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[Pg vii]

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[Pg 2]

THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS: PETER ABELARD AND HUGH OF ST. VICTOR

Relation of scholastic theology to our theme—Character of Abelard’s learning—Incorrect statements of his views—The nature of the stars—Prediction of natural and contingent events—The Magi and the star—Demons and forces in nature—Magic and natural science—Hugh of St. Victor—Character of the Didascalicon—Meaning of Physica—The study of history—The two mathematics: astrology, natural and superstitious—The superlunar and sublunar worlds—Discussion of magic—Five sub-divisions of magic—De bestiis et aliis rebus.

The names of Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, and Hugh or Hugo of St. Victor, 1096-1141, have been coupled as those of the two men who perhaps more than any others were the founders of scholastic theology. Our investigation is not very closely or directly concerned with scholastic theology, which I hope to show did not so exclusively absorb the intellectual energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as has sometimes been asserted. Our attention will be mainly devoted as heretofore to the pursuit of natural science during that period and the prominence both of experimental method and of magic in the same. But our investigation deals not only with magic and experimental science, but with their relation to Christian thought. It is therefore with interest that we turn to the works of these two early representatives of scholastic theology, and inquire what cognizance, if any, they take of the subjects in which we are especially interested. As we proceed into the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries in subsequent chapters, we shall also take occasion to note the utterances of other leading men of learning who speak largely from the theological standpoint, like John of Salisbury and Thomas Aquinas. Let us hasten to admit [Pg 4] also that the scholastic method of instruction and writing made itself felt in natural science and medicine as well as in theology, as a number of our subsequent chapters will illustrate. In the present chapter we shall furthermore be brought again into contact with the topic of the Physiologus and Latin Bestiaries, owing to the fact that a treatise of this sort has been ascribed, although probably incorrectly, to Hugh of St. Victor.

There is no more familiar, and possibly no more important, figure in the history of Latin learning during the twelfth century than Peter Abelard who flourished at its beginning. His career, as set forth in his own words, illustrates educational conditions in Gaul at that time. His brilliant success as a lecturer on logic and theology at Paris reveals the great medieval university of that city in embryo. His pioneer work, Sic et Non, set the fashion for the standard method of presentation employed in scholasticism. He was not, however, the only daring and original spirit of his time; his learned writings were almost entirely in those fields known as patristic and scholastic; and, as in the case of Sic et Non, consist chiefly in a repetition of the utterances of the fathers. This is especially true of his statements concerning astrology, the magi, and demons. To natural science he gave little or no attention. Nevertheless his intellectual prominence and future influence make it advisable to note what position he took upon these points.

Although not original, his views concerning the stars and their influences are the more essential to expose, because writers upon Abelard have misunderstood and consequently misinterpreted them. Joseph McCabe in his Life of Abelard,[1] for instance, asserts that Abelard calls mathematics diabolical in one of his works. And Charles Jourdain in his in some ways excellent[2] Dissertation sur l’état de la philosophie naturelle en occident et principalement en France pendant la première moitié du XIIe siècle, praises Abelard [Pg 5] for what he regards as an admirable attack upon and criticism of astrology in his Expositio in Hexameron, saying, “It will be hard to find in the writers of a later age anything more discriminating on the errors of astrology.”[3] Jourdain apparently did not realize the extent to which Abelard was simply repeating the writers of an earlier age. However, Abelard’s presentation possesses a certain freshness and perhaps contains some original observations.

In the passage in question[4] Abelard first discusses the nature of the stars. He says that it is no small question whether the planets are animated, as the philosophers think, and have spirits who control their motion, or whether they hold their unvarying course merely by the will and order of God. Philosophers do not hesitate to declare them rational, immortal, and impassive animals, and the Platonists call them not only gods but gods of gods, as being more excellent and having greater efficacy than the other stars. Moreover, Augustine says in his Handbook that he is uncertain whether to class the sun, moon, and stars with the angels. In his Retractions Augustine withdrew his earlier statement that this world is an animal, as Plato and other philosophers believe, not because he was sure it was false, but because he could not certainly prove it true either by reason or by the authority of divine scripture. Abelard does not venture to state an opinion of his own, but he at least has done little to refute a view of the nature of the heavenly bodies which is quite favorable to, and usually was accompanied by, astrology. Also he displays the wonted medieval respect for the opinions of the philosophers in general and the leaning of the twelfth century toward Plato in particular.

Abelard next comes to the problem of the influence of the stars upon this earth and man. He grants that the stars control heat and cold, drought and moisture; he accepts the astrological division of the heavens into houses, [Pg 6] in certain ones of which each planet exerts its maximum of force; and he believes that men skilled in knowledge of the stars can by astronomy predict much concerning the future of things having natural causes. Astronomical observations to his mind are very valuable not only in agriculture but in medicine, and he mentions that Moses himself is believed to have been very skilful in this science of the Egyptians. It is only to the attempt to predict contingentia as distinguished from naturalia that he objects. By contingentia he seems to mean events in which chance and divine providence or human choice and free will are involved. He gives as a proof that astrologers cannot predict such events the fact that, while they will foretell to you what other persons will do, they refuse to tell you openly which of two courses you yourself will pursue for fear that you may prove them wrong by wilfully doing the contrary to what they predict. Or, if an astrologer is able to predict such “contingent events,” it must be because the devil has assisted him, and hence Abelard declares that he who promises anyone certitude concerning “contingent happenings” by means of “astronomy” is to be considered not so much astronomicus as diabolicus. This is the nearest approach that I have been able to find in Abelard’s writings to McCabe’s assertion that he once called mathematics diabolical. But possibly I have overlooked some other passage where Abelard calls mathematica, in the sense of divination, diabolical.[5] In any case Abelard rejects astrology only in part and accepts it with certain qualifications. His attitude is about the average one of his own time and of ages preceding and following.

Abelard speaks of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem in a sermon for Epiphany.[6] This familiar theme, as we have seen, had often occupied the pens of the church fathers, so that Abelard has nothing new to say. On the contrary, he exhausts neither the authorities nor the subject in the passages which he selects for repetition. His first point is that [Pg 7] the Magi were fittingly the first of the Gentiles to become Christian converts because they before had been the masters of the greatest error, condemned by law with soothsayers to death, and indebted for their “nefarious and execrable doctrine” to demons. In short, Abelard identifies them with magicians and takes that word in the worst sense. He is aware, however, that some identify them not with sorcerers (malefici) but with astronomers. He repeats the legend from the spurious homily of Chrysostom which we have already recounted[7] of how the magi had for generations watched for the star, warned by the writing of Seth which they possessed, and how the star finally appeared in the form of a little child with a cross above it and spake with them. He also states that they were called magici in their tongue because they glorified God in silence, without appearing to note that this is contrary to his previous use of magi in an evil sense. Abelard believes that a new star announced the birth of Christ, the heavenly king, although he grants that comets, which we read of as announcing the deaths of earthly sovereigns, are not new stars. He also discusses without satisfactory results the question why this new star was seen only by the Magi.

In a chapter “On the Suggestions of Demons” in his Ethica seu Scito te ipsum,[8] Abelard attempts to a certain extent a natural explanation of the tempting of men by demons and the arousing of lust and other evil passions within us. In this he perhaps makes his closest approach to the standpoint of natural science, although he is simply repeating an idea found already in Augustine and other church fathers. In plants and seeds and trees and stones, Abelard explains, there reside many forces adapted to arouse or calm our passions. The demons, owing to their subtle ingenuity and their long experience with the natures of things, are acquainted with all these occult properties and make use of them for their own evil ends. Thus they sometimes, by divine permission, send men into trances or give [Pg 8] remedies to those making supplications to them, “and often when such cease to feel pain, they are believed to be cured.” Abelard also mentions the marvels which the demons worked in Egypt in opposition to Moses by means of Pharaoh’s magicians.

Evidently then Abelard believes both in the existence of demons and of occult virtues in nature by which marvels may be worked. Magic avails itself both of demonic and natural forces. The demons are more thoroughly acquainted with the secrets of nature than are men. But this does not prove that scientific research is necessarily diabolical or that anyone devoting himself to investigation of nature is giving himself over to demons. The inevitable conclusion is rather that if men will practice the same long experimentation and will exercise the same “subtle ingenuity” as the demons have, there is nothing to prevent them, too, from becoming at last thoroughly acquainted with the natural powers of things. Also magic, since it avails itself of natural forces, is akin to natural science, while natural science may hope some day to rival both the knowledge of the demons and the marvels of magic. Abelard does not go on to draw any of these conclusions, but other medieval writers were to do so before very long.

Upon Hugh of St. Victor Vincent of Beauvais in the century following looked back as “illustrious in religion and knowledge of literature” and as “second to no one of his time in skill in the seven liberal arts.”[9] Hugh was Abelard’s younger contemporary, born almost twenty years later in Saxony in 1096 but dying a year before Abelard in 1141. His uncle, the bishop of Halberstadt, had preceded him at Paris as a student under William of Champeaux. When Hugh, as an Augustinian canon, reached the monastery of St. Victor at Paris, William had ceased to teach and become a bishop. Hugh was himself chosen head of the school [Pg 9] in 1133. He is famous as a mystic, but also composed exegetical and dogmatic works, and is noted for his classification of the sciences. Edward Myers well observes in this connection: “Historians of philosophy are now coming to see that it betrays a lack of psychological imagination to be unable to figure the subjective coexistence of Aristotelian dialectics with mysticism of the Victorine or Bernardine type—and even their compenetration. Speculative thought was not, and could not be, isolated from religious life lived with such intensity as it was in the middle ages, when that speculative thought was active everywhere, in every profession, in every degree of the social scale.”[10] Later, in the case of St. Hildegard of Bingen, we shall meet an even more striking combination of mysticism and natural science.

