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The Giants
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San Isidoro |
560 - 636 (76) |
San Isidoro (of Seville) lived in
Visigoth (pre-Islamic) Spain. He was Archbishop of Seville for 30 years,
and the greatest Christian church scholar and promoter of scholarship
generally of
his time and to emerge from Spain. He wrote the first known
encyclopaedia in western civilization (called the Etymologiae).
He shares a place with
Saint Bede the Venerable in
Dante's Divine Comedy, and, like Bede,
is recognized as a
Doctor of the Christian Church though
it took 1000 years for the church to work this out - his doctorship was
proclaimed in 1722.
Saint Leander of Seville (c534 -
600 (66)) was Isidoro's elder brother (and, in the view of many, intellectually
superior, though he did not write any encyclopaedias) . He preceded Isodoro as Archbishop of Seville
and was another major church mover and shaker (particularly in the
extermination of Arianism in Spain).
There were two other (sainted) siblings - Florentina and Fulgentius.
Mum and dad must have been proud of their kids!
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Ibn Rushd (Averroës) |
1126 - 1198 (72) |
Cordoba born philosopher - probably the most important medieval commentator on Aristotle, and the harmonisation of Aristotelian philosophy with the teachings of the Quran. See him portrayed by Raphael in green robe and white turban in The School of Athens
(
Vatican, Rome ).
Also a physician, lawyer and mathematician. Died in Marrakesh, Morocco.
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Maimonides |
1135 - 1204 (69) |
Rabbi, physician and philosopher.
Born Cordoba, forced to leave in 1148. Went to Morocco and the
Holy Land before settling in Fostat in Egypt. Wrote "The
Guide for the Perplexed".
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Ibn Arabi |
1165 - 1240 (75) |
Sufi mystic visionary. Born
in Murcia (Spain), died in Damascus.
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Moses de León |
1250 -1305 (55) |
Rabbi and Kabbalist.
Born in Leon, and lived there, then in Guadalajara and Valladolid before
coming to rest in Avila where he lived for the rest of his life.
The only one of the four post millenium giants to stay in Spain.
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Seneca the Younger |
c4 BC – 65 AD (69) |
Not yet Medieval, but nonetheless
a son of Cordoba. Lucius
Annaeus Seneca - Roman philosopher, statesman and dramatist - ended up
in Rome, living through the thrills and spills of much of the
Julio Claudian years. He survived
a death threat from the Emperor Caligula, was banished to Corsica in 41
by Messilina, wife of Claudius, then recalled to Rome in 49 by
Agrippina, next wife of Claudius, to tutor her (but not Claudius') son
Nero.
Seneca and the Praetorian
Prefect Burrus became Nero's advisors when he became Emperor in
54, but Nero soon decided he did not need help and eventually
Seneca retired - only to be ordered to commit suicide by the
ungrateful Nero in 65.
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Gerbert d’Aurillac
(Pope
Sylvester II) |
ca 940 - 999 - 1003 (63) |
Gerbert d’Aurillac was a very
bright French churchman who spent time in
Spain on the way to becoming Pope Sylvester II. As a
senior churchman in the
Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba
he learned about navigation and wrote "the Book of the
Astrolabe" - the first Latin explanation of this
Arab navigational instrument.
He also became fascinated with Hindu - Arabic numerals (at that
stage still without a zero), and became a promoter of
their utility when he moved to Rome. However, no-one took
any notice ( What has Poping got to do with numbers?
Anyway, anything a Frenchman says is suspect ) and
it was
not until much later that the medieval world of Europe
generally cast off the shackles of Roman numerals.
More interesting stuff on Hindu Arabic
Numerals etc
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al-Idrisi |
1099 - 66 (or 80!) (67 or 81) |
Born in Ceuta, Spain, in 1099 and
educated in Cordoba,
the Arab Botanist and Geographer Al-Idrisi (1099 - 1166) amongst other things added significantly to the codified knowledge of medicinal plants, and wrote two geographical encyclopaedias embracing all the geographical knowledge of the time about Asia, Africa and the West.
The first of these encyclopaedias was called Al-Kitab al-Rujari (Roger's Book) or alternatively Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq ("The delight of him who desires to journey through the climates") - now that's a title all of us travellers should remember!
The Roger refers to (Norman Sicilian)
King Roger II
(1093 - 1113 - 1154 (61)),
because Idrisi spent much of his life in residence at
the
glittering Palermo court of
the (Christian) King - which may account for the fact that
there is less written about him in Islamic material than you would
expect!
Link to an excellent web page about Roger's Sicily and
al-Idrisi's work |
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San Martino |
c1130 - 1203 (73) |
Globe-trotting pilgrim and internationally recognized
theologian, latterly running the Queen Berenguela funded
scriptorium at the
Basilica de San Isidoro in León
and writing "Concordia" - an encyclopaedia of theology and
commentaries on the scriptures.
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The Toledo
School of Translators |
1130 onwards |
Gerard of Cremona (c.1114-1187 (73)) was the greatest and most
prolific Arabic translator of his time, and the leading light of
the large and formidable bunch of talent assembled by Archbishop Raymond
to
translate hitherto unavailable material into Latin and Hebrew (the Arabs
having previously translated Greek works into Arabic, then lost
most of the originals), and indeed to also translate other stuff
into Arabic.
More about Raymond, Gerard and the
activities and impact of the Toledo School of Translators.
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King Alfonso X ("el Sabio") |
1221 - 1252 - 1284 (63) |
King of Castile and León who
was the great great
grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and also
great grandson of the Emperor Frederick I
Barbarossa ("Redbeard") through his
Swabian mother
Elisabeth, which is why he
flirted with a claim on the title of Holy Roman Emperor until
Pope Gregory X told him he was up himself and to go away.
He was at heart a "cultural dynamo" - driver of the preparation of
the "Alfonsine Tables" * ; supporter of of the
Toledo School of
Translators, and the use of Castilian; writer of Spanish
histories and a monumental work of jurisprudence called
"Code of Seven Acts" (Siete Partidas); and last but
not least Alfonso was a poet (writing in Galician).
Castile and León
Royal Family Trees and Royal Sarcophagi in
the Cistercian Abbey / Nunnery of Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas,
Burgos
*
Alfonsine tables
were a compilation of astronomical data tabulating the positions
and movements of the planets, completed c.1252 but not
printed (in
Venice) until 1483. They were a revision and improvement of the
Ptolemaic tables and were compiled at Toledo, Spain, by about 50
astronomers assembled for the purpose by Alfonso X.
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Ibn Khaldun |
1332 - 1406 (74) |
Born Seville, then moved to Tunis. Historian, political
commentator and diplomat who wrote Prolegomenon (Muqaddima).
He also foresaw the Sigmoid
curve!!
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