Visigothic Kingdom
By the 5th century A.D., the Visigoths were already romanized people, who considered themselves the heirs of the defunct imperial power. In the middle of that century, the threefold pressures of the Suevi, from the west (Galicia), the Cantabrian-Pyrenaic herdsmen from the north and the Byzantines from the south, the Betica, forced them to establish their capital in Toledo, in the centre of the Peninsula. This decision had implications of great significance; in the first place, because, instead of an east-west delineation of the Peninsula, pivoting between Lisbon and Cartagena, a north-south delineation from Cantabria to the Strait of Gibraltar was created.
It was also significant because it constituted a first attempt at Peninsular unity idependent of the rest of the empire, and therefore the Visigoths have been considered, practically up to the present day, the creators of the first Peninsular kingdom, moreover the Visigothic kingdom would serve, time and again, as the source of legitimacy for any power which tried to unite Hispania, and thirdly, because the Pyrenees and Gibraltar, no longer considered mere places of passage or points within a larger imperial circuit, became the limits or frontiers of a state to be defended.
The Visigoths defended themselves well against the Suevi in Galicia and subdued them in the 6th century A.D.; however, in the north, the Basques, Cantabrians and Asturians were more successful in resisting the Visigoth onslaught than they had been in resisting the Romans, and were almost as adept as they would be against the Moors. The Betica, from the 6th to the 11th century A.D., constituted an exception within western Europe. Facinf a continental Europe which was increasingly closed and fragmented, it would maintain its urban culture and its commercial and cultural connections within the Mediterranean domain; firstly, with the eastern Roman Empire, with Byzantium and later with the Muslim Caliphate.
