Read Ebook: An encyclopedist of the dark ages: Isidore of Seville by Brehaut Ernest

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 396 lines and 98151 words, and 8 pages

PART I INTRODUCTION

PAGE 1. Importance of Isidore 15 a. Place in history of thought 15 b. Influence 17

PART II THE ETYMOLOGIES

BOOK I ON GRAMMAR Introduction 89 Analysis 92 Extracts 95

BOOK II 1. ON RHETORIC Introduction 105 Analysis 107 Extracts 111 2. ON LOGIC Introduction 113 Analysis 115 Extracts 115

BOOK V 1. ON LAWS Introduction 164 Extracts 166 2. ON TIMES Introduction 173 Extracts 175

BOOK X ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WORDS Extracts 214

BOOK XX ON PROVISIONS AND UTENSILS USED IN THE HOUSE AND IN THE FIELDS Analysis 263

BIBLIOGRAPHY 270

PART I

INTRODUCTION

ISIDORE'S LIFE AND WRITINGS

The development of European thought as we know it from the dawn of history down to the Dark Ages is marked by the successive secularization and de-secularization of knowledge. From the beginning Greek secular science can be seen painfully disengaging itself from superstition. For some centuries it succeeded in maintaining its separate existence and made wonderful advances; then it was obliged to give way before a new and stronger set of superstitions which may be roughly called Oriental. In the following centuries all those branches of thought which had separated themselves from superstition again returned completely to its cover; knowledge was completely de-secularized, the final influence in this process being the victory of Neoplatonized Christianity. The sciences disappeared as living realities, their names and a few lifeless and scattered fragments being all that remained. They did not reappear as realities until the medieval period ended.

This process of de-secularization was marked by two leading characteristics; on the one hand, by the loss of that contact with physical reality through systematic observation which alone had given life to Greek natural science, and on the other, by a concentration of attention upon what were believed to be the superior realities of the spiritual world. The consideration of these latter became so intense, so detailed and systematic, that there was little energy left among thinking men for anything else.

The r?sum? that Isidore offers is strikingly complete. In this respect he surpasses all the writers of his own and immediately preceding periods, his scope being much more general than that of his nearest contemporaries, Boethius and Cassiodorus. He goes back here to the tradition of the encyclopedists of the Roman world, Varro, Verrius Flaccus, Pliny, and Suetonius, by the last of whom he is believed to have been especially influenced. Few writers of any period cover the intellectual interests of their time so completely. To understand Isidore's mental world is nearly to reach the limits of the knowledge of his time.

The influence which he exerted upon the following centuries was very great. His organization of the field of secular science, although it amounted to no more than the laying out of a corpse, was that chiefly accepted throughout the early medieval period. The innumerable references to him by later writers, the many remaining manuscripts, and the successive editions of his works after the invention of printing, indicate the great r?le he played. From the modern point of view the real benefit he conferred upon succeeding centuries was that in his encyclopaedic writings he presented to the intelligent the fact that there had been and might be such a thing as secular science; while the blunders in which he was continually involved, and the shallowness of his thinking, offered a perpetual challenge to the critical power of all who read him. There was contained in his writings also, as we shall see, the embryo of something positive and progressive, namely, the organization of educational subjects that was to appear definitely in the medieval university and dominate education almost to the present day.

For a fuller understanding of Isidore's historical setting some attention must be given to the country in which he lived. Spanish culture in the early middle ages seems to have been relatively superior. It is well known that the country had been thoroughly Romanized. How complete the process had been may be judged from the list of men of Spanish birth who had won distinction in the wider world of the empire; it includes the two Senecas, Lucan, Quintilian, Martial, Hyginus, Pomponius Mela, Columella, Orosius, and the two emperors, Trajan and Hadrian. In fact Spain had lost its individuality and had become an integral part of the Roman world, little inferior in its culture even to Italy itself; and the close of Roman rule found the people of Spain speaking the Latin language, reading the Latin literature, and habituated to Roman institutions and modes of thought.

