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99 Today, although devoid of its original nationalistic and essentialist overtones, the concept of election is still remarkably entrenched in the vocabulary of contemporary historiography on the Visigoths. On the one hand, the elective monarchy thesis is still highly popular. For Roger Collins:
The extinction of the “Balt” dynasty of Alaric I in 531 transformed the transmission of royal authority within the kingdom. Election of the king became a reality and dynastic sentiment was thereafter never a strong force in securing the easy transmission of power from father to son.416
In fact, this thesis sometimes appears to be popular to the point of being accepted a priori,417 denouncing the same overabundant weight of historiographical tradition on this subject that Iglesia Ferreirós identified in Orlandis’ work in the 1970s:
Tampoco, Orlandis trata de poner en duda la naturaleza teóricamente electiva de la monarquía goda, sino comprobar su vigencia efectiva y ver hasta que punto fue mediatizada la elección por otros factores y circunstancias, valorando la eficacia de las tendencias hereditarias, corregencias y asociaciones al trono, designaciones regias del sucesor y, finalmente, de la violencia, lo que le lleva a una matización extrema, que incluso hace dudar de si su aceptación de la vigencia teórica del principio electivo entre los godos no sea únicamente una concesión a la tradición.418
On the other hand, authors that are more critical of the elective monarchy for the Visigothic group still frequently label individual successions as elective with little to no discussion. This is, for example, the case of Pablo Díaz, who states that “it could even be argued that, ultimately, the only valid mechanism for reaching power was force”,419 while calling the accession of Valia an election.420 This did not necessarily need to be a problem, for elective successions do not mean an elective system. The problem lies in the question of what we are referring to when we write of an “elective succession”.
Before canon 75 of the IV Council of Toledo, there is no Visigothic text describing or advocating for an elective system or detailing the procedures of an elective succession.
416 Collins, Visigothic Spain, 45-6. This thesis has been popular even amongst authors who are critical of its Germanic character, see, for example: García Moreno, Historia de España Visigoda, 310-2.
417 See, for example, Marcela Mantel (“Monarquía, matrimonio, sucesión”, 43-5), where the endorsement of this position does not deserve a single footnote.
418 Iglesia Ferreirós, “Notas”, 654.
419 Díaz, “Visigothic Political Institutions”, 341.
420 Ibid. 329.
100 The attribution of the elective label to a given succession is essentially based on extrapolations from the vocabulary used by our sources:
Las fuentes, en esta ocasión, son parcas en datos. Sólo nos dicen que a la muerte de Alarico le sucede en el reino Ataúlfo. Únicamente el hecho de que Jordanes (Get. 31.158) utilice el verbo tradire puede inducirnos a pensar que hubiese tenido lugar algún tipo de elección, pero sin que sepamos cómo se llevó a cabo.421
However, a closer look at the vocabulary in our source-material raises a number of problems.422 For example, in Paulus Orosius,423 the passive form of the verbs creare (to be made [king]) and eligere (to be elected/chosen) are employed to describe the accessions of Sergeric and Valia but also to describe Imperial accessions in a military context:
7.43.9 - On Sergeric (415): Post hunc Segericus rex a Gothis creatus.
7.28.1 - On Constantine (306-337): Igitur mortuo, ut dixi, Constantio in Britaniis Constantinus imperator creatus.
7.31.1 - On Jovian (363-364): Anno ab urbe condita MCXVII Jovianus tricesimus septimus imperator in summo rerum discrimine ab exercitu creatus.
7.32.1 - On Valentinain I (364-375): Anno ab urbe condita MCXVIII Valentinianus tricesimus octavus apud Nicaeam consensu militum imperator creatus est.
7.34.9 - On Magnus Maximus (383-388): Maximus . . . in Britannia invitus propemodum ab exercitu imperator creatus in Galliam transit.
7.43.10 - On Valia (415-418): Deinde Vallia successit in regnum, ad hoc electus a Gothis ut pacem infringeret, ad hoc ordinatus a Deo, ut pacem confirmaret.
421 Valverde Castro, Ideología, Simbolismo y Ejercicio del Poder Real, 35. When it comes to the existence of an elective system, authors such as Sánchez Albornoz have invoked the existence of posterior moments of acclamation for kings that had reached the throne through other means as proof of the acknowledgement of the elective principle. However, nowadays, these moments are recognized as a mere symbolic procedure that simply reinforced what was already a fait accompli. On this, see: Valverde Castro, Ideología, Simbolismo y Ejercicio del Poder Real, 109-11. This is not unlike Byzantine ceremonial procedures that simulated the intervention of the army, the urban crowd and the leading officials in the accession of the Emperor (see pp. 14-5).
422 This warning is made by Thomas Deswarte ("La royauté élective", 34-7). The following quotes are compiled in his article so the reader should also see this author’s commentaries. Orlandis (“La sucesión al trono”, 65) and Reydellet (La Royauté dans la Littérature Latine, 552) also identified a problem of ambiguity in the vocabulary used by our sources.
