Sisebut

Who was Sisebut?

Sisebut was Visigothic King of Hispania, Septimania and Galicia from 612 until his death.

He campaigned successfully against the remains of Byzantine power in Spania, strengthened Visigothic control over the Basques and Cantabrians, developed friendly relations with the Lombards of Italy, and reinforced the fleet which had been established by his predecessor Leovigild.

In 616, he ordered that those Jews who refused to convert to Christianity should be punished with the lash. He was closely associated with the scholar and encyclopaedist Isidore, bishop of Seville, and is usually regarded as the author of a Latin poem on astronomy, Carmen de Luna or Praefatio de Libro Rotarum, dedicated to a friend who is identified with Isidore.

He married firstly to an unknown wife, by whom he had a daughter Theodora, born circa 590, who married Suintila, and secondly to his son in law's illegitimate sister, bastard daughter of Reccared I by Floresinda, by whom he had a son Reccared II.