as “Esidre,” he was invoked as a national patron (e.g.,
three times by Alfonso VI in the Poema de Mío Cid).
He was named doctor of the church in 1722.
Outside the peninsula, Isidore’s historical and institu-
tional importance was rarely understood, and he became
a mere name appended to infl uential texts. Surviving
early manuscripts are from Irish, English, and Gaulish,
rather than Iberian, centers. The works are listed here
in tentative chronological order (the precise titles are
often later inventions). The De differentiis verborum,
on semantic distinctions, may precede his episcopacy.
The De differentiis rerum was prepared independently.
The In libros veteris ac novi testamenti proemia and
the De ortu et obitu patrum are biblical and doctrinal;
the De ecclesiasticis offi ciis is still a vital source of
evidence on the history of the liturgy and the differ-
ent roles of contemporary clerics. The Synonyma, an
ascetic confession of and repentance for sins (ca. 610),
developed the eventually fashionable style for piling
up synonyms. The De natura rerum, commissioned by
the Visigothic king Sisebut about 613, combines pagan
(Lucretian) and Christian views on cosmography (and
related allegory).
The De numeris considers the symbolism of numbers
found in biblical texts. The Allegoriae quaedam sacrae
scripturae comments on nearly three hundred biblical
characters; the De haeresibus, on eighty-four sects. The
Sententiae is Isidore’s main spiritual work, combining
knowledge and personal experience into a practical
guide to Christian life. The Chronica is a history of
the world from the beginning to a.d. 615. The De fi de
catholica contra Judaeos is polemical. The De viris il-
lustribus contains brief summaries of the works (rather
than the lives) of thirty-three churchmen, mostly African
and Spanish, of the previous two centuries. The Historia
Gothorum, Vandalorum et Sueborum (625–626) begins
with the famous Laus Hispaniae and suggests that the
Goths, rather than the Byzantines, are the genuine
inheritors of Roman culture. The Quaestiones in vetus
testamentum consists of commentaries.
Various minor works also survive, plus the con-
ciliar and liturgical texts Isidore helped draft, monastic
rules, and brief letters (mostly to Braulio); others are
forgeries or apocryphally attributed; but his fame came
to rest on his main work, still unfi nished at his death,
which subsumed much previous study and developed
from his increasing appreciation of pagan learning: the
Etymologiae.
The Etymologiae is an enormous encyclopedia, of
both objectively erudite and pastorally didactic intent,
meant to preserve and convey an all-inclusive synthe-
sis of all fi elds of knowledge available in respectably
ancient texts, with added comments from Isidore’s
own experience to make it relevant to his readers; it is
mostly, therefore, written in the present tense, referring
to fi fty-two classical authors and only twenty Christian
ones (plus the Bible). Braulio advised readers to read
it through entire, often and carefully, and then they
would know everything; thus it is prepared in a simpler
style than many Visigothic works. The title is explained
by Isidore’s persistent attempts to explain why words
have the written form they do; in modern terms, this is
“popular etymology” (largely accidental word associa-
tion given unconvincingly mystical explanatory force),
not philology.
The Etymologiae was probably begun about 615,
and a preliminary version of probably ten books (titled
Origines) was circulating by 621. It is much more than
a traditional glossary since, in essence, it presents an
accumulation of compartmentalized detail rather than
overviews, it is possible to deduce that Isidore worked
with a kind of index-card system, preparing lemmas fi rst
and adding details as he found them later; this would
explain both why several subheadings are left unex-
plained (particularly in the more technical chapters), and
why the latest manuscript versions (from Spain) have
additional material at the end of sections not attested in
earlier versions. Even though the task covered twenty
years, the amount of material is such that Isidore may
have had collaborators. If we can overcome the modern
scholarly obsession with sources, we can see that the
didactic intention (looking to the future) often overrides
the scientifi c (recording the ancient); to this extent the
Etymologiae was astonishingly successful, being read,
studied, and copied in European intellectual centers
for another eight hundred years. Modern editions of all
Isidore’s texts, however, unhelpfully overclassicize the
language of the early manuscripts.Further Reading
Díaz y Díaz, M. C. “Introducción.” In San Isidoro de Sevilla.
Etimologías (edición bilingüe). Ed. J. Oroz Reta. Madrid,- 1–257.
——, ed. Isidoriana. León, 1961.
Fontaine, J. Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans
l’Espagne wisigothique. 2d ed. 3 vols. Paris, 1983.
Roger Wright
ISIDORE OF SEVILLE, SAINT