Of Hugh’s writings we shall be chiefly concerned with the Didascalicon, or Eruditio didascalica,[11] a brief work whose six books occupy some seventy columns in Migne’s [Pg 10] Patrologia. It is especially devoted, as its first chapter clearly states, to instructing the student what to read and how to read. On the whole, especially for its early twelfth century date, it is a clear, systematic, and sensible treatise, which shows that medieval men were wider readers than has often been supposed and that they had some sound ideas on how to study. In order to have a basis for systematic study, Hugh describes and classifies the various arts and sciences, mechanical and liberal, theoretical and practical. He is possibly influenced in his definitions and derivations by Isidore’s Etymologies, although he seldom if ever acknowledges the debt, whereas he cites Boethius a number of times, but at least his classification and arrangement of material are quite different from Isidore’s. In this description and classification, and indeed throughout the treatise, Hugh seems to display no little originality of thought and arrangement—once he tells us of his own methods of study[12]—although his facts and details are mostly familiar ones from ancient authors and although he of course embodies generally accepted notions such as the trivium and quadrivium.

To the four subjects of the quadrivium he adds physica or physiologia,[13] which he says “considers and investigates the causes of things in their effects and their effects in their causes.” He quotes from Vergil’s Georgics, (II, 479-)

Thus Physica is more inclusive than the modern science of Physics, while Hugh evidently does not employ it in the specific sense of the art of medicine, of which the word physica was sometimes used in the medieval period. Hugh goes on to say that Physica is sometimes still more broadly interpreted to designate natural philosophy in contrast to logical and ethical philosophy. His quotation from the Georgics also causes one to reflect on the prominent part [Pg 11] played in natural science from before Vergil to after Hugh by the semi-human characteristics ascribed to animals and the occult virtues ascribed to herbs and gems.

Hugh’s attitude to history is interesting to note in passing. In his classification of the sciences he does not assign it a distinct place as he does to economics and politics, but he shows his inchoate sense of the importance of the history of science and of thought by attempting a list of the founders of the various arts and sciences.[14] In this connection he adopts the theory of the origin of the Etruscans at present in favor with scholars, that they came from Lydia. He regards the study of Biblical or sacred history as the first essential for a theologian, who should learn history from beginning to end before he proceeds to doctrine and allegory.[15] Four essential points to note in studying history in Hugh’s opinion are the person, the event, the time, and the place.

In discussing the quadrivium Hugh explains the significance of the terms, mathematica, astronomia, and astrologia. Mathematica, in which the first letter “t” has the aspirate, denotes sound doctrine and the science of abstract quantity, and embraces within itself the four subjects of the quadrivium. In other words it denotes mathematics in our sense of the word. But matesis, spelled without the aspirate, signifies that superstitious vanity which places the fate of man under the constellations.[16] Hugh thus allows for the common [Pg 12] use since the time of the Roman Empire of the word mathematicus for an astrologer, and the frequent use of mathematica in the sense of the Greek word mantike or divination. He correctly states the Greek derivation of astrology and astronomy and employs those words in just about their modern sense. Astrology considers the stars in order to determine the nativity, death, and certain other events. For Hugh, however, it is not wholly a superstition, but “partly natural science, partly a superstition,” since he believes that the condition of the human body as well as of other bodies depends upon the constellations, and that sickness and health as well as storms or fair weather, fertility and sterility, can be predicted from the stars, but that it is superstitious to assert their control over contingent events and acts of free will,—the same distinction as that made by Abelard.

In an earlier discussion of the universe above and beneath the moon[17] Hugh had further emphasized the superiority of the heavenly bodies and their power over earthly life and nature. He distinguished three kinds of beings: God the Creator (solus naturae genitor et artifex) who alone is without beginning or end and truly eternal, the bodies of the superlunar world which have a beginning but no end and are called perpetual and divine, and sublunar and terrestrial things which have both a beginning and an end. The mathematicians call the superlunar world nature, and the sublunar world the work of nature, because all life and growth in it comes “through invisible channels from the [Pg 13] superior bodies.” They also call the upper world time, because of the movements of the heavenly bodies in it determining time, and the lower world temporal, because it is moved according to the superior motions. They further call the superlunar world Elysium on account of its perpetual light and peace, while they call the other Infernum because of its confusion and constant fluctuation. Hugh adds that he has touched upon these points in order to show man that, in so far as he shares in this world of change, he is like it, subject to necessity, while in so far as he is immortal he is related to the Godhead.

Hugh’s brief, but clear and pithy, account of magic occurs in the closing chapter of his sixth and last book,[18] and seems to be rather in the nature of an addendum. It is, indeed, missing from the Didascalicon in some of the earliest manuscripts[19] and is found separately in the same collection of manuscripts, so that possibly it is not by Hugh. At any rate, magic is treated by itself apart from his previous description and classification of the arts and sciences and listing of their founders. The definition of magic makes it clear why it is thus segregated: “Magic is not included in philosophy, but is a distinct subject, false in its professions, mistress of all iniquity and malice, deceiving concerning [Pg 14] the truth and truly doing harm; it seduces souls from divine religion, promotes the worship of demons, engenders corruption of morals, and impels the minds of its followers to every crime and abomination.” Hugh had prefaced this definition by much the usual meager history of the origin of magic to be found in Isidore and other writers, but his definition proper seems rather original in its form and in a way admirable in its attitude. The ancient classical feeling that magic was evil and the Christian prejudice against it as the work of demons still play a large part in his summary of the subject, but to these two points that magic is hostile to Christianity or irreligious, and that it is improper, immoral, and criminal, he adds the other two points that it is not a part of philosophy—in other words, it is unscientific, and that it is more or less untrue and unreal. Or these four points may be reduced to two: since law, religion, and learning unite in condemning magic, it is unsocial in every respect; and it is more or less untrue, unreal, and unscientific.

Hugh’s list of various forbidden and occult arts which are sub-divisions of magic is somewhat similar to that of Isidore, but he classifies and groups them logically under five main heads in a way which appears to be partly his own, and which was followed by other subsequent writers, such as Roger Bacon. His first three main heads all deal with arts of divination. Mantike divides as usual into necromancy, geomancy, hydromancy, aerimancy, and pyromancy. Under mathematica are listed aruspicina, or the observation of hours (horae) or of entrails (hara); augury, or observation of birds; and horoscopia, or the observation of nativities. The third main head, sortilegia, deals with divination by lots. The fourth main head, maleficia, with which magic has already been twice identified in the chapter, is now described by Hugh as “the performance of evil deeds by incantations to demons, or by ligatures or any other accursed kind of remedies with the co-operation and instruction of [Pg 15] demons.”[20] Fifth and last come praestigia, in which “by phantastic illusions concerning the transformation of objects the human senses are deceived by demoniacal art.”[21]

Among the doubtful and spurious works ascribed to Hugh is a bestiary in four books,[22] in which various birds and beasts are described, and spiritual and moral applications are made from them. At least this is the character of the first part of the treatise; towards the close it becomes simply a glossary of all sorts of natural objects. Physiologus is often cited for the natural properties of birds and beasts, but as we have already dealt with the problem of the Physiologus in an earlier chapter, and as we shall sufficiently deal with the properties and natures ascribed to animals in the middle ages in describing the treatment of them by various encyclopedists like Thomas of Cantimpré, Bartholomew of England, and Albertus Magnus, we are at present mainly interested in some other features of the treatise before us. It is often illustrated with illuminations of birds and animals in the manuscripts and was originally intended to be so, as the prologue on the hawk and dove by its monkish author to a noble convert, Raynerus, makes evident. “Wishing to satisfy the petitions of your desire, I decided to paint the dove whose ‘wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold,’ and to edify minds by painting, in order that what the simple mind can scarcely grasp by the eye of the intellect, it might at least discern with the carnal eye, and vision perceive what hearing could scarcely comprehend. However, I wished not only to depict the dove graphically but to describe it in words and to explain the painting by writing, so that he whom the simplicity of the picture did not please might at least be pleased by the morality of Scripture.” Indeed, the work is often entitled The Gilded [Pg 16] Dove in the manuscripts. The treatise is manifestly of a religious and popular rather than scientific character. One interesting passage states that a monk should not practice medicine because “a doctor sometimes sees things which are not decent to see,” and “touches what it is improper for the religious to touch.” Furthermore, a physician “speaks of uncertain matters by means of experiments, but experience is deceitful and so often errs. But this is not fitting for a monk that he should speak aught but the truth.”[23] It is rather surprising to find free will attributed to the wild beasts, who are said to wander about at their will.[24] This passage, however, is simply copied from Isidore.[25]

SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF DE BESTIIS ET ALIIS REBUS OR THE GILDED DOVE

The De bestiis et aliis rebus or Columba deargentata appears with other opuscula of Hugh of St. Victor or Hugh of Folieto in

Cambridge University has several copies, most of which seem to differ from the printed edition and from one another.

A few other MSS (doubtless the list can be greatly augmented) are:

ADELARD OF BATH

While the Breton, Abelard, and the Saxon, Hugh of St. Victor, were reviewing patristic literature from somewhat new angles and were laying the foundations of scholastic method, an Englishman, Adelard of Bath,[26] was primarily [Pg 20] interested in exploring the fields of mathematical and natural science. As Hugh came from Saxony to Paris and Abelard went forth from his native Brittany through the towns of France in quest of Christian teachers, so Adelard, leaving not only his home in England but the schools of Gaul where he had been teaching, made a much more extensive intellectual pilgrimage even to lands Mohammedan. “It is worth while,” he declares in one of his works, “to visit learned men of different nations, and to remember whatever you find is most excellent in each case. For what the schools of Gaul do not know, those beyond the Alps reveal; what you do not learn among the Latins, well-informed Greece will teach you.”[27] Adelard seems to have devoted himself especially to Arabian learning and to have made a number of translations from the Arabic, continuing at the beginning of the twelfth century that transfer of Graeco-Arabic science which we have associated with the name of Gerbert in the tenth century and which Constantinus Africanus carried on in the eleventh century. Adelard himself hints that some of his new ideas are not derived from his Arabian masters but are his own, and Haskins has well characterized him as a pioneer in the study of natural science.

