409–711

Visigothic kingdom

In 409 the Vandals, Suebi and Alans entered Hispania unopposed. To hold them back, Rome allowed the Visigoths to settle in the south of Gaul and to control territory in the peninsula, and in 418 a pact with the Empire founded their kingdom, with its capital at Toulouse.

In 507 the Franks defeated them at Vouillé. They lost Gaul except Narbonne and Septimania, moved into Hispania and made Toledo their capital. Leovigild took in the Suebic kingdom of the northwest in 585, and Reccared left Arianism for Catholicism at the Third Council of Toledo in 589.

The Byzantines, settled on the southern coast since the reign of Athanagild, were not driven out until Suintila, in 625. About 654 Recceswinth gave Goths and Hispano-Romans a single law, the Liber Iudiciorum. The nobles' struggles for the throne weakened the monarchy, and in 711 the Muslim conquest began.

Little still stands: a handful of churches in open country, such as San Juan de Baños, dated by its own inscription to 661, excavated cities such as Recópolis, and the votive crowns of Guarrazar. Almost everything else lies under the cities that came after, or in a museum's rooms.

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by Phantazein

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