Sisebut was King of the Visigoths and ruler of Hispania and Septimania from 612 until his death in 621. His rule was marked by forced Christian conversion, anti-Judaic measures, Roman-like administration, and intellectual cosmopolitanism.
Golden Tremissis of Sisebutus rex
Imagined portrayal of Sisebut in a statue in Toledo
The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived.
Visigothic Kingdom
Theodoric I by Fabrizio Castello (1560–1617)
Clovis I fights the Visigoths
Visigothic pseudo-imperial gold tremissis in the name of Emperor Justinian I, 6th century: the Christian cross on the breast defines the Visigothic attribution. (British Museum)