Chapter 14 Isidore of Seville’s Early Influence and Dissemination (636–711) Mark Lewis Tizzoni 1 Introduction Within a few decades of his death, certain of Isidore’s works were disseminat- ed rapidly, and knowledge of his life was spread throughout Spain and beyond. This chapter examines the immediate reception of Isidore, from the author’s death in 636 to the fall of the Visigothic kingdom to Muslim armies in 711. Isidore’s legacy was, at its very start, both human and intellectual: Isidore left behind not only his literary works but his students and followers. His legacy was born not only from his own efforts but from the efforts of the Iberian intel- lectuals who followed him. These intellectuals, some known to Isidore and others farther removed, received his thought and employed it in their own works, thus serving to transmit his works and reputation rapidly. Until recently, the study of Isidore’s legacy has been largely the purview of Spanish and French scholarship. As is generally the case with Isidorian studies, the work of Jacques Fontaine provides a good starting point. Fontaine provides a brief overview of Isidore’s immediate legacy in the epilogue to his Isidore de Séville: Genèse et originalité de la culture hispanique au temps des Wisigoths (Turnhout: 2000).1 A detailed study of Isidore’s early legacy is provided in the essays of Angel C. Vega, Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, and Bernhard Bischoff found in Isidoriana, edited by Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz (Leon: 1961).2 Collectively, the rel- evant studies in Isidoriana lay out and analyse the 7th-century (and later) texts 1 Fontaine addresses many of the same texts covered in the present chapter, albeit in great brevity. His overview of Isidore’s legacy in pre-Islamic Iberia covers pages 401–04. Fontaine barely touches upon the subject in his landmark Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris: 1983), 863 sqq. in the context of the “Isidorian Renaissance.” 2 These essays are Angel C. Vega, “Cuestiones críticas de las biografías isidorianas,” in Isidori- ana, ed. Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz (León: 1961), 75–98; Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, “Isidoro en la Edad Media hispana,” 345–87 (345–59 cover the early period); Bernhard Bischoff, “Die europäische Verbreitung der Werke Isidors von Sevilla,” in Díaz y Díaz, Isidoriana, 317–44. As with Fon- taine’s epilogue, these essays cover the same material with which the present article is concerned. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004415454_015 <UN> 398 Tizzoni involved in the creation of Isidore’s legacy alongside their manuscript tradi- tions. More recently, the introductions and commentary accompanying the Corpus Christianorum editions of the texts involved in the production and re- ception of Isidore’s legacy provide key studies on the subject.3 This scholarship synthesizes and establishes a fundamental understanding of these texts and their authors and provides a framework for further study. The field has likewise been furthered with the volume edited by Andrew Fear and Jamie Wood, Isidore of Seville and his Reception in the Early Middle Ages: Transmitting and Transforming Knowledge (Amsterdam: 2016). The essays in the volume bring together and analyse decades of advancement in our understanding of these texts and the period and places within which they arose, with Michael J. Kelly’s chapter presenting an important re-evaluation of Isidore’s early legacy.4 Build- ing on this work, the goal of this chapter is three-fold. Firstly, it discusses and examines the earliest hagiographical (or historiographical) accounts produced regarding Isidore and his works. The main texts here are the Obitus beatissimi Isidori Hispalensis episcopi of Redemptus of Seville, the Renotatio librorum do- mini Isidori of Braulio of Zaragoza, and Ildefonsus of Toledo’s entry on Isidore in his De viris illustribus. Secondly, it outlines the earliest uses of Isidore in Spain and beyond. This section chronicles in particular the use of Isidore’s works and thought by Braulio of Zaragoza (c.590–651), Eugenius ii of Toledo (c.600–57) and the Eighth Council of Toledo in 653, Ildefonsus of Toledo (607– 67), and Julian of Toledo (c.644–90). Attention is also paid to the earliest use of Isidore in Ireland and Frankish Gaul. Lastly, it examines the earliest manu- script evidence for the circulation of Isidore’s writings. 2 The Earliest Hagiographical Accounts 2.1 Redemptus of Seville, Obitus beatissimi Isidori Hispalensis episcopi5 This text presents itself as an eyewitness account of the final days of Isidore, written by one of his priests, an otherwise unknown Redemptus, shortly after 3 See below for references. 4 Michael J. Kelly, “The Politics of History-Writing: Problematizing the Historiographical Ori- gins of Isidore of Seville in Early Medieval Hispania,” in Isidore of Seville and his Reception in the Early Middle Ages: Transmitting and Transforming Knowledge, eds. Andrew Fear and Ja- mie Wood (Amsterdam: 2016), 93–110. 5 For a more detailed discussion of the Obitus see Pedro Castillo Maldonado, “La muerte de Isidoro de Sevilla: apuntes de crítica histórico-hagiográfica,” Habis 32 (2001), 577–96, and <UN>.