, although the promptitude of Leovgild had deprived him of the all important co-operation of Ermengild in Spain, declared war against the Arian Goths, and laid siege to Nismes and Carcassonne, two of the northernmost towns in the dominion of the Visigoths. Reccared, dispatched by his father at the head of an army, acquitted himself with skill as well as valour, drove off Gunthram and his nephew Childebert, the leaders of the Franks, secured the northern frontier, and returned in triumph to Toledo.

His father, in the meantime, had undertaken a most successful campaign against the Suevians. Mir, the first ally of Ermengild, had been defeated and subdued by Leovgild some time before. But on the death of that leader, during Ermengild's rebellion, two rival kings had asserted their claims to the monarchy of the turbulent tribe, and Leovgild, taking advantage of their dissensions, and glad to make an end of such chronic rebels, marched into the heart of Gallicia. In a brief campaign, he successfully defeated both the rival kings, Eboric and Andeca, who, with shaven heads and monkish habits, were sent to pass the remainder of their days in the convenient shelter of a monastery; while the victor received the submission of their subjects, who had continued for a hundred and seventy-seven years, ever conquered, but ever independent, a thorn in the side of the Visigothic monarchy. A fleet dispatched by Gunthram to the assistance of the Suevians, was at the same time routed off the coasts of Gallicia by the Visigothic king, who with a few vessels hastily equipped, entirely destroyed the Frankish squadron.2

It is admitted by the most uncompromising churchmen, that Leovgild was a great, if not an orthodox king. His vigorous heresy is on the whole somewhat tenderly dealt with by Catholic historians. And the story of his conversion to the principles of Athanasius a few days before his death

1 The way in which first the Treasure, and afterwards the Princess, were stopped on their way from Paris to Narbonne is characteristic and amusing. See Gregory of Tours, op. cit., vi., c. 45.

It is strange how every Visigothic king completely subdued these Suevians, and how they continued ever unsubdued, until their successors, or the guests of their northern descendants, really subdued Spain.

As

in 587, may be taken as a species of tribute to his merits, suggested by the very natural desire to preserve the memory of the greatest of the Visigothic sovereigns of Spain from future condemnation. But however he died, it is certain that Leovgild lived one of the ablest of the Gothic rulers of Spain, and that he was the first who maintained anything like regal pomp and splendour at his Court. Of the magnificence of his apparel of his golden crown, of his jewelled sceptre, of the gorgeous throne on which he presided at the assembly of the State Council, we have abundant contemporary record. The coins which bear his image, crowned, first of his race, with the insignia of royalty, are to be found in every collection. As a general he was rarely unsuccessful. As a builder of cities he was more a Roman than a Goth. a legislator he added many new laws to the statute book of Spain. As an administrator he first introduced a regular system of finance into the kingdom, which was maintained almost to our own days. But the true greatness of Leovgild was his moral courage. In spite of all his political and domestic difficulties, aggravated a thousand fold by the opposi tion of the greatest power in his kingdom-already, perhaps, the greatest power in the world-he never flinched from his policy of firm and resolute government, by which he brought peace and union to the greater part of his kingdom. He strove, and strove not in vain, to blend into one great people Goths and Suevians and Romans-Spaniards of every tribe and every origin. He administered equal justice to all. His more politic son took a shorter cut to union, and grasping at the shadow, let slip the substance of power. And if Reccared is called the first of the Catholics, Leovgild may fairly be styled the last of the Visigoths in Spain.

man.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GREAT METROPOLITANS.

(587-672.)

I.-Reccared.

RECCARED succeeded to a kingdom, Arian, Visigothic, GerBut the Teutons had not lived for nigh on two hundred years in the most Roman province of the Empire without having themselves become largely Romanized.

In two centuries [B.C. 208-B.C. 19] the native Barbarian of Spain had become a loyal Roman citizen, by the immense influence of the Empire. In two centuries [A.D. 410-A.D. 600] the foreign heretic became a devoted Roman Catholic by the more powerful influence of the Church. And Reccared, who did not possess the lion heart of his father, but who read the signs of the times with a surer judgment, saw that in Spainever superbly Roman-the rule of Arianism was doomed, and that it were wisest to accept the inevitable.

The conditions of Gothic society had indeed greatly changed since Atawulf led his free northmen across the eastern Pyrenees. The small freeholders had almost ceased to exist. The great middle class of the nation had sunk to a condition of something like serfdom, if not of actual slavery. And although until the year 652 lawful marriage between Roman and Visigoth was forbidden by law in Spain, there is no doubt that at the time of its legal authorization under Recceswind, the races were already largely mingled; and further, that the great mass of pure-blooded Visigoths had become profoundly influenced by their Roman neighbours. Reccared indeed assumed the Imperial Roman title of Flavius, which was used by all his successors.1

The great land-owning nobles, on the other hand, had maintained a good deal of their ancient Gothic independence, with some loss of their Gothic virtue; and had become more powerful than ever; more wealthy and less warlike; more tur

1 We see the Teuton endeavouring everywhere to identify himself with the system he overthrew. The Lombard Kings when they renounced their Arianism styled themselves Flavii. Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 45; and ibid., pp.