Adelard has been described as “a dim and shadowy figure in the history of European learning,”[28] and the dates [Pg 21] of his birth and death are unknown. We possess, however, a number of his works and some may be either approximately or exactly dated. In the preface to his translation of the astronomical tables of Al-Khowarizmi he seems to give the year as 1126.[29] The Pipe Roll for 1130 informs us that Adelard received four shillings and six pence at that time from the sheriff of Wiltshire. This suggests that he was in the employ of the king’s court,[30] and his brief treatise on the astrolabe seems to be dedicated to Prince Henry Plantagenet,[31] later Henry II, and to have been written between 1142 and 1146. It was probably one of his last works and in it he mentions specifically three earlier works.[32] Two other writings, which are the best known and apparently the most original of his works, namely the Questiones naturales and De eodem et diverso, may be dated approximately from the fact that they are dedicated respectively to Richard, Bishop of Bayeux from 1107 to 1133, and to William, Bishop of Syracuse, who died in 1115 or 1116. Both works are addressed to Adelard’s nephew, who is presumably the same person in both cases, one in the form of a letter, the other of a conversation, and both justify Adelard’s studies in foreign lands. In an appendix to this chapter the question when these two treatises were written and their relations to each other will be discussed more fully.

The subjects of a majority of Adelard’s known works and translations are mathematical or astronomical. The most elementary is a treatise on the abacus, Regule abaci,[33] in which his chief authorities are Boethius and Gerbert and he seems as yet unacquainted with Arabic mathematics. [Pg 22][34] But most of the mathematical treatises extant under Adelard’s name are from the Arabic, such as his translation of Euclid’s Elements;[35] of the astronomical tables of Al-Khowarizmi—who flourished under the patronage of the caliph Al-Mamum (813-833)—“apparently as revised by Maslama at Cordova,” under the title Liber Ezich; and, if by a “Master A” Adelard is meant, of a treatise of the first half of the twelfth century on the four arts of the quadrivium and especially on astronomy, which is apparently also a work of Al-Khowarizmi.[36] Some of the introductory books on the quadrivium have been printed,[37] but “the astronomical treatise has not yet been specially studied.”[38] One therefore cannot say how far it may indulge in astrology, but we are told that Adelard translated from the Arabic another “astrological treatise, evidently of Abu Ma’ashar Dja’afar,”[39] or Albumasar. We have already mentioned in another chapter the ascription to Adelard of one Latin translation of the superstitious work of Thebit ben Corat on astrological images, and in the present chapter the treatise on the astrolabe for Henry Plantagenet.

Adelard was interested in alchemy as well as astrology and magic, if the attribution to him in a thirteenth century manuscript[40] of the twelfth century version of the Mappe clavicula is correct. We have seen that the original version [Pg 23] of that work was much older than Adelard’s time, but he perhaps made additions to it, or translated a fuller Arabic version. The occurrence of some Arabic and English words in certain chapters of the later copies are perhaps signs of his contributions. Berthelot, however, thought that few of the new items in the twelfth century version originated with Adelard and that many of the additions were taken by him, or by whoever was responsible for the later version, from Greek rather than Arabic sources.[41]

Our attention will be devoted chiefly to the two treatises by Adelard which we have already mentioned as the most original of his works. Of these the Natural Questions are evidently much more important than the De eodem et diverso, which is largely taken up with a justification, in the style of allegorical personification made so popular by Martianus Capella and Boethius, and with much use of Plato’s Timaeus, of the seven liberal arts against the five worldly interests of wealth, power, ambition, dignities, and pleasure. The Natural Questions, although put into a dramatic dialogue form somewhat reminiscent of Plato, deal without much persiflage with a number of concrete problems of natural science to which definite answers are attempted.

Adelard opens the Natural Questions with brief allusion to the pleasant reunion with the friends who greeted him upon his return to England in the reign of Henry I after long absence from his native land for the sake of study. After the usual inquiries had been made concerning one another’s health and that of their friends, Adelard asked about “the morals of our nation,” only to learn that “princes were violent, prelates wine-bibbers, judges mercenary, patrons inconstant, the common men flatterers, promise-makers false, friends envious, and everyone in general ambitious.” Adelard declared that he had no intention of conforming to this wretched state of affairs, and when asked what he did [Pg 24] intend to do, since he would not practice and could not prevent such “moral depravity,” replied that he intended to ignore it, “for oblivion is the only remedy for insurmountable ills.” Accordingly that subject was dropped, and presently his nephew suggested and the others joined in urging that he disclose to them “something new from my Arabian studies.”[42] From the sordid practical world back to the pure light and ideals of science and philosophy! Such has been the frequent refrain of our authors from Vitruvius and Galen, from Firmicus and Boethius on. It is further enlarged upon by Adelard in the De eodem et diverso; it has not quite lost its force even today; and parallels to Adelard’s twelfth century lament on England’s going to the dogs may be found in after-the-war letters to The London Times of 1919.

The result of the request preferred by Adelard’s friends is the present treatise in the form of a dialogue with his nephew, who proposes by a succession of questions to force his uncle to justify his preference for “the opinions of the Saracens” over those of the Christian “schools of Gaul” where the nephew has pursued his studies. The nephew is described as “interested rather than expert in natural science”[43] in the Natural Questions, while a passage in the De eodem et diverso implies that his training in Gaul had been largely of the usual rhetorical and dialectical character, since Adelard says to him, “Do you keep watch whether I speak aright, observing that modest silence which is your custom amidst the wordy war of sophisms and the affected locutions of rhetoric.”[44] In the Natural Questions the nephew, as befits his now maturer years, has more to say, raising some objections and stating some theories as well as propounding his questions, but Adelard’s answers constitute the bulk of the book. Beginning with earth and plants, [Pg 25] the questions range in an ascending scale through the lower animals to human physiology and psychology and then to the grander cosmic phenomena of sea, air, and sky.

In agreeing to follow this method of question and answer Adelard explains at the start that on account of the prejudice of the present generation against any modern[45] discoveries he will attribute even his own ideas to someone else, and that, if what he says proves displeasing to less advanced students because unfamiliar, the blame for this should be attached to the Arabs and not to himself. “For I am aware what misfortunes pursue the professors of truth among the common crowd. Therefore it is the cause of the Arabs that I plead, not my own.”[46] This is a very interesting passage in more ways than one. Adelard appears as an exponent of the new scientific school, stimulated by contact with Arabian culture. He is confident that he has valuable new truth, but is less confident as to the reception which it will receive. The hostility, however, in the Latin learned world is not, as one might expect, to Mohammedan learning. The process of taking over Arabic learning has apparently already begun—as indeed we have seen from our previous chapters—and [Pg 26] Adelard’s Christian friends are ready enough to hear what he has learned in Mohammedan lands and schools, although of course they may not accept it after they have heard it. But he fears that he “would not get a hearing at all,” if he should put forward new views as his own. Indeed, he himself shows a similar prejudice against other novelties than his own in a passage in the De eodem, where he speaks impatiently and contemptuously of “those who harass our ears with daily novelties” and of “the new Platos and Aristotles to whom each day gives birth, who with unblushing front proclaim alike things which they know and of which they know nothing, and whose supreme trust is in extreme verbosity.”[47] Adelard of course regarded his own new ideas as of more solid worth than these, but the fact remains that he was not after all the only one who was interested in promulgating novelties. Yet his justification for writing the De eodem is the silence of “the science of the moderns” compared with the fluency of the ancients, of whose famous writings he has read “not all, but the greater part.”[48] It is not necessary, of course, to regard this passage and the preceding as inconsistent, but it is well to read the one in the light of the other.

But let us return to the passage from the Natural Questions and Adelard’s insinuation—slightly satirical no doubt, but also in part serious—that he has fathered new scientific notions of his own upon the Arabs. There is reason to think that he was not the only one to do this. Not only were superstitious and comparatively worthless treatises which were composed in the medieval period attributed to Aristotle and other famous authors, but this was also the case with works of real value. Also the number is suspiciously [Pg 27] large of works of which the lost originals were supposedly by Greek or Arabian authors but which are extant only in later Latin “translations.”

This point may be specifically illustrated for the moment from the researches of Berthelot among alchemistic manuscripts, which have demonstrated that Latin alchemy of the thirteenth century was less superstitious and more scientific than in previous periods, whether among the ancient Greeks or more recent Arabs. He found but one treatise in Arabic which contained precise and minute details about chemical substances and operations. As a rule the Arabian alchemists wrote “theoretical works full of allegories and declamation.” For a long time several works, important in the history of chemistry as well as of alchemy, were regarded as Latin translations of the Arab, Geber. But Berthelot discovered the Arabic manuscripts of the real Geber, which turned out to be of little value and largely copied from Greek authors. On the other hand, the Latin works which had gone under Geber’s name were produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by men who seem, like Adelard of Bath, to have preferred to ascribe their own ideas to the Arabs. Let us examine for a moment with Berthelot[49] the chief of these Latin treatises. It is a “a systematic work, very well arranged. Its modest method of exposition” differs greatly from “the vague and excessive promises of the real Geber.” Much of the book possesses “a truly scientific character” and “shows the state of chemical knowledge with a precision of thought and expression unknown to previous authors.” As for Adelard’s new ideas, we may not regard them as so novel as they seemed to him, nor estimate them so highly in comparison with ancient Greek science as Berthelot did medieval compared with Greek alchemy—much of Adelard’s thought may be derived by him from those ancient writings in which he claims to have read so widely—but they were probably as new to Adelard’s Latin contemporaries as they were to himself.

