Julian of Toledo’s History of King Wamba: Translation and Overview

Overview

Of the Visigothic kings who ruled Spain prior to the Islamic conquest, the reign of King Wamba (672-680 CE) is among those documented in greatest detail through contemporaneous or near contemporaneous historical writing, thanks to an extended narrative account by Julian of Toledo (archbishop of Toledo in the period 680-690 CE) of how Wamba dealt with a revolt early on in his reign (673 CE) in the Visigothic kingdom’s holdings in southern Gaul (now southern France)- a region that has been called by various names such as Septimania and Gothic Gaul.

During this revolt, Wamba had sent his general Paulus to put down the revolt, only for Paulus himself to revolt against Wamba and assume the title of king (at least for the Gallic regions). The account of this revolt- put under the title of “The History of King Wamba”- consists of four works: (i) a purported letter from Paulus to Wamba, (ii) Julian’s narrative account of the revolt, (iii) an extended rhetorical “insult” (Latin: Insultatio) directed against Gaul for the harbouring and nurturing the revolt, and (iv) the “judgement” (Latin: Iudicium) against Paulus and his accomplices.

While Julian’s narrative account of the revolt is not disputed in attribution, the Iudicium is not universally agreed to be his work. In turn, the question over attribution of the latter raises the question of whether Julian himself participated in these events: that is, did he participate in Wamba’s campaign to subdue the revolt and head with the king and his forces into Gaul? The Iudicium is certainly a contemporaneous account of events and of the judgement against Paulus and his faction, and gives the impression that its author was an active participant and eye-witness in the events. This is to be contrasted with Julian’s narrative account, which does not give an eye-witness impression for the events narrated with the exception of apparently attending Wamba’s coronation in Toledo. I personally incline to the view that the Iudicium was not written by Julian, and that Julian did not go into Gaul and become a witness to the events there.

Within this corpus of documents are a couple of key ideas to note:

(i) The contrast between Spain and Gaul. Visigothic holdings extended into southern Gaul and by the late seventh century CE also included an outpost in North Africa (Ceuta). However, the unified Spain was the epicentre of the Visigothic kingdom (whose capital was in Toledo). The glorification of Spain and the “Spaniards” is to be contrasted with the disparagement of Gaul and its people. This becomes especially clear in the personification of Gaul as a mother/foster-mother and nurturer of perfidy and betrayal, as can be seen in the narrative account and the Insultatio. Whereas the Spaniards displayed piety and dutifulness and were willing to put their lives at risk to defend the Gallic lands, the latter showed ungratefulness and cruelty towards them in their revolt.

Spanish virtue and strength are in turn tied to Gothic strength and ability, which the Franks cannot outmatch and upon which the Gauls (i.e. the Gallo-Roman population) must depend. Paulus supposedly disparaged the Goths as he claimed that these qualities of military virtue had disappeared from the Goths, only for him to be proven wrong in the outcome of the battles. The concept of Gothic strength endured in the subsequent centuries: witness for example Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada’s talk of the return of “Gothic strength [/strenuity]” in his prologue to the Historia Arabum when noting with much satisfaction the reversal of Muslim power and sovereignty in Iberia since the time of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 CE.

(ii) Anti-Jewish sentiment. Julian of Toledo was in fact of Jewish origin, and the Mozarabic Chronicle likens him in this regard to a flower of roses that has emerged from thorn-bushes. Julian appears to have been keen to demonstrate his Christian credentials through hostile pronouncements against the Jews. One of Julian’s works- De comprobatione sextae aetatis (“Concerning the proof of the sixth age”)- was written at the request of the Visigothic king Erwig and concerns refutation of Jewish doubts about Christ. As Julian put it in the opening of the first book of the De comprobatione: “And I will strive as far as I can with God’s help, to respond to the mad barkings of the Jews, who, possessed by the blind nightfall of infidelity, not only fall into the abyss of detestable perfidy, but also drive some from the number of the faithful to vacillate...”

So also the theme of anti-Jewish sentiment is apparent in Julian’s writings on Wamba, as the Gothic holding in Gaul is portrayed as “the brothel of the Jews blaspheming against our Saviour and Lord,” which is supposedly the worst thing of all about the place. Similarly, after putting down the revolt, Wamba undertook a number of measures that Julian found commendable, including expulsion of the Jews. So also the anti-Jewish sentiment is repeated in the Insultatio. Apparent Jewish support for the revolt, however, should be understood in light of anti-Jewish policies that the Visigothic kingdom pursued over the course of the last century or so prior to the Islamic conquest.

On a final note, those who believe in accountability for war-crimes may find inspiration in the example of Wamba, who reportedly punished members of his army who committed the evil war crime of fornication (i.e. rape) by having their foreskins cut off.

The edition of the Latin text I have used is contained in “Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina CXV” (Brepols, 1976). I have kept annotations fairly limited, and have used where possible the modern name equivalents for various localities mentioned. These place name equivalents were already noted in the Brepols edition of the text, and so also the Biblical and other literary references. Please write to me for any corrections.

I would like to dedicate this translation and overview to Andrew James Sillett, a great scholar of Latin whom I have known from my days at Brasenose College.

The amphitheatre of Nimes mentioned in the account of the revolt

Translation

Here begins the letter of the treacherous Paulus, who carried out a coup and rebellion in the Gallic lands against the great leader Wamba

In the name of the Lord, from Flavius Paulus the anointed eastern king to Wamba the southern king. If you have already traversed the harsh and uninhabitable cliffs of the mountains, if you have already broken with your heart the toilsome groves of the woods like a very brave lion, if you have already completely tamed the running deer and the leaping hinds, and the gluttonous boars and bears, if you have already spat out the poison of serpents and vipers, show us, you who bear arms, show us, lord, you who are friend of the woods and rocks. For if all these things have lay down and you are hurrying to come to us, in order to make an abundant show of the voice of the nightingale for us, and thus, magnificent man, your heart rises to the state of being self-assured, then come down to La Cluse, for there you will find a great champion, with whom you may be able to contest legitimately.

In the name of the Lord begins this book about the history of Gaul, which in the time of the leader Wamba of divine memory was produced by lord Julian the bishop of the Toledan seat.

In the name of the Holy Trinity begins the history of the most excellent King Wamba concerning his expedition and victory, by which he subdued in a famous triumph the province of Gaul that rebelled against him.

The telling of triumphs is normally for the purpose of defending virtue and encourages the minds of the young to seek the mark of virtue, whatever has been preached concerning past deeds of glory. For the compulsion of human habit has a certain feeling of aversity towards internal virtue, and thus it is the case that this habit is found to be not as hasty to virtues as it is inclined towards vices. Unless it is instructed through the continual calling of useful examples, it remains frigid and grows torpid. Concerning this manner, so that the relation of a bygone affair may be able to heal loathsome minds, we bring here an accomplishment in our times, through which we may be able to call subsequent generations to virtue.

For in our days there was the very distinguished leader Wamba, whom the Lord worthily willed to be leader, whom the priestly anointment declared, whom the community of the entire people and country chose, whom the affections of the peoples sought out. He was very famously predicted to rule through the revelations of many before he became ruler. While this very distinguished man was carrying out the funeral rites and lamentations on the death of the deceased leader Recesuinth,[i] suddenly all turned to a position of consensus agreement. Together they were driven somehow not so much by one state of mind as by emotion of their mouth, and so they proclaimed that they gladly considered him to be their ruler. They intoned with united voices that he and no other should be leader of the Goths. In groups they grabbed his feet, lest he should reject those who made the demand. The man fled from them from every side, and while he was interrupted by bouts of tears, he was not overcome by any entreaties and he was not swayed by any desire of the peoples. He merely claimed that he would not be sufficiently capable when so many ruinous developments were imminent, and he merely proclaimed that he had been worn out by old age. Someone from the rank of the generals, as though he intended to fulfil the role of everyone, looked straight at the man with a menacing face in everyone’s presence and boldly said to him who was so fiercely opposed to their proposition: “Unless you promise to agree to our demands, you should know that you are to be butchered by the tip of the sword. From here we will not go out, until either our expedition receives you as king or here today a bloody mishap of death swallows you up while you contradict us.”

Overcome not so much by their entreaties as by their threats, he at last yielded. Receiving the kingdom, he received all to his peace, but the time of anointment was delayed until the 19th day, lest he should be consecrated as leader without regard to the location of the old seat. For these things were occurring in a little town, to which antiquity has given the name of Gerticos.[ii] It is at a distance of around 120 miles from the royal city[iii] and is located in the territory of Salamanca. For there on one and the same day, namely on the Kalends of September,[iv] the deceased king came to the end of his life and the people called out for the aforementioned man’s election as we have previously outlined.

