ABSTRACT
For the historian, establish a precise chronological marker is a difficult task completion. More complex even if the study period is framed with the stamp of a time of crisis, as Late Antiquity. Dubbed by some as the "Low Empire", for others the "High Middle Ages", the Late Antique world (II-VIII centuries) is presented as a carrier of "identity" as they pointed at the time Brown and Marrou, in which the idea of crisis should be replaced by more current as would be the transformation or retrofit concepts. In this study, based on political and institutional elements, we analyze how, gradually, became the passage of imperial power imposed on the choice of a single ruler to a multiplicity of emperors and kings always supported by aristocratic groups interested in participating and grant such powers in roman barbarian's monarchies heirs of imperial authority in the Roman West. In particular, we take a special look to the Hispano Visigothic monarchy of the sixth and seventh centuries that kept some important political elements of Roman imperial past.
Keywords:
Late Antiquity; Roman-barbarian monarchies; Hispano-Visigoth Kingdom of Toledo