Calvin B. Kendall

Bede based his "On The Nature of Things" on Isidore's work of the same name. Bede was a little more dependent on Pliny's "Natural History". Like those previously mentioned works, Bede examines cosmological and natural phenomena and provides pretty standard observations and calculations for the time. Occasionally the calculations are surprisingly accurate when one considers the time that Bede wrote this. Not all of Bede's positions have stood the test of time though. Keeping in mind the preceding, this does serve as a great window into what constituted standard science (then known as natural philosophy) in the early middle ages.… (more)

Encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville (which also included Cassiodorus, Boethius, Martianus Capella, Bede, Calcidius and Macrobius) wound up being the go-to repositories of philosophical and scientific knowledge for the later scholastics. They were also the intermediaries for Greek thought when knowledge of the Greek language was on the wane. We certainly owe them a debt of gratitude for composing works that, although not entirely original, were compendiums of the knowledge that had accumulated for centuries; usually these categories of knowledge were labeled the quadrivium and the trivium. Everything from physics to metaphysics were addressed in these works. They were also often accompanied with diagrams to aid contemplation.

Reading these works is highly engaging for me. Since they often move from one subject to another, one is not left feeling overly bored. Isidore didn't quite grab me like Macrobius and Calcidius did, but this was still a great book to read. He doesn't just recapitulate ideas found in those writers either, he adds quite a bit from the various church fathers and other obscure sources that those writers didn't use. This is definitely worth reading and recommending. Isidore is known more for his Etymologies, but I chose this work because the subject matter struck me as being a little more practical and interesting. I wasn't disappointed.… (more)