For although from that point on because of divine intervention the great offices had endowed the same man with the regal habit through the eager vows of the peoples and their acts of obeisance, nonetheless he did not allow for himself to be anointed through the priest’s hands, before he should approach the seat of the royal city and seek the throne of paternal antiquity, in which (he said) it would be appropriate for him to undertake the standards of the sacred anointment and bear most patiently with regards to his election the consensus of those located far away: namely so that he would not be moved by hasty ambition to rule and thus be thought to have usurped or stolen rather than have received from the Lord the mark of such great glory. So deferring the matter with prudent gravitas, he entered the city of Toledo on the 19th day after he had undertaken rule.

But when we came to the place where he should receive the standard of the sacred anointment, in the praetorian church (that is, of Saints Peter and Paul), he stood now conspicuous in his regal dress before the divine altar, and per custom he rendered the profession of faith to the peoples. Then, after he bent his knees, the oil of blessing was poured on his head through the hands of the holy bishop Quiricus[v] and the abundance of blessing was shown, when immediately this sign of salvation shone forth. For soon enough, from his head, where the oil had been poured, some evaporation similar to smoke raised itself upright on his head like a column, and from the place of his head a bee seemed to have jumped forth, so indeed this sign was seemingly portending that good fortune would follow. It will not perhaps be superfluous to have outlined these things in advance, for indeed it is so that posterity should be made aware how he ruled the kingdom in a manly manner, as he merited to have attained the height of rule. This was so even as he not only did not wish for it, but also was compelled by the urging of the entire people as he hurried along in an orderly way with such great orders.

So in the glorious times of this man, the Gallic lands, the foster-mother of perfidy, were marked out with this infamous record, such that it was vexed by the inestimable fever of unfaithfulness and nurtured the limbs of the unfaithful that were begotten from it. For what matter of cruelty and deceit did not exist in that land, where there was the council of conspirators, the sign of perfidy, the obscenity of deeds, fraudulent business, venal judgement and (what is worse than all of these things), the brothel of the Jews blaspheming against our Saviour and Lord? For this land, as I should say, prepared disaster for itself through giving birth to its own perdition, and from the poisonous begetting of its womb, it nurtured the trap of its own destruction. For while it was being afflicted for much time with these various fevers, suddenly a whirlwind of unfaithfulness surged in it through the error of one wicked head, and the consensus of perfidy crossed over through one man to very many.

For the fame of its own crime reports that Hilderic was the head of this usurpation. He was responsible for the city of Nimes which he managed as a count. He took on for himself not only the name of unfaithfulness, but also its title and deed. He added to his ranks as companions of his wickedness Gumildus the detestable bishop of the seat of Maguelone and Ranimirus the abbot. So as the head of this criminal deed, he kindled the fire of his unfaithfulness through various people, and while doing so he strove to draw the bishop of Nimes- Aregius of blessed life- to the mark of his perfidy. However, he saw that that man resisted his plans through his chaste mouth and steadfast heart, and so he deprived him of the dignity of his order and place, had him loaded with a weight of chains, and handed him over to be mocked at the hands of the Franks in the territory of Francia. Then in place of the removed bishop, he had the abbot Ranimirus- the companion of his perfidy- made bishop. In his election no order was heeded, nor was any decree of leader or metropolitan authority sought. But as some conceit was bolstered in his arrogant mind, he was ordained by only two bishops of the foreign people against the prohibitions of the ancestors. So after this event of such great temerity was carried out, the virulent seeds of perfidy of these three men- that is, Hilderic, Gumildus and Ranimirus,- established the borders of their conspiracy for themselves. They divided the land of Gaul and admitted it to their conspiracy all the way from the place that is called Montcamel all the way to Nimes. Such then was unfaithfulness separated from faithfulness. So with a band of men brought together, they raided the citizens, drained the entire fruit of their labours, and thus all the province of Gaul was plundered.

News of this quickly reached the leader, and soon he sent an army under the leadership of general Paulus into the Gallic lands in order to extinguish the name of the seditious ones. This Paulus proceeded in a half-hearted way with the army, and broke his army through the interruption of delays. He abstained from any war and did not direct his first charge against the enemy. Through such contrivance he removed the minds of the young men from that fury of waging battle with which they were ardently enthusiastic. Thus Paulus, who had become a Saul[vi] in his mind, tried to act against faithfulness as he did not want to act on behalf of it. Enticed with the ambition of ruling, he was suddenly deprived of faithfulness. He defiled the kindness promised by the religious leader, forgot the duty to his country, and, as someone once said: “He secretly took up his plan for usurpation that had quickly matured, and he publicly furnished it with weapons.”[vii] He did these things utilising some secret plan, whereby the pinnacle of rule to which he aspired could be seen before it could be known.[viii] He enticed as companions to his perfidy Ranosindus the general of the province of Tarraco, and Hildigisius, who was still at the time performing the office of gardingus.[ix] As he intended to carry out this desire of perverse will with incredible speed (so I should say), he brought together the peoples, and he declared in a feigned manner that he would fight against the seditious ones. He set a day, and proposed a place where they should approach the Gallic lands with the intention of fighting. However, Argebadus the bishop of the cathedral of Narbonne- a man of venerable life and aptly concerned to save the people- discovered this matter through a very precise report from certain men, and so he strove to prevent that usurper from approaching the city. But this intention of his did not remain hidden from Paulus. Thus before that bishop could carry out what he had intended, Paulus suddenly entered the city of Narbonne with his army by marching very quickly, and hence he quickly prevented his ambush and ordered for the gates of the city to be shut under the delegated protection of armed men. Here, when the entire army’s multitude that had overrun the place was brought together, Paulus- that poisonous head of perfidy- stood in the middle with some of his companions. He then scolded the first bishop, asking why he strove to prevent him from approaching the city.

After these events, he intended to reveal the plan of his usurpation, and through various fraudulent arguments he wore down the faithfulness of the peoples and inflamed the minds of individuals to inflict injustices on the aforementioned leader Wamba. Paulus himself vowed to all first, that he could not consider that man king and could not remain any longer in service to him. Indeed he said: “Choose someone from among yourselves to be the head of the regime, to whom the entire multitude that has been gathered should yield, and who may appear to be leader among us.” Ranosindus- one of his co-conspirators and a companion of his malign plan- designated Paulus as his king, and preferred Paulus as his king and no other person as king soon to be for the peoples. But when the same Paulus saw how his plan was being sped up in implementation, he immediately gave the assent of his own will, and he also compelled all to give an oath to him. After this, he seized rule for himself and with nefarious temerity he drew to himself through his work of perfidy that group of conspirators, which he did not take prisoner through use of arms. For he easily joined to his perfidy Hilderic, Gumildus and Ranimirus. What more to say? All of the land of the Gallic regions suddenly conspired and took up arms in sedition, and not only these Gallic lands, but also some part of the province of Tarraco tried on the high boot of rebellion. So all of Gaul suddenly became a gathering of the perfidious ones, the cave of perfidy, the meeting place of those doomed to perdition. There, as Paulus wanted to make the companions of his perfidy more numerous, he brought forth and promised gifts, and thus he won the allegiance of multitudes of the Franks and Basques who were going to fight in aid of him, and inside the Gallic lands he remained with the multitude of the enemy, waiting for an event of the most opportune time, by which he could approach the Spanish lands with the intention of fighting and snatch away and claim the pinnacle of rule.

Then in that time, while these things were occurring inside the Gallic lands, the religious leader Wamba headed out intending to wage war on the fierce Basques, and so he stayed in the regions of Cantabria. There, when the report had come to the leader’s ears regarding what was happening inside the Gallic lands, he soon after made it known to the leading officials of the palace that an initiative had to be undertaken. He asked whether they should go from this place into the Gallic lands with the intention of fighting, or they should head back to their own abodes, gather their strength from every place, and then take up the path of such a long journey with an army that would be many times larger. The leader observed that many were vacillating in this discussion of the two options, and so he addressed them with this admonition directed at all of them:

“Behold, young men, you have heard of the evil man who has arisen and you have recognised how the inciter of this sedition has armed and strengthened himself. Therefore it is necessary to pre-empt the enemy, so that he should be captured in war, before his fire can grow. Let it be a matter of disgrace for us, that either we should not go to confront such people when we intend to fight, or we should head back to our own abodes before they should perish. It ought to seem ignominious to us that the one who could not subjugate our rebels by his own arms, should dare to fight back against men of such great glory, and he who could not conquer the most abject flesh of one man for the sake of the peace of the country, should dare to show himself as an enemy to the people. It is as though he somehow judges us effeminate and soft, since we supposedly cannot resist his usurpation with any arms, strength or plans. For what virtue does that man who will perish have, if he fights and conflicts with us through reliance on the strength of the Franks? Fighting is something very well-known to us and not a matter to be doubted. Therefore let it be disgraceful to you that these battle-lines of ours should fear the testudo of these people whose virtue you have known to be always weaker. But if he strives to assert his usurpation through the conspiracy of the Gauls, it should be deemed vile that this people of ours should yield to the furthest corner of the land, and these men of ours, in whom the realm has been expanded and extended, should be disturbed by the revolts of such people, whom they always defend in the role of governance. For whether they are Gauls or Franks, let them think that a crime of such great conspiracy should be asserted, if it is pleasing to them. We however ought to claim the name of our glory through avenging arms.

