subservient to the court, but surely the evidence points the other way.
On the whole it was the king that lost power, though no doubt as a
compensation he gained somewhat more authority over Church matters. He
could, for instance, issue temporary regulations with regard to Church
discipline. Witiza, one of the last of the Gothic kings, seems even to
have authorized, or at least encouraged, the marriage of his clergy.[2]
The king could preside in cases of appeal in purely ecclesiastical
affairs; and we know that Recared I. (587-601) and Sisebert (612-621)
did in fact exercise this right. He also gained the power of nominating
and translating bishops; but it is not clear when this privilege was
first conceded to the king.[3] The Fourth Council of Toledo (633)
enacted that a bishop should be elected by the clergy and people of his
city, and that his election should be approved by the metropolitan and
synod of his province: while the Twelfth Council, held forty-eight years
later, evidently recognizes the validity of their appointment by royal
warrant alone. Some have referred this innovation back to the despotic
rule of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, at the beginning of the sixth century;
others to the sudden accumulation of vacant sees on the fall of Arianism
in Spain. Another important power possessed by the kings was that of
convoking these national councils, and confirming their acts.

[1] In 531 A.D.

[2] Monk of Silo, sec. 14, who follows Sebastian of Salamanca;
Robertson, iii. 6. We learn from the "Chron. Sil," sec. 27,
that Fruela (757-768) forbade the marriage of clergy. But these
accounts of Witiza's reign are all open to suspicion.

[3] Robertson, "Hist. of Christian Church," vol. iii. p. 183.