Roderic
Roderic | |
---|---|
King of the Visigoths | |
Reign | 710 – 711 |
Predecessor | Wittiza |
Successor | Achila II |
Died | 711 Visigothic Kingdom |
Spouse | Egilona |
Roderic (also spelled Ruderic, Roderik, Roderich, or Roderick;
Roderic's election as king was disputed and he ruled only a part of Hispania with an opponent,
Early life
According to the late
Succession
Usurpation
According to the Chronicle of 754, Roderic "tumultuously [tumultuose] invaded the kingdom [regnum] with the encouragement of [or at the exhortation of] the senate [senatus]."[5][6] Historians have long debated the exact meaning of these words. What is generally recognised is that it was not a typical palace coup as had occurred on previous occasions, but rather a violent invasion of the palace which sharply divided the kingdom.
It is probable that the "invasion" was not from outside the kingdom; because the word regnum can refer to the office of the king, it is likely that Roderic merely usurped the throne.
The "tumult" which surrounded this usurpation was probably violent, though whether or not it involved the deposition or assassination of the legitimate king,
The senate with which Roderic accomplished his coup was probably composed of the "leading aristocrats and perhaps also some of the bishops."[6] The participation of churchmen in the revolt is disputed, some arguing that the support of the bishops would not have led to the act being labelled a usurpation.[11] The body of leading temporal and ecclesiastical lords had been the dominant body in determining the Visigothic succession since the reign of Reccared I.[7] The palatine officials, however, had not been much affected by royal measures to decrease their influence in the final decades of the kingdom, as their effecting of a coup in 711 indicates.[5]
Division of the kingdom
After the coup, the division of the kingdom into two factions, with the southwest (the provinces of
A Visigothic regnal list mentions "Ruderigus" as having reigned seven years and six months, while two other continuations of the Chronicon Regum Visigothorum record Achila's reign of three years.[7] In contrast to the regnal lists, which cannot be dated, the Chronicle of 754, written at Toledo, says that "Rudericus" reigned for a year.[7]
War with the Muslims
According to the Chronicle of 754, Roderic immediately upon securing his throne gathered a force to oppose the
Roderic made several expeditions against the invaders before he was deserted by his troops and killed in battle in 711 or 712.[8] The Chronicle of 754 claims that some of the nobles who had accompanied Roderic on his last expedition did so out of "ambition for the kingdom", perhaps intending to allow him to die in battle so that they could secure the throne for one of themselves.[8] Whatever their intentions, most of them seem to have died in the battle as well.[8]
Other historians have suggested that low morale amongst the soldiery because of Roderic's disputed succession was the cause of defeat.[15] The majority of Roderic's soldiers may have been poorly trained and unwilling slave conscripts; there were probably few freemen left fighting for the Goths.[16]
The location of the battle is debatable. It probably occurred near the mouth of the Guadalete river, hence its name, the Battle of Guadalete. According to Paul the Deacon, the site was the otherwise unidentifiable "Transductine promontories".[15]
According to the Chronicle of 754, the Arabs took Toledo in 711 and executed many nobles still in the city on the pretense that they had assisted in the flight of
According to a 9th-century chronicle, a tombstone with the inscription Hic requiescit Rodericus, rex Gothorum (here rests Roderic, king of the Goths) was found at
In legend and literature
According to a legend that was for centuries treated as historical fact, Roderic seduced or raped the daughter of
Roderic appears in Nights 272 and 273 of the One Thousand and One Nights. In the story, he opens a mysterious door in his castle that was locked and sealed shut by the previous kings. He discovers paintings of Muslim soldiers in the room and a note saying that the city of Toledo will fall to the soldiers in the paintings if the room is ever opened. That coincides with the fall of Toledo.
Roderic is a central figure in the English playwright William Rowley's tragedy All's Lost by Lust, which portrays him as a rapist usurped by Count Julian and the Moors.
The Scottish writer Walter Scott and the English writers Walter Savage Landor and Robert Southey handled the legends associated with those events poetically: Scott in "The Vision of Don Roderick" in 1811; Landor in his tragedy Count Julian in 1812; and Southey in "Roderick the Last of the Goths", in 1814.
The American writer Washington Irving retold the legends in his Legends of the Conquest of Spain (1835), mostly written while living in that country. These consist of "Legend of Don Roderick", "Legend of the Subjugation of Spain", and "Legend of Count Julian and His Family".
Roderic has been mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent" by the name of "Don Rodrigo, the Goth" as a sinner that shares a common vice with "a man of impure life, and a brazen face".
In Alexander Pushkin's unfinished poem Rodrik (Russian Родрик) Roderic survives the last battle, becomes a hermit and gets a promise of victory from Heaven.
Roderic has been the subject of two operas: Rodrigo by George Frideric Handel and Don Rodrigo by Alberto Ginastera.
Roderic appears as a minor character in the first half of Portuguese early
Roderic's story is told the British
References
Citations
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ Drayson, "Ways of Seeing".
- Hrōþirīk(i)az.
- ^ Collins, Visigothic, 136.
- ^ a b Thompson, 249.
- ^ a b c Collins, Visigothic, 113.
- ^ a b c d Collins, Visigothic, 132.
- ^ a b c d e f Collins, Visigothic, 133.
- ^ Collins, Visigothic, believes that Wittiza was the target of the coup.
- ^ Bachrach, 32.
- ^ Thompson, 249, who considers the senate comprise merely the palatine officials.
- ^ a b Collins, Visigothic, 131.
- ^ a b Collins, Visigothic, 139.
- ^ HL, VI, 46
- ^ a b c d Thompson, 250.
- ^ Thompson, 319.
- ^ a b Collins, Visigothic, 134.
Sources
- Bachrach, Bernard S. "A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589–711." The American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 1 (1973), pp 11–34.
- Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–97. Blackwell Publishing, 1989.
- Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Blackwell Publishing, 2004
- Drayson, Elizabeth. "Ways of Seeing: The First Medieval Islamic and Christian Depictions of Roderick, Last Visigothic King of Spain". Al-Masāq, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2006), pp 115–28.
- Hodgkin, Thomas. "Visigothic Spain." The English Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 6 (1887), pp 209–234.
- Ibn Abd-el-Hakem. "The Islamic Conquest of Spain."
- Shaw, R. Dykes. "The Fall of the Visigothic Power in Spain." The English Historical Review, Vol. 21, No. 82 (1906), pp 209–228.
- Thompson, E. A.The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.