In early ecclesiastical annals Toledo has less shadowy claims on remembrance as the seat of several councils, the most celebrated being those of 396, 400, 589. The minutes of the second council are preserved in the local archives. Miss Hannah Lynch makes merry over the fathers’ spirited denunciations of her sex. In truth, the irreverent reader is reminded of those other fulminations launched in the diocese of Rheims against certain persons unknown, and of the poet’s surprised comment on their want of effect. The sex fared better at the hands of the Council, however, than vegetarians and mathematicians, both of whom were excommunicated downright. Neither class is numerous in Spain at the present day, so the labours of the fathers may not have been altogether ineffectual. THE CITY UNDER THE VISIGOTH During the fifth century the Toledans may well have listened with attention to spiritual discussions, for looking forth from their rocky perch, they beheld the kingdoms of the earth passing away, and all that had seemed stable and eternal fading like the morning mist. The final breaking-up of the great world-controlling power was evident. Nations, the very names of which the men of the south had never heard, loomed from out the darkness of the north, and swept like a cloud of locusts over the land. The whole of Spain was desolate. Toledo, ever grim and stubborn, stood prepared to die hard. The tide of Vandal invasion surged in vain round her walls; then spent its fury in the south. The Visigoths established themselves in southern France. Under Walya they had overrun Spain, but had exchanged it, willingly enough, for Aquitania. Euric the Balthing, who succeeded his brother Theodoric as king in 466, seems to have repented of the bargain. He reconquered all Spain, except Galicia, which was held by the Suevi, and took Toledo. Where the Vandal had failed, the Visigoth succeeded. In the first years of the sixth century the Franks stripped Euric’s grandson, Amalaric, of practically all his possessions north of the Pyrenees, and the kingdom of the Visigoths became synonymous with Spain. Its capital was Narbonne during the troubled reigns of Theudis and Theudigisel. But in 553 Athanagild was elected king. His wife was the sister of the Bishop of Toledo, and partly on that account, perhaps, but more probably because of its central position, he made that city his capital. That rank it retained during the continuance of the Visigothic monarchy, with the brief interval of the reign of Liuba, who succeeded Athanagild in 567 and removed his Court to Narbonne.