An Early Medieval History of the Six Ages of the World

Introduction by R. Pearse, from http://www.tertullian.org, here abridged: “With St. Isidore of Seville (Isidorus Hispalensis, born ca. 560, d. 636 AD), the patristic age in the West comes to an end. He became Archbishop of Seville in 600-601. He was a very industrious author, and exercised an immense influence on medieval Europe. His works are mainly compilations from earlier authors, but of great value because he was the last author still in touch with antiquity… In the same way, Isidore is the last Latin historian of the patristic period, producing two historical works. His brief Chronicon or Chronicle of the World extends to 615 AD, and is given here. The work appears in the Patrologia Latina 83: cols. 1017-1058… This text was translated recently from the Patrologia Latina text by Dr. Kenneth Wolf as a teaching aid for his students. I came across it online one day, and felt it deserved to be more generally known. To the best of my knowledge it is the only English translation. Dr. Wolf has kindly released this version into the public domain, so that it can appear here, but warns that this is only a first draft. The master copy can be found at his site, at [dead link provided, so use this instead] with revisions as they are made.”

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