King Wamba

Dear Friends,

Let me tell you about the fantastic career of King Wamba. He was a Visigoth king of Spain from 672–680 A.D. The Visigoths had a devil of a time trying to have a system of stable succession. Usually, the king tried to hand it on to his son, but then someone would assassinate someone else and then there would be a lot of in-fighting. Sometimes the Church would step in to try to stabilize things (not very successfully), and it almost always ended up being succession by “election.”

Wamba (whose name/nickname might have meant “big paunch”) did not want to be king. He was actively trying to avoid being king. But then some other nobles came and forced him to accept the crown at sword point.

Having become king, he proved to be highly effective, successfully subduing other groups of barbarians and fighting off other people who wanted to invade Spain.

Then, randomly seven years into his rule, he suddenly fell down and was believed to be dead or dying. So, they began preparing him for death. One of the practices at the time was to tonsure dying kings as a sign of humility and so that they could enter into God’s presence as members of the clergy.

But then…

Wamba woke up! He came out of the coma, was fine, and ready to continue on with whatever he had been doing.

However, by Visigoth law members of the clergy were not allowed to allowed to be king. Because he had been tonsured, he was, technically speaking, a member of the clergy. So, Wamba retired, and his nephew became king.

Thus ended the rule of King Wamba.

It is generally believed that his nephew or another rival to the throne actually gave Wamba a sleeping potion and shaved the tonsure for the purpose of removing him from kingship. Oddly, it succeeded because Wamba didn’t contest it. Unfortunately, his successor was not as effective a leader. Further infighting among the Visigoth kings and king-wanna-be’s eventually allowed Muslim invaders to take control of Spain with relatively little opposition.

Pax, Friends,

DS