«Qui patrie excidium intulerunt». Hispania 711: Desperate explanations for an unexpected collapse
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Abstract
The fall of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo from the Muslim incursion in the year 711 has been generally explained by specialists as an inevitable consequence of a disintegration process in the Visigothic power structures. Historians have associated this situation to a confrontation – either direct or indirect – between Hispanic-Visigothic monarchy and aristocracy, being the standstill of the kingdom (caused by its administrative, military and judicial institutional incapacity) also considered. In this paper, as opposed to the fatalistic perspective where the idea of an inevitable end was irrationally imposed, a different explanation is proposed based on the multiple power dynamics, the Kingdom’s defense mechanisms and the last Visigothic monarchs’ legislative activity. All these ideas will be framed into the context of the (unstable) normality and the efficacy of the Visigothic institutional machinery.
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