4. Relations to the Romans and the Church

ganization, and as an armed estate dwelt almost entirely in the open country, leaving the cities to the Romans. In the cities a new aristocracy arose at the head of which stood the Catholic bishop to whom with time an increasing measure of authority fell. The Church succeeded to the prestige of the empire and assumed the role of protector of the Romans against their alien masters, while at the same time the preeminence of Rome as the capital of Catholic Christianity was

33

being successfully upheld. The Arian Goths appear in sharp contrast to the splendid organization of the Catholic Church. Their spiritual life was perhaps higher than that of their opponents, and their moral standards were admittedly superior. They were more tolerant and their theology was simple and based on the Scriptures. As a young nation they rejected asceticism and monasticism. But on the other hand their clergy, cut off, as they were, from the learning of the ancient world, were inferior to the Catholic priesthood and showed with time actual degeneration. More than this, the Arian Church had no unity inasmuch as each Gothic kingdom possessed its national Church.

5. The Gothic Kings

6. The Visigoths

In the Visigothic kingdom the relations between the two sects were more friendly in the beginning, owing to the fact that the Goths had arrived in Gaul as defenders of the provinces against foreign invasion. Dissension first appears under Euric (48G-485) who was driven by political need to violent measures. Danger appeared when Clovis, king of the Franks, a convert to Catholic Chris. tianity, after overthrowing the Romans in Gaul under Syagrius (486), began his attack on the Visigothic kingdom. Alaric II. (485-507) sought to gain the good-will of his Catholic subjects by a policy of mildness and concession, but was impelled to persecution by the traitorous negotiations between his bishops and the Franks. In the battle of Voug16 he lost life and kingdom, and, though the intervention of Theodoric saved some remnant of the Visigothic power in France for the time, the end came under Amalric (531) when the Visigothic kingdom was restricted to the Spanish peninsula. In Spain there ensued a period of comparative quiet during which the Catholic Church profited by the full toleration it enjoyed to extend and confirm its power while the Gothic kingship grew weaker in the strife between the rulers and the rebellious nobility. After the fall of the Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms and the conversion of the Suevi and the Burgundians the Visigoths were the only Germanic people of Arian faith. Leovigild (589-588) restored the old splendor of the kingdom by bringing the entire Iberian peninsula under his sway, but his son Receared (588-801) embraced the Catholic creed and thereby initiated a process of rapid assimilation between Goths and Romans which was to result in the development of the Spanish people. Church and State were brought closely together and the ascendancy of one over the other depended entirely upon the personality of the kings. These, however, showed little ability to check the forces of disorder and dissolution. Seventeen kings ruled during the last century of Visigothic power and the end came in 711 when the Gothic army usJer Roderic was overwhelmed by the Arabs under Tarik at the Wady Bekka.

G. Uhlhorn†.

Bibliography: Among the sources may be mentioned: Lex Wisipothorum, in Bouquet, Recuei'., vol. xiv.; Jordanis, De oripine at actibus Getarum, ad. T. Mommseu in MGH, Aud. ant., v. 1 (1882), 53-138. For the history consult: F. Dab-, Die Kdnipe der Germanen, parts 2-0, Munich, 1881-71; C. Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton, Cambridge, 1884; T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, 4 vols., Oxford, 1880-Sb; G. Kaufmann, Deutsche Geschichte, i. 238 sqq., ii. 47, Leipsic, 1881; H. Bradley, The Goths, London, 1888; W. M. and C. D. Ramsay, The Gothic Compendium, ib. 1889 (deals with history and language); B. Rappaport, Die Einfdlle der Gothen in dos römische Reich, Leipsic, 1899; P. Villari, Le Invasioni barbariche in Italia, Milan, 1900; and especially, Gibbon, Decline and Fall, consult Index.

On the relations with Christianity consult: W. Bessell, UebMr dos Lebsn des Ulfilas und die Bekthrung der Gothen sum Christenthum, Göttingen, 1880; A. Helfferich, Der wsstpothische Arianismus, Berlin, 1880; J. G. W. Uhlhorn, The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, New York, 1879; Görres, in TBK, lxvi (1893), 708-734; F. Kauffmann, in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philokyis, xxx (1897), 93-112; Meander, Christian Church, ii. passim, iii. 149-180 et passim.

On Alaric consult: A. S. D. Merry, Rfcite de rhist. romaine au 6. sitcla; Alaric, Paris, 1880; Meander, Christian Church. ii. 180. On Ulfilas: G. Waits, Leben and Lvhm des Ulfilas, Hanover, 184o; 1 Gaugengigl, Ulfilas, 2 vols., Passau, 1853; C. A. Scott, Ulfilas, Apoetlv of the Goths, Cambridge, 1885; Meander, Christian Church, ii. 150-159, 472-473, On Theodoric: T. .Hodgkin, Theodorie the Goth, London, 1891.

On the Gothic Literature: W. Braune, Gouache Grammatik, Halle, 1887, Eng. tmnal., New York, 1883; T. L. M. Douse. Introduction . . . to the Gothic of Ulfas, Lon. don, 1888; G. H. Batg, Comparative Glossary of the Gothic Language, Mayville, 1887; idem, The First Germanic Bible, New York, 1891; E. Sievers, Geschichte der pothiscken Litteratur, vol. ii., part 1, Strasburg, 1890; J. Wright, A Primer of the Gothic Language, London, 1899.