Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Texts, Discourses, and Devices: Reading Visigothic Society Today
- 2 Presence of Augustine of Hippo in Isidore of Seville: Some Provisional Remarks
- 3 The Bishop and the Word: Isidore of Seville and the Production of Meaning
- 4 Unearthing Peasant Societies: Historiography and Recent Contributions in the Archaeology of the Rural World during Visigothic Times
- 5 Excolentes sacra fontium vel arborum: Pagan Cults, Kinship, and Regimes of Sacralization in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo
- 6 Ervig and Capital Penalties: The Way of Exile
- 7 ‘Put All Your Trust in Ansemundus’: A Look at Distrust in Visigothic-Byzantine Diplomatic Relations
- 8 Visigothic Currency: Recent Developments and Data for Its Study
- Index
3 - The Bishop and the Word: Isidore of Seville and the Production of Meaning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Texts, Discourses, and Devices: Reading Visigothic Society Today
- 2 Presence of Augustine of Hippo in Isidore of Seville: Some Provisional Remarks
- 3 The Bishop and the Word: Isidore of Seville and the Production of Meaning
- 4 Unearthing Peasant Societies: Historiography and Recent Contributions in the Archaeology of the Rural World during Visigothic Times
- 5 Excolentes sacra fontium vel arborum: Pagan Cults, Kinship, and Regimes of Sacralization in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo
- 6 Ervig and Capital Penalties: The Way of Exile
- 7 ‘Put All Your Trust in Ansemundus’: A Look at Distrust in Visigothic-Byzantine Diplomatic Relations
- 8 Visigothic Currency: Recent Developments and Data for Its Study
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines modes of exercising power in the early Middle Ages, focusing on the figure of the bishop in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo. It explores several aspects of the study and interpretation of the Bible during that period, with the aim of establishing the bishop's role in the task of interpreting, communicating, and controlling the sacred message. The chapter focuses on the work of Isidore of Seville, bishop c. 600–636. It examines methods of reading, interpreting, and teaching biblical texts adopted and elaborated in Isidorian writings in order to assess the scope of the bishop's authority, especially his role in the production of meaning and the construction of truth – two processes on which seventh-century episcopal power rested.
Keywords: Isidore of Seville, Church, Bible, Education
In the early seventh century, Bishop Isidore of Seville (d. 636), immersed in the political and religious concerns arising from the reality of Spain under Visigothic rule, exhibited in a variety of writings of different genres the importance of Scriptures and their correct interpretation. Whilst extensive and complex exegetical commentaries are not found among the works of Isidore, as Jacques Fontaine previously noted, there remained a profound interest in achieving a true understanding of the biblical text that ran through his entire life and ecclesiastical career. More precisely, this central concern constituted a key element of the pastoral and pedagogical activity of Isidore, which also encompassed the education of clerics and the homogenization of practices regarding the administration of sacraments and liturgical rites performed in the churches throughout the peninsula. Indeed, a clergy instructed in the divine Word, capable of guiding the flock, and interpreting the will of God on earth, was considered indispensable in order to achieve the difficult and uncertain path to salvation.
The exegetical activity of Isidore is thus framed in this set of concerns that made the communication of the biblical message not only a pastoral need, that of a bishop at the head of his congregation, but also a political one, consolidating Hispalis as a centre of indisputable power within the Hispanic context of the seventh century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Framing Power in Visigothic SocietyDiscourses, Devices, and Artifacts, pp. 51 - 74Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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