Creating new Constantines at the end of the sixth century* Santiago Castellanos University of León Abstract The emperor Constantine I (d. ) was important not only during his reign, but also in the following centuries when he was taken as a political role model by several Roman emperors and barbarian kings. This article looks at two of those barbarian kings: Clovis, king of the Franks at the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century, and Reccared, king of the Visigoths (d. ). Both of these kings converted to Catholicism, and both were compared with Constantine. This article analyses the meanings of these comparisons in the political, religious and ideological contexts of the Frank and Visigothic kingdoms. Procedit novos[us] Constantinus ad lavacrum (Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum X, ., on Clovis) renovans temporibus nostris antiquum principem Constantinum magnum (John of Biclar, Chronicon, , on Reccared) At the end of the sixth century A.D. two writers chose to compare two barbarian kings with the Roman emperor Constantine I, who died in . The two authors were contemporaries, both were Catholic bishops, and they wrote their texts in the last few years of the sixth century. However, the two barbarian kings to whom they made reference were not so alike. One of them was Clovis, king of the Franks for a period running from the late fifth century through to the early sixth (he died around ). The other was Reccared, king of the Visigoths, who reigned from the late sixth century just into the seventh (he died in ). One of the writers was Gregory of Tours, who called Clovis a ‘novus Constantinus’.The other was John of Biclar, who also made a comparison with Constantine, but in this case referring to King Reccared. John composed his chronicle at the end of the sixth century, or perhaps in the early years of the seventh (a date of around  has been proposed in the latest critical edition of his work). 1 So there are two ‘new’ Constantines mentioned at the end of the sixth century, although there were nearly  years between them. 2 There was no such * This article forms part of the national research projects HUM- and HAR-. A partial and preliminary version was read at the meeting of the North American Patristics Society held in Chicago in May .The author is grateful to Chris Wickham, who read the draft of this article: his opinion has been very important in the final decision to publish it. 1 Victoris Tunnunensis Chronicon cum reliquiis ex Consularibus Caesaraugustanis et Iohannis Biclarensis Chronicon, ed. C. Cardelle de Hartmann (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (hereafter C.C., S.L.), clxxiii A,Turnhout, ). 2 On Constantine as textual reference in our sources, see E. Ewig,‘Das Bild Constantins des Großen in den ersten Jahrhunderten des abendländischen Mittelalters’, Historisches Jahrbuch, lxxv (), –. On Gregory of Tours as a source, the following should be consulted: J. Wallace-Hadrill,‘Gregory of Tours and Bede: their views on the personal qualities of kings’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, ii (), –; B. Saitta, ‘I Visigoti negli Copyright © 2012 Institute of Historical Research DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2012.00604.x Historical Research, vol. 85, no. 230 (November 2012) Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA02148, USA.