423 Oros. Hist.
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7.40.4 - On Constantine III (407-411): Huius loco Constantinus ex infima militia propter solam spem nominis sine merito uirtutis eligitur.
Let’s now compare the passage of Orosius on Valia with Prosper of Aquitaine and Fredegar:
Oros. Hist. 7.43.10: On Valia: Deinde Vallia successit in regnum, ad hoc electus a Gothis ut pacem infringeret, ad hoc ordinatus a Deo, ut pacem confirmaret.
Prosp. Chron. 1257 (a.415): On Valia: Athaulfus a quodam suorum vulneratus interiit regnumque eius Wallia peremptis qui idem cupere intellegebatur invasit.
Fred. Chron. 73: on Sisenand (631-636): Omnis Gotorum exercitus se dicione Sisenando subaegit . . . ibique omnes Goti de regnum Spaniae Sisenandum sublimant in regnum.
Comparing the two passages on Valia, we can see that while Orosius uses eligere, Prosper uses invadere (to invade, to seize) and says that the king eliminated all the other pretenders. If we combine the two accounts, we can estimate that Valia was the chosen candidate of a given aristocratic faction that managed to impose itself by force over one or several other factions. Similarly, Fredegar both suggests that Sisenand, who deposed Suintila with Frankish military assistance, was a revolting general by saying that all the army submitted to his authority, and states that he was raised by all the Goths to kingship (sublimare in regnum).424 For Deswarte, writing on these passages:
En fait, au travers de ce vocabulaire très flou quant aux conditions d’accès au trône, tous ces auteurs insistaient sur l’existence au sein de l’Empire romain d’un regnum des Goths, disposant d’un roi dont la nomination échappait à l’empereur (a Gothis creatus) et qui gouvernait sa propre gens. Ils étaient aussi tributaires de l’idée très romain d’un nécessaire consentement au pouvoir, quel qu’il fût - de même que l’empereur exerçait son autorité en vertu du consensus universorum. Cependant, si les verbes eligere et creare supposent une forme d’acquiescement au nouveau pouvoir, ils ne nous disent rien de ses modalités concrètes, ni de ses principaux acteurs.425
As Deswarte states, verbs such as eligere and creare don’t express much more than a vague notion of acquiescence to the succession. Now, I do not seek to argue that no form of choice was involved in these processes, but we must examine what exactly do we mean when we write of an “election”. Surely, when an emperor was proclaimed by
424 Deswarte, "La royauté élective", 36.
425 Deswarte, "La royauté élective", 37.
102 the army, especially when he was raised from its own ranks, as was the case of Constantine III in the legions in Britannia, there was some procedure to determine which of the leading officials would be raised to the purple or whether they would risk their lives and positions by backing one of their companions in arms with Imperial ambitions.
We can even imagine that, in some cases, perhaps even the rank and file could have had an opportunity to voice their opinion. Likewise, if the above-mentioned hypothesis on Valia is correct, there must have been some procedure to choose Valia as claimant instead of another noble.426 Nevertheless, the employment of the modern concept of “election”
seems ill-adjusted because, despite the fact that its strict definition is very comprehensive (“the process of choosing a person or a group of people for a position, especially a political position, by voting”),427 it brings forth ideas drawn from our liberal democratic political context of: 1) a pre-determined electorate who is entitled to participate in the decision (for the Visigoths, this could be the leading nobles and bishops);428 and 2) constitutional force (the election suffices to make a king); qualities that we cannot identify in any satisfactory way before the IV Council of Toledo. That the chosen concept to describe these successions conveys such ideas is not an unfortunate accident of semantics.
The 19th century German historiographical school that first advocated for the Visigothic elective monarchy, and popularized its operative concepts, was inclined in identifying the Germanic peoples as precursors of the aspirations of their time in terms of civic and political rights in a no lesser degree than ancient Greeks and Romans. For this purpose, the concept of election fitted nicely with other aspects of the thought of the so-called
“Romantic” Period of the study of Germanic peoples such as the idea of a society of free warrior-peasants with political rights that gathered in assemblies of warriors. These constituted, in other words, an electorate with its own political institution.429
However, these ideas are not matched by accessions such as those of Valia,430 Sisenand, and the Roman emperors raised by the armies since: 1) a few well-placed
426 Iglesia Ferreirós, “Notas” 679, n. 192.
427 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, s.v. “election” accessed August 23, 2022, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/election?q=election.
428 E.g. Conc. Tol. VIII, c. 10, p. 5: 428-9.
429 Deswarte, "La royauté élective", 31-2; Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, 48-51; García Moreno, Historia de España Visigoda, 311.
