The Churches of the Vascones: an Old Issue and a New Archaeological Record (6th and 7th centuries)

Abstract

Until recently, the archaeological record of the Vascones from the 6th and 7th centuries has consisted of the group of necropoleis characterised by inhumation habillée and the weapon deposits which have been either discovered or rediscovered since the 1980s. Thanks to recent excavations, it is now possible to consider the role of the churches in the archaeological record, as the small church of Finaga in Biscay and the Alegría-Dulantzi baptismal basilica in Álava have been added to the Cathedral of Pamplona. This paper firstly reviews the historiography marked by the tenacity of the late paganism thesis, and holds that the issue surrounding the chronology and depth of Christianisation has come to a standstill. Secondly it proposes an approach based on archaeological data, focused on examining the relationship between the funerary facies of the Vascones and the churches. This relationship reveals that there was no breach between the rites performed in the open-air necropolis and those linked to the churches; it shows that ad sanctos burials occupied an important place in the preferences of the leading groups in Vasconia; and ultimately, it suggests that the churches played a decisive role in the articulation of these groups and in the realisation of their internal relationships and their external contacts with the Hispano-Visigoths and the Merovingians.