According to the standpoint of the critic, the Gothic kings’ taste for pomp and luxury may be interpreted as proof of their civilised instincts or of their native barbarism. For of the splendour of the Court of Toledo we have abundant testimony. From the writings of Isidore, we learn that the nobles used only goblets and basins of the precious metals, that their garments were of superfine silk, and their ornaments of the richest jewels. The elaborate ceremonial of the royal household may be inferred from the list of functionaries—the First Count, or Chief Butler, the Escancias; the Count Chamberlain, or Cubiculario; the Master of the Horse, Estabulario; the Major Domo, or Numerario; the Steward, or Silonario; the Master of the Pages, or Espartarius; the Count of the Sagrarios, or Sacred Things; and the Treasurer, or Argentarios. These offices were only held by the highest nobles. In the Cluny Museum at Paris and the Royal Armoury at Madrid are preserved the superb Votive Crowns discovered at Guarrazar in 1858. These priceless objects proclaim the wealth and munificence of the Visigothic monarchs. They are composed of double hoops of gold, decorated on the outside by three bands in relief. The outer bands are set with pearls and sapphires, and the middle band with the same stones in a setting of a red vitreous substance. The crown is suspended by four chains from a double gold rosette, which encloses a piece of rock crystal set in facets. Each chain consists of four links, shaped like the leaf of the pear-tree, and percées à jour. In its original state the crown of King Swinthila, now in the Madrid Armoury, had, hanging from its lower rim, a cross and twenty-two letters, making up the inscription, SVINTHILANUS REX OFFERET. All and each of these letters were actual jewels, set in the red glassy paste already mentioned, to them being attached large single pearls and pear-shaped sapphires. Though only twelve letters were remaining when the crown was discovered, the dedication was skilfully reconstructed by Señores de Madrazo and Amador de los Rios. The crown of Recceswinth in the Cluny Museum and the crown of the Abbot Theodosius at Madrid do not differ greatly from that of Swinthila in style and material. Though the workmanship is rude compared with modern specimens of the goldsmith’s art, these crowns still excite admiration by their beauty and richness. Inquiring into the origin of their style, Señor de Riaño arrives at the conclusion that it “must be looked for in the East; their manufacture was most probably Spanish. We cannot imagine the extraordinary magnificence of the Visigothic court, so similar to that of Constantinople and other contemporary ones, without the presence at each of a group of artists whose task was to satisfy these demands.” Not only the applied arts, but letters and learning were cultivated at Toledo. Swinthila and Recceswinth delighted in the composition of epistles and verses, in which, unfortunately, the taste, acquired from the Byzantines, for long-winded, flowery and involved phrases is painfully apparent. Recceswinth interested himself in the collection and revision of ancient manuscripts. In his reign flourished the learned and saintly Ildefonso, who was publicly thanked for his work on the perpetual virginity of Mary by the martyr Saint Leocadia, who came expressly from Heaven for the purpose. One of Ildefonso’s successors in the see of Toledo, Julian, was a Jew by birth, or at least descent. He was renowned for his erudition and especially as a polemical writer. Though he narrowly escaped excommunication as a heretic, he is now venerated as a saint, and was buried beside St. Ildefonso.
As the seat of a Court which did something more than ape the culture of the Latins (pace Mr. Leonard Williams), Toledo rose from an obscure Roman colony into a city of dignity and importance. It is supposed to have reached its highest stage of development in the reign of King Wamba (672-680), whose mutilated statue confronts the traveller on approaching the town from the railway-station. Most of the buildings ascribed by the chroniclers, however, to that king were in all probability only restored by his orders, and were originally constructed by his predecessors. Isidore Pacense enumerates among the edifices existing in his time in Spain, basilicas, monasteries, oratories, and hermitages; the Aula Regia, or royal residence, “distinguished before all other buildings by the richness of the four porticos which encircled it”; the Atrii of the nobility, which were allowed only three porticos; hospitals, guest-houses, and Repositaria, or treasure-houses. It is reasonable to assume that the capital of Spain would have possessed buildings of all the kinds specified during the hundred years that elapsed between the death of Athanagild and the accession of Wamba.