Moreover the continuity of this ancient culture had been perhaps less rudely disturbed in Spain than elsewhere by the shock of the barbaric invasions. Here its geographical situation stood the country in good stead; the barbarian frontier was far away and the chances were that barbarians destined by fortune to enter Spain would first spend much time in aimless wandering within the empire, with consequent loss of numbers and some lessening of savagery. Such, at least, was the case with the Visigoths, who alone of the barbarians proved a permanent factor in the country's development. They were first admitted to the empire in 376, and must have passed largely into the second generation before they began to penetrate into Spain, while the real conquest by them did not begin until much later. "At the time of their appearance as a governing aristocracy in Spain" they "had become by long contact with the Romans to all intents and purposes a civilized people." They were thus in a position to coalesce with the Romanized natives, and that this was largely brought to pass is shown by the conversion of the Arian Goths to orthodoxy, the removal of the ban of intermarriage between the two races, the use of Latin in all official documents, and finally by the establishment of a common law for both peoples. The "sixty-one correct hexameters" of the Visigothic king Sisebutus , compared, for instance, with the absolutely hopeless attempts of Charlemagne two centuries later to learn the art of tracing letters, show plainly that Spanish culture had not sunk to the level of that of other parts of the western empire.

Another factor in the history of Spain at this time that may have had a slight influence on the culture of the country was the reoccupation of the southeastern part of the country by the Eastern Empire, which lasted from Justinian's time down to 628. The region so held included even Seville for some years.

Of Isidore's life surprisingly little is known, considering the bulk and importance of his writings and his later fame. All that can be ascertained of his family is that it belonged originally to Cartagena, that it was of the orthodox religion, and that the names of its members are Roman. It is extremely probable that it belonged to the Hispano-Roman element of the population. That Isidore and his two brothers were bishops may be taken to show that of whatever origin the family was, it was one of power and influence.

Severianus, Leander, Fulgentius, Florentina.

A word may be said of his elder brother, Leander, who was a man of perhaps greater force than Isidore himself. Born at Cartagena, he became a monk, and later, bishop of Seville. He was the chief leader of the orthodox party in its struggle against "the Arian insanity", and in the heat of the conflict was obliged to absent himself from Spain for a time. He visited Constantinople and there became the friend of Gregory the Great. Returning to Spain, we find him, under king Reccared in 587, presiding over the council of Toledo, at which the Visigothic kingdom turned formally from Arianism. Leander was a man of action rather than a writer, but according to Isidore he engaged in controversy with the heretical party, "overwhelming the Arian impiety with a vehement pen and revealing its wickedness". He wrote also a little book, which we still have, "On the training of nuns and contempt for the world", and contributed music and prayers to the church service. There seems to be no doubt that Leander was the foremost churchman of his time in Spain. The prestige of his name must have made it easier for his successor, Isidore, to devote himself to the intellectual rather than to the administrative leadership of the church.

As to Isidore's early years our only authentic information is that his parents died while he was still young, and left him in the care of Leander. It is very probable, however, that he looked forward from the beginning to the clerical life which his brothers had chosen and that he therefore went through the educational routine as laid down for churchmen, which was practically the only formal education of the time. The best proof of this lies in the fact that Isidore wrote text-books of the liberal arts--a task that would have been well-nigh impossible to one who had not been drilled in them in his youth.

Isidore succeeded his brother Leander in the bishopric of Seville probably in the year 600. His few remaining letters, written in the stilted religious phraseology of the day, give the impression that he was much consulted on ecclesiastical and political matters, and that he held a position of primacy among the Spanish bishops; but on the whole they contain remarkably little that is of personal interest. From the records of the councils we learn that he presided at the second council of Seville in 619, and probably also at the fourth of Toledo in 633. According to a contemporary account written by a cleric named Redemptus, he died in April of 636. No other details of importance are known about his life. His career must have been a placid and uneventful one, and evidently much of his time was spent on his voluminous writings, which were the means by which he won his great ascendancy over the minds of his contemporaries.

Isidore, in his life of Leander , says: " fluorit sub Reccaredo ... cujus etiam tempore vitae terminum clausit." Ildephonsus, in his life of Isidore , says of him, "Annis fere quadraginta tenens pontificatus honorem" . Gregory the Great has a letter to Leander and one to Reccared belonging to the year 598-599 .

