Political instability in the Visigoth kings of Toledo (s. VI-VIII): historiographical balance and new proposal for analysis

Abstract

The political instability of the Visigothic kings is a widespread phenomenon in documents from the 6th to 7th centuries. This motivates a research to explain the structural principles that underlie this phenomenon. It is proposed that the political evolution of the Visigothic royalty corresponds to operating logics of aristocracies in societies with their dominance was incomplete. This expresses the general dynamics of the early Middle Ages. The views of the authors on this phenomenon are so varied that it becomes imperative to make a balance of the different approaches, in order to identify existing problems and, most importantly, to delineate a line of work to follow