ALARIC II, King of the Visigoths. - Son of Euric and Ragnahild, he was elected king of the Visigoths upon his father's death in 484. The Visigothic kingdom extended at that time from the strait later called that of Gibraltar to the Loire and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rhone, and had its capital at Toulouse. A. became related by marriage to Theodoric, whom he had previously aided in the war against Odoacer, by marrying his daughter Theodegotha. An Arian, he made his rule weigh very harshly upon his Catholic subjects and confined several of them, among whom the bishops Volusian of Tours at Toulouse and temporarily Caesarius of Arles at Bordeaux (505).
On 2 February 506 he promulgated the so-called Breviarium Alaricianum (v. below).
In 506 Clovis, king of the Franks, began against A. the war until then deferred through the mediation of the powerful Theodoric. In 507, in the famous battle of Vouillé, near Poitiers, the Visigoths were defeated and A. was killed, it seems, by the king of the Franks himself.
Bibliography6 works
Emma Santovito
THE BREVIARY OF ALARIC
A., king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of emending whatever in the ancient law might seem either less equitable or ambiguous, had a commission of Roman jurists compile a collection of laws, called the Lex Romana Visigothorum (from the 16th century it was also called the Breviarium Alaricianum). The collection was published at Aire in Gascony in the year 506 in a solemn assembly of bishops and lay nobles and was sent to the counts with the injunction, expressed in the "commonitorium," that it alone was to be in use among those subjects of the Gothic kingdom who were of Roman stock.
It contains only the two kinds of sources then in force: Leges or Constitutions and ius or writings of jurists, including in this second group also the Gregorian and Hermogenian Codes, which, not being issued by imperial authority, lacked official character. The sources, each of which forms an independent whole, are arranged in this order: 1) Theodosian Code; 2) Novels of Theodosius, Valentinian, Marcian, Majorian, Severus; 3) Gaius; 4) Paul (Receptae sententiae); 5) Gregorian Code; 6) Hermogenian Code; 7) Papinian.
All parts of the text, except Gaius, are accompanied by a commentary called the "Interpretatio." The character of the compilation is above all practical. The collection had a wide diffusion and influenced the Visigothic laws, the Salic law and others: it endured until about the 12th century. It is the sole repository of certain sources, and it is the mildest among the barbarian laws. Among the numerous epitomes that were made of it, noteworthy is the one called the "Lex Romana Curiensis seu Utinensis," of the 8th century.
Bibliography3 works
Alberto Scola