For we must fight not with women, but with men, although it should be very well-known that neither can the Franks ever resist the Goths, nor can the Gauls accomplish anything of great virtue without our men. If you bring up in opposition to this some necessity of food or vehicles, it will be more glorious for us to have sought triumph in necessities while having set aside all these things than to carry out the desired wars with an abundance of necessities. For always more worthy of honour are the men whom the strength of endurance ennobles more than sufficiency in things. Now rise to the sign of victory, and destroy the name of the perfidious ones! While there is eagerness of mind, there ought to be no delay in hurrying. While angers urges on our minds against the enemy, no delay ought to impede us. Indeed, the camp of our enemy will be much more easily destroyed if the undertaken journey can be carried out without any intermission in proceeding. For, as a certain wise man said: present anger is strong, but when stretched out it grows languid.[x] And so there is no need for the soldiery to be turned back, when the proactive approach to wage war makes them victorious. Therefore there is no need to frustrate ourselves in the direct journey. So let us go forth as we intend to bring disaster on the Basques, and from there let us immediately hurry to wipe out the name of the seditious ones.”

The minds of all grew fervent at these words and they preferred that what was being ordered should be done. Soon with the whole army he entered the regions of Vasconia, where over the course of seven days, plundering took place everywhere through the open fields, while the forts were assailed and the homes were burned with such intensity that the Basques themselves laid aside the wildness of their minds, gave hostages, and opted for their lives to be spared and for peace to be granted to them, not so much by their entreaties as by gifts. Then, after he received the hostages and the tributes were paid, peace was arranged, and then he set out on a direct course intending to head to the Gallic lands, crossing through the cities of Calagurris and Huesca. Then, after choosing generals, he divided the army into three squadrons, such that one part was to head to Llivia, which is the capital of Cerritania, the second was to make for the middle region of the Pyrenees through the city of Ausona, while the third was to go along the public road next to the coastal areas. The religious leader, with a large band of warriors, followed those who preceded.

But as some of our men engaged in an insolent commotion and were thus not only eager to carry out plundering, but also perpetrated the crime of adultery with the burning of homes, the aforementioned leader punished these men and the likes of them for the crime they perpetrated. He did so with such great vigour of discipline that you would think that he was applying graver punishments against these men than if they had engaged in hostilities against him. The cut-off foreskins of certain adulterers attest to this: he brought this loss of revenge upon them for fornication. For he would say: “Behold! The judgement of war is already imminent, and it pleases the soul to fornicate? And I believe, you are approaching the trial of the fight. See to it that you do not perish in your sordidness. For if I do not punish these things, then already bound I go from here. Therefore I will go to this end, so that I should be seized by the just judgement of God, if I do not myself punish the iniquity of the people when I see it. The priest Eli, recognised in the divine literature, ought to provide an example for me. When he heard that his sons (whom he did not want to rebuke) had fallen in war on account of the monstrosity of their crimes, he himself followed his sons and also died after breaking his neck.[xi] Therefore we should fear these things, and thus, if we remain purged from crime, there will be no doubt that we will triumph over the enemy.”

So, as has been previously stated, the aforementioned leader gloriously led forth his army in accordance with this discipline and controlled the behaviour of individuals under the divine rules. Hence he saw that as the days passed, he was having success in both his war plan and his victory in waging battle.

For Barcelona was the first of all the rebellious cities to be brought under the power of the religious leader, and then Girona was subjugated. The same nefarious Paulus had sent a written letter of this sort to bishop Amator, the venerable man of this aforementioned city: “I have heard that King Wamba is arranging to come to us with his army, but may your heart not be disturbed by this. For I do not think that this will happen. Nonetheless, whichever one of us your holiness sees approaching first with his army, let him believe that you consider him lord, and you ought to persist in kindness to him.” This wretched man wrote these words and unknowingly brought the just judgement against himself. Hence the religious leader, wisely working out the words of these writings, is said to have said: “Did not Paulus speak about his own self in these writings of his? But here I think that this man made a prophecy here, albeit unknowingly.” Therefore after these events, the leader departed from the city of Girona, and proceeding with belligerent attacks he reached the cliffs of Mount Pirineus. There, the army rested for two days, and then, as has been said, he arranged the rear of Mount Pirineus through the three divisions of the army. In a wondrous triumph of victory, he captured and subjugated the Pyrenees forts that are called Collioure, Oltrera and Llivia. In these forts he found many things of gold and silver, which he ceded to his large armies as booty. Through two generals, an invasion was carried out against the fort that is called La Cluse, after the armies were sent before him. There also Ranosindus, Hildigisus and the rest of the column of the perfidious ones, who had gathered to defend the fort, were captured. Thus, with their hands bound behind their backs, they were presented to the leader. Nonetheless, one of the conspirators, Wittimirus (who had set himself up in Cerdane and shut himself in there), realised that our men had broken in, and so he immediately fled and came to Narbonne to report the news of such a great disaster to Paulus. This matter made the usurper very much afraid. But the religious leader, after subjugating the army of the aforementioned forts, descended onto the plains after crossing Mount Pirineus, and he only waited for two days in order to gather the army together into one.

When the multitude was gathered from various parts and grew into one army, there was no delay in standing around. But immediately he sent ahead of himself a chosen number of warriors under the leadership of four generals to take Narbonne by storm. He sent another army to approach with the intention of waging war through a naval battle. Indeed still only a small number of days had passed from the time when the rebel Paulus had left Narbonne in flight like a slave, after he had discovered that the religious leader’s faction was hastening and enjoying so much success. Paulus himself stipulated that this city should be subject to the power of his authority, and so he surrounded it with a large garrison of his perfidious men and entrusted leadership of the battle to his general Wittimirus. When the army of our men urged him with soft words to hand over the city without bloodshed, he immediately refused, and after shutting the gates of the city, he showed disdain for the army of the religious leader from the wall. He also pronounced curses on the leader and tried to throw the army into disarray with threats. The multitude of our side did not tolerate this, and grew furious as their hearts were suddenly inflamed, and they assailed the mouths of the perfidious ones by tossing their missiles at them.

What more to say? Both sides engaged in a monstrous fight, and both sides resisted each other through firing arrows at each other. But even as our men despaired, not only did they pierce the seditious fighters on the wall with arrows, but also they struck the inside of the city with such great showers of stones, that the city itself was thought to be submerged by the clamour of voices and the noise of the stones. So from around the fifth hour of the day all the way until the eighth hour of the same day, a fierce battle was fought by both sides. But as the minds of our men grew fervent, they could not bear the delay of victory, but rather they approached the gates with the intention of fighting at closer quarters. Then they set fire to the gates with a hand that was made victorious by God, and they jumped on the walls, and the victors entered the city, in which they subjugated to themselves the seditious ones. But while Wittimirus was making for the church as he still had a band of armed men, he was thrown into disarray by the approach of our men, and the wretch proclaimed behind the altar of the blessed Virgin Mary that he would defend himself not through reverence for the place but through an avenging sword. As he did so he held a sword in his right hand and threatened death to individuals. But immediately one of our men, to keep in check the swelling of this man’s madness, threw aside his weapons and seized a plank with his hand amid the rest of the men. He directed himself at that man intending to strike him with a very fierce blow. But when he strove to strike the plank over him with a massive blow, the latter was laid low onto the ground through his trembling and he was immediately captured, and the sword was dragged away from his hand. Soon afterwards he was dealt with in a vile way, and he was bound with a weight of chains and afflicted with beatings together with his allies, with whom he strove to claim the city.

After these events, the city of Narbonne was conquered and subjugated, the march was directed to pursue Paulus, who had brought himself to Nimes intending to seek revenge. Then the cities of Béziers and Agde were immediately subjugated. In the city of Maguelone, Gumildus the bishop of that place saw that the army had surrounded the place to besiege him and that the city was being surrounded not so much by these men who had approached by the lands with the intention of fighting, as those, who had travelled by sea intending to engage in a naval battle. Terrified by the disaster of this matter, he took a shortcut and brought himself to Nimes to be at Paulus’ side as a companion. When the army of Spain realised that Gumildus had fled, they soon after captured the city of Maguelone in a not dissimilar victory. When our men turned the battle-line and hurried to wage war against the city of Nimes, the first line for waging battle was sent under the leadership of the four generals along with a select column of warriors, whose chosen youth might precede the leader by around 30 miles.

These men nobly rushed forth and prevented the ambushes of the seditious ones in Nimes, where Paulus had brought himself along with the army of the Gallic lands and the gathering of the Franks in order to wage battle. When they had finished the course of the hurried journey through the whole night, suddenly the light of the rising day arose and came forth, and at the same time the battle-lines of our men appeared, arranged with preparation equally in arms and spirits. When the other side saw these battle-lines from the city, they determined that they would fight them with arms in the open plains, as long as they were only going to fight with a few men. But they suspected the traps of ambushes, so they chose rather to fight out the war inside the city from their walls than endure the unexpected mishaps of open war outside the city, while they also awaited the arrival of other peoples to help them.

