Letter 24

An epistola from the Fourth Council of Toledo [633] addressed to the Visigothic clergy, communicating the council's sweeping legislation on ecclesiastical organization, liturgy, and royal-church relations. Presided over by Isidore of Seville, the Fourth Toledo council standardized the Hispano-Mozarabic rite, established uniform procedures for episcopal elections, and defined the proper relationship between Visigothic kings and the church. Its canons represent the high point of Visigothic ecclesiastical achievement and remained authoritative in Iberia through the Umayyad conquest and beyond.