[Pg 28]

While Adelard’s English friends displayed no bigoted opposition to the reception of Saracen science, the question of science and religion is raised in another connection in the very first of the questions concerning nature which the nephew puts to his uncle. The nephew inquires the reason for the growth of herbs from earth, asking, “To what else can you attribute this save to the marvelous effect of the marvelous divine will?” Adelard retorts that no doubt it is the Creator’s will, but that the operation is also not without a natural reason. This attitude of independent scientific investigation is characteristic of Adelard. Again in the fourth chapter when the nephew displays a tendency to ascribe all effects to God indifferently as cause, Adelard objects. He insists that he is detracting in no way from God, whom he grants to be the source of all things, but he holds that nature “is not confused and without system” and that “human science should be given a hearing upon those points which it has covered.” On the other hand he has no desire in the present treatise to overstep the bounds of natural science and enter the field of theology. When his nephew towards the close wishes him to go on and discuss the problem of God’s existence and nature, he wisely responds, “You are now broaching a question to me where it is easier to disprove what isn’t so than to demonstrate what is,”[50] and that they had better go to bed and leave this big question for another day and another treatise.[51]

Besides preferring the learning of Arabian and other distant lands to the schools of Gaul, and favoring scientific investigation rather than unquestioning faith, Adelard also sets reason above authority. He not only complains of his generation’s inborn prejudice against new ideas, but later on, when his nephew proposes to turn his questions from the subject of plants to that of animals, enters upon a longer diatribe against scholastic reliance upon past authorities. “It is difficult for me to discuss animals with you. For I learned [Pg 29] from my Arabian masters under the leading of reason; you, however, captivated by the appearance of authority, follow your halter. Since what else should authority be called than a halter? For just as brutes are led where one wills by a halter, so the authority of past writers leads not a few of you into danger, held and bound as you are by bestial credulity. Consequently some, usurping to themselves the name of authority, have used excessive license in writing, so that they have not hesitated to teach bestial men falsehood in place of truth. For why shouldn’t you fill rolls of parchment and write on both sides, when in this age you generally have auditors who demand no rational judgment but trust simply in the mention of an old title?”[52] Adelard adds that those who are now reckoned authorities gained credence in the first instance by following reason, asserts that authority alone is not enough to convince, and concludes with the ultimatum to his nephew: “Wherefore, if you want to hear anything more from me, give and take reason. For I’m not the sort of man that can be fed on a picture of a beefsteak.”[53]

The history of natural philosophy and science has demonstrated that the unaided human reason has not been equal to the solution of the problems of the natural universe, and that elaborate and extensive observation, experience, and measurement of the natural phenomena are essential. But exact scientific measurement was not possible with the unaided human senses and required the invention of scientific instruments. As Adelard says in De eodem et diverso, “The senses are reliable neither in respect to the greatest nor the smallest objects. Who has ever comprehended the space of the sky with the sense of sight?... Who has ever distinguished minute atoms with the eye?”[54] Notable natural questions these, showing that the need of the telescope and [Pg 30] microscope was already felt and that the discovery must in due time follow!

We must not, therefore, unduly blame Adelard for placing, like the Greek philosophers before him, somewhat excessive trust in human reason and believing that “nothing is surer than reason, nothing falser than the senses.”[55] But in consequence much of his discussion is still in the speculative stage, and uncle as well as nephew shows the influence of dialectical training. Some quaint and amusing instances may be given. Asked why men do not have horns like some other animals, Adelard at first objects to the question as trivial; but when his nephew urges the utility of horns as weapons of defence, he replies that man has reason instead of horns, and that, as a social as well as bellicose animal, man requires weapons which he can lay aside in times of peace.[56] Asked why the nose, with its impurities, is placed above the mouth, through which we eat, Adelard answers that nothing in nature is impure, and that the nose serves the head and so should be above the mouth which serves the stomach.[57] Such arguing from the fitness of things and from design was common in the Greek philosophers whom Adelard had read, and in judging his treatise we must compare it with such books as the Saturnalia of Macrobius which he cites,[58] the Natural Questions of Seneca, Plato’s Timaeus, and the Problems of Aristotle,[59] rather than with works of modern science.

It is noteworthy, however, even in these two amusing instances that the argument from design is questioned, while the question about horns Adelard perhaps inserted as a sly hit against the militarism of the feudal age. Little recked he of the horrible substitutes for horns that twentieth century [Pg 31] warfare would work out with the aid of modern science. The medieval church has too often been wildly accused of persecuting natural scientists and it has been erroneously stated that Roger Bacon dared not reveal the secret of the mariner’s compass—which really was well known before his time—for fear of being accused of magic.[60] There is somewhat more plausibility in the theory that he concealed the invention of gunpowder from fear of the inquisition,[61] since there appears to have been a certain medieval prejudice against inhuman war inventions, which historians of artillery somewhat impatiently ascribe to “ignorance, religion, and chivalry,” and which they hold prevented the use of Greek fire in the west.[62] At any rate in Adelard’s day the Second Lateran Council attempted to prohibit the use of military engines against men on the ground that they were too murderous.[63]

Returning to the Natural Questions, we may note that, like the Problems of Aristotle, they vary from such crude queries as might occur to any curious person without scientific training to others that imply some previous theory or knowledge. A list of some of them will illustrate the scope of the scientific curiosity of the time. When one tree is grafted upon another, why is all the fruit of the nature of the grafted portion? Why do some brutes ruminate; why are some animals without stomachs; and why do some which drink make no water? Why do men grow bald in front? Why do some animals see better in the night than in the day and why can a man standing in the dark see objects that are in the light, while a man standing in the light cannot see objects that are in the dark? Why are the fingers of the human hand of unequal length and the palm hollow? Why [Pg 32] don’t babies walk as soon as they are born, and why are they at first nourished upon milk, and why doesn’t milk agree equally with old and young? Why do we fear dead bodies?[64] A number of questions are devoted to each of the topics, vision, hearing, and heat, while the senses of taste, smell, and touch are dismissed in a single question and answer.[65]

The discussion of sound and vision may be noted more fully. The nephew has already learned from his Boethius something similar to the wave theory of sound. He states that when the air has been formed by the mouth of the speaker and impelled by the tongue, it impresses the same form upon that which is next to it, and that this process is repeated over and over just as concentric circles are formed when a stone is thrown into water.[66] Vitruvius had given the same explanation in discussing the acoustics of a theater.[67] But when the nephew asks his uncle how the voice can penetrate an iron wall, Adelard replies that every metal body, no matter how solid, has some pores through which the air can pass.[68] Thus he appears to regard air as the only substance which can transmit or conduct sound waves. His notion that air can pass through solids reminds one a little of the milder theory of Hero of Alexandria that heat and light consist of material particles which penetrate the interstices between the atoms composing air and water.[69] But it hardly seems as if Adelard could have derived his notion from Hero, since the impermeability of metal vessels to air is a fundamental hypothesis in many of the devices of Hero’s Pneumatics.

[Pg 33]

Adelard’s theory of vision, that of extramission of “a visible spirit,” is similar to that of Plato in the Timaeus, by which he was not unlikely influenced. The visible spirit passes from the brain to the eye through “concave nerves which the Greeks call optic,” and from the eye to the object seen and back again “with marvelous celerity.”[70] It would be interesting to know certainly whether Adelard penned this passage before John of Spain translated into Latin the De differentia spiritus et animae, in which Costa ben Luca speaks of “hollow nerves” from the brain to the eye through which the spiritus passes for the purpose of vision.[71] Apparently Adelard was first, since the Natural Questions were finished at some time between 1107 and 1133, while John of Spain is said to have made his translation for Raymond who was archbishop of Toledo from 1130 to 1150. Were the manuscripts not so insistent in naming John as translator,[72] we might think that Adelard had translated the De differentia spiritus et animae. Very possibly he had come across it during his study with Arabian masters. But he shows no acquaintance with the optical researches of Al-Hazen or with the treatise on Optics ascribed to Ptolemy, which last is extant only in the twelfth century Latin translation by Eugene of Palermo, admiral of Sicily.[73] However, the fact that three other theories of vision than the one which Adelard accepts are set forth by his nephew suggests that the problem was attracting attention. Pliny’s Natural History gave no theory of vision whatever, although he listed various cases of extraordinary sight. Boethius, on the other hand, briefly adverted to the opposing theories of vision by extramission and intramission in the first chapter of his work on music. As for the marvelous celerity of the visible spirit, Augustine had enlarged upon the vast distance to the sun and back traveled by the visual ray in an instant or twinkling of an eye.[74]

[Pg 34]

Throughout the Natural Questions Adelard’s explanations and answers are based in large measure upon the familiar hypothesis of the four elements and of the four qualities, hot and cold, dry and moist. When asked, for instance, why all ruminating animals begin to lie down with their hind legs, he explains that their scanty animal heat is the cause of their ruminating to aid digestion, and that there is more frigidity in their posterior members, which are consequently heavier and so are bent first in reclining. The nephew thinks that here he has caught his uncle napping, and asks why is it then that in rising they lift themselves first onto their hind legs. But Adelard is not to be so easily nonplussed, and explains that after they have lain down and rested, they feel so refreshed that they lift their heavier limbs first.[75] Again, asked why persons of quick perception often have faulty memories, Adelard suggests that a moist brain is more conducive to intelligence, but a dry one to memory. Thus moist potter’s clay receives impressions more readily but also easily loses them; what is drier receives the impression with more difficulty but retains it.[76] In a third passage, Adelard explains his nephew’s weeping in his joy at seeing his uncle safely returned by the theory that his excessive delight overheated his brain and distilled moisture thence.[77]

Adelard, however, like Galen, Constantinus Africanus, Basil, and other writers before him, finds it advisable to refine the theory of the four elements. He is at pains in his answer to the nephew’s very first question to explain that what we commonly call earth is not the element earth, and that no one ever touched the pure element water, or saw the elements air and fire. Every particular object contains all four elements and we deal in daily life only with compounds. In an herb, for instance, unless there were fire, there would be no growth upward; unless there were water or air, no [Pg 35] spreading out; and without earth, no consistency. Moreover, when Adelard is asked why some herbs are spoken of as hot by nature, although all plants have more earth than fire in their composition, he says that while earth predominates quantitatively, efficaciously they are more fiery, just as his green cloak is larger than his green emerald, but much less potent.[78] Thus comes in the theory of occult virtue to help out the inadequate and unsatisfactory hypothesis of four elements and four qualities. We shall find our subsequent authors often resorting to the same explanation.

Adelard may believe in the marvelous virtue of emeralds, to which indeed he alludes rather inadvertently, but we do not find in the Natural Questions any of the common tales concerning remarkable animal sagacity or malice. This may be mere accident or it may be due to his warning in introducing the discussion of animals to give and take reason only. However, the question is discussed whether the brutes possess souls,[79] and he states that the common people are sure that they do not, and that only philosophers assert that animals have souls. This does not mean that their souls are rational, however: either animals possess “neither intelligence nor discretion but only opinion which is founded not in the soul but in the body”; or perhaps they have “some judgment why they seek and avoid certain things,” and such discretion of sense as enables a dog to distinguish scents. If they possess such animal souls, do these perish with the body?

