Thomas Deswarte

2026-2027

SMI CNRS

UMR9016

Politics and religion in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (586–711).

Thomas Deswarte, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Angers, specialises in the history of the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula during the Early Middle Ages (6th– 11th centuries), with a particular focus on their political, religious and cultural aspects. He is also interested in several scholarly sciences namely diplomatics (notably the study of forgeries), palaeography, codicology and ecdotic philology. His most recent work reflects a particular interest in the Visigothic period.

The defeat of the Visigothic king Alaric II at Vouillé (507) led to the disappearance of his kingdom in Aquitaine and its reconstitution in Hispania and Narbonensis. Centred around Toledo, it quickly established itself as one of the most powerful kingdoms in the West, whilst its king, Recaredo, adopted Nicene Christianity in 589. My working hypothesis is that this kingdom, which developed largely outside the Pope's sphere of influence without ever formally denying his primacy, experienced – to a greater extent than in the Frankish kingdom – a strong union between Church and State, and between the political and the religious spheres. By examining the modalities of the Christianisation of politics, I aim to analyse how political and religious powers and their relationships were conceived, and to highlight the specifically religious logics at work in royal legislation as well as the political stakes involved in conciliar assemblies. Four concepts seem to dominate this field of study: Caesaropapism, conciliarism, theocracy and the sacralisation of kingship.

DESWARTE, Thomas, Une Chrétienté romaine sans pape. L’Espagne et Rome (586-1085), Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2010 (Bibliothèque d’Histoire médiévale, 1).

DESWARTE, Thomas (dir.), Les folios introductifs de l’Antiphonaire de León (Archivo de la Catedral de León, ms. 8, fol. 1-27). Étude et édition, Turnhout, Brepols, 2024 (« Bibliologia », 66).
 

CIXILA DE TOLEDE, Vie et hauts faits de saint Ildephonse de Tolède, ed., trad. et com. Thomas Deswarte, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2025 (Bibliothèque d’Histoire médiévale, 42).
 

DESWARTE, Thomas, HERBERS, Klaus, NIMMEGEERS, Nathanaël (dir.), Epistola 4. La lettre dans son environnement, IVe-XIe siècle, Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2024 (Collection de la Casa de Velázquez, 197).
 

DESWARTE, Thomas, « Isidore of Seville and the Hispanic Order of Grades. Considerations on the De ecclesiasticis officiis and the Epistola ad Leudefredum », Sacris Erudiri, LVIII, 2019, p. 361-375.
 

DESWARTE, Thomas, « Tolède III (589) et Tolède IV (633) : deux conciles, deux conceptions du pouvoir », La dramatique conciliaire de l’Antiquité à Vatican II, Charles Mériaux, Guillaume Cuchet (dir.), Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2019, p. 275-293.