The Alfonso II Document of 812, the Annales Portugalenses Veteres and the Continuity of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo as the Kingdom of Asturias

Abstract

The Alfonso II charter of 812 supports our theory that the Kingdom of Asturias was a continuation of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo. From a reading of the document it can be deduced that the determination to recover Hispania stood at the heart of what we call the Reconquest, and therefore simply constituted an attempt to recover the ancient Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, lost as a result of the Muslim invasion of 711. The same idea of continuity is also present, albeit less clearly defined, in the Annales Portugalenses Veteres. Apart from this, the identification of Hispania with the Visigothic Kingdom as one and the same, to the extent that the two terms became interchangeable, was developed in the first quarter of the 7th century by Isidore of Seville, and was reinforced in the second half of that century by Julian of Toledo. However, they were already being treated as equivalent by Gregory of Tours in the second half of the 6th century, by Fredegar, in the mid-7th century, and by the Papal Chancery of Leo II in the last quarter of the 7th century.