Braulio of Zaragoza

Braulio was born about 585 in Visigothic Spain, into a church family, his father Gregory was a bishop, and his brother John held the see of Zaragoza before him. He was sent to Seville to study under Isidore, and the two men stayed close for the rest of Isidore's life. Their letters survive, more than forty of them, and they are unusually human: Braulio nagging Isidore for a promised book, Isidore apologizing for the delay and pleading illness and old age.

About 631 Braulio became bishop of Zaragoza. He held the see for roughly twenty years and died in 651.

He did three things that outlasted him.

First, he finished Isidore's work. The Etymologiae was left unedited when Isidore died in 636, a mass of material without final shape. Isidore had sent it to Braulio and asked him to correct it. Braulio divided the whole thing into its twenty books, arranged them, and put it into circulation. The encyclopedia that carried classical learning through the Middle Ages went out into Europe in the form Braulio gave it.

Second, he wrote the Renotatio librorum Isidori, a short catalogue of Isidore's writings with a brief life attached. It is almost the only contemporary account of Isidore we have. Nearly everything later ages knew about the man came through those two short pages.

Third, he stood up for the Spanish church when Rome overreached. Pope Honorius I sent a letter accusing the Spanish bishops of slackness toward Jews and heresy. Braulio replied on behalf of the bishops of Spain, respectful, unbending, and pointed: the shepherd should be certain of the facts before he rebukes the flock. The letter is a small classic of frank churchmanship.

He took part in the councils of Toledo in 633, 636, and 638, wrote a life of the hermit St. Aemilian (Millán) of the Cogolla, and left a body of correspondence that is one of the best windows we have into how a bishop in seventh-century Spain actually spent his days: settling disputes, chasing manuscripts, comforting the bereaved, apologizing for slow replies.

He is here for the kind of work that rarely gets a monument. Isidore had the vision. Braulio had the patience to sort twenty books of somebody else's notes and get them out the door.

Sources: Braulio of Zaragoza, Letters and Renotatio librorum Isidori; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae; The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. IV.