Chindasuinth

Life

Despite his great age (he was already 79 years old), a veteran of the Leovigild campaigns and the religious rebellions after conversions from Arianism were forced, his tyrannical and cruel character made the clergy and noblesse submit to him out of fear of execution and banishment. He cemented his control by preempting an alleged revolt: he executed at one time over 200 Goths of the most noble families and 500 more of the petty nobility. This in accompaniment with many banishments and confiscations of property. All this before any rebellion and without any investigation or trial or, for that matter, actual belief that a revolt was pending.

The Seventh Council of Toledo, held on 16 October 646, consented to and backed his actions, toughening the punishments applied to those who rose against the sovereign and extending them even to members of the clergy who supported them.

Smothering all opposition, he gave the realm a peace and order not before known. To continue with his legacy, he had his son Recceswinth, at the urging of Braulio of Zaragoza, crowned co-king on 20 January 649 and attempted to establish, as many had before, a hereditary monarchy. His associate-son was from this date until his death the true ruler of the Visigoths, in name of his father until 653, the date of the old man's passing.

Despite his implacable politics, Chindasuinth is recorded in religious journals as a great benefactor of the church, donating many lands and bestowing privileges. He improved the public estates with the confiscated goods of the dispossessed nobility and through improved taxation methods. In the military arena, he undertook campaigns against rebellious Basques and Lusitanians.

As a legislator, he promulgated many laws dealing with civil matters. With the help of Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza, he began the elaboration of a territorial code of law to cover both the Gothic population and the Hispano-Roman. That work, the Liber Iudiciorum, would be promulgated, in a rough form, in his second year. It underwent refinement throughout the rest of his reign and was finished by his son in 654. In 643 or 644 it superseded both the Breviary of Alaric used by the natives and the Code of Leovigild used by the Goths.

According to Edward Gibbon, during his reign, Muslim raiders began harassing Iberia: "As early as the time of Othman (644–656), their piratical squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia". Yey, this interpretation poses a problem difficult to overcome: the Muslim Rashiduns were still struggling to conquest Tripolitania in present-day Libya. Chindasuinth spent the last years of his life, as so many mediaeval monarchs did, in acts of piety for the sake of his immortal soul. He financed St Fructuosus to build the monastery of San Román de Hornija, by the Douro, with the intention to make it his burial too and where his remains rest next to those of his wife, Riciberga. Nevertheless, Eugene II, bishop of Toledo, provided one judgment on the life of this king in writing the following inscription:

I, Chindasuinth, ever the friend of evil deeds: committer of crimes Chindaswinth I, impious, obscene, ugly and wicked; not seeking the best, valuing the worst.

Legacy

Chindasuinth had three sons and one daughter by his wife, Riciberga. The eldest, Recceswinth, succeeded him in the throne, and continued his reforms. The middle son, Theodofred, later blinded by Wamba, was progenitor of Roderic. The youngest son, Favila, was the ancestor of Pelayo.