Query: Reccared I destroyed the Visigoths.

Relevant passages:
Reccared I <=SEP=> Reccared I ( or Recared ; Reccaredus Gothic : RekkareÞ ; Recaredo 559 -- 31 May 601 AD ; reigned 586 -- 601 ) was Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania . His reign marked a climactic shift in history , with the king 's renunciation of Arianism in favour of Catholicism in 587 .   Reccared was the younger son of King Leovigild by his first wife Theodosia . Like his father , Reccared had his capital at Toledo . The Visigothic kings and nobles were traditionally Arian Christians , while the Hispano-Roman population were Roman Catholics . The Catholic bishop Leander of Seville was instrumental in converting the elder son and heir of Leovigild , Hermenegild , to Catholicism . Leander supported his rebellion and was exiled for his role .   When King Leovigild died , within a few weeks of April 21 , 586 , bishop Leander was swift to return to Toledo . The new king had been associated with his father in ruling the kingdom and was acclaimed king by the Visigothic nobles without opposition .   In January 587 , Reccared renounced Arianism for Catholicism , the single great event of his reign and the turning point for Visigothic Hispania . Most Arian nobles and ecclesiastics followed his example , certainly those around him at Toledo , but there were Arian uprisings , notably in Septimania , his northernmost province , beyond the Pyrenees , where the leader of opposition was the Arian bishop Athaloc , who had the reputation among his Catholic enemies of being virtually a second Arius . Among the secular leaders of the Septimanian insurrection , the counts Granista and Wildigern appealed to Guntram of Burgundy , who saw his opportunity and sent his dux Desiderius . Reccared 's army defeated the Arian insurgents and their Catholic allies with great slaughter , Desiderius himself being slain .   The next conspiracy broke out in the west , Lusitania , headed by Sunna , the Arian bishop of Mérida , and count Seggo . Claudius , Reccared 's dux Lusitaniae , put down the rising , Sunna being banished to Mauritania and Seggo retiring to Gallaecia . In the later part of 588 a third conspiracy was headed by the Arian bishop Uldila and the queen dowager Goiswintha , but they were detected , and the bishop was banished .   The Third Council of Toledo , organized by St. Leander but convened in the king 's name in May 589 , set the tone for the new Catholic kingdom . The public confession of the king , read aloud by a notary , reveals by the emphatic clarity of its theological points and its quotations of scripture that it was ghost-written for the king . Bishop Leander also delivered the triumphant closing sermon , which his brother Isidore entitled Homilia de triumpho ecclesiae ob conversionem Gothorum a homily upon the `` triumph of the Church upon the conversion of the Goths '' . The text of the homily survives . Leander and the Catholic bishops immediately instituted the program of forced conversion of Jews and extirpation of the remains of Arianism as `` heresy '' . Catholic history traditionally imputes these persecutions to the Visigothic kings . When , after Reccared 's reign , at a synod held at Toledo in 633 , the bishops took upon themselves the nobles ' right to select a king from among the royal family , the transfer of power was complete . By this time the remaining ethnic distinction between the increasingly Romanized Visigoths and their Hispano-Roman subjects had all but disappeared ( the Gothic language lost its last and probably already declining function as a church language with the extirpation of Arianism , and dress & funerary customs also cease to be distinguishing features in ca. 570/580 )   Reportedly Reccared engaged in a vigorous policy against the Jews , pursuing zealous and fanatical policies limiting Jewish freedoms as promulgated in the canons of synods . Modern historians have revised this view and see a continuation of traditional Visigothic tolerance . Pope Gregory I was convinced that Reccared refused bribes from the Jewish community , which was large , well-connected throughout the Mediterranean and powerful , and Reccared 's laws provided that the offspring of a Christian and a Jew be baptised , which was of little moment to the Jewish community , as whether it was not born of a Jewish mother or was born of a Jewish woman outside her community , the child was not considered a Jew anyway . Reccared eliminated the death penalty for Jews convicted of proselytising among Christians and ignored Gregory 's request that the trade in Christian slaves at Narbonne be forbidden to Jews . Among the canons of five synods during Reccared 's reign , E. A. Thompson could find none disadvantaging the Jewish community .   The information for the rest of Reccared 's reign is scanty . John of Biclaro , Reccared 's contemporary , ends his account with the Third Council of Toledo . Isidore of Seville , bishop Leander 's brother , praises his peaceful government , clemency , and generosity : standard encomia . He returned various properties , even some private ones , that had been confiscated by his father , and founded many churches and monasteries . Pope Gregory , writing to Reccared in Aug. 599 ( Epp . ix . 61 , 121 ) , extols him for embracing the true faith and inducing his people to do so , and notably for refusing the bribes offered by Jews to procure the repeal of a law against them . He sent Reccared a piece of the True Cross , some fragments of the chains of St. Peter , and some hairs of St. John the Baptist .   Reccared died a natural death at Toledo and was succeeded by his youthful son Liuva II .

Battle of Guadalete <=SEP=> The Battle of Guadalete was fought in 711 or 712 at an unidentified location between the Christian Visigoths of Hispania under their king , Roderic , and an invading force of the Muslim Berbers and Arabs under the Berber commander Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad . The battle was significant as the culmination of a series of Berber attacks and the beginning of the Islamic conquest of Hispania . In the battle Roderic lost his life , along with many members of the Visigothic nobility , opening the way for the capture of the Visigothic capital of Toledo .   The battle is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Jerez de la Frontera , Battle of La Janda , Battle of the Río Barbate , or Battle of the Transductine Promontories .

Visigoths <=SEP=> The Visigoths ( UK : -LSB- ˈvɪzɪˌɡɒθs -RSB- US : -LSB- ˈvɪzɪˌɡɑːθs -RSB- Visigothi , Wisigothi , Vesi , Visi , Wesi , or Wisi Visigoti ) were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths . These tribes flourished and spread throughout the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity , or what is known as the Migration Period . The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups ( possibly the Thervingi ) who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 . Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable , alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient . The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410 . After the Visigoths sacked Rome , they began settling down , first in southern Gaul and eventually in Spain and Portugal , where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD .   The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans -- a relationship established in 418 . However , they soon fell out with their Roman hosts ( for reasons that are now obscure ) and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse . They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suebi and Vandals . In 507 , however , their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I , who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé . After that , the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania , and they never again held territory north of the Pyrenees other than Septimania . A small , elite group of Visigoths came to dominate the governance of that region at the expense of those who had previously ruled there , particularly in the Byzantine province of Spania and the Kingdom of the Suebi .   In or around 589 , the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arianism to Nicene Christianity , gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects . Their legal code , the Visigothic Code ( completed in 654 ) abolished the longstanding practice of applying different laws for Romans and Visigoths . Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between Romani and Gothi , they became known collectively as Hispani . In the century that followed , the region was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy . ( Little else is known about the Visigoths ' history during the 7th century , since records are relatively sparse . ) In 711 or 712 , a force of invading African Moors defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete . Their king and many members of their governing elite were killed , and their kingdom rapidly collapsed . Gothic identity survived , however , especially in Marca Hispanica and the Kingdom of Asturias , which had been founded by the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius of Asturias after his victory over the Moors at the Battle of Covadonga .   During their governance of the Kingdom of Hispania , the Visigoths built several churches that survive . They also left many artifacts , which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent times . The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses is the most spectacular . They founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty . Many Visigothic names are still in use in modern Spanish and Portuguese . Their most notable legacy , however , was the Visigothic Code , which served , among other things , as the basis for court procedure in most of Christian Iberia until the Late Middle Ages , centuries after the demise of the kingdom .