Adelard is correctly informed as to the shape of the earth and its center of gravity. Asked how the terrestrial globe is upheld in the midst of space, he retorts that in a round space it is evident that the center and the bottom are the same.[80] This thought is reinforced by the next question, If there were a hole clear through the earth and a stone were dropped in, how far would it fall? Adelard correctly answers, Only to the center of the earth. The same question [Pg 36] is asked of Adelard by a Greek in the De eodem et diverso, so that, in case we regard the De eodem as written before the Natural Questions, it would appear that he had not derived his conclusion in this matter from either the Greeks or the Arabs. However, we have heard Plutarch scoff at the statement that bars weighing a thousand talents would stop falling at the earth’s center, if a hole were opened up through the earth.[81]

In a recent review of Sir William Ramsay’s The Life and Letters of Joseph Black, M.D., it is stated, “The nature of the experiment he (Black) made is not now known, but his tremendous comment on it was, ‘Nothing escapes!’ Have we here really the first glimmering of the great principle of the indestructibility of matter which, with the associated principle regarding energy, forms the foundation of modern chemistry and physics?”[82] To this the answer is, “No.” Adelard of Bath stated the indestructibility of matter eight centuries earlier, and apparently not as the result of any experiment. But his utterance was fuller and more explicit than that of Black. “And certainly in my judgment nothing in this world of sense ever perishes utterly, or is less today than when it was created. If any part is dissolved from one union, it does not perish but is joined to some other group.”[83]

The indestructibility of matter is also stated by Adelard’s contemporary, Hugh of St. Victor, who remarks in the Didascalicon that of earthly things which have a beginning and an end “it has been said, ‘Nothing in the universe ever dies because no essence perishes.’ For the essences of things do not change, but the forms. And when a form is said to change, it should not be so understood that any existing thing is believed to perish utterly and lose its being, but [Pg 37] only to undergo alteration, either perchance so that those things which were joined are separated, or those joined which had been separated....”[84] Hugh was quite certainly a younger man than Adelard, but it is not so certain that the Didascalicon was written after the Natural Questions, although it is probable. Or Hugh may have heard Adelard lecture in Gaul or learned his view concerning the indestructibility of matter indirectly. Or they both may have drawn it independently from a common source.[85]

In an article entitled Roger Bacon et l’Horreur du Vide[86] Professor Pierre Duhem advanced the thesis that in place of the previous doctrine that nature abhors a vacuum Roger Bacon was the first to formulate a theory of universal continuity. This was an incorrect hypothesis, it is true, but one which Professor Duhem believed to have served the useful purpose of supplementing “the Peripatetic theory of heavy and light” until the discovery of atmospheric pressure. This theory developed in connection with certain problematical phenomena of which this “experiment” is the chief and typical case. If there be suspended in air a vessel of water having a hole in the top and several narrow apertures in the bottom, no water will fall from it as long as the superior aperture is closed. Yet water is heavier than air and according to the principles of Aristotle’s Physics should fall to the ground. Writers before Roger Bacon, according to Duhem, explain this anomaly by saying that the fall of the water would produce a vacuum and that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. But Bacon argues that a vacuum cannot be the reason why the water does not fall, because a vacuum does not exist; he then explains further that although by their particular natures water tends downwards [Pg 38] and air upwards, by their nature as parts of the universe they tend to remain in continuity. Duhem held that Roger Bacon was the first to substitute this positive law of universal continuity for the mere negation that a vacuum cannot exist in nature.[87]

Professor Duhem supported his case by citation of Greek, Byzantine, and Arabic sources and by use of writings of fourteenth century physicists available only in manuscripts. But unfortunately for his main contention he overlooked a remarkable passage written by Adelard of Bath over a century before Roger Bacon. In the fifty-eighth chapter of the Natural Questions the nephew says, “There is still one point about the natures of waters which is unclear to me.” He then asks his uncle to explain a water jar, similar to that just described, which they had once seen at the house of an enchantress. Adelard replies in his clear, easy style, so different from the scholastic discussion in Bacon’s corresponding passages. “If it was magic, the enchantment was worked by violence of nature rather than of waters. For although four elements compose the body of this world of sense, they are so united by natural affection that, as no one of them desires to exist without another, so no place is or can be void of them. Therefore immediately one of them leaves its position, another succeeds it without interval, nor can one leave its place unless some other which is especially attached to it can succeed it.” Hence it is futile to give the water a chance to escape unless you give the air a chance to enter. Be it noted that Adelard not only thus anticipates the theory of universal continuity, but also in the last clause of the quotation approaches the doctrine of chemical affinity in the formation and disintegration of molecules. Finally, he describes what actually occurs in the experiment more accurately than Roger Bacon or the other physicists cited by Duhem. “Hence it comes about that, if in a vessel which is absolutely tight above an aperture is [Pg 39] made below, the liquid flows out only interruptedly and with bubbling. For as much air gets in as liquid goes out, and this air, since it finds the water porous, by its own properties of tenuity and lightness makes its way to the top of the vessel and occupies what seems to be a vacuum.”

This detailed and accurate description of exactly what takes place shows us Adelard’s powers of observation and experiment at their best, and compares favorably with two cruder examples of experimentation which he ascribes to others. He states that it was discovered experimentally which portion of the brain is devoted to the imagination and which parts to reason and memory through a case in which a man was injured in the front part of the head.[88] In the other instance some philosophers, in order to study the veins and muscles of the human body, bound a corpse in running water until all the flesh had been removed by the current.[89] But the question remains, how often did Abelard exercise his powers of accurate observation by actual experiments? Certainly one thing is noteworthy, that the best and almost sole experiment that he details is represented by him as suggested by the magic water jar of an enchantress. Thus we are once again impelled to the conclusion that experimental method owes a considerable debt to magic, and that magic owed a great deal to experimental method.

We are also reminded of the association of similar water-jars with thaumaturgy in the Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria.[90] It will be noted that Adelard is content with a single illustration of the principle involved, while Hero kept reintroducing instances of it. And while Hero gave little more than practical directions, Adelard gives a philosophical interpretation of and scientific deduction from the experiment. But he also describes what actually occurs more accurately, admitting that some liquid will gradually flow out [Pg 40] even when the air-hole is kept closed. Here again, as in the case of the theory of the penetration of the particles of one substance between those of another mentioned in our paragraph above on the theory of sound, it is difficult to say whether Adelard was acquainted with Hero’s works. Probably it is only chance that Hero’s Pneumatics seems to contain almost exactly the same number of theorems as Adelard’s Natural Questions has chapters.[91]

It remains to consider Adelard’s attitude towards the stars, which is very similar to that of Plato’s Timaeus. We have already seen that he translated works of Arabic astrology. Such a work as the tables of Al-Khowarizmi evidently has an astrological purpose, enabling one to find the horoscope accurately. In the De eodem et diverso he calls the celestial bodies “those superior and divine animals,” and “the causes and principle of inferior natures.” One who masters the science of astronomy can comprehend not only the present state of inferior things but also the past and the future.[92] The existence of music, says Adelard in another passage, supplies philosophers with a strong argument for their belief that “the soul has descended into the body from the stars above.”[93] In the De eodem et diverso Adelard also expresses the belief that from present phenomena the mind can look ahead far into the future, and that the soul can sometimes foresee the future in dreams.[94]

In the Natural Questions[95] Adelard again alludes to the stars as “those superior animals,” and when asked whether they are animated replies that he deems anyone to be without sense who contends that the stars are senseless, and that to call those bodies lifeless which produce vitality in other bodies is ridiculous. He regards “the bodies of the stars” as composed of the same four elements as this world of inferior creation, but he believes that in their composition those elements predominate which conduce most to life and [Pg 41] reason, and that the celestial bodies are more fiery than terrestrial bodies. “But their fire is not harsh, but gentle and harmless. It therefore follows that it is obedient to and in harmony with sense and reason.” Their form, too, being “full and round,” is especially adapted to reason. Finally, if reason and foresight exist even in our dark and perturbed lower world, how much more must the stars employ intelligence in their determined and constant courses? When the nephew proceeds to inquire what food the stars eat, since they are animals, Adelard shows no surprise, but answers that as diviner creatures they use a purer sustenance than we, namely, the humidities of earth and water which, extenuated and refined by their long upward transit, neither augment the stars in weight nor dull their reason and prudence. But when the nephew asks whether the aplanon or outermost and immovable sphere of heaven should be called God or not, Adelard answers that to assert this is in one sense philosophical but in another, insane and abominable, and he then avoids further discussion by terminating the treatise.

For some reason, which I failed to discover, the catalogue of the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum, in describing “a philosophical treatise concerning the principles of nature, the power of celestial influences on minds and morals, and other matters,”[96] states that “the author seems to be Athelardus.” The treatise is perhaps of later date than Adelard of Bath, but as it would be equally difficult to connect it with any other of our authors, we will give some account of it now. It seems to be incomplete as it stands both at the beginning and end, but the main interest in the portion preserved to us is astrological. Authorities are cited such as Hermes Trismegistus, Theodosius, Ptolemy, Apollonius of Thebes, “Albateni,” and “Abumaxar.” Discussing the number of elements our author states that medical men speak of the four parts of the inferior [Pg 42] world, fire, air, water, earth,[97] but that astrologers make the number of the elements twelve, adding the eight parts of the superior world.[98] Later our author argues further for astrological influence as against “the narrow medical man who thinks of no effects of things except those of inferior nature merely.”[99] Our author holds that forms come from above to matter here below, and discusses the influence of the sky on the generation of humans and metals, plants and animals, and connects seven colors and seven metals with the planets.[100] He furthermore, in all probability following Albumasar in this, asserts that the course of history may be foretold by means of astrology and that different religions go with different planets.[101] The Jews are under Saturn; the Arabs, under Venus and Mars, which explains the warlike and sensual character of their religion; the Christian Roman Empire, under the Sun and Jupiter. “Ancient writers argue” and “present experience proves”[102] that the Sun stands for honesty, liberality, and victory; Jupiter, for peace, equity, and humanity. The constant enmity between the Jews and Christians, and Moslems and Christians, is explained by the fact that neither Mars nor Saturn is ever in friendly relation with Jupiter. These three religions also observe the days of the week corresponding to their planets: the Christians, Sunday; the Moslems, Friday or Venus’s day; the Jews, Saturday. Our author also explains the worships of the Egyptians and Greeks by their relation to signs of the zodiac.

