Christian. They afterwards founded a
kingdom, with Lyons for capital, between the Rhone and the Saone. Their
king Gundobald was Arian. But Arianism was not universal; and Patiens,
bishop of Lyons, who died in 491, maintained the Catholic doctrine. A
conference between Catholics and Arians in 499 converted few. But Avitus,
bishop of Vienne, gained influence with Gundobald, so that he inclined to
the Catholic Church, which his son Sigismund, in 517, openly professed. The
Burgundian kingdom was united with the Frankish from 534.

The Sueves had founded a kingdom in Spain under their king Rechila, still a
heathen. He died in 448. His successor, Rechiar, was Catholic. When king
Rimismund married the daughter of the Visigoth king Theodorich, an Arian,
he tried to introduce Arianism, and persecuted the Catholics, who had many
martyrs--Pancratian of Braga, Patanius, and others. It was only between 550
and 560 that the Gallician kingdom of the Sueves, under king Charrarich,
became Catholic, when his son Ariamir or Theodemir was healed by the
intercession of St. Martin of Tours, and converted by Martin, bishop of
Duma. In 563 a synod was held by the metropolitan of Braga, which
established the Catholic faith. But in 585, Leovigild, the Arian king of
the larger Visigoth kingdom, incorporated with his territory the smaller
kingdom of the Sueves. Catholicism was still more threatened when Leovigild
executed his own son Hermenegild, who had married the Frankish princess
Jugundis, for becoming a Catholic. But the martyr's brother, Rechared, was
converted by St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, and in 589 publicly
professed himself a Catholic. This faith now prevailed through all Spain.

The Vandals, rudest of all the German peoples, had been invited by Count
Boniface, in 429, to pass over from Spain under their king Genseric to the
Roman province of North Africa. They quickly conquered it entirely.
Genseric, a fanatical Arian, persecuted the Catholics in every way, took
from them their churches, banished their bishops, tortured and put to death
many. Some bishops he made slaves. He exposed Quodvultdeus, bishop of
Carthage, with a number of clergy, to the mercy of the waves on a wretched
raft. Yet they reached Naples. The Arian clergy encouraged the king in all
his cruelties. It was only in private houses or in suburbs that the
Catholics could celebrate their worship. The violence of his tyranny, which
led many to doubt even the providen