When the Sun shone on the lands, war was engaged by our men. The first rank of the battle was worn out with a storm of rocks while the sounds of the trumpets rumbled. Soon afterwards the sound of the trumpets resounded, and flowing from all sides our men with the crash of their voices assailed the walls of the city with blows of rockets, and with all sorts of missiles, projectiles and arrows they drove away those set on the wall, while those men also threw projectiles of many kinds at our men in order to resist. But what am I to say? The fighting was carried out rather fiercely by both sides and there was a struggle with equal lance by both sides, and the battle was fought also with equal determined effort. Neither our men nor they yielded in the struggle that had been engaged. Therefore there was fighting for all of that day under the double-edged sword of victory.

One of the inciters of the seditions, seeing that the fighting was fiercely pressing on, intended to insult our men from the wall, and he commented formulating these words: “Why do you stand here fiercely fighting with the intention of dying? Why do you not go back and seek your own abodes? Or do you perhaps want to receive the mishap of death before the end of your life? Why do you rather not seek the crags of rocks, where you can hide yourselves, when the face of our reinforcements appears? So trust me, I have felt pity for you, as I know the outcome of the matter and the encounter with the reinforcements that are about to come. For the matter remains very well known to me: how numerous reinforcements are coming to us for the purpose of waging battle. It is the third day, that I come hastening from there. So knowing this, I await with sadness the demise of your wretched pomposity. I will show to you that leader of yours- for whom you have come to fight- tied up, and I will heap rebukes on him, and I will mock him through insult. It is therefore of no use for you to struggle so monstrously for that man, when it is perhaps already agreed that he has perished through the ambushes of our men. And what is even more serious is that while our victory is apparent, there will be no mercy for you any longer.” Saying these words, he not only did not terrify the minds of our men, but he inflamed them all the more sharply to engage in the fury of waging battle. They approached the wall, and engaged in war more enthusiastically than they had begun, and they fiercely renewed the battle that had been engaged.

So when these things were done during the space of a whole day, the night finally gave an end to the battle. But in the fervour of the first day, while our men still persisted with indefatigable virtue in waging battle, they informed the leader of the matter and asked for reinforcements to be sent to them, as they had regard for their own well-being with great foresight: for they wanted to prevent themselves from being overcome either by the trick of the foreign people or by those with whom they were fighting, and thus they wanted to avoid being worn out in strength and succumbing to the point of death. The matter was dealt with well. For when the leader learned that Paulus the head of the usurpation was fighting with our men, there was no longer any delay. So with wondrous speed in making arrangements, he sent under the leadership of general Wandemirus around 10,000 men selected from the army in order to help those fighting, so that staying awake all night they should complete the hurried journey and through their arrival they should come beforehand rather swiftly, not so much in order to break the enemy as to console the minds of our men. But while the exhausted night watchmen now somewhat despaired about how the enemy was keeping itself shut in for a long time, they suddenly saw the reinforcements sent to them. Immediately sleep escaped from their eyes, and with welcoming spirits and recovered strength the course of battle was set.

Already the dawn had left the saffron bed for the Sun, and this hostile multitude, crowded together on the walls, saw through the serene sight of their eyes that the battle-lines of the fighters had grown by multiple factors compared with what they had seen on the previous day. Then already Paulus the head of the usurpation came to take a look at this such great matter on a certain prominent lookout point.

Soon he saw the arranged battle-lines of our men, and immediately he became dejected in spirit (as is said) and made an announcement in these words: “I recognise that all this arrangement of battle is proceeding from my rival. Here he is and I do not think it is anyone else, for I recognise him in his arrangements.” He said these things and words similar to them, and called back his spirit to virtue, and roused his men to wage war. “Do not,” he said, “be perturbed with fear. For this is merely that very renowned virtue of the Goths, which was boasting with usual temerity that it was coming to defeat us. Believe me, that here, here the leader, and here his entire army are now present. Here is nothing else for you to fear. Indeed this famous virtue of theirs was a thing of the past, both as a source of defence for their own men and a source of terror for other peoples; now however the entire vigour in them for waging battle has vanished, and all knowledge of fighting has failed them. There is no custom of waging war to benefit them, or any experience of conflict. Even if they are brought together as one and engage in battle, they will immediately fly away to set hiding places, because their degenerate minds cannot bear the weight of battle. Indeed you will test in these words of mine what I say when you begin to wage battle. For there is nothing greater that you ought to fear, when you see here that both the king and the army are present.”

In response to these words, most of his men noted that the king could no proceed without his signs. He commented in reply to this, that he had approached with the signs of his bands hidden, so that he should make his enemies understand that there was still another army left, with which he was still due to approach (that is, with a force of men many times greater than that which had come previously). “But while he was saying these things, he made an illusion and made a fraudulent contrivance, so that he would lower to fear through the trickery of his plan those whom he could not overcome with virtue.”

He had still not yet finished saying these words of his, when behold, suddenly the trumpets of the wars resounded, and our men rose to war, and they renewed the sight of warfare from the previous day. As for the other side, they placed their confidence more in their walls than in their strength, and so placed inside the city they tossed projectiles and renewed the struggles again with our men. And so the incentive of war grew intense from both sides, but the virtue of waging battle with greater enthusiasm became apparent from the side of our men. For they struggled with all their strength and pierced the enemy inside the wall with various kinds of weapons, and most of the men of the external people were gravely wounded. They admired both the virtue and constancy of our men, so they reproached Paulus, saying: “We do not see that sluggishness of waging battle which you said was present in the Goths. For we see much boldness and steadfastness to win in them. These wounds which we have received teach that among other things. They toss their weapons so strongly against the enemy, that the crash causes terror before the strike should extinguish life.” Paulus was terrified by their words, and was now being broken more and more by the many darts of desperation.

But even as our men were fighting with greater steadfastness and were upset that victory was being delayed, they surged with greater energy, thinking that they would be defeated in all regards if they did not win quickly. Hence, they were stirred with fiercer ardency than they had been before, and so they struck the walls of the city with continual blows that are characteristic of battles and sent forth showers of stones that made a huge crash, and they set fire to the gates by laying a fire on them. They broke in after the approaches of the walls were diminished. Then they gloriously entered the city and opened for way for themselves with the sword. But when the other side could not bear the fierce minds of our men, they shut themselves inside the amphitheatre, in order to protect themselves, as this amphitheatre was surrounded with a stronger wall and older buildings. But when it became apparent to them that some of our men were pursuing as they had become eager for booty, they were immediately overcome before they could retreat into the fortification of the amphitheatre, and they were butchered. Nonetheless most of our men in general who had become eager for booty, were overcome and killed by the sword. For these men did not seek to accomplish this goal of theirs with patient virtue among the very many, but rather the enemy laid low all the more easily these men as though they were thieves, when they had discovered  that the latter had approached the confined spaces of the amphitheatre for the sake of booty. Indeed they had found them divided and not even in groups of two working together as one.

Also a new sedition arose among the seditious men, and as the citizens and inhabitants charged suspicion of betrayal against some of their own men, they killed with the avenging sword these men against whom the suspicion was being turned, such that Paulus himself, seeing that a certain confidant of his men was being butchered before him at the hands of his own men, shouted in a lamentable voice that this man was his slave, and he did not manage to help in any way this man who was thus about to die. He himself, having been made half-dead and trembling, was nonetheless despised by his own men, such that you would think that he was beseeching rather than commanding the others. For the inhabitants suspected him along with the rest who had travelled with him from Spain: they suspected that he would plan to hand them over in exchange for his own liberation, while they suspected that the Spaniards would defect to the leader while a death sentence would be imposed on the inhabitants. What more to say? A miserable spectacle of battle arose inside the city. On both sides fell the group of the troublesome people, on both sides they were laid low, on both sides they were butchered, so those who escaped the swords of our men, were perishing by the sword of their own men. And so the city was filled with the corpses of humans after this infliction of death was thrown into the mix.

Wherever the sight of the eyes turned, either piles of human bodes or flocks of animals lay out in the open slaughtered. The crossroads were filled with corpses, the remainder of the land was stiffened with blood. A miserable scene of death lay open in the homes, and where you could have explored the hidden recesses of homes, you would find dead people lying in the open. Also you could see the corpses of men lying through the streets of the city, with a seemingly menacing face and seemingly monstrous ferocity, as though they were still placed in the battle-line of wars. Nonetheless there was a hideous colour, as well as pale skin, a monstrous horror and an intolerable stench. Some of the dead lying about, who had received lethal wounds, feigned the appearance of death, so that they could escape the cause of death, although however they were finished off by the slaughter of the wound and the disaster of hunger, and so they themselves did not escape death, with the exception of one person, for whom feigning death was proven to have been what gained him his life.

