A CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 65to read Braulio's letter, and whe!l he returned from his summons to
the king it had mysteriously disappeared.^16
This is indeed one of the few human touches that can be given to
the portrait of Isidore, who for all of his prolific literary output,
remains curiously concealed from us. Unlike Gregory the Great and
quite unlike his own contemporary Braulio, Isidore's personality re-
mains firmly closed to view. The great variety of his writings, and the
different literary styles that he employed, obscure rather than clarify
our impressions of him. In this way he was a master of the art of Late
Antique rhetoric, in being able to mask his own character behind the
conventions of the literary forms with which he was working. For
these reasons Isidore has never enjoyed the scholarly and lay popu-
larity that has attached itself to Augustine or to Gregory, which is
regrettable, since he was a real polymath within the limitations of the
learning available in his day.
Isidore died in April 636, and a brief account of his last days was
written by one of the deacons of Seville, called Redemptus.^17 Accord-
ing to this, Isidore, realising his impending end, adopted the state of
canonical penance and had himself carried to the Basilica of St
Vincent where he was to die. This is the first account to be found in
Visigothic Spain of the practice of formal renunciation of office and
the adoption of the penitential state prior to death that became stand-
ard practice for kings by the time of Wamba (672-680), and re-
mained so for several centuries to come. It may have been common
for bishops also to follow Isidore's lead in this. Of course, there is a
possibility that this work of Redemptus's was not composed at the
time of Isidore's death but was written subsequently to give authority
to this practice, perhaps later in the seventh century. Isidore's name
did remain the most potent source of authority in matters of canon
law and of learning for the rest of the Visigothic period, and, for the
Spanish Church, for many centuries thereafter. But with his death
the scholarly and possibly political pre-eminence of Seville, that had
been developed and maintained by Leander, and then Isidore him-
self, came to an end. None of their successors is known either for
their lives or their writings, and by 693 it was possible for a bishop of
Seville to be translated to the see of Toledo by way of a promotion.
Not until the ninth century was the Church of Seville to regain some
of the independence and authority that it had enjoyed under Leander
and Isidore. In the seventh century, the mantle of Isidore, at least in
the sphere of learning, fell firstly upon the shoulders of his friend