The Visigoths of Pla de l’Horta

The necropolis at Pla de l’Horta, Catalonia, Spain

One of the genetic-genealogical services I started using recently was a certain one run by DNA Check, LLC, based in Switzerland. I uploaded them the raw files for my genetic results and they were able to compare them to ancient, classical and mediæval DNA samples from various archæological dig sites. The closest genetic match to my DNA that they were able to find – with a genetic distance of 4.168, a certain close cousin and a nearer match than 99% of other users of this service – belonged to a woman who died around 550 AD and is buried at the Visigothic necropolis outside Pla de l’Horta in Sarrià de Ter, Catalonia, Spain. I’m apparently also closely related to two other Visigothic men (genetic distances 6.894 and 9.562) who are buried at this same site, dating from roughly the same time period. The early-mediæval Visigoths are therefore very intimately linked to my family, though whether to the Cooper side or the Doane side (or both) is unknown.

The Visigoths – one branch of the Goths led by the Terving and later by the Balti family – were a Germanic people originally based in what is now northern Poland, along the Baltic coast. There have been various histories of the Goths written, including by the Byzantium-based Ostrogothic notarius Jordanes. Jordanes took the Æneid as a high literary reference and foil for the history of the Goths, whom he wrongly associated with the Thracian Getæ. The Goths undertook a migration from Poland into what is now the Ukraine, and from there into the Balkans (now Romania and Bulgaria). The Romans apparently took advantage of a famine which struck the Goths after their Balkan migration, and bought Gothic slaves at cheap prices from their parents, in exchange for dog meat. Understandably, the leaders of the Goths – particularly Fritigern – did not take kindly to this exploitation. The Visigoths fought several wars with the Roman Empire in both the East and the West, most famously sacking Rome under their king Alaric in 410 AD. Goths fought both for and against the Huns during that people’s invasion of the Roman Empire.

The Visigothic sack of Rome, National Geographic illustration (1962)

The Visigoths who settled in Spain after 418 belonged to three groups of Goths which had previously been independent of each other: the Tervingi, the Greuthungi and the followers of Radagasius, but who were bound together in loyalty to Alaric. These Goths settled in what is now Aquitaine in southwestern France and repeatedly attacked their neighbours to the south and east, expanding into the Iberian Peninsula and into Auvergne. Because the Goths promised lower taxes and protection, many Romans – particularly debtors and those fleeing the Roman tax assessors – swelled the Gothic ranks and aided them in the establishment of a kingdom. The Goths quickly found it expedient to appoint Gallo-Roman administrators and to assure the continuation of Roman law in the areas under their rule… that is, until the reign of Euric, who forged a law-code of his own.

In short: the Visigoths founded a kingdom with its capital at Toledo that, at its height, stretched from the Occitan-speaking regions of southern France all the way across the Iberian Peninsula. It was to this kingdom that the aforementioned ancestors of mine, who were buried at Pla de l’Horta, belonged. However, this kingdom was conquered by Franks from the north, and by Muslim Moors from the south in the early 700s. The Visigothic kingdom fell and its last king Roderic was killed in 721. The Visigoths left few traces on modern Spanish culture – neither their language nor their built culture. Some two dozen Spanish surnames, however, including Fernández, González and Rodríguez, are of Teutonic and thus possibly of Visigothic origin. A number of architectural pieces from antiquity particularly around Toledo also attest to the Visigothic presence.

The Conversion of Reccared, painting by A. Muñoz-Degraín (1888)

The Visigoths at first practised a form of Teutonic heathenry probably similar to the Norse pantheon; however, they had already adopted the hæresy of Arianism by the time they arrived in Spain. Arian bishoprics were set up in various cities all around the Iberian Peninsula, for the express purpose of ministering to the Visigoths. The Visigoths would adopt Chalcedonian Christianity only with the religious settlement forged by Reccared in 587, in which he and his retinue converted to the religion of their Gallic and Hiberno-Roman subject peoples.

The necropolis at Pla de l’Horta was situated about three and a half kilometres north-northwest of the ancient city of Gerunda – now Girona, Spain. Those buried at the necropolis of Pla de l’Horta – including my ancestors, it seems – practised a basic form of inhumation, with tombs dug into the ground and lined with tile or slabs of stone, but with no monuments or architecture standing above ground-level. Those interred were, however, buried with typical Teutonic ornamentation: brooches, belt buckles, fibulæ and so forth, showing a certain level of social status. The necropolis follows the pattern, if not the scale, of other Gothic Reihengräber (or row-graves) found elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula.

This is of course quite fascinating from an archæological perspective. Again, Peter Heather’s excellent book on The Goths is an excellent starting-point for understanding Gothic society, culture and history; I also have his book on Goths and Romans: 332-499 on my bookshelf, as well as his compilation of some primary-source material on the Goths, The Goths in the Fourth Century. I also have Herwig Wolfram’s History of the Goths and of course the De origine actibusque Getarum by Jordanes. I certainly look forward to learning more about these kindred of mine from late antiquity! And now, just for fun, here’s a cover of Manilla Road’s ‘Necropolis’ by the power metal band Visigoth: