Visigothic Spain without the Arab Conquests

Not much is really known about Visigothic Spain, or rather, I don't know very much. While I know that they converted to Catholicism at the Third Council of Toledo and ran a healthy slaving economy, everything else is quite vague. Therefore, without the Arab conquests, how would the kingdom develop? Would it eventually get challenged by the Franks or would it collapse in on itself? This is an area where my knowledge is very small, so any help from people like LSCatallina or MNP, as well as anyone else who can offer up knowledge, would be quite helpful.
 
I am curious what language was spoken at the time of the muslim conquest. What percentage of the population still spoke Visigothic, versus Roman, versus pre-Roman languages? It is natural to assume that a continued Visgothic Spain would develop along the lines of Frankish Gaul and eventually have a Romance language be the common tongue, but is that necessarily the case?
 

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I am curious what language was spoken at the time of the muslim conquest. What percentage of the population still spoke Visigothic, versus Roman, versus pre-Roman languages? It is natural to assume that a continued Visgothic Spain would develop along the lines of Frankish Gaul and eventually have a Romance language be the common tongue, but is that necessarily the case?

Yes, the Germanic nobility had pretty much been immersed in a ibero-celtic-roman sea. The language was romance, as the Vandals were just too few to make a dent in the local language. AFAIK Germanic was pretty much gone by the time of the Muslim conquest.
 
Visigoths were actually a bit less than 12% of the population of the Visigothic kingdom. But they were only concentrated in certain areas.
 

Delvestius

Banned
I am curious what language was spoken at the time of the muslim conquest. What percentage of the population still spoke Visigothic, versus Roman, versus pre-Roman languages? It is natural to assume that a continued Visgothic Spain would develop along the lines of Frankish Gaul and eventually have a Romance language be the common tongue, but is that necessarily the case?

The linguistic makeup of the Spain at the dawn of the eight century A.D. would look as follows: The urban elite speaking Latin and Visigothic, city dwellers speaking a vulgar Latin influenced by the Visigoths, and vulgar Latin with less Gothic influence being the primary language of rural areas.

Linguistically, "Spanish" would be much more like Catalonian without Arab influence.

Politically, the Visgothic empire would eventually become a collection of feudal states like the rest of Europe in the coming centuries, with or without a strong centralized ruler. At any rate, Spanish Unification might be able to come a bit earlier.
 
In "The World of Late Antiquity," Peter Brown claims that the word for "executioner" (verdugo) is the only Visigothic loan word to survive in Spanish. Interesting if true...
 
MOST interesting would be that the Visigothic Monarchs were not chosen by the nobility, but by Bishop councils of the Church. This could have a interesting backlash down the line when a ruler wants to subvert the Church's rule by possibly going full Schismatic.

Indeed, the Visigoths were concentrated here and there

For much of their history in Spain, the Visigoths kept themselves apart from the native Hispano-Roman population. The Visigoths always were a small minority, accounting for less than 12% of their kingdom's estimated population of 10 million. Visigothic settlement was concentrated along the Garonne River between Bordeaux and Toulouse in Aquitaine, and later in Spain and Portugal around the Ebro River, around the city of Mérida, between the upper reaches of the Douro River, in Tierra de Campos also known as Campi Gothorum in Central Castile and León, Asturias and Toledo, and along the Tagus River north of Lisbon. Little Visigothic settlement occurred elsewhere in the kingdom
As for political stability I am not sure of that. They were prone to civil wars and revolts.

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Achila II in the NE and Roderic in the SE.
 
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Delvestius

Banned
Is Catalan really less Arabic-influenced than Spanish? More of their land was occupied by the Moors and they were closer to Arab centers.

The vulgar Latin of Castille and Andalucia retained much more Moz-Arabic (Vulgar Latin written with Arabic Script) than did the areas of the two lateral coasts of Iberia, which is evident by Portuguese's closer grammatical and phonetic ties with Catalan, and Gallo-Romance languages as a whole.

The Arab centers were Cordoba and Granada in Andalucia and Toledo In the area that was to later become the center of the Kingdom of Castile, so it was these areas specifically that evolved separately linguistically.
 
