View source for Reccared I

{{short description|Visigothic King}}
{{Redirect|Reccared}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name         = Reccared I
| image        = Reccaredo-1.jpg
| caption      = Reccared I in the manuscript [[Semblanzas de reyes]]'', 1312-1325
| title        = King of Hispania, Septimania and Gallaecia
| succession   = [[King of the Visigoths]]
| reign        = 21 April 586 – 21 December 601
| predecessor  = [[Liuvigild]]
| regent       = 
| reg-type     = 
| successor    = [[Liuva II]]
| birth_date   = c. 559 AD{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}
| birth_place  = [[Hispania]]
| death_date   = 21 December 601
| death_place  = [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]], [[Hispania]]
| spouse       = [[Baddo (queen)|Baddo]]
| issue        = [[Liuva II]]<br>[[Suintila]]<br>[[Geila]]
| full name    = Flavius Reccaredus
| father       = [[Liuvigild]]
| mother       = Theodosia
| religion     = [[Arianism]], <br> later [[Chalcedonian Christianity]]
}}
'''Reccared I''' (or '''Recared'''; {{langx|la|Flavius Reccaredus}}; {{langx|es|Flavio Recaredo}}; {{circa}} 559 – December 601; reigned 586–601) was the [[king of the Visigoths]], ruling in [[Hispania]], [[Gallaecia]] and [[Septimania]]. His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of [[Arianism]] in favour of [[Christianity as the Roman state religion|Roman Christianity]] in 587.

==Reign==
[[File:Recaredo Tremis Ispali.jpg|thumb|Tremissis of Reccared I, bearing his rough effigy.]]
Reccared was the younger son of [[Liuvigild|King Leovigild]] by his first wife. Like his father, Reccared had his capital at [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]]. The Visigothic kings and nobles were traditionally [[Arianism|Arian Christians]], while the Hispano-Roman population were [[Chalcedonian Christianity|Chalcedonian Christians]]. The bishop [[Leander of Seville]] was instrumental in converting the elder son and heir of Leovigild, [[Hermenegild]], to Chalcedonianism. Leander supported his rebellion and was exiled for his role.

When King Leovigild died, within a few weeks of April 21, 586, bishop Leander was swift to return to Toledo. The new king had been associated with his father in ruling the kingdom and was acclaimed king by the Visigothic nobles without opposition.[[File:Reccared I Conversión, by Muñoz Degrain, Senate Palace, Madrid.jpg|thumb|Conversion of Reccared to Catholicism by [[Antonio Muñoz Degrain]] (1888) ]]

In January 587, Reccared renounced Arianism for Chalcedonianism, the single great event of his reign and the turning point for Visigothic Hispania. Most Arian nobles and ecclesiastics followed his example, certainly those around him at Toledo, but there were Arian uprisings, notably in Septimania, his northernmost province, beyond the [[Pyrenees]], where the leader of opposition was the Arian bishop [[Athaloc]], who had the reputation among his Roman enemies of being virtually a second [[Arius]]. Among the [[secular]] leaders of the Septimanian insurrection, the counts Granista and Wildigern appealed to [[Guntram]] of Burgundy, who saw his opportunity and sent his ''dux'' [[Desiderius of Aquitaine|Desiderius]]. Reccared's army defeated the Arian insurgents and their Catholic allies with great slaughter, Desiderius himself being slain.<ref>[[John of Biclaro]], ''Chronicle'', 91. Translated in [[Kenneth Baxter Wolf]], ''Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain'', second edition (Liverpool: University Press, 1990), p. 74</ref>

The next conspiracy broke out in the west, [[Lusitania]], headed by [[Sunna, Bishop of Mérida|Sunna]], the Arian bishop of [[Mérida, Spain|Mérida]], and count [[Segga|Seggo]]. [[Claudius, Duke of Lusitania|Claudius]], Reccared's ''dux Lusitaniae'', put down the rising, Sunna being banished to [[Mauretania Tingitana|Mauritania]] and Seggo retiring to [[Gallaecia]].<ref>Isidore of Seville, ''[[Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum]]'', chapter 54. Translation by Guido Donini and Gordon B. Ford, ''Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi'', second revised edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), p. 25</ref> In the later part of 588 a third conspiracy was headed by the Arian bishop Uldila and the queen dowager [[Goiswintha]], but they were detected, and the bishop was banished.<ref>[[John of Biclaro]], ''Chronicle'', 90; translated by Wolf, pp. 73f</ref>

