medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The scholarly bishop Braulio (d. ca. 650) belonged to an ecclesiastically influential aristocratic family in the Visigothic kingdom: his father later became a bishop (probably of Osma), one of his sisters was an abbess, and an older brother was bishop of Zaragoza from 619 to 631. Braulio was educated at, and became a monk of, Zaragoza's monastery of St. Engratia. When he was about thirty he traveled to Seville and there became a student of his future friend St. Isidore, on whose encyclopedia, the _Etymologiae_, he collaborated staring in about 630.
In 631 Braulio succeeded his brother in the see of Zaragoza. He took part in several Iberian synods, conducted an extensive correspondence some of which has survived, wrote a brief Vita of St. Aemilian of the Cowl (San Millán de la Cogolla) and a hymn in honor of the same saint and is the probable author of the Passio of the Martyrs of Zaragoza. The Passiones of other Iberian martyrs have been ascribed to him. At Isidore's request, Braulio completed and edited Isidore's _Etymologiae_. He also added to Isidore's _De viris illustribus_ a _Renotatio_ containing both a sketch of Isidore and a catalogue of the latter's works. St. Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) devotes to Braulio a brief chapter of his own _De viris illustribus_.
Braulio's cult appears to have begun with an Inventio of his remains at Zaragoza in about 1120. He is a patron both of Zaragoza and of Aragon as a whole.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Braulio:
a) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Isidore of Seville) in a later tenth-century copy of Isidore's _Etymologiae_ (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 167):
http://tinyurl.com/ywn78d
http://tinyurl.com/yhed2q2
b) as depicted by Bartolomé Bermejo in a panel of the predella, now in the Museo de los Corporales in Daroca, of his dismembered later fifteenth-century Altarpiece of St. Engratia (ca. 1476):
http://tinyurl.com/h6gajav
Best,
John Dillon
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