Sisenando, rey de los visigodos

Not the son of Suintila, rey de los visigodos

Sisenando, King of the Visigoths

• Reign March 26, 631 - March 12, 636
• Predecessor Suintila
• Successor Chintila
• Death March 12, 636 Toledo

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Sisenando (- March 12, 636) was the twenty-seven king of the Visigoths in Hispania between 631 and 636.1

As Duke of Septimania, Sisenando helped dethrone Suintila, conquering the Tarragona, with the help of Dagobert I of Neustria.

Some authors deduce from the sources a certain popular sympathy for Suintila and greater opposition to him among the nobility. Undoubtedly, the rival faction took advantage of certain laws proposed by Suintila, favorable to the people but harmful to the tycoons, to increase their chances of rebellion. Despite this, the trend that Witerico represented at the time was greatly weakened by his bad government, and the purges that surely followed after his fall. It seems that Suintila had the support of the military chiefs, and that the hostility around him between counts and dukes was not unanimous, because they did not have the necessary support of the people in their environment. The nobility opposed to Suintila considered it impossible to overthrow this king by his own means and sent in 630 one of the conjured nobles, named Sisenando, Duke of Septimania, to the court of the king of Neustria, Dagoberto, to ask for an army to serve his principles. As a reward, a tray of gold (given by General Aecio to King Turismund in 451) was offered, and 200,000 salaries.

Regarding the succession to the throne, he made no concession to the principle of hereditary succession. Thus, kings would henceforth be elected only by the tycoons and bishops. The attitude of the bishops seems to indicate that, rather than anathematizing, what Sisenando did with Suintila led to a crisis in 632 that delayed the Council until the end of 633 due to the Iudila rebellion.

Although it is not mentioned in any literary source, there are two coins minted in Mérida and in Granada (Iliberris), which have the inscription Iudila Rex,2 assuming that they were minted in the reign of Sisenando. On the other hand, canon seventy-five and the delay in the celebration of the council could explain that Iudila had tried to usurp the throne.

Sisenando died in Toledo in 636, five years after his reign, and Chintila succeeded him.1

Modern reproduction of a tremís of Sisenando.

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic_Kingdom