But Paulus, who had now laid aside the monstrosity of his usurpation, deplored with a great sigh of his heart that these things and things similar to them were occurring, since he could neither resist the enemy nor aid his own men in any way. A certain man approached him with the intention of insulting him. He had originated from his own family. He said: “Why are you here? Where are your advisers, who led you to this joke of a calamity? What use was it for you to revolt against your own people, when you cannot now benefit yourself nor your own men in such a great calamity of death?” As he said these words he insulted him, not provoked so much by a desire to convince as a spur of bitterness. But as he was being urged by the latter through soft words to spare his grief and not add confusion to confusion, at last he quickly descended from the marble steps, on which he had arrived standing in order to hurl those insults at him, and thus surrounded by his own men he fell as he was thrown down to be slaughtered in the eyes of Paulus. Paulus said to them: “What do you wish for that man? He is my own. May he not perish.” So that he should be kept alive, he begged with the frequent lamentation of his voices. But now considered contemptible as though he himself was immediately going to die, he could not be heard. Then moved by wholesale desperation, he was worn out and laid aside the regal clothing, which he had taken more out of the ambition for usurpation than the precedence of rank. So by the wondrous and judgement of God, it came to pass that the usurper laid aside the kingdom he had seized on the same day that the religious leader had received the sceptre of rule from the Lord. For it was that day of the Kalends of September, on which it was agreed previously that our leader had taken up the regal power. This therefore is the day, on which- with the cycle of the year having passed- the invasion of the city lay open. On this day was the usurped regal clothing laid aside by the usurper, and on this day was the bloody vengeance brought upon the enemies.

Now the third day after this had arrived, when Paulus was awaiting his final death after the deep sighs of the night. So when it was the morning, he began to have a discussion with those, whom he had had as companions of his perdition, so that either they should say their last goodbye to him or they should somehow come up with a way to preserve his safety, if they could. Then Argebadus the bishop of the church of Narbonne was sent to the leader by common deliberation, so that he could ask to keep them alive and beg for mercy for the offenders. For, after the sacrifices were offered to God, already in those vestments some had perceived the grace of the Lord’s body and blood in the holy communion, in which they should not so much receive the final losses of death, as they should arrange for themselves to be covered if they were going to be unburied. But indeed to them the burial should be deservedly denied, if they should receive the punishment of execution for what they had done. Now Argebadus the bishop, per their request, had gone out from their presence to seek mercy for them. And behold! As he saw at about the fourth mile from the city the leader marching swiftly with an innumerable column of warriors, he jumped down from his horse to meet the same leader, and laid himself down on the ground, and begged for mercy. In meeting him, the leader held the horse for a little while and, as his heart was abundant in mercy, and as he welled up with tears, he ordered for the bishop to be raised from the ground. This man, upright again, interrupted with bouts of tears, said in a lamentable voice: “Alas! We have sinned against heaven and in your presence, oh most consecrated leader. We are not worthy for the outcome of your piety to befall us, for the delivered mercy to help us, when we have defiled the faithfulness promised to you and we have fallen down in the such great crime of our lapse. I beg you, may your piety quickly spare us, lest the avenging sword should extinguish the half-dead remainders of our men, lest the sword should seek more souls than it initially sought out. Now order the army to cease from bloodshed, and the citizens to spare the citizens. We who have escaped from the sword are very small, but mercy is sought for the small. So spare those of us who remain, so that, as now the death sentence has come upon the rest of us, there should at least remain those on whom you should have mercy. For if you do not wish to prevent the slaughter quickly, not even the inhabitants will remain to protect the city.”

Moved by these words, the religious leader was in tears and he was not incapable of being implored, for he knew in some deep depth of his heart, that whatever was said to have lost would have entirely been lost for him if he had not provided mercy to the one seeking it. Therefore the leader responded to the imploring man with these words: “Be sure of what I will say. Overcome by your entreaties, I give you the lives you have sought. I will not destroy them by the avenging sword. Today I will not shed anyone’s blood nor will I ever extinguish a life, although the offence committed by such people should not go unpunished.” The venerable man insisted for a long time that he should not bring about any loss of vengeance against those whom he had spared. But the leader soon became more inclement with quick fury. He said: “Now do not impose any other conditions on me, when it is sufficient to have spared your life. Therefore let it suffice that I have spared you alone out of the entire group. But for the rest I do not promise any of these things.” Thus indignant, he grew hot-tempered with his mind seemingly inflamed and he quickly proceeded and hurried intending to seize the triumph of victory. As he did so he sent forth embassies to run before him, so that our men should abstain from war until the entire strength of the army should approach with the leader in order to capture the inner parts of the city.

At last, after the journey of the march was hurried, the leader reached the city with the astonishing sight of the terrifying pomp and the armies. For there were the terrifying signs of the war. When the Sun had shone on the shields, the land grew bright with a double light, as the shining arms also increased the glow of the Sun more than usual. But what am I to say? Who will be able to explain what pomp of the armies, what décor of arms, what appearance of young men, what unanimous minds were there? Here the divine protection was shown with display of an evident sign. For as is said, a certain man of the foreign people saw that the army of the religious leader was protected by the watch of the angels and that the angels themselves were showing the signs of their protection through flying over the camp of the army. But while we leave these things and other such things in silence for a little while, let us complete the order of the undertaken work.

For the leader had sensed that this army had been gathered into one. He was placed at a distance of around one stade from the city, and moved with an incredible inflammation of his mind, he arranged the generals, added the plebeians, divided the battle-lines and gave instructions by what means they should finish the battle. Nonetheless prior to this the battle-line of the brave men was arranged as it had been some time ago through the cliffs of the mountains and the maritime coasts, which are adjacent to the regions of Francia, so that this free and unimpeded band of warriors should carry out the orders to fight with all the more safety, as he had sensed nothing adverse from the external peoples. Then he sent all the chosen elements from the generals, who were more outstanding in strength and minds, so that they should drag out Paulus and the other inciters of his seditions from the caverns of the amphitheatre, in which they had themselves in their bid to escape death. Then all that insolent multitude of the Gallic lands and the Franks, which had come together from different directions in order to fight against our men, was captured and detained with immense treasures. While that perfidious group stood as one now captured with their king and our army was present on the right and left-hand sides, two of our generals sitting on their horses, stretched forth their hands from different directions and held Paulus’ hands bound by the hair of his head. They set out on foot and led him away, positioned in the middle between of them, in order to offer him to the leader.

When the leader saw him, he said in tears with his hands stretched forth to heaven: “I praise you, God, king of all kings, You who have lowered the proud as a wounded man and in the strength of Your arm have destroyed my adversaries.”[xii] The leader did this and things similar to this while he was interrupted by his weeping. But soon afterwards the same usurper saw the leader’s face with his eyes looking upright, and immediately laid himself low on the ground and undid his belt, and now indeed half-dead and disturbed with excessive fear, he did not pay attention to what was happening to him. It was quite some spectacle for the eyes, how he had come down from such a sublime pinnacle (albeit of a usurped rank) to this sudden humiliation and now complete degradation. It was something great to behold, how easily the change had taken place: so quickly you would see him dejected, when previously you had heard he was glorious, and the man whom the previous day had still had as its king, fell through such a direct fall into ruin. In this regard that prophetic pronouncement was quite fully fulfilled: “I have seen the impious exalted and elevated over the cedars of Lebanon. I passed by, and behold, he was not! I have sought him, and his place was not found.”[xiii] What more to say? Now Paulus himself and the rest of this man’s faction were led forth in their captivity and stood before the leader’s horse: “Why,” he said, “did you break forth into such great evil madness, such that you gave me evil in exchange for good? But why should I delay? Go and remain confined to custody, until the censure of judgement is put into effect regarding you. For I will allow you to live, even if you do not deserve it.” Then he divided them all up throughout the army and handed them over to the assigned and concerned guards. Nonetheless those of the Franks who had been captured were ordered to be treated with dignity. For some of them, born to very noble parents, had been given as hostages. As for the rest: some of them were Franks, others Saxons. He sent them all back as one group- loaded with gifts given by the king- on the 18th day after they had been captured, for he said that the victor should not be inclement to the defeated.

On the first day- on the day before the Kalends of September- the war was begun by our men against the city of Nimes. On the following day- on the Kalends of September- the city was broken into. On the third day, which was on the fourth day before the Nones of September,[xiv] Paulus the usurper was captured in his renowned arrest and was defeated. But after these events the mind of the religious leader, concerned about the repair of the city that had been broken into, immediately repaired the gaps of the walls, rebuilt the burned gates, provided a mound for the unburied, restored the taken away booty to the inhabitants and through the public treasury he took care of all the things that had been damaged. Nonetheless he ordered that all the abundance of treasure that they had captured should be guarded with rather diligent production. In this he was not enticed by greedy acquisition, but rather he was prompted by divine love, namely that things dedicated to God could be separated more easily and restored to the divine cults. For that most wicked Paulus had added sin to his sin, as he added sacrilege to his usurpation. For, as a certain wise man said: “If he had not brought plundering on the sacred churches, he would not have the means for his treasury to flourish.” Hence it came to pass that as many vessels of silver as possible that had been seized from the Lord’s treasures, and that golden crown, which Reccared the leader of divine memory[xv] had offered to the corpse of the most blessed Felix and which the same Paulus dared to impose on his mad head: he had all of these things gathered into one place and ordered rather studiously to separate them out and he strove with the utmost devotion to restore them as was befitting for each church.

