Reccared I
Reccared I | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
King of Hispania, Septimania and Gallaecia | |||||
King of the Visigoths | |||||
Reign | 21 April 586 – 21 December 601 | ||||
Predecessor | Liuvigild | ||||
Successor | Liuva II | ||||
Born | c. 559 AD[citation needed] Hispania | ||||
Died | 21 December 601 Toledo, Hispania | ||||
Spouse | Baddo | ||||
Issue | Liuva II Suintila Geila | ||||
| |||||
Father | Liuvigild | ||||
Mother | Theodosia | ||||
Religion | Arianism, later Chalcedonian Christianity |
Reccared I (or Recared;
Reign
Reccared was the younger son of King Leovigild by his first wife. Like his father, Reccared had his capital at Toledo. The Visigothic kings and nobles were traditionally Arian Christians, while the Hispano-Roman population were Chalcedonian Christians. The bishop Leander of Seville was instrumental in converting the elder son and heir of Leovigild, Hermenegild, to Chalcedonianism. Leander supported his rebellion and was exiled for his role.
When King Leovigild died, within a few weeks of April 21, 586, bishop Leander was swift to return to Toledo. The new king had been associated with his father in ruling the kingdom and was acclaimed king by the Visigothic nobles without opposition.
In January 587, Reccared renounced Arianism for Chalcedonianism, the single great event of his reign and the turning point for Visigothic Hispania. Most Arian nobles and ecclesiastics followed his example, certainly those around him at Toledo, but there were Arian uprisings, notably in Septimania, his northernmost province, beyond the
The next conspiracy broke out in the west, Lusitania, headed by Sunna, the Arian bishop of Mérida, and count Seggo. Claudius, Reccared's dux Lusitaniae, put down the rising, Sunna being banished to Mauritania and Seggo retiring to Gallaecia.[2] In the later part of 588 a third conspiracy was headed by the Arian bishop Uldila and the queen dowager Goiswintha, but they were detected, and the bishop was banished.[3]
The
Reportedly Reccared engaged in a vigorous policy against the Jews, pursuing zealous and fanatical[5] policies limiting Jewish freedoms as promulgated in the canons of synods. Modern historians[6] have revised this view and see a continuation of traditional Visigothic tolerance. Pope Gregory I was convinced that Reccared refused bribes from the Jewish community, which was large, well-connected throughout the Mediterranean and powerful,[7] and Reccared's laws provided that the offspring of a Christian and a Jew be baptised, which was of little moment to the Jewish community, as whether it was not born of a Jewish mother or was born of a Jewish woman outside her community, the child was not considered a Jew anyway. Reccared eliminated the death penalty for Jews convicted of proselytising among Christians and ignored Gregory's request that the trade in Christian slaves at Narbonne be forbidden to Jews.[8] Among the canons of five synods during Reccared's reign, E. A. Thompson could find none disadvantaging the Jewish community.[9]
The information for the rest of Reccared's reign is scanty.
Reccared was married to Baddo and possibly to Chlodoswintha. He died a natural death at Toledo[10] and was succeeded by his youthful son Liuva II.
Notes
- ^ John of Biclaro, Chronicle, 91. Translated in Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, second edition (Liverpool: University Press, 1990), p. 74
- ^ Isidore of Seville, Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, chapter 54. Translation by Guido Donini and Gordon B. Ford, Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, second revised edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), p. 25
- ^ John of Biclaro, Chronicle, 90; translated by Wolf, pp. 73f
- ISBN 90-04-10846-7(pp. 119–120: dress and funerary customs cease to be distinguishing features in 570/580)
- ^ Aloysius Ziegler, Church and State in Visigothic Spain (Washington) 1930: "Ziegler unhesitatingly characterizes the kings. as 'fanatically zealous'" (Bacharach 1973:11.
- ^ Notably Bernard S. Bachrach , in Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe (University of Minnesota Press) 1977; see also Bacharach, "A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589–711", The American Historical Review 78.1 (February 1973), pp. 11–34.
- ^ Solomon Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Gaul and Spain (Harvard University Press) 1937 gives the broad background.
- ^ Bacharach, "A Reassessment", p. 15.
- ^ Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford University Press) 1969:112.
- ISBN 0-7007-1564-9