Archdiocese of Mérida-Badajoz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Diocese or Archdiocese of Mérida (dioecesis Emeritensis) was a Catholic and Arian see centred on the Spanish city of Mérida during the periods of Roman and Visigothic rule. Mérida was also the provincial capital of Lusitania.
The see prospered in the late fifth century under Zeno, a Greek, who was offered greater authority in order to defend the province from Suevic raids. At about that time the diocese fell under the control of the Visigoths and it remained a Visigothic see until the Moorish conquest of 711. Throughout that period, however, it only ever had two Gothic bishops: Masona and his successor Renovatus in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. In the mid-sixth century the see became the richest in Spain through the private wealth of bishops Paul and Fidelis, Greek uncle and nephew. Under these four, the city was ruled de facto by the bishops independent of the central government, a situation which led to conflict between the Arian king Leovigild and his bishop, Sunna.
[edit] Suffragan Dioceses
[edit] References
- James, Edward (1980). Visigothic Spain: New Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822543-1.
- Collins, Roger (2004). Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-18185-7.
- Collins, Roger (1992). "King Leovigild and the Conversion of the Visigoths", Law, Culture, and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Great Yarmouth: Variorum. ISBN 0-86078-308-1. Originally published in El Concilio III de Toledo: XIV Centenario, 589–1989. Toledo: Arzobispado de Toledo, 1991.
- Thompson, E. A. (1969). The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-814271-4.
- Thompson, E. A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. ISBN 0 299 08700 X.
