[133] Cf. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 8 vols.; Villari, The Barbarian Invasions of Italy, 2 vols.
[134] This demand was not so extraordinary in view of the common Roman custom in the provinces of billeting soldiers upon the inhabitants, with the right to one-third of the house and appurtenances.
[135] Cf. post, Chapter XXXIII., II.
[136] On the Codes see Hodgkin, o.c. vol. vi.
[137] The Lombard language was still spoken in the time of Paulus Diaconus (eighth century).
[138] Apollinaris Sidonius, Ep. i. 2 (trans. by Hodgkin, o.c. vol. ii. 352-358), gives a sketch of a Visigothic king, Theodoric II., son of him who fell in the battle against the Huns. He ascended the throne in 453, having accomplished the murder of his brother Thorismund. In 466, he was himself slain by his brother Euric. In the meanwhile he appears to have been a good half-barbaric, half-civilized king.
[139] See post, Chapter XXXIII., II. For the Visigothic kingdom of Spain the great reigns were those of Leowigild (568-586) and his son Reccared (586-601). In Justinian’s time the “Roman Empire” had again made good its rule over the south of Spain. Leowigild pushed the Empire back to a narrow strip of southern coast, where there were still important cities. Save for this, he conquered all Spain, finally mastering the Suevi in the north-west. His capital was Toledo. Great as was his power, it hardly sufficed to hold in check the overweening nobles and landowners. Under the declining Empire there had sprung up a system of clientage and protection, in which the Teutons found an obstacle to the establishment of monarchies. In Spain this system hastened the downfall of the Visigothic kingdom. Another source of trouble for Leowigild, who was still an Arian, was the opposition of the powerful Catholic clergy. Reccared, his son, changed to the Catholic or “Roman” creed, and ended the schism between the throne and the bishops.
[140] The Spanish Roman Church, which controlled or thwarted the destinies of the doomed Visigothic kingdom, was foremost among the western churches in ability and learning. It had had its martyrs in the times of pagan persecution; it had its universally venerated Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, and prominent at the Council of Nicaea; it had its fiercely quelled heresies and schisms; and it had an astounding number of councils, usually held at Toledo. Its bishops were princes. Leander, Bishop of Seville, had been a tribulation to the powerful, still Arian, King Leowigild, who was compelled to banish him. That king’s son, Reccared, recalled him from banishment, to preside at the Council of Toledo in 589, when the Visigothic monarchy turned to Roman Catholicism. Leander was succeeded in his more than episcopal see by his younger brother Isidore (Bishop of Seville from 600 to 636). A princely prelate, Isidore was to have still wider and more lasting fame for sanctity and learning. The last encyclopaedic scholar belonging to the antique Christian world, he became one of the great masters of the Middle Ages (see ante, Chapter V.). The forger and compiler of the False Decretals in selecting the name of Isidore rather than another to clothe that collection with authority, acted under the universal veneration felt for this great Spanish Churchman.
[141] Marriages between Romans and Franks were legalized as early as 497.
[142] See Flach, Les Origines de l’ancienne France, vol. i. chap. i. sqq. (Paris, 1886).