Now the third day had arrived after the victory for the victors, and Paulus, burdened with iron, was displayed with the rest to the leader who was sitting on his throne. Then, in the manner of the ancients, he bent his spine and submitted his neck to the soles of the king’s feet, and then in the presence of all the armies he was judged with the rest, though by the judgement of all, those who had prepared to kill the leader should also receive death. But no death sentence was brought upon them. They only bore the punishment of shaving, as was ordered. Nonetheless the opinion of some was relayed, that the Franks were quickly hurrying to snatch away the captured man. But the leader awaited the occasion of waging battle with the Franks, and desired to avenge not only the injustices of this cause, but also the past ones of his people, and so he endured, awaiting with brave mind everyday the encounter with those people, and preparations were made in all ways to fight against them. But when none of the Franks approached to wage war, he would rather have devoted himself to confronting them, if he had not been called back from this intention by the mature counsel of his heart and his optimates, so that the promised pact between both peoples should not be disrupted and become an occasion to shed blood. But as he was planning to finish the war against these people (as has been said), already the fourth day had passed from the time when he had captured Paulus and he was nonetheless waiting to confront the enemy people. But no attempt by the enemy, no event, no hostile gathering were immediately apparent, indeed as the very fortified cities of Francia were already lamenting their own final demise (as was said) and all their citizens, lest they should be overwhelmed by our own men, abandoned their cities, and wandered far and wide in uncertain abodes, as they sought to protect their lives through hidden paths.

So the religious leader stood with his army far away from the city of Nimes on the plain with his army. There he placed camp and with wondrous speed he surrounded it with a very strong wall. When he awaited the enemy’s arrival there, he suddenly heard via a messenger who preceded that one of the generals of Francia- called Lupus- had approached in a hostile manner in the territory of Beterris. So on the fifth day after he had captured Paulus, he left the city of Nimes, and hurried very quickly with his army, and strove to anticipate the ambushes put in place by his enemy. But Lupus heard of the leader’s return next to the village that is called Aspiran, and so he fled so terrified that the army seemed to lack its general, and the general seemed to lack his army. For in fleeing he did not wait for his own men, nor could his own men keep up with him in any way: indeed their hearts had been so broken apart with fear that they escaped together not so much through the dispersed routes of the roads as through the rocks of the mountains. While they ran, they already saw that the swords were overhanging their necks, and they showed that they had gained their life from the shortcut of flight, namely in the fact that they left behind much booty for our armies in this disturbance. This booty consisted of both men who could not follow them and also animals and resources, which they had also brought in large amounts on carts to suffice for themselves. Already a choice band of warriors, sent by the leader, was able to catch up with them through belligerent attacks. But so disgraceful was their flight, and so quickly did they head to the hiding places of their own territory, that wherever they fled, hid and halted, they were thought to have left with no trace at all.

Hence, when the leader discovered that he could not find Lupus along with the rest, he hurried to Narbonne at a pleasant place, and entered the city as victor. There he placated with gift-giving, reformed with arrangement and instructed with counsels all the Narbonensian province’s displaced, worn out and wasted elements, which were driven by our men’s plundering and incursion to the same land that was gasping with great fevers. He also settled their state of affairs with a wondrous peace. There he dismissed the chosen garrisons of warriors, tore out from it the roots of the entire rebellion, drove away the Jews, and put in place more merciful governors for the cities, through whom the land- harmed by such great evil and defiled with such great filth- might be placated, and might be restored to grace after being purged through a new baptism of judgements. For in so far as the haughty land of the Gallic regions had elevated itself with the usual tragic boot of conceited arrogance, it was so worn down with rather merciless plundering and deprived of currency and drained of its resources that in this regard it is believed to have deservedly come to lack whatever rust or wickedness it had contracted.

So after the Gallic lands were worn out and subdued, the leader directly headed back to Spain secure in his position, not fearing any revolts of the Gauls behind him, and also fearing no traps of the Franks, as he knew for certain that there was no one who would raise battles from among his own people or ambushes from external peoples. For with such great virtue of mind and constancy did he not only have no fear of the peoples of the barbarians surrounding him, but also he despised them, that even when he was still positioned inside the Gallic lands, he satisfied the whole army in the place that is called Canaba with the pleasing report that they had successfully gone out, and he immediately dismissed them all from that place. Also when he reached Helena, he kept himself there and stayed for two days. Thus he set out from that place having obtained favourable outcomes, and returned to Spain and made it back to the seat of his throne in the sixth month after he had left it. Nonetheless, under what famous triumph he entered the royal city, in exaltation over the enemy, it is necessary to explain, so that, just as future generations will proclaim this sign of his huge glory, so the ignominy of the seditious ones will not disappear from the memory of those to come.

For at around the fourth mile from the royal city, Paulus the leader of the usurpation and the rest of the inciters of his seditions, with shaved heads, shaved beards and bare feet, wearing filthy clothing and habit, were placed on the vehicles of camels. The king of their perdition preceded at the hand, worthy of all the ignominy of confusion and crowned with a black crown of hide. This king was followed by the order of his ministers, arranged in a long line, all of them sitting on the same vehicles he was carried back, and driven with the same mockery, while the peoples stood about in different directions, and they entered the city. For not without this dispensation of the just judgement of God is it believed to have befallen these same people: namely, the fact that they were sitting on these vehicles and subject before all was illustrating the lofty and exalted height of their confoundment, and those who had lofty ambitions beyond human custom contrived in their crafty mind, were now paying atonement for the injustice of what they embarked on while they were rather elevated in height. Therefore let these matters be preserved for future generations, as a matter of desire for the good, an example of reprimand for the bad, a source of joy for the faithful and a source of torment for the unfaithful, so that both sides in considering this reading may look at themselves, and those of them that go on the right paths may escape the causes of falling, and those who have already fallen, may always recognise themselves here in the records of these events.

Here ends the story concerning Paulus

Here begins the lowly insult of the historian against the usurpation of Gaul

It is pleasing, oh Gaul, for the victors to insult your errors as you, wretched one, brought the disaster of such a great fall upon them. Where is that freedom of yours, in which, free in a bad sense, you applauded yourself out of sheer arrogance? Where are the haughty voices, in which you disparaged the strength of the Spaniards as being weaker than your women? Where are those elated emotions, in which you rejected the partnership of the Spaniards on the grounds of the yoke of subjugation? Where is the puffed up haughtiness of your mouth, when you swelled up in arrogance because of your often uncertain riches? Where are the haughty necks and counsels, which always rejected the regimes of their own generals? What did you think would be the outcome, when you stabbed yourself through your own works, lacerated yourself with your hands, destroyed yourself through your counsels, and dedicated yourself to trickery? For by your own works you were cast down, when you added crime upon crimes, implicated as you were in fraudulent matters, given as you were to harlotry, consigned as you were to perjury, as you cherished the friendship of the Jews rather than that of the faithful of Christ. For as you thus adhered to the law of adultery, you deemed good all that you had done: to be lascivious like cattle among the flocks of whores, to kill friends during banquets, to butcher the innocent souls. So you pretended you were welcoming to arrivals, and when you had received any man in hospitality with his wife and children, you offered the drink of blood among the wines. By butchering the husband and killing the children, you took up the surviving mother to be abused as your concubine.

While you do these things however you do not shudder at the monstrosity of such a great crime, but in addition to all these things you take delight in the company of the Jews, whose infidelity, if you willingly pay heed, you know has already crossed into your sons, while these people, who used to shine in you through the title of their Christianity, were proven to have crossed over to the perfidy of the Hebrews. For you always committed yourself to the judgements of these people, whose hearts you had already known to have been condemned by God. How could you have venerated the Jews’ sanctuaries of ill omen, in which you had so insistently placed the care of your own health? Recognise, wretched one, recognise what you have done! Let it suffice for you to have lost your memory amid the fever. Now however that the lapse of the fever has been driven away, recognise yourself as the nurturer of scandal, the tinder of evil, the mother of blasphemers, the step-mother of the unfaithful, the step-daughter of fraudulent business, the substance of harlotry, the den of betrayal, the fount of perfidy, the killer of souls.

