(De correctione rusticorum), addressed to Polemius, Bishop of Asturica, has
aroused the greatest interest in modern times. It is indeed a very
notable example of the way in which the negative and positive sides of
Christian teaching were put before the neophytes of the country districts.
Martin begins by setting forth the view of his time as to the origin of the
heathen gods. They are devils who fell with Lucifer: therefore all
observances which entail any show of reverence towards them are so
many denials of the profession of faith made at baptism. He objects—vainly, as time has shewn—to the ordinary names of the days of the
week, and to the celebration of the first of January as New Year's day:
and further, to the observing of days of moths and mice" (the object
of which was to protect clothes and storerooms from their ravages), to
the naming of Minerva over the web on the loom, the lighting of tapers
by rocks and springs, and many like usages, which we meet with later
in canons of councils and indiculi superstitionum: while over and over
again the question is asked, "Is this consistent with your promise at the
font to renounce the devil and all his works?" Of the positive side of
the teaching inore need not be said than that it is admirably adapted to
its purpose. It is interesting to find that nearly the whole of the matter
recurs in a Homily of Caesarius of Arles († 542), as well as in a tract of
the Irish missionary Pirminius of Reichenau (†758), called Scarapsus, and
in the sermon of St Eligius of Noyon which his biographer St Audoen
has either preserved or excogitated. This suggests a question whether
Caesarius or Martin is the original source, or whether both may not be
utilising a form agreed upon perhaps by a synodical authority.
Let it be recorded, lastly, that Martin of Bracara held in reverence his namesake and fellow-countryman, the saint of Tours, and composed some interesting verses which were inscribed over the south door of the great basilica there.
Before the death of Martin, the life of Isidore of Seville (c. 570-636) had begun. He was beyond question the leading transmitter of knowledge in his century. In the twenty books of his Etymologiae he brought together a collection of facts (and fictions) which served as the encyclopaedia of the whole medieval period. It was long in his hands; his friend Braulio of Saragossa could only extract a copy of it, and that in an uncorrected form, by repeated pleadings extending over more than seven years. He seems to have been at work on it up to his death, and it is obviously unfinished. There is neither preface nor peroration; some sections are unwritten, many references not filled in. To us its great merit is that it has preserved a number of fragments of early Latin writers: but to many a generation after Isidore its practical utility was iminense. It was by far the handiest and in most cases the only accessible—book in which information about natural history, geography, antiquities, the origins of arts and sciences, could be found, whereas the outlines of the seven liberal arts (which occupy the
