Etymologiae Totally Explained

Etymologiae (or Origines, standard abbrev. Orig.) is an encyclopedia compiled by Isidore of Seville (died 636) towards the end of his life, 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 Braurio was able to revise it, and issue it, with a dedication to the late 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 antiquity that Christians thought worth preserving. Etymologies, often very learned and far-fetched, a favorite trope of Antiquity, form the subject of just one of the encyclopedia's twenty books. Isidore's vast encyclopedia systematizing ancient learning includes subjects from theology 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 current compilations. Bishop Braulio, to whom Isidore dedicated it and sent it for correction, divided it into its twenty books.

Book I: de grammatica; Trivium: grammar
Book II: de rhetorica et dialectica; Trivium: rhetoric and dialectic
Book III: de mathematica; Quadrivium: mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy
Book IV: de medicina; medicine
Book V: de legibus et temporibus; law and chronology
Book VI: de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis; Ecclesiastical books and offices
Book VII: de deo, angelis et sanctis; God, angels and saints: hierarchies of heaven and earth
Book VIII: de ecclesia et sectis; The Roman Catholic Church and Jews and heretical sects, philosophers (pagans), prophets and sibyls
Book IX: de linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus, affinitatibus; Languages, peoples, kingdoms, cities and titles
Book X: de vocabulis; Etymologies
Book XI: de homines et portentis; Mankind, portents and transformations
Book XII: de animalibus; Beasts and birds
Book XIII: de mundo et partibus; The physical world, atoms, elements, natural phenomena
Book XIV: de terra et partibus; Geography: Earth, Asia, Europe, Libya, islands, promontories, mountains, caves
Book XV: de aedificiis et agris; Public buildings, public works, roads
Book XVI: de lapidibus et metallis; Metals and stones
Book XVII: de rebus rusticis; Agriculture
Book XVIII: de bello et ludis; Terms of war, games, jurisprudence
Book XIX: de navibus, aedificiis et vestibus; Ships, houses and clothes
Book XX: de domo et instrumentis domesticis; Food, tools and furnishings

"An editor's enthusiasm is soon chilled by the discovery that Isidore's book is really a mosaic of pieces borrowed from previous writers, sacred and profane, often their 'ipsa verba' without alteration," W. M. Lindsay noted in 1911, having recently edited Isidore for the Clarendon Press, with the further observation, however, that a portion of the texts quoted have otherwise been lost. 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, who provided the gist of Isidore's treatment of arithmetic in Book III. Caelius Aurelianus 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, 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 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, 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.
Through the Middle Ages Etymologiae was the textbook most in use, regarded so highly as a depository 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 wasn't 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, rivalling Vincent of Beauvais.
A stylized map based on Etymologiae was printed in 1472 in Augsburg, featuring the world as a wheel. The continent Asia is peopled by descendants of Sem or Shem, Africa by descendants of Ham and Europe by descendants of Japheth, the sons of Noah. This map reflects Isidore's sixth century view; we now know that, although undoubtedly widely read, Isidore wasn't always correct in his conjectures.

The shape of the Earth

Isidore taught in the Etymologiae that the Earth was round. His meaning was ambiguous and some writers think he referred to a disc-shaped Earth; his other writings make it clear, however, that he considered the Earth to be globular. He also admitted the possibility of people dwelling at the antipodes, considering them as legendary and noting that there was no evidence for their existence. Isidore's disc-shaped analogy continued to be used through the Middle Ages by authors clearly favouring a spherical Earth, for example the 9th century bishop Rabanus Maurus who compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere (Aristotle's northern temperate clime) with a wheel, imagined as a slice of the whole sphere. See also: Flat Earth.

Manuscripts

St. Gall Abbey library

Cod. Sang. 232 lib. XI-XX (9th c.)
Cod. Sang. 237 (9th c.)

The 13th century Codex Gigas, the largest extant medieval manuscript, contains a copy of the Etymologiae.

Notes

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