The vulgar Latin of Castille and Andalucia retained much more Moz-Arabic (Vulgar Latin written with Arabic Script) than did the areas of the two lateral coasts of Iberia, which is evident by Portuguese's closer grammatical and phonetic ties with Catalan, and Gallo-Romance languages as a whole.

The Arab centers were Cordoba and Granada in Andalucia and Toledo In the area that was to later become the center of the Kingdom of Castile, so it was these areas specifically that evolved separately linguistically.

But you are still forgetting a very important Basque influence in the early stages of the development of Spanish. The large influence of Basque in Spanish is the reason of Spanish's vowel simplicity, that is only possessing 5 vowel sounds rather than typical 7 for most Romance languages. Imho, in the development of the early Spanish, Basque was much more important than Basque. Arab became an important influence in terms of lending words, especially in particular fields, especially agriculture, but in general, the grammar of Spanish nor its pronunciation patters were particularly influenced by Arab, although that varied from north to south.
 
While I know that they converted to Catholicism at the Third Council of Toledo and ran a healthy slaving economy, everything else is quite vague.

I don't really know about slavery or what importance it had in this period, but I'm sure the economy had already switched to feudal based as in other places of Europe.

Therefore, without the Arab conquests, how would the kingdom develop? Would it eventually get challenged by the Franks or would it collapse in on itself?

When this issue has come other times I've been skeptical about the Franks making many inroads. It says something when sources coincide in that the Franks are more hated than the Goths by the Romanized population - in what would become Catalonia and the Gallo-Mediterranean coast at least. On the other hand, some have pointed that the situation in 711 after Guadalete wasn't that different from that in 507 after Vouillé, and that given a different course of events the kingdom could have already collapsed in the early 6th century, so who knows.

I am curious what language was spoken at the time of the muslim conquest. What percentage of the population still spoke Visigothic, versus Roman, versus pre-Roman languages? It is natural to assume that a continued Visgothic Spain would develop along the lines of Frankish Gaul and eventually have a Romance language be the common tongue, but is that necessarily the case?

Gothic was rare to begin with, and pretty much every author says that it was either dead or dying by the time of the Muslim conquest. The vast majority of the population was Romance speaking, as it was during the times of the Emirate in fact. (Proto/Old/Whatever) Basque was more widespread, but the more Romanized population in the lowlands and the Ebro basin was probably already bilingual. I have no sources to back this, but I'd imagine that Gothic took the definitive peg down when Reccared dismantled the Arian church already in the late 6th century.

Linguistically, "Spanish" would be much more like Catalonian without Arab influence.

Catalan is a Gallo-Romance language whose origin dates back to the Frankish conquest of the Spanish March. All other Iberian languages are Ibero-Romance. The thing is that, when you read texts in Old Galaic-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Old Castilian and Aragonese, they aren't really that different from each other. The language that would have existed in a late-Medieval Visigothic kingdom would resemble these. Obviously, without tangible Arabic or Basque influence (which is the case in Castilian).

In "The World of Late Antiquity," Peter Brown claims that the word for "executioner" (verdugo) is the only Visigothic loan word to survive in Spanish. Interesting if true...

Guerra, yelmo, espuela, guardia, dardo, espía... there are a few more. It's true that all of them are related to war and violence in one way or another, though...

Indeed, the Visigoths were concentrated here and there


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For much of their history in Spain, the Visigoths kept themselves apart from the native Hispano-Roman population. The Visigoths always were a small minority, accounting for less than 12% of their kingdom's estimated population of 10 million. Visigothic settlement was concentrated along the Garonne River between Bordeaux and Toulouse in Aquitaine, and later in Spain and Portugal around the Ebro River, around the city of Mérida, between the upper reaches of the Douro River, in Tierra de Campos also known as Campi Gothorum in Central Castile and León, Asturias and Toledo, and along the Tagus River north of Lisbon. Little Visigothic settlement occurred elsewhere in the kingdom
As for political stability I am not sure of that. They were prone to civil wars and revolts.

