In the 7th century the political and economic situation of Visigothic Spain seemed to grow ever worse, yet it was at this time that there was established a Christian culture that lasted up to the 11th century. This culture forms the subject of the present volume and was the product, the author holds, of the survival of classical learning, on the one hand, and, on the other, the needs of a sustained programme of evangelisation led by both bishops and monks. Of the articles here, one set focuses on monastic life and the influence on this of Isidore of Seville; a second group examines the...