The Goths, from the earliest times to the end of the Gothic dominion in Spain . that long afterwards his goldenshoes, and his horse Orclio, were found in the mudof the stream. The third legend is like that whichwas afterwards told of Harold of England—how thedefeated and wounded king escaped from the battle-field, and lived for many years in a hermitage undera feigned name, devoting himself to prayer and toself-mortification in atonement for his sins. It isthis last version that Southey has used in his poem of* Roderick, the Last of the Goths. END OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM. 361 Such is the story o
The Goths, from the earliest times to the end of the Gothic dominion in Spain . that long afterwards his goldenshoes, and his horse Orclio, were found in the mudof the stream. The third legend is like that whichwas afterwards told of Harold of England—how thedefeated and wounded king escaped from the battle-field, and lived for many years in a hermitage undera feigned name, devoting himself to prayer and toself-mortification in atonement for his sins. It isthis last version that Southey has used in his poem of* Roderick, the Last of the Goths. END OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM. 361 Such is the story of Rodcric, as it is told bySpanish and Arabic writers of the thirteenth andlater centuries. Perhaps it may contain fragmentsof true history here and there ; but what we reallyknow of Roderics reign is little more than this, thathis defeat on the Guadalete was the end of theGothic kingdom of Spain. Almost unresisted, theconquerors spread over the land, taking possessionof city after city, until the green flag of the Prophetwaved from the towers of the royal palace XXXVI. CONCLUSION. The Visigoths were never driven out of Spain asthe Ostrogoths were driven out of Italy. They re-mained to become, Hke the older inhabitants of thecountry, subjects of the Moors. Under the Mo-hammedan dominion the two Christian peoples,drawn together by their common hatred of the infidel,and by their common aspirations after freedom,became finally one nation. The story of the Gothsmerges now into the story of Spain. Yet even through the seven centuries of Moorishdominion the descendants of the native Spaniardscontinued to look up to the descendants of the Gothsas to their natural leaders and chiefs. After thebattle on the Guadalete the Goth Theudemcr, theformer viceroy of Southern Spain under Roderic,betook himself with a small band of men to theeastern coast, and there defended himself so valiantlythat the conquerors allowed him to establish a tribu-tary Christian kingdom in Murcia, wher
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgoths, bookyear1887
