Gundemar the Ghost, Isidore the Historian: Rethinking Visigothic History from the Whispers of its Literature

Abstract

In Phantoms of Remembrance, Patrick Geary states that “[t]hose who could control the past could direct the future.”1 Echoing Walter Benjamin’s dictum that the past has meaning according to the chain of significations into which it is put and RG Collingwood’s encapsulation theory, Geary shows that medieval writers selected elements of the past, discarded others, and organized the material into cognitively mnemonic historiographies, using false plots of comprehensiveness to misdirect historical enquiry. Embracing Geary’s interpretative paradigm, this chapter illustrates how early medieval Iberian authors were attuned to the functions of history-writing and employed mnemonic techniques. The exemplar for this is the fascinating story of the reign of the Visigothic King Gundemar (r. ad 610–612), as created by Isidore, bishop of Seville (c. ad 600–636). The following reading reveals what the silences and the whispers of Gundemar across Isidore’s texts suppress, suggests why they do so, and demonstrates the medieval historiographical legacy of Isidore’s attempt to erase Gundemar from historical existence – and thus from all future relevance.