Isidore, a man of great distinction, bishop of the church of Seville, successor and brother of bishop Leander, flourished from the time of Emperor Maurice and King Reccared. In him antiquity reasserted itself--or rather, our time laid in him a picture of the wisdom of antiquity: a man practiced in every form of speech, he adapted himself in the quality of his words to the ignorant and the learned, and was distinguished for unequalled eloquence when there was fit opportunity. Furthermore, the intelligent reader will be able to understand easily from his diversified studies and the works he has completed, how great was his wisdom.... God raised him up in recent times after the many reverses of Spain , and set him as a sort of support. And with good right do we apply to him the famous words of the philosopher: "While we were strangers in our own city, and were, so to speak, sojourners who had lost our way, your books brought us home, as it were, so that we could at last recognize who and where we were. You have discussed the antiquity of our fatherland, the orderly arrangement of chronology, the laws of sacrifices and of priests, the discipline of the home and the state, the situation of regions and places, the names, kinds, functions and causes of all things human and divine."

From this characterization, as well as from the very brief life by another contemporary, Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo, it is evident that Isidore impressed his own age chiefly as a writer and man of learning. Both Braulio and Ildephonsus give lists of his works. That of the former, who was Isidore's pupil and correspondent, is the fuller, and may be regarded as the more reliable. With its running comment on the content of each title, it is as follows:

Many of the ancients sought to define the differences of words, making some subtle distinction between word and word. But the heathen poets disregarded the proper meanings of words under the compulsion of metre. And so, beginning with them, it became the custom for writers to use words without proper discrimination. But although words seem alike, still they are distinguished from one another by having each an origin of its own. Cato was the first of the Latins to write on this subject, after whose example I have in part written myself of a very few, and have in part taken them from the books of the writers.

Quadam propria origine.

Although, as I know, you excel in talent and eloquence and in the varied accomplishments of literature , you are still anxious for greater attainment, and you ask me to explain to you something of the nature and causes of things. I, on my part, have run over the works of earlier writers, and am not slow to satisfy your interest and desire, describing in part the system of the days and months; the goals of the year, as well, and the changes of the seasons; the nature also of the elements; the courses of the sun and moon, and the significance of certain stars; the signs of the weather, too, and of the winds; and besides, the situation of the earth, and the alternate tides of the sea. And setting forth all things as they are written by the ancients, and especially in the works of catholic writers, we have described them briefly. For to know the nature of these things is not the wisdom of superstition, if only they are considered with sound and sober learning. Nay, if they were in every way far removed from the search for the truth, that wise king would by no means have said: "Ipse mihi dedit horum quae sunt scientiam veram ut sciam dispositionem coeli et virtutes elementorum, conversionum mutationes, et divisiones temporum, annorum cursus et stellarum dispositiones."

Wherefore, beginning with the day, whose creation appears first in the order of visible things, let us expound those remaining matters as to which we know that certain men of the heathen and of the church have opinions, setting down in some cases both their thoughts and words, in order that the authority of the very words may carry belief.

See p. 64.

See p. 24.

See p. 126.

The secret of this inclusiveness lay, however, not in an expanded, but in a contracted interest. Although Isidore is not surpassed in comprehensiveness by any one of the line of Roman encyclopedists who preceded him, in the quality of his thought and the extent of his information he is inferior to them all. Secular knowledge had suffered so much from attrition and decay that it could now be summarized in its entirety by one man.

In spite of this it is very clear that if Isidore had treated these topics with any degree of reference to the actual realities of his own time, he would have left us a work of inestimable value. But he did not do so; he drew, not upon life, but upon books for his ideas; there was no first-hand observation. Moreover, the books which he consulted were, as a rule, centuries old. He tells us practically nothing concerning his own period, in which so many important changes were taking place. For example, there are repeated and detailed references to the founding and early history of Rome, but no direct allusion to the political and social changes brought about by the disintegration of the Roman Empire; trifles attributed to a period thirteen centuries earlier seemed to interest him more than the mighty developments of his own epoch. Again, although he writes upon law, he does not appear to have heard of the Justinian code issued a century before; and in his chronology he fails to mention the proposal for a new era in chronology made also a century before his time by Dionysius the Less.