20-23.

bulent and less loyal. Independent to the last, and ever aggressively Teutonic, even when most Roman, they defied the power of the kings, whom they elected, and hardly submitted themselves to the bishops, whom they feared.

The clergy, recruited largely from the common folk, found themselves more and more drawn to that form of worship which was at once the religion of the Spanish people, and of the Roman world: and the domestic persecution of Leovgild was of a nature to encourage resistance, and give to the adherents of a powerful and growing communion, the cheap and attractive glory of bloodless martyrdom. Leovgild had maintained his position both against his aggressive nobles and his aggressive clerics. But his own son had fallen in the struggle. Reccared was fain to secure a victory over an unconquerable aristocracy by the assistance of an unconquerable church. It was no doubt a master-piece of statecraft; it may have been even a political necessity. But it laid the foundation of most of the evils which have for thirteen centuries, in the days of her greatness as in the days of her decline, afflicted and disgraced the kingdom of Spain.1 Reccared accordingly declared himself a Catholic, put to death Sisibert, the executioner of his rebel but orthodox brother, and summoning a Council2 or Synod of Arian bishops in January, 587, he induced many of the assembled prelates to embrace the religion of their sovereign. But this obsequiousness was by no means universal, and an invasion of Septimania by the Franks, under Duke Desiderius, is said to have been promoted by a dissatisfied Arian ecclesiastic. Religious animosity was not over scrupulous in the sixth century. The invasion, however, seems to have been easily repulsed, and for the next two years Reccared had leisure to devote himself to the great work of the conversion of the Visigoths to the faith of the Romans in Spain.

The king worked without violence and without haste; patiently, prudently, firmly. He invited both Arian and Catholic prelates to take part in friendly theological discussions in his presence. He restored to the Catholic churches the treasure of which they had been deprived in the reign of Leovgild. He showed himself just and liberal, clement and even generous to all. He, of course, chastised the Cantabrians. He received Leander, not only without reproach, but with respect, on his return to Spain from Byzantium.

And at length, the people being well disposed to his

1 The Visigothic king, in the polite jargon of the nineteenth century, had dished his Visigothic nobles. And in less than a century Visigothic kings and Visigothic nobles had alike been swept away.

Morte turpissimâ perimitur, John of Biclara, Chron.

person, and prepared as far as possible for the great change, he summoned the Third Council of Toledo, in 589, when, after a good deal of prefatory explanation and argument, he formally announced himself a convert to the Catholic faith, and called upon his entire people to follow his example.1

This Declaration or Confession of Faith was received with applause; and the Council, under the presidency of Leander, drew up a reply, in which all the members asserted their renunciation of Arianism, and their conversion to Catholicism, and no less than twenty-three several anathemas were formulated against those who remained in the ancient faith of the Visigoths. In spite of the opposition of the Arian nobility, abetted by the Queen-mother Goswintha, and certain Gothic protestors throughout the country, the great bulk of the people were content at once to follow their king's example; and Spain, if it remained partly Gothic in blood, became entirely Roman in religion.

The proceedings of this ever celebrated Council were signed by no less than sixty-seven bishops, with only five lay Palatines or great officers of state. Leander, the ex-rebel presided. Leander, indeed, was the hero of the hour, the first of the ecclesiastical rulers of Spain.

Born in the province of Carthagena, between 535 and 540, the son of one Severianus, an Imperial Greek 2 or Roman, settled at New Carthage, Leander was the elder brother of the yet more celebrated Isidore, and is said, on very doubtful authority, to have been the brother-in-law of King Leovgild.3 At an early age, about the year 575, he was raised to the Metropolitan See of Seville, where he was distinguished above all other churchmen of his day by his zeal, his ambition, and his marvellous eloquence. Of the part that he played in the rebellion of Ermengild, of his mission or flight to Constantinople, and his intimacy with the great Benedictine Gregory, the apocrisiarius of Pelagius and Benedict, we have already spoken. Leander was essentially a man of action, enthusiastic, restless, reckless. A man of words rather than a man of books: he has contributed nothing to the literature

1 Reccared is said to have sent an embassy to Gregory the Great, soon after the sitting of the Council, to announce his conversion to Catholicism, and to ask for the return of a copy of the treaty concluded between Athanagild and the Emperor Justinian with regard to the Imperial dominion in Spain, which seems to have been deposited at Rome. Gregory refused to give up the papers, but sent instead, probably in 599, a fragment of the true Cross, a link of the chains that had bound St. John the Baptist, and some hairs from the head of St. Peter. 2 The name Leander, like Isidore, is of course Greek.

3 His sister Fulgentia is said to have been the first wife of Leovgild, and the mother of Ermengild and Reccared. Goswintha, the Queen of whom we hear so much, was Leovgild's second wife, and the widow of his predecessor King Athanagild.