Liuva I

Liuva I succeeds his father Athanagild after an interregnum of five months and becomes king of the Visigoths.

He is made king at Narbonne following the death of Athanagild in 567.

Roger Collins notes this was the first time a Visigothic king is mentioned in the northeastern region of the realm since 531, when Amalaric was murdered.

He suggests Liuva's coronation near the border with the Franks was because of renewed threats from that neighbor; under Guntram, the Franks are known to have posed more of a threat to the Visigoths.

Liuva, who is favored by the Visigoth nobles, rules in Septimania, the Visigothic lands north of the Pyrenees.

A short period of anarchy that follows the death of King Athanagild in April 567, following which his brothers Liuva and Liuvigild, or Leovigild, succeed to the throne of the Visigoths.

Both are Arian Christians.

Liuvigild, who rules in Hispania, marries Athanagild's widow, Goisvintha, his first wife, Theodosia, the mother of his sons, having died.

The brothers Liuwa and Liuvigild, led by the latter, have banished the imperial civil servants and worked to unify the Iberian Peninsula.

Their efforts are more or less successful, except in the north, where the Basques, Cantabrians, and Asturians manage to hold out against them.

They maintain trade connections with the Eastern Roman Empire, thus maintaining Hispania’s urban culture as well as its commercial and cultural connections within the Mediterranean area.

By this time the language of the Visigoths is no longer Germanic, the Latin of Hispania having evolved into into what will become Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Liuvigild’s War Against the Suebi and the Establishment of the Duchy of Cantabria

Liuvigild's campaign against the Suebi continues until the death of his brother Liuva in 571–572 CE. By this time, he has successfully expelled the Suebi from their strongholds at León and ...

...Zamora, thus enlarging his kingdom to the north and west as well.