Poverty and social injustice from an early medieval perspective Isidore of seville

Abstract

dore of Seville, the most prominent figure of the Hispanic-Visigothic culture, who had a remarkable influence throughout the Middle Ages and throughout Christianity. In the first two sections we examine Isidore’s theoretical considerations in this regard, and in the third section we focus on his three practical proposals for confronting –and perhaps
overcome– the evil that poverty and social injustice represent: justice, community and, above all, charity. In a fourth section we gather the main conclusions and, as a reinforcement and complement to what has been studied, we offer the reader some brief hymns from the Hispanic liturgy of the Early Middle Ages –witnesses of the same spirit that moved the bishop of Seville– that underline the central idea of the  Isidorian proposal: that only the increase and exercise of charity, amor Dei et proximi, can overcome the evil of poverty and social
injustice, because only love always wins.