LEOVIGILD, King of the Visigoths. - Brother of the kings Athanagild and Liuva I, he was associated with the throne by the latter in 568, remaining sole sovereign at his death (573). By his first wife Theodosia he had Hermenegild (v.) and Reccared. When Hermenegild converted to Catholicism, L. was driven by his second wife Goswintha into a long and painful struggle against his son, who was murdered in 585. In a council assembled at Toledo in 580, L. attempted to draw the Catholics of his kingdom over to Arianism, but, having failed in this, he began to persecute them, exiling the leaders of the opposition, among them Leander of Seville, Fulgentius of Astigi and John of Biclaro.

During his reign L. carried out glorious enterprises against the Suevi, the Cantabri and the Basques, and for his descendants he obtained the hereditary right to the throne, which until then had been elective. To him is also due the revision of the Code of Euric promulgated a century earlier by King Euric. At his death, in 586, it seems that he commended to Bishop Leander, recalled from exile, his son Reccared, who succeeded him.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., V, 38, in MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, I, 1, pp. 229-31; Gregory the Great, Dial., III, 31; PL 77, 289-93; Isidore of Seville, De viris illustribus, chap. 44; PL 83, 1105 suppl.; L. Duchesne, L'Eglise au VIe siècle, Paris 1925, 569-74.

Stanislao Majarelli

@incollection{ec7_leovigildo_re_dei_visigoti, author = {Majarelli, Stanislao}, title = {Leovigildo, re dei visigoti}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1185--1186}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/leovigildo-re-dei-visigoti} }

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Leovigild, King of the Visigoths

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