In these two epitaphs, Eugenius II of Toledo shows the power of his poetry. The first epitaph is for King Khindaswinth, king of the visigoths. It is important to note that during the reign of Khindaswinth and the time of Eugenius II, religious architecture dominated Toledo. This “Visigothic” architecture consists of high overlapping arches with slightly pointed tops. The map below includes pictures to help visualize this.
In the epitaph itself, there is a bitter and vengeful tone to Eugenius’ writing- he claims Khindaswinth is the “friend of mischief and perpetrator of crimes”. Eugenius proceeds to almost stand the king on trial because there is “no crime he did not commit”. This is interesting because Khindaswinth is the one who appointed Eugenius as bishop, this begs us to ask the question: why is there such hateful tone towards the king who brought the bishop his power?
In the next epitaph for Queen Reciberga, the tone of the poetry is much gentler. We do not know if Eugenius knew the Queen Reciberga as closely as he knew the king, but clearly the bishop did not despise the King as much as the first epitaph sets the grounds for.
Below we see the map of Toledo- one of the many cities in Spain where Constable draws his primary sources:
Please see source: Medieval Iberia by Olivia Constable
Constable, Olivia Remie. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 1997. Print.