Recceswinth in the context of "Duchess of Aquitaine"

The Visigoths (/ˈvɪzɪɡɒθs/; Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were a Gothic people who emerged in the Balkans during late antiquity. Likely descended from the Thervingi who entered the Roman Empire in 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople (378), they were first united under Alaric I (395–410), whose forces alternately fought and allied with Rome before famously sacking the city in 410.

In 418, the Visigoths were settled as foederati in southern Gaul, establishing a kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. From there they expanded into Hispania, displacing the Suebi and Vandals. Defeat by the Franks under Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé (507) ended Visigothic rule in Gaul, but the kingdom consolidated in Spain and Portugal, where it endured for two centuries.

The duke of Aquitaine (Occitan: Duc d'Aquitània, French: Duc d'Aquitaine, IPA: [dyk dakitɛn]) was the ruler of the medieval region of Aquitaine (not to be confused with modern-day Aquitaine) under the supremacy of Frankish, English, and later French kings.

As successor states of the Visigothic Kingdom (418–721), Aquitania (Aquitaine) and Languedoc (Toulouse) inherited both Visigothic law and Roman Law, which together allowed women more rights than their contemporaries would enjoy until the 20th century. Particularly under the Liber Judiciorum as codified in 642/643 and expanded by the Code of Recceswinth in 653, women could inherit land and titles and manage their holdings independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, represent themselves and bear witness in court from the age of 14, and arrange for their own marriages after the age of 20. As a consequence, male-preference primogeniture was the practiced succession law for the nobility.

The Treasure of Guarrazar, Guadamur, Province of Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is an archeological find composed of twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses that had originally been offered to the Catholic Church by the Kings Visigoths in the seventh century in Hispania, as a gesture of the orthodoxy of their faith and their submission to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The most valuable of all is the votive crown of king Recceswinth with its blue sapphires from Sri Lanka and pendilia. Though the treasure is now divided and much has disappeared, it represents the best surviving group of Early Medieval Christian votive offerings.

The treasure, which represents the high point of Visigothic gold craftsmanship, was dug between 1858 and 1861 in an orchard called Guarrazar, in Guadamur, very close to Toledo, Spain. The treasure was divided, with some objects going to the Musée de Cluny in Paris and the rest to the armouries of the Palacio Real in Madrid (today in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain). In 1921 and 1936, some items of the Treasure of Guarrazar were stolen and have disappeared.

The Visigothic Code (Latin: Forum Iudicum, Liber Iudiciorum, or Book of the Judgements; Spanish: Fuero Juzgo), also called Lex Visigothorum (English: Law of the Visigoths), is a set of laws begun by king Chindasuinth (642–653 AD) of the Visigothic Kingdom in his second year of rule (642–643) that sought to provide common legal status between his Visigothic and Spanish-Roman subjects. In 654 his son, king Recceswinth (649–672; sole ruler from 653-672), published the enlarged law code, which was the first law code that applied equally to the conquering Goths and the general population, of which the majority had Roman roots, and had lived under Roman laws.

The code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans (leges romanae) and Visigoths (leges barbarorum), and under it all the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom would stop being romani and gothi instead becoming hispani. In this way, all subjects of the kingdom were gathered under the same jurisdiction, eliminating social and legal differences, and allowing greater assimilation of the populations. The Code "fused Roman law and Germanic law and was binding on both [Visigothic and Spanish-Roman] populations." The Code also enshrined much law regarding the Catholic Church, probably "imparted to it by the Council of Toledo of 447". Unfortunately, according to translator S.P. Scott, the code was written in "monkish Latin, a barbarous jargon, extremely difficult to translate, and vastly different from the polished idiom of Tacitus and Cicero".

Pendilia (singular pendilium; from Latin pendulus, hanging) or pendoulia (the Greek equivalent), are pendants or dangling ornaments hanging from a piece of metalwork such as a crown, votive crown, crux gemmata, or kamelaukion, and are a feature of Early Medieval goldsmith work. On crosses the pendilia may include the letters alpha and omega, and on votive offerings, which were often designed to be hung over altars and where pendilia are at their largest and most spectacular, they may spell out whole words (see illustration).

The term is commonly used in coin collecting. Pendilia are depicted on coins as jewels or pearls hanging from the sides of the crown, and occur frequently on coins of Byzantine emperors. The pendilia which hung from the Emperors' crowns began with Marcian. Although the years saw the styles of crown change, the pendilia remained, at least through Manuel II Palaiologos. Surviving crowns with pendilia include the Holy Crown of Hungary and many votive crowns of the Treasure of Guarrazar from Visigothic Spain.