The [[Third Council of Toledo]], organized by St. Leander but convened in the king's name in May 589, set the tone for the new Catholic kingdom. The public confession of the king, read aloud by a notary, reveals by the emphatic clarity of its theological points and its quotations of [[scripture]] that it was ghost-written for the king.  Bishop Leander also delivered the triumphant closing sermon, which his brother Isidore entitled ''Homilia de triumpho ecclesiae ob conversionem Gothorum'' a homily upon the "triumph of the Church upon the conversion of the Goths". The text of the homily survives.  Leander and the Roman bishops immediately instituted the program of forced conversion of [[Jew]]s and extirpation of the remains of Arianism as [[heresy]]. Catholic history traditionally imputes these persecutions to the Visigothic kings. When, after Reccared's reign, at a synod held at Toledo in 633, the bishops took upon themselves the nobles' right to select a king from among the royal family, the transfer of power was complete. By this time the remaining ethnic distinction between the increasingly Romanized Visigoths and their Hispano-Roman subjects had all but disappeared (the Gothic language lost its last and probably already declining function as a church language with the extirpation of Arianism, and dress and funerary customs also cease to be distinguishing features in ca. 570/580)<ref>Strategies of Distinction: Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800 (Transformation of the Roman World) by Walter Pohl, {{ISBN|90-04-10846-7}} (pp. 119–120: dress and funerary customs cease to be distinguishing features in 570/580)</ref>

Reportedly Reccared engaged in a vigorous policy against the Jews, pursuing zealous and fanatical<ref>Aloysius Ziegler, ''Church and State in Visigothic Spain'' (Washington) 1930: "Ziegler unhesitatingly characterizes the kings. as 'fanatically zealous'" ([[Bernard Bachrach|Bacharach]] 1973:11.</ref> policies limiting Jewish freedoms as promulgated in the canons of synods. Modern historians<ref>Notably Bernard S. Bachrach, in ''Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe'' (University of Minnesota Press) 1977; see also Bacharach, "A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589–711", ''The American Historical Review'' '''78'''.1 (February 1973), pp. 11–34.</ref> have revised this view and see a continuation of traditional Visigothic tolerance. [[Pope Gregory I]] was convinced that Reccared refused bribes from the Jewish community, which was large, well-connected throughout the Mediterranean and powerful,<ref>Solomon Katz, ''The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Gaul and Spain'' (Harvard University Press) 1937 gives the broad background.</ref> and Reccared's laws provided that the offspring of a Christian and a Jew be baptised, which was of little moment to the Jewish community, as whether it was not born of a Jewish mother or was born of a Jewish woman outside her community, the child was not considered a Jew anyway. Reccared eliminated the death penalty for Jews convicted of proselytising among Christians and ignored Gregory's request that the trade in Christian slaves at [[Narbonne]] be forbidden to Jews.<ref>Bacharach, "A Reassessment", p. 15.</ref> Among the canons of five synods during Reccared's reign, E. A. Thompson could find none disadvantaging the Jewish community.<ref>Thompson, ''The Goths in Spain'' (Oxford University Press) 1969:112.</ref>

The information for the rest of Reccared's reign is scanty. [[John of Biclaro]], Reccared's contemporary, ends his account with the Third Council of Toledo. [[Isidore of Seville]], bishop Leander's brother, praises his peaceful government, clemency, and generosity: standard encomia. He returned various properties, even some private ones, that had been confiscated by his father, and founded many churches and monasteries. Pope Gregory, writing to Reccared in August 599 (''Epp''. ix. 61, 122), extols him for embracing the true faith and inducing his people to do so, and notably for refusing the bribes offered by Jews to procure the repeal of a law against them. He sent Reccared a piece of the [[True Cross]], some fragments of the chains of [[St. Peter]], and some hairs of [[St. John the Baptist]].

Reccared was married to [[Baddo (queen)|Baddo]] and possibly to [[Chlodosinda (daughter of Sigebert I)|Chlodoswintha]]. He died a natural death at Toledo<ref>Ann Christys, ''Christians in Al-Andalus, 711–1000'', p. 37 (Curzon Press, 2002). {{ISBN|0-7007-1564-9}}</ref> and was succeeded by his youthful son [[Liuva II]].

==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/iii.xviii.ii.htm Henry Wace, ''Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature'']: Reccared

{{S-start}}
{{S-reg|}}
{{S-bef|before=[[Liuvigild]]}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[Visigoths|King of the Visigoths]]|years=21 April 586 – December 601}}
{{S-aft|after=[[Liuva II]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Visigothic kings}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reccared 01}}
[[Category:601 deaths]]
[[Category:7th-century Visigothic monarchs]]
[[Category:Converts to Catholicism from Arianism]]
[[Category:Christian monarchs]]
[[Category:6th-century Christians]]
[[Category:559 births]]
[[Category:6th-century Visigothic monarchs]]