What's the source of this? I'm pretty sure that the numbers are wrong. Spain had 10 million people in the 19th century. The numbers I've most often seen for the late Roman period-early Middle Ages are or 4 million people in the Iberian Peninsula. The Goths are estimated as a maximum of 200,000 upon arriving, but probably closer to 100,000 or even less. The Suebi nobility was later absorved into the Gothic but they would have been even less for obvious reasons.

The vulgar Latin of Castille and Andalucia retained much more Moz-Arabic (Vulgar Latin written with Arabic Script) than did the areas of the two lateral coasts of Iberia, which is evident by Portuguese's closer grammatical and phonetic ties with Catalan, and Gallo-Romance languages as a whole.

Portuguese is way closer in origin and pronuntiation to Castilian/Spanish than it is to Catalan as I said before. And it would have been more if the RAE had not been established in the early 18th century and chosen the Madrid dialect as standard, rather than the Toledo or Seville "rule", which had been the two competing standard/high Castilian(s) up till then.
 
When this issue has come other times I've been skeptical about the Franks making many inroads. It says something when sources coincide in that the Franks are more hated than the Goths by the Romanized population - in what would become Catalonia and the Gallo-Mediterranean coast at least. On the other hand, some have pointed that the situation in 711 after Guadalete wasn't that different from that in 507 after Vouillé, and that given a different course of events the kingdom could have already collapsed in the early 6th century, so who knows.


Catalan is a Gallo-Romance language whose origin dates back to the Frankish conquest of the Spanish March. All other Iberian languages are Ibero-Romance. The thing is that, when you read texts in Old Galaic-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Old Castilian and Aragonese, they aren't really that different from each other. The language that would have existed in a late-Medieval Visigothic kingdom would resemble these. Obviously, without tangible Arabic or Basque influence (which is the case in Castilian).

Catalan used to be a dialect of Occitan in the Middle Ages and the Ancestors of Catalans were basically the Occitans who were sent to repopulate Eastern Iberia by Charlemagne.


Northern Italian and Northern Iberian Romance(Castillan, Leonese, Galician and Portuguese) are similar to each other actually.
 
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Delvestius

Banned
But you are still forgetting a very important Basque influence in the early stages of the development of Spanish. The large influence of Basque in Spanish is the reason of Spanish's vowel simplicity, that is only possessing 5 vowel sounds rather than typical 7 for most Romance languages. Imho, in the development of the early Spanish, Basque was much more important than Basque. Arab became an important influence in terms of lending words, especially in particular fields, especially agriculture, but in general, the grammar of Spanish nor its pronunciation patters were particularly influenced by Arab, although that varied from north to south.

Not really.. Most of the later pronunciation differences are from Arabic, and there was noticeable phonetic changes due to from Moz-Arabic. Phonetically and Vocabulary-Wise, Arabic was the #1 influence (besides Latin.)

Catalan is a Gallo-Romance language whose origin dates back to the Frankish conquest of the Spanish March. All other Iberian languages are Ibero-Romance. The thing is that, when you read texts in Old Galaic-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Old Castilian and Aragonese, they aren't really that different from each other. The language that would have existed in a late-Medieval Visigothic kingdom would resemble these. Obviously, without tangible Arabic or Basque influence (which is the case in Castilian).

Yes, but the next sub-family up is Gallo-Iberian, showing how they're all pretty close... While the Iberian languages are all fairly similiar, there are always an outlying languages, with Portuguese being such in this situation. No Arabs means Portuguese would be closer to Catalan, and Spanish would sound closer to Portuguese. Therefore Spanish would end up sounding moreso like OTL Catalan.

Portuguese is way closer in origin and pronuntiation to Castilian/Spanish than it is to Catalan as I said before. And it would have been more if the RAE had not been established in the early 18th century and chosen the Madrid dialect as standard, rather than the Toledo or Seville "rule", which had been the two competing standard/high Castilian(s) up till then.

Because while Portuguese had less Moz-Arabic influence than Spanish they still had some, and therefore they evolved a bit more similarly. I would say the Arab invasion is one of the main catalysts for the Gallo-Iberian split.
 
