Septimania
Septimania
The region of Septimania was
The name "Septimania" may derive from the Roman name of the city of
Visigothic Narbonensis
Gothic acquisition
Under Theodoric II, the Visigoths settled in
In 462, the Empire, controlled by Ricimer in the name of Libius Severus, granted the Visigoths the western half of the province of Gallia Narbonensis to settle. The Visigoths occupied Provence (eastern Narbonensis) as well and only in 475 did the Visigothic king, Euric, cede it to the Empire by a treaty whereby the emperor Julius Nepos recognised the Visigoths' full independence.
Visigothic Kingdom of Narbonne
The
Clovis, his son Theuderic I, and his Burgundian allies proceeded to conquer most of Visigothic Gaul, including the Rouergue (507) and Toulouse (508). The attempt to take Carcassonne, a fortified site guarding the Septimanian coast, was defeated by the Ostrogoths (508) and Septimania thereafter remained in Visigothic hands, though the Burgundians managed to hold Narbonne for a time and drive Gesalec into exile. Border warfare between Gallo-Roman magnates, including bishops, had existed with the Visigoths during the last phase of the Empire and it continued under the Franks.[8]
The Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great reconquered Narbonne from the Burgundians and retained it as the provincial capital. Theudis was appointed regent at Narbonne by Theodoric while Amalaric was still a minor in Iberia. When Theodoric died in 526, Amalaric was elected king in his own right and he immediately made his capital in Narbonne. He ceded Provence, which had at some point passed back into Visigothic control, to the Ostrogothic king Athalaric. The Frankish king of Paris, Childebert I, invaded Septimania in 531 and chased Amalaric to Barcelona in response to pleas from his sister, Chrotilda, that her husband, Amalaric, had been mistreating her. The Franks however, did not try to hold the province and under Amalaric's successor, the centre of gravity of the kingdom crossed the Pyrenees and Theudis made his capital in Barcelona.
Gothic province of Gaul
In the
The province of Gallia held a unique place in the Visigothic Kingdom, as it was the only province outside of Iberia, north of the
During the revolt of
In the 7th century, Gallia often had its own governors or duces (dukes), who were typically Visigoths. Most public offices were also held by Goths, far out of proportion to their part of the population.[13]
Culture of Gothic Septimania
The native population of Gallia was referred to by Visigothic and Iberian writers as the "Gauls" and there is a well-attested hatred between the Goths and the Gauls, which was atypical for the kingdom as a whole.
Thanks to the preserved canons of the
Different theories exist concerning the nature of the frontier between Visigothic Septimania and Frankish Gaul. On the one hand, cultural exchange is generally reputed to have been minimal,[17] but the level of trading activity has been disputed. There have been few to no objects of Neustrian, Austrasian, or Burgundian provenance discovered in Septimania.[18] However, a series of Germanic sarcophagi of a unique regional style, variously labelled Visigothic, Aquitainian, or southwestern Gallic, are prevalent on both sides of the Septimanian border.[19] These sarcophagi are made of locally quarried marble from Saint-Béat and are of varied design, but with generally flat relief which distinguishes them from ancient Roman sarcophagi.[19] Their production has been dated to either the 5th, 6th, or 7th century, with the second of these being considered the most likely today.[20] However, if they were made in the 5th century, while both Aquitaine and Septimani were in Visigothic hands, their existence provides no evidence for a cultural osmosis across the Gothic-Frankish frontier.
A unique style of orange pottery was common in the 4th and 5th centuries in southern Gaul, but the later (6th century) examples culled from Septimania are more orange than their cousins from Aquitaine and Provence and are not found commonly outside of Septimania, a strong indicator that there was little commerce over the frontier or at its ports.[21] In fact, Septimania helped to isolate both Aquitaine and Iberia from the rest of the Mediterranean world.[22]
Coinage of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania did not circulate in Gaul outside of Septimania and Frankish coinage did not circulate in the Visigothic Kingdom, including Septimania. If there had been a significant amount of commerce over the frontier, the monies paid had to have been melted down immediately and re-minted as foreign coins have not been preserved across the frontier.[23]
Muslim-ruled and Frankish Septimania
The Arab and Berber Muslim forces under
By 721, al-Samh was reinforced and ready to lay siege to
After capturing
Around 747, the government of the Septimania region (and the
In 754, an anti-Frankish reaction, led by Ermeniard, killed Ansemund, but the uprising was without success and
Gothia in Carolingian times
The region of
The Frankish king found Septimania and the borderlands so devastated and depopulated by warfare, with the inhabitants hiding among the mountains, that he made grants of land that were some of the earliest identifiable
The Frankish noble
Septimania became known as Gothia after the reign of Charlemagne. It retained these two names while it was ruled by the counts of Toulouse during early part of the Middle Ages, but other names became regionally more prominent such as, Roussillon, Conflent, Razès or Foix, and the name Gothia (along with the older name Septimania) faded away during the 10th century, as the region fractured into smaller feudal entities, which sometimes retained Carolingian titles, but lost their Carolingian character, as the culture of Septimania evolved into the culture of Languedoc. This fragmentation in small feudal entities and the resulting fading and the gradual shifting of the name Gothia are the most probable origins of the ancient geographical area known as Gathalania or Cathalania which has reached our days as the present region of Catalonia.
