SPAIN. 
401 
at the hear! of the Visigoths; the Franks and Burgundians 
served under his standard; and he privately stipulated, for 
himself and his successors, the absolute possession of his 
Spanish conquests. The two nations encountered each other 
on the banks of the river Urbicus, about 12 miles from 
Astorga; and the decisive victory of the Goths appeared for 
a while to have extirpated the name and kingdom of the 
Suevi. From the field of battle Theodoric advanced to 
Braga, their metropolis. His entrance was not polluted with 
blood, and the Goths respected the chastity of their female 
captives, more especially of the consecrated virgins ; but the 
Greatest part of the clergy and people were made slaves, and 
even the churches and altars were confounded in the universal 
pillage. The unfortunate king of the Suevi, was delivered 
to his implacable rival; and Rechiarius, who neither desired 
nor expected mercy, received, with manly constancy, the 
death which he would probably have inflicted. Alter this 
bloody sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried 
his victorious arms as far as Merida, the principal town of 
Lusitania, without meeting any resistance; but he -was 
stopped in the full career of success, and recalled from Spain 
before he could provide for the security of his conquests. In 
his retreat towards the Pyrenees, by the sack of Pallentia and 
Astorga, he shewed himself a faithless ally, as well as a cruel 
enemy. 
Recared was the first Catholic king of Spain. He had 
imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother, and he sup¬ 
ported it with more prudence and success. Instead of re¬ 
volting against his father, Recared patiently expected the 
hour of his death. Instead of condemning his memory, he 
piously supposed, that the dying monarch had abjured the 
errors of Arianism, and recommended to his son the conversion 
of the Gothic nation. To accomplish that salutary end. 
Recard convened an assembly of the Arian clergy and 
nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and exhorted them to 
imitate the example of their prince. The laborious inter¬ 
pretation of doubtful texts, or the the curious pursuit of 
metaphysical arguments, would have excited endless con* 
troversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his illiter¬ 
ate audience, two substantial and visible arguments, the 
testimony of Earth and of Heaven. The Earth had submitted 
to the Nicene synod: the Romans, the Barbarians, and the 
inhabitants of Spain, unanimously professed the same ortho¬ 
dox creed ; and the Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the 
consent of the Christian world. A superstitious age was 
prepared to reverence, as the testimony of Heaven, the pre¬ 
ternatural cures which were performed by the skill or virtue 
of the Catholic clergy; the baptismal fonts of Osset in 
Bcetica, which were spontaneously replenished each year, 
on the vigil of Easter; and the miraculous shrine of St. 
Martin of Tours, which had already converted the Suevic 
prince and people of Gallicia. The Catholic king encount¬ 
ered some difficulties on this important change of the national 
religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented by the queen- 
dowager, was formed against his life; and two counts ex¬ 
cited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Reca¬ 
red disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and exe¬ 
cuted severe justice. Eight bishops, abjured their errors; 
and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, 
with the house in which they had been purposely collected. 
The whole body of the Visigoths and Suevi were allured or 
driven into the pale of the Catholic communion ; the faith, 
at least, of the rising generation, was fervent and sincere; 
and the devout liberality of the Barbarians enriched the 
churches and monasteries of Spain. Seventy bishops assem¬ 
bled in the council of Toledo, received the submission of 
their conquerors; and the zeal of the Spaniards improved 
the Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy 
Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father—a weighty 
point of doctrine, which produced, long afterwards, the 
schism of the Greek and Latin churches. The royal prose¬ 
lyte immediately saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, sur- 
named the Great, a learned and holy prelate, whose reign 
was distinguished by the conversion of heretics and infidels. 
The ambassadors- of Recared respectfully offered on the 
Von. XXIII. No. 1579. 
threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold and gems: 
they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of St. John 
the Baptist; a cross, which inclosed a small piece of the 
true wood ; and a key, that contained some particles of iron 
which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter. 
After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Franks 
and the Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal sub¬ 
mission, the inherent evils, and the accidental benefits of 
superstition. But the prelates of France, long before the 
extinction of the Merovingian race, had degenerated into 
fighting and hunting barbarians. They disdained the use of 
synods; forgot the laws of temperance and chastity, and 
preferred the indulgence of private ambition and luxury, 
to the greatest interest of the sacerdotal profession. The 
bishops of Spain respected themselves, arid were respected 
by the public: their indissoluble union disguised their vices, 
and confirmed their authority; and the regular discipline of 
the church introduced peace, order, and stability into the 
government of the state. From the reign of Recared, the 
first Catholic king, to that of Witiza, the immediate pre¬ 
decessor of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen national coun¬ 
cils were successively convened The six metropolitans, 
Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona and Narbonne, 
presided according to their respective seniority; the assembly 
was composed of their suffragan bishops, who appeared in 
person, or by their proxies; and a place was assigned to the 
most holy, or opulent, of the Spanish abbots. During the 
first three days of the convocation, as long as they agitated 
the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and discipline, the 
profane laity was excluded from their debates; which were 
conducted, however, with decent solemnity. But, on the 
morning of the fourth day, the doors were thrown open for 
the entrance of the great officers of the palace, the dukes and 
counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities, and the 
Gothic nobles; and the decrees of Heaven were ratified by 
the consent of the people. The same rules were observed in 
the provincial assemblies, the annual synods, w'hich were 
empowered to hear complaints, and to redress grievances; 
and a legal government was supported by the prevailing in¬ 
fluence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops who, in each 
revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious, and to 
insult the prostrate, laboured, with diligence and success, 
to kindle the flames of persecution, and to exalt the mitre 
above the crown. Yet the national councils of Toledo, in 
which the free spirit of the Barbarians was tempered, and 
guided by episcopal policy, have established some prudent 
laws for the benefit of the king and people. The vacancy 
of the throne was supplied by the choice of the bishops and 
palatines; and after the failure of the line of Alaric.the regal 
dignity was still limited to the pure and noble blood of the 
Goths. The clergy, who anointed their lawful prince, 
always recommended, and sometimes practised, the duty of 
allegiance; and the spiritual censures were denounced on the 
heads of the impious subjects, who should resist his autho¬ 
rity, conspire against his life, or violate, by an indecent union, 
the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself, 
when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal 
oath to God and his people, that he would faithfully 
execute his important trust. The real or imaginary faults 
of his administration were subject to the controul of a power¬ 
ful aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were guarded 
by a fundamental privilege that they should not be degraded, 
imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or 
confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of 
their peers. 
One of these legislative councils of Toledo, examined and 
ratified the code of laws which had been compiled by a 
succession of Gothic kings, from the fierce Eurice, to the 
devout Egica. As long as the Visigoths themselves were 
satisfied with the rude customs of their ancestors, they in¬ 
dulged their subjects of Aquitaine and Spain in the enjoy¬ 
ment of the Roman law. Their gradual improvement in 
arts, in policy, and at length in religion, encouraged them 
to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign institutions, and 
to compose a code of civil and criminal jurisprudence, for 
5 K the 
