With its seat in the city of Córdoba, this bishopric – the most eastern of those analysed in this book – is by far the place from which we have the most data. Within its vast territory, one also finds several magnificent examples of religious and funerary architecture from Late Antiquity that will be thoroughly analysed. For this reason, the next chapter is extensive, much more so than the other chapters dedicated to bishoprics from which, unfortunately, we do not have the same amount of information. First we will discuss the city, which retained its importance throughout the period, as evidenced by the archaeological remains found inside and outside its walls. Later, we will examine the territory of the bishopric, which is full of interesting data on the transformation of the landscape through architectural complexes that have been excavated for years. This information has never before been comprehensively collected and presented together. Indeed, this study is the first global analysis of all these data, which will allow us to reconstruct in a very detailed way the landscape of ecclesiastical power in the territory controlled by the ancient capital of Baetica.

The City of Córdoba

Despite the numerous excavations carried out in recent years throughout the city (Fig. 3), no remains of late antique fortifications or defensive walls have been found. This would suggest that, as in many other cases, the walled perimeter of Roman times diminished or changed substantially. The latest excavations define a walled perimeter from Roman times, though they provide no data on whether there were subsequent reforms, or at what moment these might have been carried out. Therefore, it is generally accepted that the urban perimeter barely changed in Late Antiquity.

Only in one case, in the south of the city, do we find a possible location of the late antique defensive perimeter, with structures that have been interpreted as a castellum attached to the wall of the Roman period. We will call this Building Complex C11. It is such a broad area that it is difficult to make a synthesis. There are two lines of thought about this place: the hypothesis by Marfil, followed by other authors, which we might call the ‘great facility’ theory; and the most recent view defended by Leon and Murillo, which we might call as the ‘castellum’ theory.