The name was used because the area was populated by a higher concentration of Goths than in surrounding regions. The rulers of this area, when joined with several counties, were titled the
See also
- Septimania timeline
Notes
- ^ (French: Septimanie [sɛptimani]; Occitan: Septimània [septiˈmanjɔ])
- ^ a b c d James (1980), p. 223
- ^ a b c d James (1980), p. 236
- ^ ISBN 9780367184582.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-349-26924-2.
- ^ Bachrach (1971), p. 7
- ^ Bachrach (1971), pp. 10–11
- ^ Bachrach (1971), p. 16
- ^ a b Thompson (1969), p. 19
- ^ a b Collins (2004), p. 60
- ^ a b c Thompson (1969), p. 75
- ^ Thompson (1969), p. 95
- ^ a b Thompson (1969), p. 227
- ^ Thompson (1969), p. 228
- ^ Thompson (1969), p. 54
- ^ a b McKenna (1938), pp. 117–118
- ^ Thompson (1969), p. 23
- ^ James (1980), pp. 228–229
- ^ a b James (1980), p. 229
- ^ James (1980), p. 230
- ^ James (1980), p. 238
- ^ James (1980), pp. 240–241
- ^ James (1980), p. 239
- ISBN 0-521-29135-6, p. 95.
- ^ O'Callaghan (1983), p. 142
- ^ JSTOR 48578218..
After three months, Eudo the Great, Duke of Aquitaine, lifted the siege. Eudo's army decimated the Moors, killed As-Sahm and drove the survivors from Aquitaine
- ^ Gallia, again by battles, and had to besiege Avignon and Narbonne there. He did not have the time to conquer Septimania.
- ^ eastern Frankish Mayors of the Palace, or that a sense of Christian solidarity should mean more than the dictates of realpolitik. For that matter it was not with any sense of obligation to free formerly Christian lands from Islamic rule that Charles Martel launched a raid into western Provence in 737. He took Avignon, but clearly did not retain it, and advanced to besiege Narbonne, the centre of Arab control in the March. The Frankish chronicles record his victory over a relieving force sent by the governor ʿUqba, but their uniform silence makes it clear that despite this he failed to take the city itself.
- ^ Meadows, Ian (March–April 1993). "The Arabs in Occitania". Saudi Aramco World. 44: 24–29.
- ^ Netburn, Deborah (24 February 2016). "Earliest Known Medieval Muslim Graves are Discovered in France". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Newitz, Annalee (24 February 2016). "Medieval Muslim Graves in France Reveal a Previously Unseen History". Ars Technica.
- ^ "France's Earliest 'Muslim Burials' Found". BBC News. 25 February 2016.
- PMID 26910855.
- ^ Lewis, Archibald R. 1965
Sources
- Bachrach, Bernard S. (1971). Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Collins, Roger (1989). The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–97. Oxford University Press.
- Collins, Roger (2004). Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Blackwell Publishing.
- James, Edward (1980). "Septimania and its frontier: an archaeological approach". In Edward James (ed.). Visigothic Spain: New Approaches. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Lewis, Archibald Ross (1965). The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718–1050. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- McKenna, Stephen (1938). Paganism and Pagan Survivals in Spain up to the Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom. Catholic University of America Press.
- O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (1983). A History of Medieval Spain. Cornell University Press.
- Thompson, E. A. (1969). The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Zuckerman, Arthur J. (1972) [1965]. A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France 768–900. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-03298-8.