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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
A galaxy of enlightened bishops, inheritors and transmitters of the highly developed Hispano-Roman intellectual tradition, graced the Church in seventh-century Spain. Braulio, Taio, Ildefonsus, Eugene I, Eugene II and Julian, all depend more or less directly upon the great St. Isidore of Seville (600–636). He in turn was educated by his brother, Leander, in the last quarter of the sixth century. Lynch emphasizes the uniqueness of the system by which these men were formed in what he calls a ‘bishop's school,’ an expression which underlines the very intimate relationship which incorporated the students into the bishop's familia in contrast to the more formal cathedral school, especially as it developed in Carolingian times.
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