Isidore of Seville - Legacy

Legacy

Isidore was one of the last of the ancient Christian philosophers; he was the last of the great Latin Church Fathers and was contemporary with Maximus the Confessor. Some consider him to be the most learned man of his age, and he exercised a far-reaching and immeasurable influence on the educational life of the Middle Ages. His contemporary and friend, Braulio of Zaragoza, regarded him as a man raised up by God to save the Iberian peoples from the tidal wave of barbarism that threatened to inundate the ancient civilization of Hispania. The Eighth Council of Toledo (653) recorded its admiration of his character in these glowing terms: "The extraordinary doctor, the latest ornament of the Catholic Church, the most learned man of the latter ages, always to be named with reverence, Isidore". This tribute was endorsed by the Fifteenth Council of Toledo, held in 688.

Isidore was interred in Seville. His tomb represented an important place of veneration for the Mozarabs during the initial centuries following the Arab conquest of Visigothic Hispania. In the middle of the 11th century, with the division of Al Andalus into taifas and the strengthening of the Christian holdings in the Iberian peninsula, Fernando I of León found himself in a position to extract tribute from the fractured Arab states. In addition to money, Abbad II al-Mu'tadid, the Abbadid rule of Seville (1042–1069), agreed to turn over St. Isidore's remains to Fernando I. A Catholic poet described al-Mutatid placing a brocaded cover over Isidore's sarcophagus, and remarked, "Now you are leaving here, revered Isidore. You know well how much your fame was mine!" Fernando had Isidore's remains reinterred in the then recently constructed Basilica of San Isidoro in Leon.

He was canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1598 by Pope Clement VIII and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1722 by Pope Innocent XIII.

In Dante's Paradise (X.130), he is mentioned among theologians and Doctors of the Church alongside the Scot Richard of St. Victor and the Englishman Bede the Venerable.

In the mid 2000s he was declared the patron saint of the Internet by the Vatican. He is also the patron saint of computers, computer users, and computer technicians. The University of Dayton has named their implementation of the Sakai Project in honor of Saint Isidore.

An important part of his bones was buried in the cathedral of Murcia (Spain), where they are currently venerated.