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I don't really know about slavery or what importance it had in this period, but I'm sure the economy had already switched to feudal based as in other places of Europe.

Could you elaborate a bit on this? Was there much evidence, Post-3rd Council of Toledo (a convenient point of departure from the first stage of the Visigothic state) that the Visigoths were gravitating towards a more feudal, serf-lord estate economy?


When this issue has come other times I've been skeptical about the Franks making many inroads. It says something when sources coincide in that the Franks are more hated than the Goths by the Romanized population - in what would become Catalonia and the Gallo-Mediterranean coast at least. On the other hand, some have pointed that the situation in 711 after Guadalete wasn't that different from that in 507 after Vouillé, and that given a different course of events the kingdom could have already collapsed in the early 6th century, so who knows.

Fascinating. I merely brought the Franks up less as a possibility but more because their influence was always fairly prevalent along the edges and they must have had some sort of contacts with the Visigoths besides Vouille. Was the Visigothic state really that unstable? And if it fell apart, would there be a sort of succession of smaller Visigothic and native Romance states or what?
 
Could you elaborate a bit on this? Was there much evidence, Post-3rd Council of Toledo (a convenient point of departure from the first stage of the Visigothic state) that the Visigoths were gravitating towards a more feudal, serf-lord estate economy?




Fascinating. I merely brought the Franks up less as a possibility but more because their influence was always fairly prevalent along the edges and they must have had some sort of contacts with the Visigoths besides Vouille. Was the Visigothic state really that unstable? And if it fell apart, would there be a sort of succession of smaller Visigothic and native Romance states or what?

I see a problem: if it fell apart, Andalusia at least would incredibly tempting for whoever sits on the African shore of the Strait.
 
I see a problem: if it fell apart, Andalusia at least would incredibly tempting for whoever sits on the African shore of the Strait.

Without the Arabs there isn't much chance of intervention. There is only the small Byzantine fort of Ceuta and the Berbers, most of which are in only semi-sedentary tribal communities and have no means of crossing the Gibraltar, and likely no real interest.
 
Without the Arabs there isn't much chance of intervention. There is only the small Byzantine fort of Ceuta and the Berbers, most of which are in only semi-sedentary tribal communities and have no means of crossing the Gibraltar, and likely no real interest.

So you are assuming that the Arabs are not expanding at all? Ok, then there is not much to be feared in that area on short term.
 
Islam did certainly put a fire in Great Berber States which had been lacking for sometime after the fall of Numidia. Berbers certainly would raid Visigothic Spain, but not on the military agression scale the Arab Raids that so distracted Roderic were. Only after the 11th Century did the region Arabize.
 
A Visigothic Spain without Arab Conquests will mostly play out as in OTL until the Civil war between Roderic and Achilla. Without Arab support it's possible Roderic might win becoming the King of the Visigoths. However I see some possibility from fragmentation. The Galicians which are some descedent of the Suevii will sooner or later leave the Kingdom. We could see a Iberia divided into a Kingdom of Galicia , a Visigothic Kingdom and a Basque Kingdom most likely. Not sure if the Visigoths themselves would crash. No Arab conquest will mean no Portugal, Castille and Aragon developing although the royal house of Pelayo could probably still come to power somehow.
 
In my language textbook from highschool it was held that the romance language during the visigothic kingdom was fairly uniform, and quite similar to the mozarabe language (discounting the arab influence).

Another tidbit was that the vulgar latin language in Hispania had 2 large blocs: the conservative western bloc (formed by the very old senatorial province of Baetica, which granted a higher standard of education, and the provinces of Lusitania and Gallaecia, occupied by Baeticans), and the more evolved central/eastern bloc (Cartaginensis and Tarraconensis, imperial provinces mostly colonized by italian soldiers of lower social extraction).

We could see a Iberia divided into a Kingdom of Galicia , a Visigothic Kingdom and a Basque Kingdom most likely.
Septimania would be another possible splitting point. I understand it was some kind of viceroyalty same as Galaecia.
 
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