Isidore of Seville and the Liber Iudiciorum: The Struggle for the Past in the Visigothic Kingdom

Isidore of Seville and the “Liber Iudiciorum” establishes a novel framework for re-interpreting the Liber Iudiciorum (LI), the law-code issued in Toledo by the Visigothic king Recceswinth (649/653-672) in 654. The LI was a manifestation of a vibrant dialectical situation, particularly between two networks of authority, Isidore-Seville and Toledo-Agali, a defining characteristic of the discourse coloring the fabric of writing in Hispania, c. 600-660. To more fully imagine the meaning, significance and purposes of the LI, this book elicits this cooperative competition through a series of four case-studies on writing in the period. In addition to offering an alternative historiography for the LI, this book expands the corpus of “Visigothic Literature” and introduces what the author refers to as “Gothstalgie.”
Michael J. Kelly lectures history, critical theory, and the philosophy of history at Binghamton University (SUNY) and is Director of Networks and Neighbours and Gracchi Books (gracchibooks.org). He edited Theories of History: History Read Across the Humanities (Bloomsbury, 2018), with Arthur Rose.