Despite the allusion just mentioned to “the experience of to-day,” our author perhaps shows too great a tendency to cite authorities to be that Adelard of Bath who wished to give and take reason and reproved his nephew for blind trust in authority. In discussing the theme of spirits and demons[103]—a different problem, it is true, from natural [Pg 43] questions—he thinks that “it is enough in these matters to have faith in the authority of those who, divinely illuminated, could penetrate into things divine by the purer vision of the mind.” He proceeds to cite Apuleius and Trismegistus, Hermes in The Golden Bough, “Apollonius” in The Secrets of Nature, which he wrote alone in the desert, and Aristotle who tells of a spirit of Venus who came to him in a dream and instructed him as to the sacrifice which he should perform under a certain constellation.

But I would close this chapter on Adelard not with superstition from a treatise of dubious authenticity, but rather with reaffirmation of the importance in the long history of science of his brief work, the Natural Questions. Its probable effects upon Hugh of St. Victor and Roger Bacon are instances of its medieval influence to which we shall add in subsequent chapters. But most impressive is the fact that within such compact compass it considers so many problems and topics that are still of interest to modern science. For instance, its two concrete examples of the stone dropped into a hole extending through the earth’s center and of the magic water jar have been common property ever since.

THE PROBLEM OF DATING THE DE EODEM ET DIVERSO AND QUESTIONES NATURALES AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER

It is a difficult matter to fix the date either of the De eodem et diverso or of the Questiones naturales, and to account satisfactorily for the various allusions to contemporary events and to Adelard’s own movements which occur in either. It is not even entirely certain which treatise was written first, as neither contains an unmistakable allusion to the other. On general grounds the De eodem et diverso would certainly seem the earlier work, but there are some reasons for thinking the contrary. It seems clear that not many years elapsed between the composition of the two works, but how many is uncertain. It is evident that the De eodem et diverso must have been written by 1116 at the latest in order to dedicate it to William, bishop of Syracuse. But the Questiones naturales apparently might have been dedicated to Richard, bishop of Bayeux, at almost any time during his pontificate from 1107 to 1133, although probably not long after 1116.

Professor Haskins would narrow down the time during which the De eodem et diverso could have been written to the years from about 1104 to 1109, with the single year 1116 as a further possibility. He says, “Adelard speaks of having played the cithara before the queen in the course of his musical studies in France the preceding year, and as there was no queen of France between the death of Philip I and the marriage of Louis VI in 1115, the treatise, unless the bishop of Syracuse was still alive in 1116, would not [Pg 45] be later than 1109.”[104] But may not the queen referred to have been Matilda, the wife of Henry I?[105] She was a patroness both of artists and of men of letters, and the Pipe Roll for 1130 and the treatise on the astrolabe have shown us that later, at least, it was the English royal family with which Adelard, himself an Englishman, was connected. It is of “Gaul,” not of “France” in the sense of territory subject to the French monarch, that Adelard writes,[106] and Normandy was of course under Henry’s rule after the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106.

The De eodem et diverso takes the form of a letter[107] from Adelard to his nephew, justifying his “laborious itinerary” in pursuit of learning against the reproach of “levity and inconstancy” made by the nephew, and stating “the cause of my travel among the learned men of various regions,” at which the nephew has time and again expressed his astonishment, and the reasons for which his uncle has kept concealed from him for two years.[108] This letter seems to have been written by Adelard in Sicily, since it is prefaced [Pg 46] with a dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse, and since towards its close Adelard speaks of “coming from Salerno into Graecia maior”[109]—a phrase by which he presumably refers to the ancient Magna Graecia, or southern Italy, and perhaps also Sicily. In the preceding year, however, Adelard and his nephew had been together in Tours.[110] It thus appears that the De eodem was written not very long after Adelard set out on his quest for foreign learning, while he was still in the Greek or semi-Greek learned society of southern Italy and Sicily, and presumably before he had come into contact with the science of the Saracens, which he does not mention in the De eodem et diverso, although traces of it undoubtedly lingered in Sicily. He writes as if the idea had only comparatively recently come to him “that he could much broaden his education, if he crossed the Alps and visited other teachers than those of Gaul.”

In the Natural Questions, on the other hand, he returns to England after seven years, instead of a single year, of separation from his nephew, after a visit to the principality of Antioch,[111] and after a considerable period of study among the Saracens or Arabs. It is rather natural, however, to conclude that the same absence abroad is referred to in both treatises, and that Adelard wrote De eodem et diverso to his nephew after he had been absent a year, while the Natural Questions was composed after his return at the end of seven years. Thus six years would separate the two treatises. But the Natural Questions depicts a different last parting of uncle and nephew from that of De eodem et diverso. It does not allude to their having been together in [Pg 47] Tours seven years ago, but reminds the nephew how, when his uncle took leave of him and his other pupils at Laon seven years since, it was agreed between them that while Adelard investigated Arabian learning, his nephew should continue his studies in Gaul.[112] In the De eodem et diverso, on the contrary, neither Laon nor the Arabs nor any such agreement between uncle and nephew is mentioned. Rather, the uncle seems to have at first kept secret the motives for his crossing the Alps. It therefore may be that Adelard had returned from Sicily to Gaul and had taught at Laon for a short time before setting out on a longer period of travel in quest of Arabian science. This would agree well enough with his allusion to his nephew in the De eodem et diverso as “still a boy,”[113] and the statement in the Natural Questions that his nephew was “little more than a boy”[114] when he parted from him seven years before. In this case the Natural Questions would have been written more than seven years after the De eodem et diverso. This is, I think, the most tenable and plausible hypothesis.

There are, it is true, one or two circumstances which might be taken to indicate that the De eodem et diverso was written after the Questiones naturales. In the sole manuscript of the De eodem thus far known[115] it follows that treatise, and its title Of the same and different might be taken as a continuation with variations of the general line of thought of the other treatise. But it is perhaps just because some copyist has so interpreted its title that it is put [Pg 48] after the Natural Questions in this manuscript. At any rate in the text itself Adelard gives another explanation of its title, stating that it has reference to the allegorical figures, Philosophia and Philocosmia, who address him in his vision, and who, he says, are designated as eadem and diversa “by the prince of philosophers,”—an allusion perhaps to some of Aristotle’s pronouns.[116] Another curious circumstance is that the problem, How far would a stone of great weight fall, if dropped in a hole extending through the earth at the center? occurs in both the De eodem and Natural Questions.[117] In the latter the nephew puts the query to his uncle: in the former a Grecian philosopher whom Adelard has been questioning concerning the properties of the magnet in attracting iron, in his turn asks Adelard this question. Now in the Natural Questions Adelard’s answer is given, as if the nephew had never heard it before, but in the De eodem et diverso it is simply stated that the Greek “listened to my explanation of this,” as if the nephew had already heard the explanation from his uncle.[118]

In opening the Natural Questions Adelard states that Henry I was reigning when he returned to England recently. This statement, in Professor Haskins’ opinion, “would seem to imply that he originally left England for his studies in France before Henry’s accession.” I am not quite sure that this inference follows, but if it does, may one not go a step further and argue that Henry I had come to the throne since Adelard parted from his nephew at Laon to investigate the learning of the Arabs? Had Henry become king of England while Adelard was still studying or teaching in northern [Pg 49] Gaul, he would almost certainly have heard of it, and it would have been no news to him on his return from his studies among the Arabs. If we accept this view, Adelard’s return to England would be not later than 1107. But it could scarcely be earlier, if he wrote and dedicated the Natural Questions promptly after his arrival, of which he speaks as a recent event in that work, since the dedicatee did not become Bishop of Bayeux until 1107. And if the De eodem et diverso was written more than seven years before the Natural Questions, we should have to date it back into the eleventh century, which would perhaps be too early for its dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse. And to put these two works so early is to leave a gap between them and the other known dates of Adelard’s career, 1126, 1130, and 1142-1146, and make the period of his literary productivity quite a long one. He would have been quite a graybeard when he wrote on the astrolabe for the juvenile Henry Plantagenet. On the whole, therefore, I am inclined to think that Henry I had been reigning for some time when Adelard wrote the Natural Questions.

WILLIAM OF CONCHES

Practically contemporary with Adelard of Bath and associated like him with members of the English royal line was William of Conches,[119] of whom we shall treat in the present chapter. Like Adelard also he withdrew from the schools of Gaul after teaching there for a time—longer apparently than Adelard; like Adelard he followed the guidance of reason and took an interest in natural science; like him he employed the dramatic dialogue form in his works. John of Salisbury, who studied grammar under William of Conches and Richard Bishop (l’Évêque) from about 1138 to 1141,[120] represents those masters as successors to the [Pg 51] thorough-going educational methods and humanistic ideals of Bernard of Chartres; but adds that later, when men “preferred to seem rather than be philosophers, and professors of the arts promised to transmit all philosophy to their hearers in less than three or two years’ time, overcome by the onslaught of the unskilled multitude, they ceased teaching.”[121] William then seems to have entered the service of Geoffrey Plantagenet, to whom as duke of Normandy as well as count of Anjou we find William addressing his Dragmaticon or Dramaticus, which takes the form of a dialogue between them. It thus was written at some time between 1144 and 1150, the period when Geoffrey was duke of Normandy.[122] His son, the future Henry II of England, was in Normandy from 1146 to 1149, when William appears to have been his tutor.[123] In the Dragmaticon William praises Geoffrey for training his children “from a tender age” in the study of literature,[124] and before the boy was made duke of Normandy by his father in 1150 at the age of seventeen William prepared for his perusal a collection of moral extracts from such classical Latin authors as Cicero, Seneca, Juvenal, Horace, Lucan, and Persius, entitled De honesto et utili.[125] The last we hear of William seems to be in 1154, under which date Alberic des Trois [Pg 52] Fontaines,[126] a thirteenth century chronicler, states that he had attained a great reputation. He might well have lived on for some time after that date, since his former associate, Richard Bishop, was archdeacon of Coutances at the time John of Salisbury wrote the Metalogicus in 1159, and survived to become bishop of Avranches in 1171, dying only in 1182. One infers, however, from John’s account that William was no longer living in 1159.

