a conspiracy was discovered of which Sisebert, metropolitan of Toledo, was the leader. The aim of this conspiracy was to. slay the king, his sons, and five of the principal officials of the palace. The metropolitan was deprived of his see, excommunicated and sentenced to exile for life, with the confiscation of all his property.
It seems that, during the reign of Egica, there was another more serious conspiracy, directed, not against the king, but against the Visigothic nation. Egica himself denounced it in the royal tomus which he presented to the Seventeenth Council in 694, saying, with reference to the Jews, that, "by their own open confession, it was known, without any shadow of doubt, that the Hebrews in these parts had recently taken counsel with those who dwelt in lands beyond the sea (i.e. in Africa), that they might combine with them against the Christians"; and when accused, the same Jews confirmed before the Council the justice of the charge. What was the cause and what the aim of this conspiracy? The cause may very well have been the legislation recently made by Egica with regard to the Jews, which, though very favourable to the converts who made sincere profession of the Christian Faith — seeing that it exempted them from the general taxes (munera) and from the special payments made by Jews, allowed them to possess Christian slaves and property, and to trade — was unfavourable to the non-baptized and to those who observed the rites of the Jewish Faith, they being burdened with all the taxes from which the first were exempted. We do not exactly know the aim of the conspiracy, although the understanding with the Africans and what happened later in the reign of Roderick give us reason to believe that it was intended to help the Muslims to make another invasion. The Council, regarding the crime as proved, decreed in the eighth canon[1] that all the Jews in the Peninsula should be reduced to slavery and their goods confiscated; it authorised the Christian slave-owners to whom they were consigned to take possession of their sons at the age of seven, and educate them in the Christian Faith, and eventually marry them to Catholics. This law was not enforced in Visigothic Gaul.
During the reign of Egica, the Visigothic code was revised for the last time (693-694).[2] After the manner of his predecessors, Egica
- ↑ Afterwards converted into Law XVIII. Lib. XII. tit. 2 of the Forum Judicum.
- ↑ To judge from the allusion to this revision in the royal tomus presented to the Sixteenth Council, it might be thought that it was an attempt at extensive reform, but it was not so. The revision consisted in a brief amendment of a few of Erwig's laws, and the addition of the new ones made by Egica. The eighteen chapters extracted from nomo-canon, referring to points of public law (the election of sovereign, etc.), which appear as an introduction in manuscripts of later date than the seventh century, are attributed by some scholars to Egica, but this view is rejected by others who, like Zeumer, do not even believe that, during the reign of Egica, anything was added to the edition of Erwig but Erwig's own laws. After the time of Egica, possibly after the fall of the Visigothic power, there appeared a new edition of
