Liuvigild (Leuvigild, Leuvigildo, Leovigild, Leovigildo, Leogild) reigned 569/572—April 21, 586 CE. He was one of the more effective Visigothic kings of Spain, the restorer of Visigothic unity, ruling from his capital newly established at Toledo, where he settled towards the end of his reign. The Iberian Visigothic monarchy is sometimes called the "Kingdom of Toledo". The capital at Toledo, established in the previous reign, marked the first move inland of a center of culture from the Mediterranean coast or the southern Tartessus. Events The Nubian kingdom of Alodia is converted to Christianity, according to John of Ephesus. ... Events Emperor Bidatsu ascends the throne of Japan. ... April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... Events Reccared succeeds his father Leovigild as king of the Visigoths. ... The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. ... The façade of Toledo cathedral Toledo is a city located in central Spain, the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. ... Tartessos (also Tartessus) was a harbor city on the south coast of Spain, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. ...

Liuvigild was declared co-king with his brother Liuva I on the throne of the Visigoths after a short period of anarchy which followed the death of King Athanagild, who was a brother of them both. Both were Arian Christians. Liuva, who was favored by the Visigoth nobles, came to rule the Visigothic lands north of the Pyrenees, while Leovigild ruled in Hispania. Liuva I or Leova, jointly with his brother Leovigild, succeeded Athanagild in 568 CE on the throne of the Visigoths. ... The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. ... Athanagild (d. ... Arian may refer to one of the following. ... A Christian is a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. ... Hispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar) and to two provinces created there in the period of the Roman Republic: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. ...

Liuvigild married Athanagild's widow, Goisvintha. His first wife, Theodosia, the mother of his sons, had died.

In 572 or 573 Liuva died. Liuvigild began his sole reign of the reunited Visigothic territories by seizing the Byzantine-ruled city of Córdoba, where the Byzantines had recently answered Athanagild's call for help by establishing a stretch of Byzantine territory in the southeast of the Iberian peninsula. Liuvigild also ousted the Germanic Suevi from their strongholds at León and Zamora, thus enlarging his kingdom to the north and west as well, but for another generation the eastern Roman emperor retained a base in southeastern Spain, which retained its old Roman name of Hispania Baetica. The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. ... Córdoba most commonly means Córdoba, Spain, a famous city in Spain inhabited since the time of ancient Rome, and the seat of the Emir of Córdoba and the Caliph of Córdoba. ... The Suebi or Suevi were a Germanic people whose origin was near the Baltic Sea . ... The city of León, located at 42. ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 CE In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ...

Though constantly at war with the Byzantines in southern Hispania, Liuvigild accepted the administration of the Byzantine Empire, adopted its pomp and ceremony, and imitated its coinage. He made important improvements in Visigothic laws. Liuvigild further reinforced possibilities of a peaceful future succession, a perennial Visigothic issue, by associating his two sons, Hermenegild and Reccared, with himself in the kingly office and placing certain regions under their regencies. Hermenegild, the elder, he married to a Frankish princess Inguthis (Ingund), daughter of King Sigebert I, the Austrasian king at Metz. The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centred at its capital in Constantinople. ... The Visigoth king Reccared (ruled 586—601) was the younger son of Leovigild by his first marriage. ... Look up frank in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Frank may be: Frankish people, a Germanic tribe Franc, units of currency Franking, the right to send mail for free Frankfurter Free, an archaic meaning of the word in Dutch, German, and English Frank is the name of: Andre Gunder Frank, sociologist... Austrasia & Neustria Austrasia was the northeastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of what are now eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. ... Location within France Rhine watershed Metz is a city in the North-East of France, capital of the Lorraine région and of the département of Moselle (57). ...