We may next look back upon the earlier events of William’s life. In the Dragmaticon he speaks of having been previously engaged in teaching “for twenty years and more than that.” Still earlier he had been a student, presumably under Bernard of Chartres, in which town it is possible that much of his own teaching was done. John of Salisbury, however, simply says of his studies with William, “Straightway I betook me to the grammarian of Conches,” while in another passage he mentions “my teachers in grammar, William of Conches and Richard, surnamed Bishop, now an archdeacon at Coutances.” Although this passage might seem to suggest that William taught at Conches, no one so far as I know has ever entertained that supposition, and the chief dispute has been whether he taught at Chartres or at Paris.[127] But that he was born at Conches no one doubts, and he himself once speaks somewhat satirically of his Norman dulness compared to the lightning intelligences of some of his contemporaries.[128]

The Dragmaticon was a revision of a work on philosophy or natural philosophy composed in William’s “younger days.”[129] He also appears to have commented upon Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy,[130] and to have [Pg 53] written a gloss on the Timaeus[131] in which among other things he dilates upon the perfection of certain numbers. But our discussion will be almost exclusively concerned with his much more influential Philosophia and its revised version, Dragmaticon. We shall first examine the original version.[132]

The original treatise touches on the fields of philosophy and astronomy in a simple and elementary way, but with considerable skill, if not originality, in the selection and presentation of its subject-matter. William does not seem acquainted with Arabic science except that he has read Constantinus Africanus and from him derived the same doctrine that the four elements are never found in a pure state which we met in Adelard of Bath. William gives us a Platonic interpretation of nature, in which nevertheless he does not adhere at all closely to the Timaeus, interspersed with not infrequent quotation from or reference to astronomical works, classical literature, and the Bible and church fathers. Indeed, he is always careful to allow for divine influence in nature and for the statements of Scripture, and to show that his theories do not contradict either. In such passages his language is always reverent, and he not infrequently alludes respectfully to what the saints have to say (sancti dicunt) on the theme in hand. The body of the treatise opens with definition of philosophy and statement of its method of inquiry, after which the author argues that the world was made by God and discusses the Trinity at some length. He then discusses the topics of world-soul, demons, and elements; next passes to various matters astronomical and astrological concerning the sky and stars; and finally treats of our lower world and of man.

The work also contains, especially in the prefaces to its different books but also in other passages, a number of interesting allusions to contemporary learning and education. [Pg 54] William frequently refers to the existence of other scholars and furthermore makes it evident that this learned society is not in its earliest stage. Its paradise period is over; the evil has entered in among the good; the enemy has sown tares amid the wheat. Education has become too popular, and already the insincere and the incapable, the charlatan and the unthinking mob, are cheapening and degrading the ideals of the true philosopher. William speaks of “many who usurp the name of teacher,”[133] and of “certain men who have never read the works either of Constantinus or of any other philosopher, who out of pride disdain to learn from anyone, who from arrogance invent what they do not know,”[134] and who actually insist that the four qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry, are elements. In another passage William says, “Although we are aware that many strive for an ornate style, few for accuracy of statement, yet rejoicing not in the many but in the probity of the few, we toil for truth alone.”[135] These are not all of William’s complaints. Back in the world of feudalism, crusades, and Holy Roman Empire which seems to many so foreign, distant, and incomprehensible, he voices grievances which are still those of the college or university professor of to-day. The teacher is so occupied with classes that he has little time for research and publication;[136] the vulgar crowd has stolen philosophy’s clothing and left the essential body of truth naked and vainly crying for covering,—a figure borrowed from The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius without express acknowledgment,[137] but perhaps the allusion was so familiar as not to require one; the truly learned are in danger of the bite of envy; most teachers are catering to their pupils and giving “snap courses” in order to gain popularity; the elective system is a failure, since the students, in the words of the Apostle, “after their own [Pg 55] lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears”; academic freedom has become a thing of the past now that masters are become flatterers of their students and students judges of their masters, while “if there is anyone who does maintain a magisterial air, he is shunned as if insane by the meretricious scholars and is called cruel and inhuman.”[138] All which agrees perfectly with John of Salisbury’s statement why William had ceased teaching.

William does not mention magic in his treatise, but the fact that he does not condemn all demons indifferently is perhaps worth noting as a departure from the usual patristic view and as offering opportunity for an innocent variety of necromancy. William, who attributes his classification to Plato, distinguishes three sorts of demons. The first class, existent in the ether betwixt firmament and moon, are rational, immortal, ethereal animals, invisible and impassive, whose function is blissful contemplation of the divine sun. The second class, who dwell in the upper atmosphere near the moon, are rational, immortal, aerial animals. They communicate the prayers of men to God and the will of God to men, either in person or through signs or dreams and “by the closest aspiration of vocal warning.” They are capable of feeling, and, devoting themselves to good men, rejoice in their prosperity and suffer with them in their adversity. Both of these first two classes of demons are good,—kalodaemones. But the third class, who inhabit the humid atmosphere near the earth and are rational, immortal, watery animals, and capable of feeling, are in every way evil,—kakodaemones. They are lustful, cohabit with women, and envy and plot against mankind, for men, although fallen from grace like these demons, can recover their lost estate as the demons cannot.[139]

William offers a rather novel and unusual explanation of the difference in meaning between the terms “astronomy” and “astrology,” stating that authorities on the subject speak of the superior bodies in three ways, the fabulous, the [Pg 56] astrological, and the astronomical. The method by fable is that employed by Aratus, Memroth (Nimrod the astronomer?), and Hyginus (“Eginus”), who interpret the Greek myths in an astronomical sense. Hipparchus and Martianus Capella are representatives of the astrological method, which treats of phenomena as they appear to exist in the heavens, whether they are really so or not. Astronomy, on the contrary, deals with things as they are, whether they seem to be so or not. Exactly what he has in mind by this distinction William fails to make any clearer as he proceeds, but from the fact that he lists Julius Firmicus and Ptolemy as instances of the astronomical method it would appear that he included part at least of what we should call astrology under “astronomy.” William cites yet other astronomical authorities, advising anyone wishing to learn about the Milky Way to read Macrobius, and for an explanation of the signs of the zodiac to consult Helpericus (of Auxerre), the ninth century compiler of a Computus which occurs with fair frequency in the manuscripts.[140]

William represents “Plato, most learned of all philosophers,” as saying that God the Creator entrusted the task of forming the human body to the stars and spirits which He had first created, but reserved to Himself the making of the human soul.[141] This Christian interpretation or rather perversion of Plato’s doctrine in the Timaeus is characteristic. William accepts to the full the control of the stars over nature and the human body, but stops there. Like Adelard he states that the stars are composed of the same four elements as earthly objects. The predominance in their composition of the superior elements, fire and air, accounts for their motion. Their motion heats the atmosphere which in turn heats the element water, which is the fundamental constituent in the various species of animals, which further differ according to the admixture in them of the other elements. Of the superior elements the birds of the air have the most, and fish next. Of land animals choleric [Pg 57] ones, like the lion, possess most fire; phlegmatic ones, like pigs, most water; and melancholic ones, like the cow and ass, most earth. The human body is composed of an unusual harmony of the four elements, to which Scripture alludes in saying that “God formed man of the dust of the earth.”[142] William also lists the natural qualities and humors of each planet and its consequent influence for good or evil. He believes that the ancient astrologi discovered that Saturn is a cold star by repeatedly observing that in those years when the Sun in Cancer burned the earth less than usual, Saturn was invariably in conjunction with it in the same sign. How Saturn comes to exert this chilling influence William is less certain. He has already denied the existence of the congealed waters above the firmament, so that he cannot accept the theory that Saturn is cold because of its proximity to them. He can only suggest that its great distance from us perhaps explains why it heats less than the other planets.[143] The good and evil influences of the planets also come out in the astrological interpretation of myth and fable. Thus Saturn is said to carry a scythe because one who carries a scythe does more execution in receding than in advancing. Jupiter is said in the fables to have ousted his father Saturn because the approach of the planet Jupiter increases the evil influence of Saturn. Jupiter is said to have begotten divers children in adultery because the conjunctions of that planet produce varied effects upon earth; and Venus is said to have had adulterous intercourse with Mars because the propinquity of the planet Venus to the planet Mars renders the former less benevolent. Mars is god of battle because the planet of that name produces heat and drought which in their turn engender animosity.[144] As the tides follow the phases of the moon, so, William believes, a universal flood or conflagration may be produced by the simultaneous elevation or depression of [Pg 58] all the planets.[145] But he accepts comets as special signs of the future caused by the Creator’s will instead of attempting to give a natural explanation of the events which follow them.[146] This is perhaps because of their signifying human events. Thunder and lightning are discussed without mention of divination from them.[147]

Thus far we have heard William cite authorities rather than spurn them as Adelard did. He could, however, be independent enough on occasion. He went so far as to reject the Scriptural account of waters above the firmament, if that word were taken in its ordinary astronomical sense, as naturally impossible; he explained away the passage in Genesis by interpreting the firmament to mean the air, and the waters above it, the clouds.[148] Like Adelard, too, he several times feels it essential to justify his views against the possible criticism of an obscurantist religious party. Discussing the Trinity, he insists that if anyone finds something in his book which is not found elsewhere, it should not on that account be stigmatized as heresy but only if it can be shown to be against the Faith.[149] Thus he confirms Adelard’s complaint that the present generation is prejudiced against any modern discoveries. William, by the way, also employs the word “modern.” Again, in affirming the physical impossibility of reconciling the elements fire and earth, he notes that someone may object that God could find a way. To this he replies that “we do not place a limit upon divine power, but we do say that of existing things none can do it, nor in the nature of things can there be anything that would suffice.”[150] In a third passage his indignation is fanned to a white heat by those who say, “We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.” “You poor fools,” he retorts, “God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.”[151] Elsewhere he yet [Pg 59] further dilates upon the unreasonableness of the opponents of natural science, who are loath to have explained even the natural facts given in the Bible but prefer to accept them blindly, and who, “since they themselves are unacquainted with the forces of nature, in order that they may have all men as companions in their ignorance, wish them to investigate nothing but to believe like rustics. We, on the contrary,” continues William, “think that a reason should be sought in every case, if one can be found.”[152] Thus he vigorously echoes Adelard’s exhortation to give and take reason, and his retort to the nephew’s suggestion that the growth of plants from earth can be explained only as a divine miracle.

