in this same
sixth century there was in Spain another Frankish queen, who not only
held steadfastly to her own faith, but was the indirect means whereby
all the country was induced to abandon the Arian creed. The native
Catholic clergy, under the leadership of Leander, a most noted
churchman, and Bishop of Seville, had long urged the necessity of such a
change, but the Goths were unwilling to submit; and so matters stood
until Prince Hermenegild, urged on by Leander, and most of all by his
wife Ingunda, led a revolt against his father, King Leovgild. The revolt
was not a success, but the star of the Athanasian party was rising
rapidly, and the open stand of the queen for the Latin doctrines gave
great impetus and power to the whole movement. The triumph was complete
when Leovgild's son and heir, Recared, saw that further opposition was
useless and publicly announced his conversion to the faith of Rome.

In the early history of the Church in Spain there are many interesting
references to women which are not generally known, but which reveal, on
the whole, a condition of affairs similar to that which was to be found
in other parts of Europe at the same time. Monasteries were probably
unknown in the peninsula before the middle of the sixth century, but
from a very early day it is certain that women as well as men were
taking vows of perpetual chastity and devoting themselves to a life of
holy works. Early in the fourth century the Council of Elvira prescribed
penalties for professed nuns who might desire to reenter the world, and
the Council of Saragossa, in 380, declared that no virgin should be
allowed to devote herself to a religious life until she had reached the
mature age of forty years. That same Council of Elvira was the first in
the history of the Church to ordain the celibacy of the secular clergy,
and its thirty-third canon forbade the bishops, priests, and deacons of
the peninsula to live as husbands with their wives. In the year 591, the
first Synod of Toledo, over which Bishop Leander presided, enacted
various canons which give some interesting sidelights on the times. It
appears that ecclesiastics had already been forbidden to keep women
servants in their houses, but the rule was so often disregarded that it
was enacted that in the future, as a punishment for such intractable
churchmen, their servants should be sold as slaves and the proceeds
handed over to some charitable organization. In just what way this