es of Aurelius, etc., we find Leovigild spoken of as a very
"Leo vigilans."

But in spite of outbreaks like these we must beware of judging the
venerable Elipandus too hardly. Alcuin himself, in his letter to the
bishop, written, as he says, "with the pen of charity," speaks of him as
most blameless,[1] and confesses that he has heard much of his piety and
devotion, an admission which he also makes with regard to Felix, in a
letter to him.[2] Yet in his book against Elipandus, he exclaims, not
without a touch of bathos: "For all the garments of wool on your
shoulders, and the mitre upon your brow, wearing which you minister to
the people, for all the daily shaving of your beard[3] ... if you
renounce not these doctrines, you will be numbered with the goats!"
Another testimony (of doubtful value, however) in Elipandus' favour is
to be found in the anonymous life of Beatus,[4] where Elipandus is said
to have succeeded Cixila in the bishopric of Toledo, because of his
reputation for learning and piety, which extended throughout Spain.

[1] "Sanctissime praesul," sec. 1. Cp. sec. 6, "Audiens famam
bonam religiosae vitae de vobis."

[2] "Celeberriman tuae sanctitatis audiens famam." The "Pseudo
Luitprand" calls him "Vir humilis, prudens, ae in zelo fidei
Catholicae fervens."

[3] Beards were the sign of laymen, see Alvar, "Ep.," xiii.,
and probably the distinction was much insisted on because of
the Moslem custom of wearing long beards. For the distinctive
dress of the clergy see the same letter of Alvar, ... "Quern
staminia et lana oviuin religiosum adprobat."

[4] See Migne, xcvi., 890 ff.

Elipandus, who boasted of having refuted and stamped out the Migetian
errors, and who also took up so independent an attitude with regard to
the See of Rome, was not the man to endure being dictated to in the
matter of what was, or what was not, sound doctrine, and, in the letter
quoted above, he scornfully remarks that he had never heard that it was
the province of the people of Libana to teach the Toledans. Here, as in
the defiant attitude taken up towards the Pope, we may perhaps see a
jealousy, felt by the old independent Church of Spain under its own
primate, towards the new Church, that was growing up in the mountains of
the North, the centre of whose religious devotion was soon to be
Compostella, and its spiritual head not the primate of Spain, but the
bishop of Rome.

It i