Cosmography as Cultural Capital: Power Struggle in the Visigothic Kingdom

Abstract

Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital can be used to show that the cosmography of the learned bishop Isidore of Seville (560–636) was intended to acculturate the Visigothic elite to the Roman worldview, shedding new light on the relations of these two ruling elites. By being the provider and guardian of the culture, the Hispano–Roman aristocracy retained significant power and exercised its influence through the Catholic Church. Three dialectical categories — transformation of quantity to quality, development through contradiction, spiral forms of development — help advance the analysis of Isidore's cosmography. A case study on Isidorian planetary orbital values provides an illustration of this dialectical development. It was, therefore, cultural capital as exemplified by Isidore that enabled the Hispano–Roman aristocracy to maintain its position as a ruling elite.