60 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINGaul. The greatest debt owed in this direction was to the sermon
collections of Caesar ius of ArIes (502-542), one of which became the
basis of the homiliary used by the Church of Toledo in the seventh
century.' But as the Spanish Church itself produced writers of the
calibre of Isidore of Seville and Ildefonsus and Julian of Toledo, so
it became increasingly closed to outside influences beyond those
privileged ones of Augustine, Fulgentius and Gregory the Great. The
florilegia of the Visigothic period are made up of extracts from the
writings of these authorities. This is not just a matter of isolation or
of self-satisfaction. A brief glance at the intellectual landmarks of the
seventh-century Mediterranean world in general is sufficient to show
both how unusually vital the Spanish Church of that time was, and
how little anywhere else, even the Byzantine Empire, had to offer it.
With its own products, and the heritage of the writings of some of the
best minds of former centuries, whose like was no longer to be found,
it could remain justifiably proud, even into the period of Islamic
domination.
In Isidore of Seville, the Church of the Visigothic period had its
most distinguished and most prolific author. His debt to his brother
Leander is hard to determine, for the latter's surviving works only
comprise a brief treatise on aspects of the monastic life for women,
addressed to his sister Florentina, and the sermon he delivered at the
third Council of Toledo in 589. Isidore also refers in his On Famous
Men to Leander's liturgical compositions, but these are now lost.
However, Leander's influence was important. It was probably he who
built up the resources of the episcopal library at Seville, and was
Isidore's principal teacher. Their father's name was Severianus, and
the family apparently moved from Cartagena to Seville sometime in
the mid sixth century. Both Leander and Isidore are Greek names
and are most unusual in a western context, so it is quite conceivable
that the family was of Byzantine origin, like the episcopal dynasty of
Paul and Fidelis at Merida. Isidore also had another brother Fulgentius,
who became Bishop of Ecija and who signed the acts of II Seville in
619, and a sister Florentina, a nun.s
It has been conjectured that Isidore was born in the 560s, but
nothing is known for sure about his career before he succeeded
Leander as Metropolitan Bishop of Seville in 599 or 600.^9 It used to
be thought that he had been a monk during much of the intervening
period, but there is no evidence that any regular monastic establish-
ment existed in Seville at this time. Rather it is probable that he and