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The ‘Institutionum disciplinae’ of Isidore of Seville*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Paul Pascal*
Affiliation:
University of Washington

Extract

In 1912 A. E. Anspach, who was then beginning to prepare an edition of the works of Isidore of Seville for the Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, published, from a Paris manuscript of Isidore, a short treatise, entitled Institutionum disciplinae, which he had been the first to notice. The subject of the treatise is the education of the young nobleman. It gives the immediate impression of being a series of quotations, excerpted from a variety of sources, and put together in a somewhat haphazard way. This impression turns out upon examination to be an accurate one.

Type
Miscellany
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 To be sure, the Melot catalogue of the manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Regia had duly recorded the piece and repeated the scribe's attribution to Isidore: ‘Ejusdem [i.e. Isidori] ars institutionum disciplinae’ (Tom. III [Paris 1744] 361), and Beeson, C. H. 's report of the presence of the text in the same Paris manuscript was apparently independent of Anspach's research: Isidor-Studien (Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 4.2; Munich 1913) 21. Anspach published in the Rheinisches Museum 67 (1912), 556–568.— Recently Anspach's text has been listed, by Dekkers, E. - Gaar, E., Clavis patrum latinorum (Sacris erudiri 3 [1951]) no. 1216, among the ‘Dubia’ of Isidore.Google Scholar

2 As for the date of the manuscript, Paris. lat. 2994 A — that is of the part (fol. 73v-194) that is here in question — the ninth century seems more probable. Anspach indeed named the eighth (as had the Melot catalogue before him), but Delisle, L., Mélanges de paléographie … (Paris 1880) 54 (with citation of facs.), had declared for the ninth, as, with an ‘ut vid.,’ had Lowe, E. A. Studia palaeographica (Sb. Akad. Vienna 1912, 12. Abh.) 59. That the manuscript does not appear in Part V (Paris) of his Codices latini antiquiores (Oxford 1950) argues that Lowe continues not to regard it as pre-Caroline, and the ninth century is also the dating of two other specialists in Visigothic palaeography: Clark, C. U. Collectanea hispanica (Trans. Conn. Acad. 24 [1920]) 51 (no. 648), and Millares, A. Carlo, Tratado de paleografía española (2nd ed. Madrid 1932), Text p. 466 (App. II, no. 196).Google Scholar

3 See apparatus to text on lines 39 and 45. Google Scholar

4 Classical Philology 8 (1913) 93–98.Google Scholar

5 Theologische Revue 12 (1913) 23 (= Mercati, Opere minori III [Studi e testi 78 (1937)] 318).Google Scholar

6 Isid. Reg. 5.5. The phrase ‘non sunt … amatoria cantanda nec turpia’ appears in Cyprian, De habitu virginum 11, from which perhaps Isidore got it in the first place. The collocation of adjectives, one of which, amatorius, is quite uncommon, particularly in this sense, may have fixed itself in Isidore's mind as especially felicitous. Google Scholar

7 Isidore, , Sent. 3.36.1.Google Scholar

8 Augustine, , Retract. 1.6.Google Scholar

9 For a clear summary statement of the early development of the program of the liberal arts, see M.L.W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe (A.D. 500 to 900) (2nd ed. London 1957) 40–41. Other recent literature is cited by Lutz, Cora E. in Traditio 12 (1956), 69 n. 16, 74 n. 52 (cf. 73f.), among which note especially Baron, R., ibid. 11 (1955) 127148.Google Scholar

10 Isidore, , Etym. 1.2ff.Google Scholar

11 Jerome, , Adv. Pelagianos 1.21.Google Scholar

12 Isidore, , Etym. 4.4.Google Scholar

13 Lactantius, , Inst. 3.25.Google Scholar

14 Isidore, , Etym. 1.3.2.Google Scholar

15 Lactantius, , Inst. 3.21.Google Scholar

16 Isidore, , Etym. 2.23; cf. Cassiodorus, Inst. 2.3.2.Google Scholar

17 See Kettner, H., ‘Über die Varronischen Citate bei Isidorus Hispalensis,’ in Varronische Studien (Halle 1865).Google Scholar

18 Ritschl, F. ‘De Terentii, M. Varronis disciplinarum libris commentarius,’ in Opuscula philologica III (Leipzig 1877) 352–402. See also his ‘Die Schriftstellerei des Terentius, M. Varro,’ ibid. 419–505 (reprinted from Rhein. Mus. N.F. 6 [1848] 481–560).Google Scholar

19 See the introduction to the annotated edition of Gudeman. Google Scholar

20 Tacitus, , Dial. 28.4f.Google Scholar

21 Ibid . 31.7.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. 32.7.Google Scholar

23 Ibid. 32.2.Google Scholar

24 Cicero, , Orator 12.Google Scholar

25 Tacitus, , Dial. 32.6.Google Scholar