But it does not suffice that all these things emanated from your breasts. Lest something else should seem to be lacking for the disgrace of such great calamity, you elected another king for yourself despite the fact you had a king, and you did so impulsively, not in due order, and you did so through trickery, not through virtue. For who has ever been found from among women, who has a husband and then desires the companionship of another husband without danger to herself? You alone dangerously disregard your husband, and not fearing to commit perfidy, you take up for yourself the sceptre of perfidy. Who has done such things that have been mentioned? In which lands did this notorious evil first appear, if not between your own breasts? Indeed one must wonder at the womb of your mind, which did not rattle under such great conception of crimes, but conceived pain with such great wonder, that it gave rise to such great abundance of pains in these times of ours.

If you are to assert that this thing you undertook came from elsewhere, hear whether it was realised by your counsels or those of others. Nonetheless you will not be able to deny it was realised by your conception of your offspring. For if you have accepted this came from elsewhere, why did you nurture it instead of driving it away from your land like a putrid limb? But if you gave birth to it, why did you not cut off the monstrous offspring before it should grow up? Or will it not rather be the sign of virtue that upright women have cut off monstrous offspring born from themselves? Surely it would be a mark of crime if they killed offspring who were set in order, and the mark of order if they killed the deformed ones? If you plead as an excuse that you could not resist its power or fight back against the offspring you conceived, where is that arrogant haughtiness of your mouth, where are the swelling voices, where are the elated emotions, where is that conceited stride, that high boot of words, by which you deemed and proclaimed with thundering words that not merely a part of Spain, but all of Spain would not be able in any way to resist one blow of your fist? So you excused yourself with no just voices, when, even if you could not do so by arms, you rather could rather persevere with armed faithfulness and you could more faithfully endure the most extreme killing amid the storms of the unfaithful ones. For you had voluntarily devoted your faithfulness to the religious leader, pledging under the promise of the divine name, that you would show yourself as an enemy to his enemies and you fight against the opponents of his safety to the point of shedding blood.

So tell me, who of your men fell for the just faithfulness, who of your men was killed preserving faithfulness, who of your men showed that he would kill for the truth, who even chose to kill for the sake of faithfulness? There was no one from your men, in whose view the soul of his anointment would be more precious. So as you were unfaithful in your promise, and easily committed perjury, you not only did not kill the fire of infidelity that arose in you, but you also kindled it, and you supported it not only in words, but also in your deeds. But these are the predominant signs of your nature, that you do not strike the enemy, and kill the citizen, deemed it perhaps better for yourself to receive a citizen through warfare rather than an enemy, as you have always had the strength to kill allies rather than adversaries. As you engage in this action not through arms, but rather through trickery and fraud, your poisons are to be feared more than your arms. For you have stabbed more men through the venom of your bile rather than the missiles of your arms.

For in the field we have never seen your battle-lines directed against the enemy, when we have however sensed the poison of your breast inside the house. We have seen, we have seen your battle-lines prepared, but rather for killing the citizens, and not for killing the external foes. How were you thickened by the cloud of such great cruelty, that you prepared to kill the liberators and to take revenge on your defenders? What need did you have to provoke the braver men to war, and to prepare destruction for the stronger men? But not without merit do you do these things, since you have suffered from madness and do not realise whom you should dare to take out your anger on. For the mad are accustomed to deem themselves more robust in strength, when already their character seems to be at the point of their final failing. But they do these things and similar such things, not moved by vital sense, but already worn out with mortal dissolution. So if you have recovered your memory after your madness, it befits you to remember with what voices you cried out amid your fever, and those whom you ignorantly judged as people to be despised.

For behold! The army of the Spaniards, after your very sharp fever, by which you had lost your senses, quickly confronted you. Not however in its entirety, but rather brought together in its most limited part, it utterly subdued your strength, subjugated your neck, bruised your puffed-up mouth, and proved better through its swords than your voices what you are capable of and what you are not capable of. What therefore, oh wretched one, do you say to the victors, you who lie so miserable and subjugated under the sword of the victors? Behold! The army of the Spaniards with its ordained leader valiantly subdued you, stripped you of spoils, and brought you to servitude. But I do not want you pleading that this man has been rather inclement towards you for a long time, when you are being redressed by his benefits brought so quickly to you. For even as just servitude was deservedly due for you to bear, as a sound head has pity on its languid limb, he granted you the sacrifice of liberty that had been reduced into servitude and he wiped away by his rather clement hand the old marks of your perfidy, and thus chose you to be the companion for his dignity, before you should perform penance and wipe away the stains you created: that is, so that you should recover a glorious attestation as you had lost the title of liberty through your impious temerity.

But what wonder is it that he provided you this even as you did not deserve it, as he long ago always showed himself as an ally in your dangers and sent himself in to be assailed instead when you were being assailed? Therefore one must wonder at this arrangement of contrasting roles: how much cruelty was in you, and how much piety was in the Spaniards. They sought peace for you, but you sought tricks for them, they sought to defend you, you sought to kill them. They always used to hurry to you to liberate you with their armed army. You incited the swords of foreigners to destroy them. They determined that the enemy should be repelled from you by force or cunning. You employed both these strategies and came against the army of the Spaniards with your own acts of trickery and the forces of foreigners. They always sought to defend you despite the danger to themselves. You however prepared the fortresses against them, not without the perdition of your own destruction. They sought to save you, and where they did not rush with their arms, they bought it by paying ransom prices. You sought to kill them, and when you could not realise that through arms, you decided it should be realised through gifts. For when did they ever become happy about the disasters that befell you or when did they ever delight in your deaths? Indeed rather, if the report brought by messengers proclaimed that you had been besieged by the enemy or worn down by the enemy’s incursion, the armed hand of the Spaniards quickly showed itself to defend you and fought with your enemies while setting aside the dangers to itself. For it did not plead as an excuse that it had born all the hard labours as so many lands lay between, so long as you should regain somehow the state of peace.

Behold! Now it has been known, what great affection of piety came into the Spaniards, and what great storm of cruelty grew fervent in you. For you have experienced the Spaniards, whom you deemed were to be despised, as both victors over you and those who took pity on you. As for your sons, who were brought forth from you in a poisonous birth: what have they brought you except hunger, pestilence or the sword? So up to this point may it be of use to have insulted you, and perhaps whatever has been proclaimed with a rather harsh strike will benefit you for the sake of your health, so that this harshness of words may rather be the cause of your rebuke than the strophe of desperation.

So now it remains that you should consider with lamentable lamentation with how much paleness you have been worn down, with how much staining you have been decoloured, so that you should always conduct yourself under this consideration of humility, and thus be ashamed of your past fornications, and the gore should not break open again in the place of the scars, and a sore should not appear in the place of the blow that has now been healed, and the corrupted lung should not emit something tumid or arrogant. But rather, with all things now restored to the state of health, may it be useful to have insulted you and to have urged you in a very docile manner that from now on you should be mindful of sound vigour, and this mindfulness, now rendered more sound, should cut off all the emotions of the haughty heart in you. But if you reject in your arrogant emotions those who insult you and those who advise you (as you have been accustomed), I will come to you with insult through these verses, by which some wise man is believed to have insulted death. I will therefore say:

“But now if you do not yield to tears nor do you have feeling for poems,
May you have instead of the sword these words that I speak to you.
May he who overcame the world through the suffering of the cross
Damn your stings and defeat your hell.”

Here ends the lowly insulting of the province of Gaul

The judgement promulgated against the perfidy of the usurpers

The noted transgression of the perfidious ones should thus be punished all the more sharply as it seems to be perpetrated through illicit ventures. Therefore let them have the mark of their own confoundment, as it happens that they violated the promise of faithfulness. Let them bring the name of betrayal upon their descendants, as the leader’s indulgence made them be ungrateful. Let them be noted among the groups of the perfidious ones, as they brought about disaster for their own people, so that they should bring the titles of their infamy upon their offspring of the generations, as they became the destroyers of their country. Those whom the leader has granted to live out of clemency should not escape the gouging of their eyes, as they had diminished the glory of their country and had incurred the mark of betrayal. For behold! The ill-fated perfidy brought itself out onto the open plain, as it joined the society of the wicked to itself through bloody embraces and stirred the citizens to scandal, and the common people to the ruin of their own, and the peoples to the destruction of the country, and not only their own nations but also the nations of external peoples to bring about the demise of the leader.

