page_title: Kingdom of the Suebi
section_title: Annexation
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of the Suebi / 6th century and annexation / Annexation
context_page_description: The Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallæcia or Suebi Kingdom of Gallæcia, was a Germanic post-Roman kingdom that was one of the first to separate from the Roman Empire. Based in the former Roman provinces of Gallaecia and northern Lusitania, the de facto kingdom was established by the Suebi about 409, and during the 6th century it became a formally declared kingdom identifying with Gallaecia. It maintained its independence until 585, when it was annexed by the Visigoths, and was turned into the sixth province of the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania.
context_section_description: After the conquest, king Leovigild reintroduced the Arian Church among the Sueves, but this was a short-lived institution, because after his death in 586 his son Reccared openly promoted the mass conversion of Visigoths and Sueves to Catholicism. Reccared's plans were opposed by a group of Arian conspirators; its leader, Segga, was exiled to Gallaecia, after his hands were amputated. The conversion occurred during the Third Council of Toledo, with the assistance of seventy-two bishops from Hispania, Gaul and Gallaecia. There, eight bishops renounced their Arianism, among them four Suevi: Argiovittus of Porto, Beccila of Lugo, Gardingus of Tui and Sunnila of Viseu. The mass conversion was celebrated by king Reccared: "Not only the conversion of the Goths is found among the favours that we have received, but also the infinite multitude of the Sueves, whom with divine assistance we have subjected to our realm. Although led into heresy by external fault, with our diligence we have brought them to the origins of truth". He was styled as "King of the Visigoths and of the Suevi" in a letter sent to him by Pope Gregory the Great soon after.
  Under the Goths, the administrative apparatus of the Suevi Kingdom was initially maintained —many of the Suevi districts established during the reign of Theodemar are also known as later Visigothic mints— but during the middle years of the seventh century an administrative and ecclesiastical reform led to the disappearance of most of these mints, with the exception of that of the cities of Braga, Lugo and Tui. Also the northern Lusitanian bishoprics of Lamego, Viseu, Coimbra and Idanha-a-Velha, in lands which had been annexed to Gallaecia in the fifth century, were returned to the obedience of Mérida. It has been also pointed out that no visible Gothic immigration took place during the 6th and the 7th century into Gallaecia.
  The last mention of the Sueves as a separate people dates to a 10th-century gloss in a Spanish codex: "hanc arbor romani pruni vocant, spani nixum, uuandali et goti et suebi et celtiberi ceruleum dicunt" ("This tree is called plum-tree by the Romans; nixum by the Spaniards; the Vandals, the Sueves, the Goths, and the Celtiberians call it ceruleum"), but in this context Suebi probably meant simply Gallaeci.
caption: Suebic Gallaecia, Visigothic Hispania and Byzantine Spania, c. 560 AD