[Gutenberg 51511] • An encyclopedist of the dark ages: Isidore of Seville

This volume was published in 1912.

From the book's Preface:

The writer of the following pages undertook, at the sug-

gestion of Professor James Harvey Robinson, to translate

passages from Isidore's Etymologies which should serve

to illustrate the intellectual condition of the dark ages. It

soon became evident that a brief introduction to the more

important subjects treated by Isidore would be necessary,

in order to give the reader an idea of the development of

these subjects at the time at which he wrote. Finally it

seemed worth while to sum up in a general introduction the

results of this examination of the Etymologies and of the

collateral study of Isidore's other writings which it in-

volved.

For many reasons the task of translating from the Ety-

mologies has been a difficult one. There is no modern criti-

cal edition of the work to afford a reasonable certainty as

to the text; the Latin, while far superior to the degenerate

language of Gregory of Tours, is nevertheless corrupt; the

treatment is often brief to the point of obscurity; the ter-

minology of ancient science employed by Isidore is often

used without a due appreciation of its meaning. However,

the greatest difficulty in translating has arisen from the

fact that the work is chiefly a long succession of word deri-

vations which usually defy any attempt to render them into

English.

In spite of these difficulties the study has been one of

great interest. Isidore was, as Montalambert calls him,

le dernier savant du monde ancien, as well as the first Chris-

tian encyclopaedist. His writings, therefore, while of no

importance in themselves, become important as a phenome-

non in the history of European thought. His resort to

ancient science instead of to philosophy or to poetry is

suggestive, as is also the wide variety of his ' sciences '

and the attenuated condition in which they appear. Of

especial interest is Isidore's state of mind, which in many

ways is the reverse of that of the modern thinker.

It is perhaps worth while to remark that the writer has

had in mind throughout the general aspects of the intel-

lectual development of Isidore's time: he has not at-

tempted to comment on the technical details — whether ac-

curately given by Isidore or not — of the many * sciences '

that appear in the Etymologies. The student of the history

of music, for example, or of medicine as a technical sub-

ject, will of course go to the sources.

...........................................................................

Saint Isidore of Seville (Spanish: San Isidro or San Isidoro de Sevilla, Latin: Isidorus Hispalensis) (c. 560 – 4 April 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal) were based on his histories.

At a time of disintegration of classical culture, and aristocratic violence and illiteracy, he was involved in the conversion of the royal Visigothic Arians to Catholicism, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville, and continuing after his brother's death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville.