Editing Visigoths (section)

==Culture==
{{See also|Visigothic art and architecture| Visigothic script}}

===Law===
The [[Visigothic Code|Visigothic Code of Law]] ([[Latin language|Latin]]: ''Forum Iudicum),'' also called ''Liber Iudiciorum'' (English: Book of the Judges) and ''Lex Visigothorum'' (English: Law of the Visigoths), is a set of laws first promulgated by king [[Chindasuinth]] (642–653 AD) that had been part of [[aristocratic]] oral tradition and were set in writing in the year 654. This book survives in two separate [[codices]] preserved at [[el Escorial]] (Spain). It goes into more detail than a modern constitution commonly does and reveals a great deal about Visigothic social structure.{{sfn|Collins|2004|pp=6–8}} The code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans (''leges romanae'') and Visigoths (''leges barbarorum''), and under which all the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom ceased being ''romani'' and ''gothi'' and instead became ''hispani''. All the kingdom's subjects were under the same jurisdiction, which eliminated social and legal differences and facilitated greater assimilation of the various population groups.{{sfn|O'Callaghan|1975|p=49}} The Visigothic Code marks the transition from [[Roman law]] to [[Early Germanic law|Germanic law]].

One of the greatest contributions of the Visigoths to [[family law]] was their protection of the property rights of married women, which was continued by [[Law of Spain|Spanish law]] and ultimately evolved into the [[community property]] system now in force throughout the majority of western Europe.{{sfn|Coolidge|2011|pp=17–25}}

===Religion===
Before the [[Middle Ages]], the Visigoths, as well as other Germanic peoples, followed what is now referred to as [[Germanic paganism]].{{sfn|Wolfram|1997|pp=58, 66, 72–74}} While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to [[Christianity]] by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions.{{sfn|James|2009|pp=215–225}}

The Visigoths, [[Ostrogoths]] and [[Vandals]] were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of the [[Roman Empire]]; however, they converted to [[Arianism]] rather than to the [[State church of the Roman Empire|Nicene version]] (Trinitarianism) followed by most Romans, who considered them [[Heresy in Christianity|heretics]].{{sfn|Wolfram|1997|pp=75–79}} There was a religious gulf between the Visigoths, who had for a long time adhered to Arianism, and their Catholic subjects in Hispania. There were also deep sectarian splits among the Catholic population of the peninsula which contributed to the toleration of the Arian Visigoths on the peninsula. The Visigoths scorned to interfere among Catholics but were interested in decorum and public order.{{Efn|At least one high-ranking Visigoth, [[Zerezindo]], ''dux'' of Baetica, was a Catholic in the mid-6th century.}} King [[Liuvigild]] (568–586), attempted to restore political unity between the Visigothic-Arian elite and the Hispano-Roman Nicene Catholic population through a doctrinal settlement of compromise on matters of faith, but this failed.{{sfn|Heather|2013|p=325}} Sources indicate that the Iberian Visigoths maintained their Christian Arianism, especially the Visigothic elite until the end of Liuvigild's reign.{{sfn|Wolfram|1997|pp=265–269}} When Reccared I converted to Catholicism, he sought to unify the kingdom under a single faith.{{sfn|Frassetto|2003|p=304}}{{sfn|Mathisen|Sivan|1999|p=40}}

[[File:Wisi San Pedro de la Nave e chapiteau a.jpg|thumb|left|Capital from the Visigothic church of [[San Pedro de la Nave]], [[province of Zamora]]]]

While the Visigoths retained their Arian faith, the [[Jews]] were well tolerated. Previous Roman and Byzantine law determined their status, and it already sharply discriminated against them, but royal jurisdiction was in any case quite limited: local lords and populations related to Jews as they saw fit. We read of rabbis being asked by non-Jews to bless their fields, for example.{{sfn|Graetz|1894|p=44}} Historian Jane Gerber relates that some of the Jews "held ranking posts in the government or the army; others were recruited and organized for garrison service; still others continued to hold senatorial rank".{{sfn|Gerber|1992|p=9}} In general, then, they were well respected and well treated by the Visigothic kings, that is, until their transition from Arianism to Catholicism.{{sfn|Roth|1994|pp=35–40}} Conversion to Catholicism across Visigothic society reduced much of the friction between the Visigoths and the Hispano-Roman population.{{sfn|Waldman|Mason|2006|p=847}} However, the Visigothic conversion negatively impacted the Jews, who came under scrutiny for their religious practices.{{sfn|Collins|2000|pp=59–60}}

King Reccared convened the Third Council of Toledo to settle religious disputations related to the religious conversion from Arianism to Catholicism.{{sfn|Collins|1999|pp=211–212}} The discriminatory laws passed at this Council seem not to have been universally enforced, however, as indicated by several more Councils of Toledo that repeated these laws and extended their stringency. These entered canon law and became legal precedents in other parts of Europe as well. The culmination of this process occurred under King Sisibut, who officially decreed a forced Christian conversion upon all Jews residing in Spain.{{sfn|Collins|2000|p=60}} This mandate apparently achieved only partial success: similar decrees were repeated by later kings as central power was consolidated. These laws either prescribed forcible baptism of the Jews or forbade circumcision, Jewish rites, and the observance of the Sabbath and other festivals. Throughout the 7th century the Jews were persecuted for religious reasons, had their property confiscated, were subjected to ruinous taxes, forbidden to trade and, at times, dragged to the baptismal font. Many were obliged to accept Christianity but continued privately to observe the Jewish religion and practices.{{sfn|Gonzalez-Salinero|1999|pp=140–147}} The decree of 613 set off a century of difficulty for Spanish Jewry, which was only ended by the Muslim conquest.{{Efn|Cf. the extensive accounts of Visigothic Jewish history by Heinrich Graetz, ''History of the Jews'', Vol. 3 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1956 reprint [1894]), pp. 43–52 (on Sisibut, pp. 47–49); Salo W. Baron, ''A Social and Religious History of the Jews'', Vol. 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 33–46 (on Sisibut pp. 37–38); N. Roth, ''Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict'' (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 7–40; Ram Ben-Shalom, "Medieval Jewry in Christendom," in M. Goodman, J. Cohen and D. Sorkin, ''The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 156.}}

The political aspects of the imposition of Church power cannot be ignored in these matters. With the conversion of the Visigothic kings to [[Chalcedonian Christianity]], the bishops increased their power, until, at the [[Fourth Council of Toledo]] in 633, they selected a king from among the royal family, a practice previously reserved for nobles. This was the same synod that spoke out against those who had been baptized but had relapsed into Judaism. As far as the Visigoths were concerned, the time for religious pluralism "was past".{{sfn|Lim|1999|pp=209–210}} By the end of the 7th century, Catholic conversion made the Visigoths less distinguishable from the indigenous Roman citizens of the Iberian peninsula; when the last Visigothic strongholds fell to the Muslim armies, whose subsequent invasions transformed Spain from the beginning of the 8th century, their Gothic identity faded.{{sfn|Collins|2000|pp=60–62}}

In the eighth through 11th centuries, the ''[[muwallad]]'' clan of the [[Banu Qasi]] claimed descent from the Visigothic [[Count Cassius]].{{sfn|Fletcher|2006|p=45}}