Visigothic Kingdom of Spain
Years: 508 - 718
Visgothic rule in Gaul is ended by the Franks under Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé in 507.
Thereafter the only territory north of the Pyrenees that the Visigoths hold is Septimania, such that their kingdom becomes limited to Hispania.
The province comes to be dominated by the Visigothic small governing elite at the expense of the Byzantine province of Spania and the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia.In or around 589, the Visigoths, under Reccared I, convert from Arianism to the Nicene faith, gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects.
Liber Iudiciorum (completed in 654) abolishes the old tradition of having different laws for Romans and for Visigoths, so that legal distinctions are no longer made between Romani and Gothi, coalescing them into Hispani.
The century that follows is dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy.
Historical sources for the 7th century are relatively sparse.
In 711 or 712 the Visigoths, including their king and many of their leading men, are killed in the Battle of Guadalete by a force of invading Arabs and Berbers.
The kingdom quickly collapses in the aftermath.
Gothic identity survives the fall of the kingdom, however, especially in Marca Hispanica and the Kingdom of Asturias, which is founded by the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius after his victory over the Moors at the Battle of Covadonga.In Spain and Portugal, the Visigoths build several churches and leave an increasing number of archaeological finds, but most notably a large number of Spanish, Portuguese given names and surnames.
The Visigoths are the only people to found new cities in western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the rise of the Carolingians.
Until the Late Middle Ages, the greatest Visigothic legacy, which is no longer in use, was their law code, the Liber iudiciorum, which formed most notably the basis for court procedure in most of Christian Iberia for centuries after their kingdom's demise.
