Etymologiae
Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
compiled by Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
(died 636) towards the end of his life. It forms a bridge between a condensed epitome
Epitome
An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment....
of classical learning at the close of Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
and the inheritance received, in large part through Isidore's work, by the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. According to the prefatory letters, the work was composed at the urging of his friend Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa, to whom Isidore, at the end of his life, sent his codex inemendatus ("unedited book"), which seems to have begun circulating before Braulio was able to revise it, and issue it, with a dedication to the late Visigoth
Visigoth
The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...
ic King Sisebut. Partly as a consequence, three families of texts have been distinguished, including a "compressed" text with many omissions, and an expanded text with interpolations.
Overview
Etymologiae presents in abbreviated form much of that part of the learning of antiquityClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
that Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s thought worth preserving. Etymologies
Medieval etymology
Medieval etymology is the study of the history of words as conducted by scholars in the European Middle Ages.Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Before the beginnings of large-scale modern lexicography in the 16th century and the discovery of the comparative method in the 18th, a...
, often very learned and far-fetched, a favorite trope
Trope (literature)
A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...
of antiquity, form the subject of just one of the encyclopedia's twenty books, but perceived linguistic similarities permeate the work. Isidore's vast encyclopedia systematizing ancient learning includes subjects from theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
to furniture and provided a rich source of classical lore and learning for medieval writers.
In all, Isidore quotes from 154 authors, both Christian and pagan. Many of the Christian authors he read in the originals; of the pagans, many he consulted in contemporary compilations. Bishop Braulio, to whom Isidore dedicated it and sent it for correction, divided it into its twenty books.
- Book I: de grammatica; Trivium: grammarGrammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
- Book II: de rhetorica et dialectica; Trivium: rhetoricRhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
and dialecticDialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues... - Book III: de mathematica; QuadriviumQuadriviumThe quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...
: mathematicsMathematicsMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, geometryGeometryGeometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, musicMusicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, astronomyAstronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth... - Book IV: de medicina; medicineMedicineMedicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
- Book V: de legibus et temporibus; lawLawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and chronologyChronologyChronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization... - Book VI: de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis; Ecclesiastical books and offices
- Book VII: de deo, angelis et sanctis; GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, angelAngelAngels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s and saintSaintA saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s: hierarchies of heavenHeavenHeaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
and earthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets... - Book VIII: de ecclesia et sectis; The Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and Jews and hereticalHeresyHeresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
sectSectA sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
s, philosophers (pagansPaganismPaganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
), prophetProphetIn religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s and sibylSibylThe word Sibyl comes from the Greek word σίβυλλα sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and...
s - Book IX: de linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus, affinitatibus; LanguageLanguageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, peoples, kingdomsMonarchyA monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
, citiesCityA city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
and titles - Book X: de vocabulis; EtymologiesEtymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
- Book XI: de homines et portentis; Mankind, portents and transformations
- Book XII: de animalibus; BeastsAnimalAnimals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
and birdBirdBirds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s - Book XIII: de mundo et partibus; The physical worldPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, atomAtomThe atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s, elementsClassical elementMany philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs...
, natural phenomena - Book XIV: de terra et partibus; GeographyGeographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
: Earth, Asia, Europe, Libya, islands, promontories, mountains, caves - Book XV: de aedificiis et agris; Public buildingsArchitectureArchitecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, public worksCivil engineeringCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
, roads - Book XVI: de lapidibus et metallis; MetalMetalA metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
s and stonesRock (geology)In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic... - Book XVII: de rebus rusticis; AgricultureAgricultureAgriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
- Book XVIII: de bello et ludis; Terms of warWarWar is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, gameGameA game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s, jurisprudenceJurisprudenceJurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions... - Book XIX: de navibus, aedificiis et vestibus; ShipShipSince the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
s, houseHouseA house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
s and clothes - Book XX: de domo et instrumentis domesticis; FoodFoodFood is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
, toolToolA tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...
s and furnishings
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Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
can only be reconstructed from Isidore's excerpts. In the second book, dealing with dialectic and rhetoric, Isidore is heavily indebted to translations from the Greek by Boethius, and in treating logic, Cassiodorus
Cassiodorus
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.- Life :Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in...
, who provided the gist of Isidore's treatment of arithmetic in Book III. Caelius Aurelianus
Caelius Aurelianus
Caelius Aurelianus of Sicca in Numidia was a Roman physician and writer on medical topics. He is best known for his translation from Greek to Latin of a work by Soranus of Ephesus, On Acute and Chronic Diseases. He probably flourished in the 5th century, although some place him two or even three...
contributes generously to that part of the fourth book which deals with medicine. Isidore's view of Roman law in the fifth book is viewed through the lens of the Visigothic compendiary called the Breviary of Alaric
Breviary of Alaric
The Breviary of Alaric is a collection of Roman law, compiled by order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the advice of his bishops and nobles. It was promulgated on February 2, year 506, the twenty-second year of his reign...
, which was based on the Code of Theodosius, which Isidore never saw. Through Isidore's condensed paraphrase a third-hand memory of Roman law passed to the Early Middle Ages. Lactantius
Lactantius
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author who became an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his religious policy as it developed, and tutor to his son.-Biography:...
is the author most extensively quoted in the eleventh book, concerning man. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth books are largely based on the writings of Pliny and Solinus; whilst the lost Prata of Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
, which can be partly pieced together from its quoted passages in Etymolgiae, seems to have inspired the general plan of the "Etymologiae", as well as many of its details.
Isidore's Latin, replete with nonstandard Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
, some of which is identified as such, also stands at the cusp of Latin and the local Romance language
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
of Hispania.
