Liuvigild was married twice: first to Theodosia, who gave birth to two sons, Hermenegild and Reccared I, and after her death, to Athanagild's widow Goiswintha.
14 Facts About Liuvigild
2.
In 570, Liuvigild "laid waste the region of Bastetania and the city of Malaga, defeating their soldiers".
3.
Whilst preparing to check the imminent advance of the Suebi in 573, Liuvigild received news that his brother Liuva had died, which left him ruler over the entirety of the Visigothic dominions.
4.
Liuvigild made efforts to secure a peaceful succession, a perennial Visigothic issue, by associating his two sons, Hermenegild and Reccared, with himself in the kingly office and placing certain regions under their regencies; namely, making them dukes over Toledo and Narbonne.
5.
Liuvigild modified the old Code of Euric which governed the Goths and created his own Codex Revisus.
6.
Liuvigild repealed old Roman laws dating back to the late 4th century forbidding intermarriage between Visigoths and Ibero-Romans.
7.
Gregory of Tours contended that Liuvigild exceeded his power when he divided the kingdom between his two sons, but it is feasible that he took this action to weaken the authority of the nobles from amid both the Visigoths and the Spanish-Romans.
8.
Sometime during this campaign in 576, Liuvigild's predominance led to the Suebian king Miro rapidly agreeing to a treaty which included paying tribute, if but for a short period.
9.
In 582 Liuvigild then went on to capture Merida, which had been under the political control of its popular bishop Masona since the early 570s.
10.
In 585, Liuvigild conquered the Suebi peoples, bringing an end to some forty-years of their independence in Spain.
11.
However, despite his best efforts, Liuvigild was unable to establish common religious ground between Arian Christians and those of the Catholic majority.
12.
Under Liuvigild, Spain was essentially unified and according to historian Chris Wickham, the "most Roman-influenced legislation of any of the barbarian kingdoms" was enacted.
13.
However, important if not permanent changes in the Spanish realm came when Liuvigild's son Reccared aggressively promoted the Catholic faith at the expense of Arian Christianity, whereby he made Catholicism the official religion of the entire kingdom in 589.
14.
Later successors to Liuvigild included the likes of King Chindasuinth and his son Recceswinth, both of whom reformed Visigothic laws and legal codes that essentially eliminated the distinction between Romans and Goths and which permitted intermarriage between the two peoples.