To the former king is attributed the foundation of the sanctuary converted later into the Hermitage of Cristo de la Luz, and the Church of Santa Justa, reconstructed in the sixteenth century. From an inscription on marble found in 1581, near the Convent of San Juan de la Penitencia, it would appear that Reccared built a church consecrated to the Virgin in the year 587. The text runs: IN NOMINE DNI CONSECRA | TA ECCLESIA SCTE MARIE | IN CATHOLICO DIE PRIMO | IDUS APRILIS ANNO FELI | CITER PRIMO REGNI D-NI | NOSTRI GLORIOSISSIMI H | RECCAREDI REGIS ERA | DCXXV. To Liuba II. is ascribed the erection of the Church of San Sebastian, where some capitals and shafts, discovered in 1899, exist to attest its Visigothic origin. The Basilica of Santa Leocadia dated from the days of Sisebut (612-621): and though the chroniclers assign no date to the dedication of the Church of San Ginés there can be no doubt that it took place in the seventh century. Wamba adorned with statuary and partially restored the city walls, but it is an error, based on a corrupt text of Isidore Pacense’s, to suppose that he built them.
The site of the Aula Regia, or Palace of the Visigothic kings, has long been a matter of dispute among archæologists. The author of the article on Toledo in the “Monumentos Arquitectónicos” decides in favour of the plot of ground covered by the Convents of the Concepcion and the Comendadores de Santiago, the ruined Hospital of Santa Cruz, and the new extension of the Paseo del Miradero—close to the Zocodover, in the north-east angle of the city. Adjacent to the palace was the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, “which seems,” says Señor Menendez y Pidal, “to have been the royal pantheon, opened only for the entombment of the sovereign and the taking the oath of allegiance to his successor.” Here were suspended the votive crowns, afterwards buried at Guarrazar; here probably were interred Athanagild, Leovigild, Reccared I., Liuba II., Gundemar, Sisebut, Reccared II., Tulga, Erwig, Egica, and Witica. Their very dust has long since been scattered by the wind—who shall say where? In a hall attached to that Basilica, in similar annexes to the Basilicas of Santa Leocadia and Santa Maria de la Sede Real, were held those ecclesiastical synods which so powerfully contributed to the shaping of the destinies of Spain. Santa Leocadia’s church is now known as the Cristo de la Vega; the Basilica de Santa Maria faced the Bridge of Alcantara and was in after years known as Santa Maria de Alficem. Here Recceswinth is said to have been crowned, the temple being afterwards restored by Erwig, Wamba’s successor.
Not a single building erected by the Visigothic kings exists to-day. “Destroyed by man’s fury and by the vicissitudes of time,” regretfully observes Señor Amador de los Rios, “or altered till all trace of their original form has been lost, by the pious care which intended to preserve them, you may seek in vain in the city of Wamba for an intact monument of that age; not even the walls ascribed to that prince have remained entire. Fragments of friezes; isolated capitals, which have adorned later edifices, oddly out of place in the scheme of decorations, or cut and defaced; broken shafts, perhaps bearing some inscriptions; pieces of a hinge, a metope, a lintel, or an impost, perhaps some dedicatory tablet—this is all that has escaped at Toledo the devastating scythe of time.”
These relics, however, are fortunately numerous. For a detailed description of the more important, the reader is referred to the “Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España.” Some we shall notice more particularly in dealing with the edifices of which they now form part.
Under Wamba the Visigothic monarchy reached the apex of its greatness. Under his four successors, Erwig, Egica, Witica, and Roderic, State and people are said to have become hopelessly enervated. The old Gothic vigour blazed up now and again in some individual ruler or statesman, but failed to communicate itself to the nation. The kingdom was tottering to its fall. The taste for display and the amenities of existence grew stronger in this period of decline. Never was there such wealth and splendour in Toledo as when it fell a prey to the hosts of Islam. The rapid decay of this once great and martial race is without a parallel in history. It is difficult to assign to it a cause. Luxury was the privilege only of the nobility and clergy, and could hardly have corrupted the whole people. Modern writers lamely attribute the final catastrophe to ecclesiastical influence and domination. Perhaps when all has been said, the state of Spain under Witica and Roderic was not much worse than under subsequent rulers of other dynasties; and the downfall may have been due, not so much to the effeminacy of the vanquished, as to the extraordinary military genius of the conquerors. Historians would have said little about the degeneracy of the Visigoths if the battle of the Guadalete had had a different issue.
