Alaric II
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Alaric II (d. 507) was the eighth king of the Visigoths and succeeded his father Euric or Evaric in 485. His dominions not only included the whole of Hispania except its north-western corner, but also Aquitaine and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis. In religion Alaric was an Arian, like all the early Visigothic nobles, but he greatly mitigated the persecuting policy of his father Euric towards the Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of Agde. He was on uneasy terms with the catholic bishops of Arles as epitomized in the career of the Frankish Caesarius, bishop of Arles, born at Châlons and appointed bishop in 503. Caesarius was suspected of conspiring with the Burgundians to turn over the Arelate to Burgundy, whose king had married the sister of Clovis, so Alaric exiled him for a year safely at Bordeaux in Aquitaine before allowing him to return unharmed when the crisis had passed (Wace, Dictionary (http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/iii.iii.iv.htm)).
He displayed similar wisdom and liberality in political affairs by appointing a commission to prepare an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which should form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects. This is generally known as the Breviarium Alaricianum, or Breviary of Alaric.
Alaric was of a peaceful disposition, and endeavoured strictly to maintain the treaty which his father had concluded with the Franks, whose king Clovis I, however, desiring to obtain the Gothic province in Gaul, found a pretext for war in the Arianism of Alaric. The intervention of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths and father-in-law of Alaric, proved unavailing. The two armies met in 507 at the Battle of Vouillé, near Poitiers, where the Goths were defeated, and their king, who took to flight, was overtaken and slain, it is said, by Clovis himself.
His son, Amalaric was still a child, so he was succeeded by his illegitimate son, Gesalic.
See also History of Spain.
| Preceded by: Euric | King of the Visigoths | Followed by: Gesalec |