From 584-585, Catholic historians tell, Liuvigild demanded that his Roman subjects convert to Arianism, not otherwise an aspect of his method. Liuvigild did insist on appointing Arian bishops, however; this met with resistance headed by the Catholic bishops, and Baetica revolted under the leadership his son, Hermengild, who had converted to Catholicism after marrying a Frankish princess. When the Byzantine powers failed to aid the revolt, Hermenegild was imprisoned then killed and Liuvigild went on to subdue the Basques. In the north Liuvigild took advantage of internecine friction among Suebi factions in dispute over a succession and, in 584, he defeated the Suebic kingdom of Galicia and added the kingdom of Galicia to his crowns. By the end of his reign, only the Basque lands and two small territories of the Byzantine Empire made up the non-Visigothic parts of Iberia. Roman or Romans has several meanings, primarily related to the Roman citizens, but also applicable to typography, math, and several geographic locations. ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 AD In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ... Basque may refer to: The Basque language. ... The Suebi or Suevi were a Germanic people whose origin was near the Baltic Sea . ... Events The Visigoths conquer the Suevi kingdom in Spain. ... Iberia can mean: The Iberian peninsula of southwest Europe; That part of it once inhabited by the Iberians, who spoke the Iberian language. ...

The Visigoths were still a military aristocracy in the peninsula, and Arianism was still the royal religion. New monarchs had to be ratified by the nobles, even though this was merely a form. Visigoths and their subjects were still separately governed according to two distinct law codes. During Liuvigild reign, Leander, an Ibero-Roman who was Catholic bishop of Seville, together with the princess Ingunthis, convinced her husband Hermenegild, the eldest son of Liuvigild, to convert to Catholic Christianity, and defended the convert in an uprising (583 - 584) that occasioned his father's reprisals. Arianism was a Christological view held by followers of Arius in the early Christian Church, claiming that Jesus Christ and God the Father were not always contemporary, seeing the Son as a divine being, created by the Father (and consequently inferior to Him) at some point in time, before which... Seville (Spanish: Sevilla, see also different names) is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain, crossed by the river Guadalquivir (37°22′38″ N 5°59′13″ W). ... Categories: 583 ... Events The Visigoths conquer the Suevi kingdom in Spain. ...

Liuvigild wasn't in general a bitter foe of the Catholic Christians, although he was obliged to punish them when they conspired against him with his external enemies. He ruled in part through the local prestige of the Catholic bishops, some of whose sees had almost four centuries' standing. For this Arian monarch Catholicism was the religion of his Roman subjects and Arianism was a rallying-point to counter his Byzantine enemies in the south; conversion was a preamble to treason.

After besieging and taking Byzantine Seville, Liuvigild took his son prisoner in Córdoba and banished him safely north to Valencia, where he was murdered by Liuvigild's agents (585)— and later canonized as Saint Hermenegild by Sixtus IV at the urging of Philip the Catholic. The Frankish princess was delivered to the Eastern Emperor Tiberius II Constantine and was last heard of in Africa. Liuvigild had exiled the troublesome bishop, too, who spent the years before Hermenegild's rebellion, 579 to 582, at the court of Byzantium; the Roman Catholic Church has canonized him as Saint Leander of Seville. Gregory the Great gives some vivid details of Byzantine venality and Arian fanaticism in a highly colored Catholicizing version of these events (Dialogi, III, 31). Events Famine in Gaul. ... Sixtus IV, born Francesco della Rovere (July 21, 1414 – August 12, 1484) was Pope from 1471 to 1484, essentially a Renaissance prince, the Sixtus of the Sistine Chapel where the team of artists he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance to Rome with a masterpiece. ... Philip II of Spain (Spanish: Felipe II) - (May 21, 1527 – September 13, 1598), the first King of Spain understood as the whole peninsula of Hispania (r. ... Flavius Tiberius Constantinus Augustus or Tiberius II Constantine (c. ... Events End of the Northern Qi Dynasty in China. ... Events Maurice I succeeds Tiberius II Constantine as Byzantine Emperor. ... Saint Gregory I, or Gregory the Great (called the Dialogist in Eastern Orthodoxy) (circa 540 - March 12, 604) was pope of the Catholic Church from September 3, 590 until his death. ...

