The Visigoth king Alaric II sapphire seal dates from the 4th century, its gold setting from the 16th. - MSR

  • 1,600 years ago, the Visigoths settled in Toulouse and its region, where they founded a kingdom that would last almost a century.
  • The Saint-Raymond museum is offering a fascinating exhibition, until September 27, to discover this little-known barbarian people, and to dismantle the received ideas clinging to their long hair.

In his work, the director Jean-Marie Poiré has never shown a particular taste for Late Antiquity. However, two allusions to the Visigoths are slipped into the heart of the Visitors (1993), where the medieval Jacquouille (Christian Clavier) and Godefroy de Montmirail (Jean Reno) consider that these barbarians spoke "a language of the devil". This video extract is present - along with many others - in the exhibition “Visigoths, Kings of Toulouse” inaugurated this Thursday, erudite but also playful.

Until September 27, the Saint-Raymond museum (MSR) retraces for adults as for young audiences the fascinating epic of these Eastern Germans, from present-day Poland, in the 1st century AD. Until Vouillé, near Poitiers, in 507. This lost battle against the Franks of Clovis, marked by the death of King Theodoric II, marks the end of the kingdom of Toulouse, born almost a century more early in 418 or 419, within a Roman Empire ending in the West.

Laure Barthet in front of a panel of the exhibition dedicated to the Visigoths, at the Saint-Raymond museum in Toulouse. - Nicolas Stival / 20 Minutes

History will continue, on the Mediterranean shore and in Spain, until the 8th century. But this is no longer the subject of an exhibition rich with more than 250 objects loaned by a multitude of European museums, which endeavors to shoot down clichés always relayed by popular culture, as in the yet excellent Asterix among the Goths . "Our Visigoths have suffered the double punishment," regrets Laure Barthet, director of the MSR. Relegated to the shadow of the Romans, they were also overshadowed by their frank victors in the national narrative, unlike Spain.

More esteemed in Spain than in France

While French romantic painters of the 19th century fantasized Merovingian rulers with lush hair, their Iberian counterparts imagined Visigothic kings with haughty but often debonair port, visible at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Far from the image of low-ceilinged welders who irritate today's historians.

"The Visigoths, from the 4th century, were in contact with the Roman Empire and already had a high level of cultural, technological and economic development, in addition to their own cultural fund which dated from several centuries, testifies Jean-Luc Boudartchouk, deputy director of Inrap and associate curator of the exhibition. The Goth people are one of the very great barbarian peoples, in the technical sense of the term, that is to say non-Roman. "

#expoWisigoths
Prepare the models for the parade it's sporty 😅 pic.twitter.com/dPR8EP2hFr

- Saint-Raymond Museum (@MSR_Tlse) February 21, 2020

The “Goth people” also includes the branch of the Ostrogoths, masters of Italy in the first half of the sixth century. However, those over 40 remember that comparing someone to an "ostrogoth", which is no longer done, is anything but flattering ... During the exhibition, we come across the reconstruction of a costume of warrior of the 4th century, in every respect similar to that of the Roman soldier who could be found opposite. Never seen in France until now, the superb cut, the torque and the eagle-shaped fibula extracted from the treasure of Pietroasa (Romania) testify to the high technical level of Gothic craftsmen.

The cup in gold, silver, garnet and tourmaline, with two panther-shaped handles, from the treasure of Pietroasa, in Romania (late 4th-early 5th century). - Marius Amarie / National Museum of Romanian History

"Under the Visigoth kingdom, we continue to trade in the region," observes Laure Barthet. Toulouse is prosperous. No, the subjects of Alaric I and II or Euric were not followers of "we come, we pillage and we go." "Contrary to what has long been claimed, the Goths have left a mark on Toulouse," continues the head of the MSR. Not very far from Saint-Pierre square, we found traces of a very large building which could be the royal residence of the Visigothic kings. "

The Seysses necropolis, an exceptional discovery

The remains of this probable palace were drowned under concrete in the late 1980s. But archaeologists have made major new discoveries in recent years, such as this vast necropolis rich with 149 tombs studied at Seysses, southwest of Toulouse. , between March and October 2018. Visitors to the MSR can discover the sarcophagus of the "Lady of Seysses", a young woman in her twenties, whose splendid ring has miraculously escaped looters.

“Will we find habitats associated with cemeteries? We still have a lot to know, says historian Emmanuelle Boube, associate curator of the event. There will always be common places on the Visigoths but the exhibition will contribute to their reduction. Furthermore, it is not the word "barbarian" which is troublesome, but the meaning attributed to it. When we see the treasure of Pietroasa, there is something barbaric, but in the sense of extraordinary, not pejorative. "

Here we are far from the words of this notable Toulouse of the early nineteenth century, reproduced on the first panel of the exhibition, which evoked the "club of ignorance" Gothic came to shatter the Roman heritage of Toulouse.

Society

1,600 years ago, they made Toulouse their capital ... But who were the Visigoths?

Toulouse

Toulouse: Will the sarcophagi of the Saint-Sernin basilica reveal their secrets?

  • History
  • Museum
  • Toulouse
  • Society
  • Exposure