Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville (born between 560 and 570 with Carthagène ( Cartagena ) - died the April 4th 636) was a Spanish monk of the 7th century, which was metropolitan bishop of Seville ( Sevilla ), capital of the Royaume ic Visigoth, between 601 and 636.
He comes from an influential family (his/her brother, Léandre, friend of the pope Gregoire Large the mainly precedes it with the episcopate by Seville) which largely contributes to convert the Visigoths, ariens, with the Christianity nicéen.
Its history
In 552, Carthago Nova (Carthagène) occupied by the troops of Justinien (483-527-565), Byzantine emperor, was taken again and destroyed by Athanagild (531-554-567), king of the Visigoths of Spain. Sévérien flees with his wife and her two children, Léandre and Florentine, to settle in Seville where this couple of hispano-Romans had, later, two other children, Fulgence and Isidore , born after 560.
Léandre became the abbot of the monastery of Seville, where it had as raises his very young Isidore brother of which he was the tutor, their father having died whereas Isidore was only one child. Léandre became archbishop and occupied the seat archiépiscopal of the Bétique, into 576. After having rejected the arianism, it informed Récarède Ier (555-586-601), and chaired, with him, IIIe council of Tolède, on May 8th, 589, during which the conversion of the king Visigoth to Catholicism became official.
Under the impulse of Léandre, Seville had become an arts center particularly shining, and the episcopal library, enriched by many manuscripts brought of Rome and Constantinople by Léandre, and those brought by the taken refuge Christians of Africa, made it possible to have access to many works, crowned as well as profane. At the entry of the library sévillane, one could read: “It is here many crowned works, many profane works”; it towards trace with him only a whole program.
Isidore accepted a very complete instruction thus and, when Léandre died, in 599/600, the local clergy followed its wish and elected Isidore as bishop.
Haven of peace in the Occident of this end of the 6th century, Spain is called to become like the academy of the ancient culture; the library sévillane is then the center more shining. While giving a priority to the Christian great writers of the IV {{E}} at the 6th century, in particular Augustin (354-430), Cassiodore (485-580), Gregoire Large the (540 - pope 590-604) - this last was the personal friend of its Léandre brother -, Isidore tries to assume this immense heritage in all his diversity. This is why school handbooks and classic authors join, in the sources of its works, with the Latin Fathers oldest: Tertullien (155-222), Cyprien de Carthage (200-258), Hilaire of Poitiers (315-367), Ambroise (340-397).
During its ministry, it had the constant worry of the training and the education of the clerks. It instituted the episcopal schools sévillanes. Drawing from the very rich library of Seville and being pressed on an important team copyists, it compiled an enormous sum of knowledge aiming at equipping the new Catholic church with solids intellectual foundations. This immense work approaches all the fields.
The Byzantine reconquest of the South is definitively stopped into 624, Isidore will celebrate in Swinthila (636-639) “the first monarch to reign on very whole Spain” after having driven out the last Byzantine occupants of them, and with the council of Tolède probably held into 633, by its formula Rex, Gens, Patria (a King, People, a Fatherland), it gathered Hispano-Romans and Goths in only one and even nation, which was going to provide a motivation to future the Reconquista.
For Isidore, royal quality is defined by virtues, primarily by the “iustitia” and the “pietas” (kindness, mercy), and the kings, before “returning accounts to God because of the Church which Christ gave to their defense”, must return accounts to the bishops, who can declare them unable. The bad kings are tyrants who can be reversed, and the bishops can excommunicate those which have enfreint the laws, including the civil laws: Reges has recte agendo vocati sunt, ideoque recte faciendo governed nomen tenetur, peccando amittitur . Thus, just as the bishops are based on monarchy, conversely, the sovereign tends to be pressed on the Church, guarantor of the fidelity and the obedience of its subjects: these principles, which place the bishops under the authority of the king and the king at the disposal of the bishops, will be taken again by Carolingian monarchy .
Its work
Its major work is Étymologies ( Etymologiæ ) consisted of twenty books, which proposes an etymological analysis words divided into 448 chapters. By this work, it tries to give an account of the whole of the ancient knowledge and to transmit to its readers a traditional culture disappearing. Its book has immense re-elected and knows more than ten editions between 1470 and 1530, which shows a continuous popularity until the Renaissance. Its etymological method is a little disconcerting: he explains a word by phonetically close terms (see his definition of the king: Rex has recte agendo : one calls “king” that which acts righteously). The majority of these etymologies, of which made fun many scientists since the Rebirth until our days, want to easily print the words in the spirit of the reader. It contributes to survival during the Moyen-âge of many ancient works by its technique of quotation.
He plays a considerable part in the constitution of the medieval Bestiaire, in particular through book XI of the Étymologies : Of homine and portentis ( the man and the monsters ).
Among its other work, let us quote, in the field of the history: its Chronic (a universal history, which takes again the Chronique Saint Jerome), and its Histoire of Goths ( Of Getarum origin… ), in the field of lexicology: Of differentiis verborum and Synonyma . He is also the author of theological treaties and a rule monacale ( Regula monachorum ). Many of other treaties could come to supplement this list; most important are the Of will natura rerum , treated astrology (inter alia) composed at the request of king Sisebut and the Liber numerorum (theory of the numbers, inspired mainly of holy Augustin).
He is canonized by Rome in 1598 and declared Doctors of the Church in 1722. He is celebrated the April 4th.
Because of the structure of the Etymologies , which points out that of some named databases the Trie S, and precedes the future inventions of the Alphabetical classification, then of the concept of index, Isidore of Seville was proposed, in 2001, like patron saint of the Informaticien S, of the users of the Informatique, Internet and the Internaute S.
External bonds
- the text (in Latin) of the Étymologies is available on the site the Latin Library.
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