Tulga, rey de los Visigodos (Museo del Prado)

Tulga or Tulca (living 642) was

Visigothic The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

Hispania Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hi ...

Septimania Septimania (french: Septimanie ; oc, Septimània ) is a historical region in modern-day Southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septim ...

and

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

from 640 to 642, if his father died in December 640, as some sources state. Other sources have his rule beginning as early as 639 or ending as early as 641. He came after his father Chintila in another vain attempt to establish dynastic kingship.

Biography

In 642,

Chindasuinth Chindasuinth (also spelled Chindaswinth, Chindaswind, Chindasuinto, Chindasvindo, or Khindaswinth ( Latin: Chintasvintus, Cindasvintus; 563 – 30 September 653) was Visigothic King of Hispania, from 642 until his death in 653. He succeeded Tul ...

, a Gothic warlord, who may have been as old as 79, commenced a rebellion. He had command of the frontier with the

Basques The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Ba ...

. He saw the crown's weakness, and a convention of nobles (landholding Goths) and other Gothic inhabitants at Pampalica (probably modern

Pampliega Pampliega is a municipality and town located in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2005 census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a g ...

) proclaimed him king without the support of the church. According to

Sigebert of Gembloux Sigebert of Gembloux (Sigebertus Gemblacensis; 1030 – 5 October 1112) was a medieval author, known mainly as a pro-Imperial historian of a universal chronicle, opposed to the expansive papacy of Gregory VII and Pascal II. Early in his life ...

, the rebel deposed Tulga in Toledo and

tonsure Tonsure () is the practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp as a sign of religious devotion or humility. The term originates from the Latin word ' (meaning "clipping" or "shearing") and referred to a specific practice i ...

d him, sending him to live out his days in a monastery, since monks were ineligible for the elective throne. However, Saint Ildephonsus of Toledo says that the rebellion failed without the church's support and Chindasuinth succeeded only on the death of Tulga. Modern historians consider it is impossible to discern the truth.

Sources

* ''El Libro de La Genealogía de Los Reyes de España'' * Alonso de Cartagena, Bonifacio Palacios Martín, Biblioteca Nacional (Spain), Faustino Menéndez Pidal de Navascués. Contribuidores Bonifacio Palacios Martín, Biblioteca Nacional Editor Scriptorium, 1995 , * Roger Collins, ''Early medieval Spain: unity in diversity, 400-1000'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995) , 9780312126629 7th-century Visigothic monarchs {{europe-noble-stub