430 The other sources on Valia do not add any additional information on the modalities of his accession:
Hyd. Chron. 52; Iord. Get. 164; Isid. Goth. 21; Chron. Gall. 511, 33; Olymp. fr. 26. For some examples of authors that speak of Valia’s election, see: García Moreno, Historia de España Visigoda, 37; Díaz,
“Visigothic Political Institutions”, 329; Valverde Castro, Ideología, Simbolismo y Ejercicio del Poder Real, 39; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 170 (“Valia was chosen as Gothic king over several other
103 political agents reserved for themselves the prerogative of choosing (one army out of many or one faction consisting of a fraction of the aristocracy); 2) consequentially, the legitimacy of these rulers rested, not on the election itself, but on the subsequent politico-military success of its actors, on whether or not they could establish a de facto control of the kingdom or empire. For those who were not directly involved in these accessions, these men were simply legitimate emperors/kings when they succeeded and usurpers when they failed.
Interestingly, a similar idea that not all choices of rulers are created equal arises in Toletan conciliar rulings:
Abhinc ergo et deinceps ita erunt in regni gloriam perficiendi rectores, ut aut in urbe regia aut in loco ubi princeps decesserit cum pontificum maiorumque palatii omnimodo eligantur assensu, non forinsecus aut conspiratione paucorum aut rusticarum plebium seditioso tumultu.431
In reasserting the elective principle, the VIII Council of Toledo creates a distinction between a rightful election, with the agreement of the bishops and the maiores palatii, and the “conspiracy of the few”, which is made outside the royal city or the place where the king had died, and thus invalidates the broad participation of the notables by making the choice the prerogative of a small clique.
Now, I do not wish to argue that all successions before 633 that are often labelled
“elective” where instead these “conspiracies of the few”. In fact, we have no way of knowing it: for some, such as the accession of Theudisclus, we have no details whatsoever.432 However, laying historiographical tradition aside, the evidence for Visigothic successions that meet the two above-mentioned criteria is simply not sufficient. Furthermore, the much-discussed canon 75 of the IV Council of Toledo provides no further hints of elective successions or an elective system for the preceding periods. The acta in no way suggest that there was any precedent for their decision of establishing an elective method, neither is this decision accompanied by any ideological justification of the superiority of this method of succession. Instead, the reasons for the
candidates”). Dietrich Claude (Claude, Adel, Kirche und Königtum, 31) says that the details are unknown for, while Olympiodorus suggests an election, Prosper points to a coup.
431 Conc. Tol. VIII, c. 10, p. 5:428-9: “From now on, in such way should rulers be appointed to the glory of the kingdom that they are elected with full agreement of the bishops and the leading men of the palace, either in the royal city or in the place where the king died, not outside, by the conspiracy of the few or by the seditious tumult of the rustics.”
432 C.f. Cons. Caes. 133a; Iord. Get. 303; Greg. Tur. Franc. 3.30; Isid. Goth. 44-5; Lat.reg. Vis. 21.
104 decision are entirely connected with the circumstances of their time: it is a way to try to put an end to the frequent usurpations and murders of kings by gathering the approval of all the notables to the next ruler.433 For all these reasons, I find that the concept of
“election” becomes more of a hindrance than a helpful concept, since:
a) It projects meaning unto successions whose details we ignore. This is not accidental but a product of the historiographical milieu that first popularized the concept.
b) It overemphasizes vague moments of choice over other more pertinent details.
Valia’s succession, for example, should rather be labelled the product of an aristocratic collusion. This label is more elucidative.
c) It invites unwanted and circular parallels with canon 75 of the IV Council of Toledo. The IV Council starts to resemble a retroactive confirmation of previous elections, even if not explicitly.434 Confidence in previous elections in turn influences the interpretation of the 4th Council: for example, it minimizes the potential novelty of this ruling and consequentially downplays the role of contemporary 7th century circumstances for its appearance.435
For all this, I believe that the concept of “election” should be avoided when 1) a few well-placed political agents reserved for themselves the prerogative of choosing; and 2) there is no constitutional force as the act of choosing is not the decisive factor in the imposition of an individual as king; or 3) the details of the succession are obscure. This is why I choose for these cases the use of a more neutral term of “choice”: when the details of the accession are unknown, “X was chosen as king” (alternatively, “X was made king”) conveys less unwanted meaning; when an aristocratic collusion (or something else) seems likely, this label should take precedence when describing the accession and
“choice” refers exclusively to the selection or confirmation of the would-be ruler by his supporting faction or army.436
433 On the idea that the determinations concerning succession of canon 75 are an innovation that responded to contemporary pragmatic concerns: Deswarte, "La royauté élective".
434 Valverde Castro, Ideología, Simbolismo y Ejercicio del Poder Real, 110.
435 Deswarte, "La royauté élective", 31, 42. An example of the baseless claims that can arise from this sort of reasoning is the idea that canon 75 merely removed the rights of the “people” over the electoral process by restricting it to the nobles and bishops: Thompson, The Goths in Spain, 174; Díaz, “Visigothic Political Institutions”, 340.
436 I must say that several decades ago, Iglesia Ferreirós (Notas”, 679, n. 192) already argued for something similar by creating a distinction in the conventional use of “election”: the “traditional Germanic election”, and the election of a contender to the throne by a faction of notables. However, I find that keeping the term “election” brings unnecessary confusion.
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