The land is witness to these things we say, as it has been worn down by their destruction. Also heaven is witness, as under it the standard of triumph was granted to us by God. For this perfidy broke the willing pact of promise and set up a new oath of pledging allegiance, by which, after cutting off the voluntary promise of faithfulness, it might cast away our king elected by God and bring about quick ruin upon him or the country. For by the new rite of perjury it deceived not only its own people, but also the souls of many peoples, such that in these things the prophetic pronouncement was being fulfilled. As it is said: “Their leaders will fall into nets from the fury of God’s anger, and the derision of these people will be upon every land.”[xvi] So also that pronouncement that Isaiah makes on the demise of such people, saying: “Impious men have been found to be laying ambushes among my people, like birdhunters, placing traps and snares to capture men. Just as a snare is full of birds, so their home is full of trickery.”[xvii]

Let these words necessarily suffice for the preamble. For while our most serene lord King Wamba sent the very wicked Paulus to punish Gaul and in order to bring certain dissenters to faithfulness of his glory through a quick arrangement, the latter suddenly turned the task imposed upon him into the opposite thing, and not only did not oppose the dissidents through persisting in faithfulness, but also made very many unfaithful through his own dissent. For as he turned his usurpation against the aforementioned leader, his people and country, he stripped himself first of the faithfulness he had promised, and arranging a web of his own weaving, he took upon himself the stain of perjury. Then he cast aspersions on the glorious leader and made various insulting and unjust proclamations about him. After this, which is wicked to be said, he seized the kingdom against the will of God and compelled he peoples to swear an oath to him in this nefarious election, so that they should act contrary to the faithfulness they had rendered and kill or dispossess the leader. In this regard he kept hold in particular of this arrangement in the series of perverse conditions: that he should dare to call our glorious lord the leader Wamba a king of ill-omen. This name means that he is a person of misfortune per its own interpretation. However, this man, still provoked further by the height of his tyrannical lot, subdued all the province of Gaul and some part of the province of Tarraco under the tumultuous power of his authority, and put in place special fortifications for everything through each of the cities, and he put in place his own defenders in them.

On account of the temerity of this nefarious matter, we were compelled to take up arms, and with so many lands lying in between, to pursue the perfidy of the wicked ones. So in order to put out immediately the usurpation of these conspirators, we came fighting into the province of Tarraco and into the Gallic lands. As the divine hand accompanied us, we came all the way to these cities and forts, and we successfully captured the agents and defenders of these cities and forts. For first we approached Barcelona with our army, and we arrested Euredus, Pompedius, Guntefredus, Hunulfus the deacon and Neufredus, who were defending the same city. Then we reached La Cluse, and we entered the forts after arranging our army through the cliffs of Mount Pirineus, and we arrested the defenders of the same forts: namely, Ranosindus, Hildegisus, Helia, Carmenus, Maureco, Wandemirus, Dagarus, Cixa and Liubila. In this manner also we hastened and conducted belligerent attacks and through the divisions of our armies we arrested in the fort of Caucoliberis Leufredus, Guidrigildus and their wives.

Also we hurried in a similar manner to Llivia, which is the capital of Cerritania, and we entered it. It was being defended by the bishop Jacintus and Arangisclus, who agreed on one perfidy and subsequently on the authority of the perfidious Paulus. But while the same Jacintus could not defend the same Llivia, he did not escape our hands as God supported us. When the perfidious Paulus had learned about the arrest of all these people and our entry into Gaul, via the flight of the Franks whom he had sent to defend La Cluse, he immediately left the city of Narbonne and entrusted himself to the protection of flight. There also he left to defend the same city Ranimirus the pseudo-bishop, Witimir, Argemundus and Gultricia the primiclerius. [xviii] When this Ranimirus saw the army, he sought to flee before the city should be assaulted. But soon he was caught in the territory of Beterris and he did not escape our hands. Then we captured the aforementioned Witimirus and Argemundus the laypersons as well as Gultricia the primiclerius who were defending Narbonne and fighting fiercely against us, we subjugated the city of Agates to the power of our glorious lord, and in it we arrested Wilesindus the bishop, Arangisclus and Ranosindus, the brother of the bishop Wilesindus.

After these events, with the help of the divine judgements, we approached to assault the city of Maguelone, and when Gumildus the bishop had seen from afar the naval and land element of the two armies, he immediately abandoned the same city, and sought flight, and brought himself to Nimes with the perfidious Paulus. When we had rather gloriously captured the city of Maguelone and its defenders, we immediately afterwards reached Nimes where we intended to fight the perfidious Paulus and his allies. There the same Paulus had brought himself to fight, not only relying on the audacity of his own men, but also fortified with the help of the Franks. In this place he fought with the utmost persistence and endured in the temerity of his perfidy, but at last through the divine judgements and our arms, Paulus was defeated, captured and detained after we broke into the same city. It is necessary also for his allies to be mentioned, whom we also endured harshly in the same city as they also fought against us. They adhered with the utmost insistence to his perfidy, until they were captured with this very wicked man: they were Gumildus the bishop, Frugisclus, Flodarius, Wistrimirus, Ranemundus, Andosindus, Adulfus, Maximus, Joannes he clergyman, Avarnus, Aquilinus, Odofredus, Iberius, Joannes, Mosamius, Amingus, Wazimar, Cuniericus, Trasericus, Trasemirus, Bera, Ebrulfus, Recaulfus, Cottila, Guldramirus, Liuba, Ranila and Ildiericellus, leaving aside the multitude of the common people and the Franks, which was captured in many times larger numbers in the same city.

So this very wicked Paulus stood in the sight of our glorious lord to be judged along with his aforementioned allies, while all of us had been summoned and joined together (that is, all the senior officials of the palace, all the gardingi and all he palatine office) and all of our army was also present. Then the aforementioned leader thus addressed him as follows under this oath that was introduced: “I vow in the name of the omnipotent God that you should contend with me in judgement in this gathering of my brothers, if I have either harmed you in any regard or treated you with malice on any occasion, on account of which you should have been roused and thus taken up this usurpation and tried to take over the apex of this kingdom.”

Soon the same very wicked Paulus testified with clear voice, saying: “By God, I did not feel that I had ever been harmed by your glory nor did I bear any evil from you, but you only ordered to impart good to me, though I did not at all deserve to receive it. I nonetheless did this action provoked by the instigation of the devil.” His aforementioned allies were similarly questioned, and all responded likewise. So the conditions were brought forth, whereby through a promise of their own free will the very wicked Paulus and his allies agreed together with us on the election of our glorious lord King Wamba, and they testified under the solemn oath of divine will that they would inviolably observe faithfulness to him and their country. Their hands noted these things also with their signatures. These conditions were disclosed and read out, and so in order to confound their perfidy the signature of their hands was shown to them so they could review these conditions. After these proceedings, the other conditions, under which the perfidious Paulus had made the people swear loyalty to him, were read again, and in them this order of impiety and cruelty was preserved, whereby under this order all of Paulus’ companions vowed to him that they would be faithful to him and would unanimously fight alongside him against our glorious lord King Wamba, fight to bring him down, and destroy him to the point of shedding their blood, as well as fighting against those who would have wanted to defend our lord. In those conditions, as has been explained before, they called our glorious lord King Wamba the king of ill-omen, in addition to the rest of the detestable things, which are found written in those conditions.

So as these things were gone through and read, the pronouncement of the canons was brought forth from the council of Toledo point 75, where it thus says: “Whoever from this time forward among us and the peoples of all of pain violates through any conspiracy or initiative the sacrament of his faithfulness that he promised for the sake of the state of the country and people of the Goths and the preservation of the king’s safety…” etc. Then the pronouncement of the law was reported per book 2, title 1, point 6, where it thus says: “Whoever from the time of the leader Chintila[xix] of revered memory all the way to the second year of our reign (with God’s support) from now and onwards.” Instructed by the precept of this sacred canon, we should have no doubt anymore, that we are afraid that those people are to be punished with temporal censure in body and in property per the pronouncement of this law, as already our ancestors damned them in soul with perpetual anathema through such terrifying judgement. For this reason, in accordance with the edicts of the law that was passed, we have determined a common sentence for all these people, that the same perfidious Paulus and his aforementioned allies are to be condemned and perish through a most disgraceful death, just as they seem to receive the misfortune of perpetual perdition, as they intended to destroy the country and tried to bring about the overthrow of the leader. But if by chance they should be spared by the leader, they are not to be kept alive without gouging of their eyes, so that they should live. Nonetheless we determine that all the affairs of the same Paulus and his allies are to remain in the hands of our glorious lord, such that whatever the clemency of his serenity chooses to do and judge about these men, the power remains undoubtedly his, that the name of the seditious ones should utterly perish from the earth and future generations should refrain from imitating the disastrous memory of these people, marked as it is by these titles.

Here is the happy ending.

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[i] King of the Visigoths in the period 649-672 CE.

[ii] Now the village of Wamba in Valladolid.

[iii] Toledo.

[iv] 1 September.

[v] Bishop of Toledo at the time.

[vi] Playing on the fact that St. Paul was previously known as Saul before his conversion.

[vii] Cf. Orosius (7.40.6).

[viii] Cf. Ibid. Orosius’ idea is that a usurper intends to be seen wielding the symbols of power before said usurper’s intention can be worked out.

[ix] A Visigothic elite bodyguard unit.

[x] It is not certain to whom this saying is to be attributed.

[xi] Cf. 1 Samuel 4:18.

[xii] Cf. Psalm 88:11.

[xiii] Cf. Psalm 36:35-36.

[xiv] i.e. 2 September.

[xv] King of the Visigoths from 586-601 CE.

[xvi] Hosea 7:16.

[xvii] In fact not Isaiah but Jeremiah 5:26-27.

[xviii] A senior clergy administrative office position.

[xix] King of the Visigoths in the period 636-639 CE.