Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Isidore was born about 560 into a family from Cartagena; his elder brother Leander was bishop of Seville, and he succeeded him about 600. He led the Church of Visigothic Spain for more than thirty years and presided at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, which ordered schools to be set up by every cathedral.

He wrote on history, the Scriptures and the liturgy, but is remembered above all for the Etymologies, an encyclopedia in twenty books that gathered what was known of ancient learning, from grammar and medicine to animals and stones; for a thousand years it was one of the most copied books in Europe. He died in Seville on 4 April 636. Innocent XIII named him a Doctor of the Church in 1722.