Through the Middle Ages Etymologiae was the textbook most in use, regarded so highly as a repository of classical learning that, in a great measure, it superseded the use of the individual works of the classics themselves, full texts of which were no longer copied and thus were lost. The book was not only one of the most popular compendia in medieval libraries but was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, rivalling Vincent of Beauvais
Vincent of Beauvais
The Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais wrote the Speculum Maius, the main encyclopedia that was used in the Middle Ages.-Early life:...
.
T and O map
A T and O map or O-T or T-O map , is a type of medieval world map, sometimes also called a Beatine map or a Beatus map because one of the earliest known representations of this sort is attributed to Beatus of Liébana, an 8th-century Spanish monk...
featuring the world as a wheel appeared in the editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....
, the first printed edition, published at Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
, 1472. The continent Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
is peopled by descendants of Sem or Shem
Shem
Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each...
, Africa by descendants of Ham
Ham, son of Noah
Ham , according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.- Hebrew Bible :The story of Ham is related in , King James Version:...
and Europe by descendants of Japheth
Japheth
Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...
, the sons of Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
.
The shape of the Earth
Isidore taught in the Etymologiae that the Earth was round "resembl[ing] a wheel".This is the same description used by the early Greek philosopher Anaximander
Anaximander
Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia; Milet in modern Turkey. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales...
for the sun before any spherical ideas emerged.
Some writers think he referred to a disc-shaped Earth though some believe that he considered the Earth to be globular. He did not admit the possibility of people dwelling at the antipodes
Antipodes
In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points that are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth....
, considering them as legendary and noting that there was no evidence for their existence. Isidore's round map also called T and O map
T and O map
A T and O map or O-T or T-O map , is a type of medieval world map, sometimes also called a Beatine map or a Beatus map because one of the earliest known representations of this sort is attributed to Beatus of Liébana, an 8th-century Spanish monk...
or simply (T-O) map continued to be used through the Middle Ages by authors such as the 9th century bishop Rabanus Maurus
Rabanus Maurus
Rabanus Maurus Magnentius , also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish Benedictine monk, the archbishop of Mainz in Germany and a theologian. He was the author of the encyclopaedia De rerum naturis . He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible...
who compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere (Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's northern temperate clime) with a wheel. However, "About, 1,100 maps of the earth from the eighth through the fifteenth century survive; they are almost all flat - as are maps in a modern atlas...The common circular maps called "T in O" (T-O) show the T-shaped oikoumene surrounded by the O-shaped sea. One could interpret these maps as a flat wheel or disc, but most were intended to represent only a portion of the sphere - known world - just as a modern flat map of Europe or Africa is intended to to represent only part of the planet" and ""In the ancient and medieval world the term "antipodes" may mean lands on the opposite side on the planet or , more commonly, "human inhabitants" of lands on the other side of the planet. Several varieties of views on the antipodes existed, some placing them in the southern hemisphere, others in the northern sphere opposite the known world. To distinguish, it will help to call the inhabitants "antipodeans".
In Book III in one section he states "At the same time [the sun] rises it appears equally to a person in the east as a person in the west", implying that it is flat. But for north and south he follows works such as the Topographia Christiana saying the earth is raised up towards the northern region and declines to the south. The fact that Sysebut uses the word globus meaning a sphere, in a letter to Isidore, whereas Isidore sticks to the word orbis, generally meaning circle or disk. However, in also in Book III Section XXXII and Book XIV Section I, Isidore states that the sphere of the sky has earth in its center and the sky being equally distant on all sides. Furthermore, in Chapter 28 of De Natura Rerum which is an earlier work used to add to sections in the "Etymologies", Isidore claims that the sun orbits the earth and illuminates the other side when it is night on this side. This French translation of De Natura Rerum is the only translation available currently.
Lyons says "His teachings were followed so slavishly that his assertion...that the earth was flat and 'resembles a wheel' long retained a hold on many in medieval Europe, even if a handful of scholars and learned monks knew otherwise". However, Jeffrey Burton Russell in his review of the formation of the Flat Earth concept, which was invented in past 2 centuries, argues that there were sufficient lines of evidence and widespread acceptance among academics from the times of the early church from notable figures like Augustine. The overwhelming influence of Aristotle and Ptolemy through the medieval times should not be underestimated. Russell states "The Scholastics - later medieval philosophers, theologians, and scientists - were helped by the Arabic translators and commentaries, but they hardly needed to struggle against a flat-earth legacy from the early middle ages (500-1050). Early medieval writers often had fuzzy and imprecise impressions of both Ptolemy and Aristotle and relied more on Pliny, but they felt (with one exception), little urge to assume flatness."
Manuscripts
- St. Gall Abbey library
- Cod. Sang. 232 lib. XI-XX (9th c.)
- Cod. Sang. 237 (9th c.)
The 13th century Codex Gigas
Codex Gigas
The Codex Gigas is the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. It is also known as the Devil's Bible because of a large illustration of the devil on the inside and the legend surrounding its creation. It is thought to have been created in the early 13th century in the Benedictine...
, the largest extant medieval manuscript, contains a copy of the Etymologiae.
The modern critical edition, superseding W.M. Lindsay's of 1911, supervised by an International Committee of Isidorian Studies, (B. Bischoff, M.C. Díaz, J. Fontaine, J.N. Hilgarth, eds.) was announced in 1974, intended to appear in twenty volumes, one for each book, with an additional volume discussing the manuscript history and presenting a general introduction.
External links
- "Isidore of Seville: The Etymologies (or Origins)." LacusCurtius
- Etymologiarvm Sive Originum Libri XX The Latin Library
- Codex Guelferbytanus 64 Weissenburgensis Herzog August Bibliothek
- Summary of contents in English (starts on page 57) The Medieval Bestiary Google version of Barney's translation
- Scholia in Isidori Etymologias Vallicelliana I-Revues
- Free English Transliteration