Ecclesiastical Landscapes in the Visigothic Capital and Countryside of Toledo (Spain)

With its strategic geographic location near the major Roman roads in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, Toledo was the Visigoth capital under Theudis in the year ad 546 until the collapse of the kingdom in the early eighth century. Most of the evidence of its architectural power linked to new local elites is located in the countryside rather than in the city of Toledo. Archaeology has attested the collapse of the Roman territorial model and its substitution by a medieval one. This model is characterized by the appearance of monumental complexes, in which monastic and sacred complexes linked to the aristocracies of Toledo acquired preference, key for understanding the social, cultural, and economic dynamics of the fifth and the eighth centuries.