A charter/royal diploma issued by Reccared, king of the Visigoths, records his gift of fiscal properties to the monastery at Asán (north-east Hispania) dedicated to the Apostles *Peter and *Paul (S00036 and S00008), *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030), *Vincent (deacon of Zaragoza and martyr of Valencia, S00290), *Eulalia (virgin and martyr of Mérida, S00407), and *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050). Written in Latin at Toledo (central Hispania), 13 December 586.
E08428
Documentary texts - Donation document
Documentary texts - Charter or diploma
Les chartes visigothiques du monastère d'Asán, 6
<D>ominis sanctis ac beatissimis et in Christi honore gloriosis Petro et Paulo apostolis, atque Stephano, Vincentio et Eulalie martyribus, necnon et sancto Martino episcopo et confessori in monasterio Asani constituto Recaredus rex. Tunc glorie nostre credimus inuenire apud Deum ueniam peccatorum, dum ecclesiis Dei aliquid de fisco nostro offerimus. Et ideo sanctitati uestre de nostra donamus largitate locella, que condam Bagauda episcopus cellule uestre per suam concessit donacionem et fisco nostro fuerat applicitum. Similiter et quod Licinianus episcopus in territorio Ylerdensi, Barbutano, Terrantonensi et Boletano tenuisse uisus est, id est, prestante fisco nostro, solidos nouem, cum mancipiis, terris, uineis et stiuola de Bergot <et> Bego cum omni iure suo, sicuti a memoratis episcopis noscitur fuisse possessum, pro luminaribus uel stipendiis pauperum uestre beatitudini presente auctoritatis nostre uigore, gloriae uestre fusa prece, concedimus atque donamus, quatenus pro hac re in futuro seculo nostre serenitati merces adcrescat copiosa et beatitudo uestra temporum perpetuitate ex nostro munere possidere ualeatis. Data sub die idus decembris anno primo regni nostri Toleto.
'To the holy and most blessed lords, glorious in Christ's honour, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the martyrs Stephen, Vincent and Eulalia, and also Saint Martin, bishop and confessor, in the monastery of Asán: King Reccared. We believe our glory receives forgiveness of sins from God, when we offer His churches something from our fisc. And therefore we grant to your holiness from our largesse a little place, which Bishop Bagauda formerly granted through his donation, which was transferred to our fisc. Similarly, we grant and donate to your beloved, through the power of our present authority, and upon the pleas of your glory, what Bishop Licinianus is seen to have held in the territories of Lérida, Barbastro, Tierrantona and Boltaña, that is, through the concession of our fisc, nine solidi, with slaves, lands, vineyards and the small pasture of Broto and Vio with everything in its right, just as the aforesaid bishop is known to have possessed it, for lights and for the sustenance of the poor, so that through this, in future times, the copious rewards of our serenity might increase, and your beloved might prevail to possess this, our gift, forever. Given on the Ides of December, in the first year of our reign [13 December 586], at Toledo.'
Text: Martin and Larrea 2021, 243.
Translation: B. Savill.
Cult building - monastic
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMonarchs and their family
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Source
Six sixth-century charters survive in later copies from the Pyrenean monastery of Asán, now the Real Monasterio de San Victorián, Sobrabe, c. 50 km south of the current Spanish-French border. Four of these were only published for the first time in 2017, following their discovery in a sixteenth-century manuscript in Madrid (Tomás-Faci and Martín-Iglesias, 2017). Besides being exceptionally rare witnesses to Visigothic/Iberian documentary culture, which is hardly attested before the eighth century, these texts are also (alongside, most notably, the Ravenna papyri) some of our earliest examples of pre-c. 600 charters from anywhere in the Latin west.Discussion
This is the second of two extant charters from Asán to record saints' dedications at the site, and the only one of the pair to have certainly been issued within the Iberian peninsula. From this perspective, it may be significant that the opening clause of this charter (assuming it is a faithful copy of the original document) expands upon its earlier, Narbonne counterpart (E08427) in also mentioning dedications to the principal martyrs of Hispania, Eulalia and Vincent.The interconnections between Asán and central Gaul indicated by the monastery's co-dedication to Martin are further illustrated by an epitaph in praise of Victorianus, an earlier abbot of the foundation, by Venantius Fortunatus (E05692), who himself wrote extensively on the cult of Martin.
Bibliography
Editions and studiesG. Tomás-Faci and J.C. Martín-Iglesias, 'Cuatro documentos inéditos del monasterio visigodo de San Martín de Asán (522-586),' Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 52 (2017), 261-86.
C. Martin and J.J. Larrea, eds., Nouvelles chartes visigothiques du monastère pyrénéen d'Asán (Bordeaux, 2021).
Benjamin Savill
17/03/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00290 | Vincentius/Vincent, deacon of Zaragoza and martyr of Valencia | Vincentius | Certain | S00407 | Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida | Eulalia | Certain |
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