The Hispano-Goths, as Catholics, evinced a fanatical and intolerant temper which had been conspicuously lacking in them as Arians. Harsh edicts continued to be promulgated against the Jews—then, as till a much later date, a most important element in the population of Toledo. The unlucky Children of Israel may have derived in the intervals of persecution some malicious consolation from the bitter quarrels between the king and the Catholic clergy. Witica was an enemy, or what was probably regarded as the same thing, a would-be reformer of the Church. To his impiety, indeed, monkish writers are fond of ascribing the destruction of the Gothic kingdom. His predecessor, Egica, did not hesitate to condemn to excommunication, exile, and confiscation of property, Sisebert, the powerful Archbishop of Toledo. Perhaps some clerkly chronicler, by way of retaliation for this outrage upon his order, invented the following discreditable story, to be found in the pages of Lozano.
King Egica had conceived an ardent passion for the beautiful Doña Luz, who is described as the grand-daughter of Kindaswinth, and the sister of Roderic, afterwards king. Her love, however, was given to her uncle, Don Favila, Duke or Governor of Cantabria. The lovers, wearied at last by the king’s opposition to their union, went through a secret and simplified form of marriage in the lady’s bedchamber before a statue of the Virgin. In the course of time. Doña Luz became a mother. Egica’s suspicions had already been enkindled, and fearing his wrath, she placed the new-born infant in a little ark and set it afloat on the bosom of the Tagus. As her maids pushed out the tiny craft from the foot of the steep path that leads down from Toledo, a radiance diffused itself around the sleeping child and for long marked his passage down the broad stream. The irate monarch, divining that Doña Luz must in some way have disposed of her child, caused a census to be taken of all the children born in and around the city within the past three months with the names of the respective fathers. The number of births was recorded at 35,428—a very surprising total for Toledo! And, which is still more remarkable and highly creditable to the city, the parentage of these numerous infants was in every case authenticated. What then had become of Doña Luz’s baby? Baffled in his quest, the king suborned one of his minions, Melias by name, to accuse the unfortunate lady of incontinency. The penalty for this offence, we are told, was nothing less than death by fire; and for that fate Egica bade Doña Luz prepare, unless she could secure a defender or otherwise clear her reputation. At the eleventh hour, the valorous champion appeared in the person of Don Favila, who disproved the charge made against his lady-love to the satisfaction of mediæval intelligences, by the simple method of running her accuser through the body. This, however, did not satisfy the sceptical monarch, who insisted on a further ordeal by combat. A knight named Bristes, cousin of the recreant Melias, was challenger and accuser on this occasion, and was quickly despatched by the doughty Favila.
In the meantime the ark containing Pelayo, the infant child of Doña Luz and her champion, had reached Alcantara, where the little passenger almost miraculously fell into the hands of his mother’s other uncle, Grafeses. This benevolent prince took every care of the child, unsuspicious, of course, of his origin. Attracted to Court by the noise of these scandals and combats, he found a handkerchief in his niece’s room, the counterpart of one which he had discovered in the little ark. Doña Luz soon confessed to him the whole story, and he endeavoured to intercede for her with the king. Egica, probably more exasperated than ever, insisted on a third duel between Favila and a knight called Longaris. Both combatants had been wounded when a holy hermit appeared on the scene, and admonished the king as to his wickedness and hardness of heart. Egica repented and consented to the public celebration of the marriage of Favila and Doña Luz. Here we have a fine romantic account of the origin of the heroic Pelayo, the restorer of the monarchy and the saviour of the Spanish nation.