8 - Converting the Kings

Summary

Chapter 8 is devoted to the ways in which some Nicene bishops attempted to persuade kings to convert, illustrated by the examples of Avitus of Vienne and Leander of Seville, and to conversion as a political project and as a theme of the ideology and theology of kingship in late sixth-century Visigothic Hispania. Conversion and royal rule in Gaul and Hispania were also linked to another important phenomenon: the cult of saints. Thus, in this chapter three cults that played an important role in Nicene–Homoian relations are analysed: the cults of the apostle Peter in Burgundy, of Martin of Tours in Gaul, and of Eulalia of Mérida in Visigothic Hispania.