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AN ENCYCLOPEDIST OF THE
DARK AGES
ISIDORE OF SEVILLE
In saeculorum fine doctissimus
BY
ERNEST BREHAUT, A. M.
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN THE
Faculty of Political Science
in Columbia University
NEW YORK
1912
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PREFACE
The writer of the following pagesundertook, at the suggestion of Professor James Harvey Robinson,to translate passages from Isidore’s Etymologies which shouldserve to illustrate the intellectual condition of the dark ages. Itsoon became evident that a brief introduction to the more importantsubjects treated by Isidore would be necessary, in order to give thereader an idea of the development of these subjects at the time atwhich he wrote. Finally it seemed worth while to sum up in a generalintroduction the results of this examination of the Etymologiesand of the collateral study of Isidore’s other writings which itinvolved.
For many reasons the task of translating from the Etymologieshas been a difficult one. There is no modern critical edition of thework to afford a reasonable certainty as to the text; the Latin,while far superior to the degenerate language of Gregory of Tours, isnevertheless corrupt; the treatment is often brief to the point ofobscurity; the terminology of ancient science employed by Isidore isoften used without a due appreciation of its meaning. However, thegreatest difficulty in translating has arisen from the fact that thework is chiefly a long succession of word derivations which usuallydefy any attempt to render them into English.
In spite of these difficulties the study has been one of greatinterest. Isidore was, as Montalambert calls him, le dernier savantdu monde ancien, as well as the first Christian encyclopaedist.His writings, therefore, while of no[p. 8] importance in themselves, become importantas a phenomenon in the history of European thought. His resort toancient science instead of to philosophy or to poetry is suggestive,as is also the wide variety of his ‘sciences’ and the attenuatedcondition in which they appear. Of especial interest is Isidore’sstate of mind, which in many ways is the reverse of that of themodern thinker.
It is perhaps worth while to remark that the writer has had inmind throughout the general aspects of the intellectual developmentof Isidore’s time: he has not attempted to comment on the technicaldetails—whether accurately given by Isidore or not—of the many‘sciences’ that appear in the Etymologies. The student of thehistory of music, for exam