Metropolitan bishop of Emerita Augusta (modern Mérida), the capital of the Roman and then Visigothic province of Lusitania, in the last quarter of the 6th century CE, Mausona (or Masona; fl. 570/600 CE) is noted for his resistance to the “Arian” Gothic king Leovigild (586–601 CE), and for his pastoral activities and material benefactions to his see. These aspects of his career are recorded almost exclusively in the anonymous hagiographic collection (Hagiography) known as the Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium or “Lives of the Holy…