n to the invaders. “Even if all limbs were turned into tongue, human nature will never at all be able to tell of the ruins of Spania and indeed such great evils that befell all of it,” the Mozarabic Chronicler wailed.40
In 714 the last Visigothic king, Ardo, took power in a pathetic kingdom reduced to a strip of land between Béziers (today in France) and Barcelona. He clung on there for about seven years, and when he died in 720 or 721, the Visigoths were done. Whether this rapid fall of a three-hundred-year-old ruling power stemmed more from the fragility of their rule or from the sheer irresistibility of the Muslims on the charge is a moot point, and not an easy one to answer given
Powers and Thrones
Dan Jones