See p. 46.

See p. 165.

See p. 175.

ISIDORE'S RELATION TO PREVIOUS CULTURE

It has been shown that by a combination of circumstances, geographical, political, and religious, Spain in Isidore's day was more fortunately situated than the remainder of western Europe. Conditions there were ripe for an expansion of intellectual interest beyond the narrow bounds to which the growth of religious prejudice and the uncertainties of life had reduced it. In this expansion, in which it was Isidore's part to lead, it was inevitable that the chief element should be an attempt to re-appropriate what had been lost in the preceding centuries, and to adapt it in some measure to the changed conditions of life and thought which had arisen.

The point has been made that Isidore shows his ignorance of the Greek language by the mistakes he made in the use of Greek words in his derivations. A few examples selected almost at random may be useful in this connection, although it must be remembered that the possibility of corruption in the text is always great.

What aspects, then, of the Latin literary tradition, which alone has to be taken into account, are of importance as giving an understanding of Isidore and his works?

To him, no doubt, the literary past seemed to be filled chiefly with the succession of Christian writers from Tertullian to Gregory the Great. These, starting out with a religion to which a primitive cosmology was tenaciously attached, were really engaged in amalgamating with it the less hostile items of the Graeco-Roman intellectual inheritance. Men like Augustine were occupied in de-secularizing the knowledge of their times; that is, in reshaping it so that it should fill a subordinate place in the religious scheme and so support that scheme, or at least not be in opposition to it. Orosius' feat of reshaping history so that it was subservient to religion, is a good example of what was going on in every field. Such secular knowledge as was allowed to exist was brought into more or less close relation to the religious ideas that dominated thinkers, and whatever could not be thus reshaped tended to be rejected and forgotten. The nearest approach to an exception to this is found in the subjects that had formed the educational curriculum of the Greeks and Romans. These offered robust opposition to de-secularization; and though they were attenuated to almost nothing, they succeeded in maintaining their separate existence. This process of de-secularization was about complete by the time of Cassiodorus; in him we have an intellectual outlook that recognizes, outside of the religious scheme, only the seven liberal arts.

See p. 83.

On the other hand, there was the pagan literary tradition, which owed all the value that it possessed to contact with Greek culture. Except in the field of legal social relations, the Romans made no original contribution to civilization. They had no proper curiosity concerning the universe, and so could do no thinking of vital importance concerning it. Anything approaching scientific thought in the modern sense was absolutely unknown to them. Therefore, while most of their writers were prosaic and secular in their habit of mind and free from mystical leanings, the intellectual possession of the Romans was not of the close-knit rational character which would have enabled them to resist successfully the avalanche of Oriental superstition which descended on the Western world in the centuries after the conquest of the East. Secular thought in the Roman civilization was thus doomed to undergo a process of decay.

In the works of Pliny and Suetonius, who followed Varro and Verrius Flaccus, natural science is brought into the foreground. The change, however, was but slight. The natural science of the Romans was anything but scientific; neither experiment, systematic observation, nor research had ever been practiced among them. Their science was an affair of books and was of an authoritative character. Even the poets were looked upon as possessing scientific knowledge and were seriously quoted to maintain scientific theses. There was no real distinction between the natural and philological sciences of the time, and therefore the encyclopedia of literary criticism was closely allied with that of natural science.

The body of knowledge gathered together under all these influences possessed little of a positive nature. It was informed by no general ideas of a striking character and it entirely lacked the element of reasoned proof. Since its science was a science of authority, it was easy for the Christian writers to modify it by substituting the authority of the Scriptures for that of pagan writers. In fact, the encyclopedias furnished to the church fathers secular knowledge in a particularly convenient and unobjectionable form. Augustine, especially, made great use of Varro. It can be seen that this literary form was better adapted than any other to pass with unbroken continuity from ancient into medieval literature.

See p. 91.

See pp. 106, 114.

ISIDORE'S WORLD VIEW

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet