The Hispano-Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (of the sixth and seventh centuries) is considered by historians to have been a Romano-barbarian monarchy that, more or less, preserved the political and institutional elements of the former Roman imperial polity. However, scholars should remember that certain theoretical conceptions – such as that which placed the rex gothorum as the true primus super pares within the sociopolitical environment of the Hispano-Visigothic kingdom – are not consistently reflective of the practical attitudes described in our manuscripts and reveal an intense dispute between segments of the aristocracy and the crown. In this essay, I will analyze how this dichotomy serves as a starting point for illustrating how Hispano-Visigothic institutions existed de facto, how their action was limited by the difficult coexistence between various aristocratic groups, and how this friction facilitated the weakness of Hispano-Visigothic royal power.