Liuvigild's last year was troubled by open war with the Franks along his northernmost borders. But overall, Liuvigild was one of the more effective Visigothic kings of Hispania, the restorer of Visigothic unity, ruling from his capital newly established at Toledo, where he settled toward the end of his reign. (From this, the Iberian Visigothic monarchy is sometimes called the "Kingdom of Toledo".) The capital at Toledo, established in the previous reign, marked the first move inland of a center of culture from the Mediterranean coast or the southern Tartessus. The façade of Toledo cathedral Toledo is a city located in central Spain, the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. ... Iberia can mean: The Iberian peninsula of southwest Europe; That part of it inhabited by the Iberians, speaking the Iberian language. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Tartessos (also Tartessus) was a harbor city on the south coast of Spain, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. ...

The Visigoths in Hispania considered themselves the heirs of western Roman imperial power, not its enemies. Until Liuvigild's reign, the Visigoths minted coins that imitated the imperial coinage of Byzantium which circulated from Byzantine possessions in Baetica. From the reign of Liuvigild onwards, however, the Visigothic kingdom issued coarse coinage of its own designs. While facing the rebellion in southern Hispania, Liuvigild struck an issue of tremisses with a cross on steps on the reverse, a design that had been introduced for the very first time on Byzantine solidi by emperor Tiberius II (578-582). 1¢ euro coin A coin is usually a piece of hard material, generally metal and usually in the shape of a disc, which is used as a form of money. ... Byzantium was the original name of the modern city of Istanbul. ... The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 AD In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ... Events Tiberius II Constantine succeeds Justin II as Byzantine Emperor Births Deaths July 30 - Jacob Baradaeus, bishop of Edessa October 5 - Justin II, Roman emperor Northern Zhou Wu Di, Chinese ruler John Malalas, Byzantine chronicler Categories: 578 ... Events Maurice I succeeds Tiberius II Constantine as Byzantine Emperor. ...

City-oriented Ibero-Roman culture continued to erode during Liuvigild's reign. There evolved in Visigothic Hispania the new post-Imperial pattern of regional and local overlordship based upon regional dukes (duces), who were military leaders, and lords of smaller districts or territories called counts (comes). A similar evolution was taking place in Italy and, more slowly, in the east as well. The new ducal administrations tended to coincide with the old Roman provinces; the territories of the counts with the old cities and their small hinterlands.

With the death of Liuvigild, his other son Reccared, who had converted to Catholicism in 589, brought religious and political unity to link the Visigoths with their subjects. But the Catholicizing of Visigothic Hispania encouraged the rise of the bishops and the decline of the institution of kingship itself. In 633 a synod of bishops at Toledo usurped the nobles' right to confirm the election of a king. With loyalties transferred to the local bishop, as both inspiration and the fount of patronage, wider-scale resistance couldn't be coordinated when the Moors threatened in the eighth century, and the bishoprics collapsed one after another. The Visigoth king Reccared (ruled 586—601) was the younger son of Leovigild by his first marriage. ... Events October 17 - The Adige River overflows its banks, flooding the church of St. ... Events Oswald of Bernicia becomes Bretwalda. ... (7th century — 8th century — 9th century — other centuries) Events The Iberian peninsula is taken by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost 8 centuries of Muslim presence there. ...

Perhaps Liuvigild was correct in perceiving Arianism as the bastion of Visigothic kingship.

External links

• Visigothic kingdoms
• Stanley G. Payne, History of Spain and Portugal:ch. 1
• Encyclopedia Britannica 1911: Leovigild
• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hermengild
• Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity. Part IV: the authoritative orthodox viewpoint, superbly expressed

Reference

• E. A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (1969).

The Visigoth king Reccared (ruled 586—601) was the younger son of Leovigild by his first marriage. ...