Simile Est Regnum Coelorum Patrifamilias: Conceptualization of Familia and Patria Potestas in the Encyclopedic Works of Isidore of Seville
Authors: Vershinina Yulia 
Published: August 2024

The social institutions of familia and patria potestas, as well as the social roles of pater familias and mater familias associated with them, are generally believed to be the key concepts for understanding the social organization of Roman society. Their importance was so great that they continued to be mentioned in early medieval sources even after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Meanwhile, familia and patria potestas are far from being as unambiguous and straightforward as they seemed for a long time to researchers who studied them almost exclusively on the basis of Roman law. It is enough to mention that the grounds for acquiring the status of mater familias were already debated by Roman writers and lawyers. The importance of the concepts under consideration is also due to their connection with the formation of the institution of the European family, which they had heavily influenced. The purpose of the current paper is to reconstruct and analyze Isidore of Seville’s conceptions of familia and patria potestas since he was one of the most influential early medieval writers, who laid the foundation for the genre of the medieval encyclopedia. The article attempts to establish to what extent Seville bishop’s views on these concepts coincide with the ideas about them that were characteristic for Antiquity. As sources we use two works of Isidore of Seville, which modern researchers, basing on the method, structure and thematic continuity, classify as belonging to grammar-encyclopedic genres — “De differentiis” and “Etymologiae”. In addition to the above mentioned, our choice is determined by the time of their creation: “De differentiis” is the earliest, and “Etymologiae” the latest work of the bishop of Seville. This will allow us to trace not only the evolution of the concepts of familia, patria potestas, pater familias and mater familias in comparison with the antique views on them, but also to see a possible changes in his own opinion about them. In addition, the main methods that Isidore used writing these works were explaining the essence of the concept by comparing it with words of similar meaning, and searching for its etymology, which coincides with our research goal. Our analysis shows that Isidore of Seville considered familia the basis of any community, a concept well known to his contemporaries and not requiring special explanations. In both works, familia is mentioned primarily in the discourse of kinship, which was uncharacteristic of Antiquity. This word in Seville bishop’s writings indicates both a group comparable to gens (which is also found in Roman sources), and a small kin group, with parents and children predominantly mentioned among the members. The latter semantics was not indicated by researchers for the period of Antiquity. Isidore of Seville did not associate the acquisition of the status of pater familias with freedom from the patria potestas of another person, as was thought in Rome. He anchored it in fatherhood and adherence to a certain moral and ethical code of conduct. In “De differentiis” the bishop Seville grounded the status of mater familias in motherhood. However, later, in “Etymologiae” he emphasizes the legal aspect of its acquiring, which generally reflects ancient discussions on this issue. The Bishop of Seville also mentions the power of a husband over his wife, its external symbols and the reasons for its establishment, but does not specify what exactly this power consisted of. As for patria potestas, without mentioning the full name of this institution, he speaks of the power of fathers over children and equates the later to slaves in status. At the same time, it seems likely that Isidore see it as power limited by society and the internal self-control of the father, based on patria dilectione, and not arbitrariness in relation to subjects. These ideas are consistent with those that, according to researchers, existed in Roman society, although Isidore’s probably had other grounds.