William, it turned out, was too original and bold in some of his assertions concerning the Trinity and kindred topics, which were not allowed to pass unchallenged. A letter to St. Bernard from William, abbot of St. Thierry,[153] shows the attitude of William of Conches’ opponents. The abbot first says,—with the assumption of superior seriousness and dignity characteristic through all time of conservatives, bigots, and pompous persons subconsciously aware of their own stupidity—that anyone who knows William of Conches personally is aware of his levity and will not take his vanities too seriously, and that he is to be classed with Abelard in the presumptuousness of his opinions. The abbot then devotes most of his letter to an attack upon William’s discussion of the Trinity, taking umbrage at his discussing questions of faith at all, especially upon a philosophical basis, and at his distribution of the three faculties, power, will, and wisdom, among the Three Persons. The abbot more briefly objects to William’s physical account of the creation of man, saying: “First he says that man’s body was not made by God but by nature, and the soul was given him by God afterwards, and forsooth that the body was [Pg 60] made by spirits whom he calls demons and by the stars.” This doctrine the abbot regards as on the one hand dangerously close to the opinion “of certain stupid philosophers who say that there is nothing but matter and the material, and that there is no other God in the world than the concourse of the elements and the system of nature”; and on the other hand as manifestly Manichean, affirming that the human soul is created by a good God but the body by the prince of darkness. Finally the abbot complains that William “stupidly and haughtily ridicules history of divine authority,” and “interprets in a physical sense” the account of the creation of woman from one of Adam’s ribs.

The effect of this theological attack upon William of Conches can probably be discerned in the Dragmaticon. There he states that it is his purpose to include “many essential points” which were not contained in the earlier treatise, and to omit those statements which he has since become convinced are erroneous. He then proceeds to list and expressly condemn certain statements in the earlier work as contrary to the Catholic Faith, and he asks those readers who have copies of that treatise to make these corrections in it.[154] He accordingly retracts his assertion that in the Trinity the Father represents power and the Holy Spirit will, since there is no direct scriptural authority for this view, but he still maintains that the Son is Wisdom on the authority of the Apostle. He takes back his interpretation of the words of the Prophet concerning Christ, “Who will tell his generation?” as indicating merely the difficulty and not the impossibility of solving that mystery. Finally he reverts to the letter of Scripture in regard to the creation of Eve.

But this done, William becomes his old self again in the remainder of the Dragmaticon. In the rôle of the philosopher [Pg 61] he argues at length with the duke whether Plato’s five circles of the sky and division of spirits into kalodaemones and kakodaemones is in agreement with the Christian Faith. Later on, when the duke cites Bede against him in regard to some astronomical point, he replies that in a pure matter of faith he would feel obliged to accept Bede’s authority, but that on a point of philosophy he feels perfectly at liberty to disagree with him. This declaration of scientific independence from patristic authority became a locus classicus cited with approval by several writers of the next century. Presently to our surprise we find William boldly inquiring at what time of year the six days of creation occurred. He also indulges as before in somewhat bitter reflections upon the learned world of his day.

William, therefore, has had to withdraw some theological opinions for which he could not show authority in Scripture, and some other opinions wherein he disregarded the literal meaning of the Bible. But except that he has to agree to the miraculous account of the creation of the first woman, he does not seem to have altered his views concerning nature and philosophy, nor to have given up in any way his scientific attitude or his astrological theories. The theologians have forced him to conform in respect to theology, but his retraction in that field takes the form of a second edition of his treatise and a reaffirmation of his astronomical and philosophical views. As Hauréau well says, “He always believes in science, he still defends in the name of science, in the accents, and by the method of the scholar, everything in his former writings that has not been condemned in the name of the Faith.... So it is no denial of philosophy that has been won by the outcries of William of St. Thierry and Walter of St. Victor;[155] those attacks have resulted in merely intimidating the theologian.”[156]

[Pg 62]

Such attacks, moreover, had little or no success in lessening William’s ultimate future influence. How utterly they failed to intimidate astrologers may be inferred from the much greater lengths to which William’s contemporary, Bernard Silvester, went without apparently getting into any trouble, and from the half-hearted arguments against the art of John of Salisbury a little later in the century. As Doctor Poole has already pointed out, even the Philosophia, which William of St. Thierry censured and which William of Conches himself modified, survived in its original and unexpurgated version “to be printed in three several editions as the production of the venerable Bede, of saint Anselm’s friend, William of Hirschau, and of Honorius of Autun; the taint of heresy plainly cannot have been long perceptible to medieval librarians.”[157] Also the revised edition, or Dragmaticon, “enjoyed a remarkable popularity, and a wide diffusion attested by a multitude of manuscripts at Vienna, Munich, Paris, Oxford, and other places.”[158] We shall find William’s book much used and cited by the learned writers of the following century, and a number of copies of it are listed in the fifteenth century catalogue of the library of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. If then from the contemporary and passing world of talk William retired disgusted and discomfited to the shelter of ducal patronage, in the enduring world of thought and letters he carved for himself a lasting niche by his comparative intellectual courage, originality, and thoroughness.

EDITIONS AND MANUSCRIPTS OF THE ORIGINAL AND OF THE REVISED VERSION OF THE WORK OF WILLIAM OF CONCHES ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

Although, as the ensuing bibliography will make apparent, a variety of titles have been at one time or another applied to the two versions of the work in question, we shall refer to the original version as Philosophia and the revision as Dragmaticon, which appear to be both the handiest and the most correct appellations, although personally I should prefer Dramaticus for the latter. The two works may perhaps be most readily distinguished by their Incipits, which are, for Philosophia, “Quoniam ut ait Tullius in prologo rhetoricorum, Eloquentia sine sapientia ...”, and for Dragmaticon, “Quaeris, venerande dux Normannorum et comes Andagavensium, cur magistris nostri temporis minus creditur quam antiquis....” The titles and the number of books into which the work is divided differ a good deal in different editions and manuscripts, and the catalogues of manuscript collections sometimes do not identify the author.

First as to printed editions. Philosophia has been printed three times as the work of three other authors.

[Pg 64]

In the following list of MSS, which is no doubt far from complete, I have attempted to distinguish between the Philosophia and Dragmaticon but have often had to rely only upon the notices in catalogues which frequently do not give the opening words or other distinguishing marks. The following MS seems unusual in apparently containing both versions, if by “eiusdem philosophia secunda” is indicated the Dragmaticon.

MSS of the Philosophia

MSS of the Dragmaticon

SOME TWELFTH CENTURY TRANSLATORS, CHIEFLY OF ASTROLOGY FROM THE ARABIC IN SPAIN

Already we have treated of a number of Arabic works of occult science which are extant in Latin translations, or have mentioned men, important in the history of medieval science like Constantinus Africanus or Adelard of Bath, whose works were either largely or partly translations. In future chapters we shall have occasion to mention other men and works of the same sort. We have already seen, too, that translations from the Greek were being made all through the early middle ages and in the tenth century; and we shall see this continue in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries especially in connection with Galen, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. We have also seen reasons for suspecting that the Latin versions of certain works were older than the so-called Greek originals, that works were sometimes translated from Arabic into Greek as well as from Greek into [Pg 67] Arabic, and that there probably never were any Arabic originals for some so-called translations from the Arabic which are extant only in Latin. All this is not yet to mention versions from Hebrew and Syriac or in French, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon. We have seen also in general how important and influential in the history of medieval learning was the work of the translator, and yet how complicated and difficult to follow. Many names of translators are mentioned in the medieval manuscripts: some, for instance, who will not be treated of in the present chapter are: from the Greek, Aristippus of Sicily, Bartholomew of Messina, Burgundio of Pisa, Eugenius admiral of Sicily, Grumerus of Piacenza, Nicolaus of Reggio, Stephen of Messina, and William of Moerbeke; from the Arabic, Egidius de Tebaldis of Parma, Arnold of Barcelona, Blasius Armegandus or Ermengardus of Montpellier, Marcus of Toledo, the canon Salio of Padua, John Lodoycus Tetrapharmacus, Philip of Spain, Philip of Tripoli, Roger of Parma, Ferragius, and so on. But not all such names of translators can be correctly placed and dated, and many translations remain anonymous in the manuscripts. Into this vast and difficult field Jourdain’s work on the medieval translations of Aristotle made but an entrance, and that one which now needs amendment, and even such extensive bibliographical investigations as those of Steinschneider have only made rough charts of portions. Some detailed monographs on single translators[159] and the like topics have been written, but many more will be required before we shall have a satisfactory general orientation.

The subject of medieval translations as a whole of course in any case lies in large part beyond the scope of our investigation and would lead us into other literary and learned fields not bearing upon experimental science and magic. In the present chapter we shall further limit ourselves [Pg 68] to some translators of the twelfth century who chiefly translated works of astrology from the Arabic and who, although they themselves often came from other lands, were especially active in Spain. One or two men will be introduced who do not possess all these qualifications, but who are related to the other men and works included in the chapter.

Throughout the twelfth century from its first years to its close may be traced the transit of learning from the Arabic world, and more particularly from the Spanish peninsula, to northwestern Europe. Three points may be made concerning this transmission: it involves Latin translation from the Arabic; the matter translated is largely mathematical, or more especially astronomical and astrological in character; finally, it is often experimental.

On the very threshold of the twelfth century, in addition to Adelard of Bath to whom we have given a separate chapter, we meet with another Englishman, Walcher, prior of Malvern, whom we find associated with Peter Alphonso or Pedro Alfonso, who apparently was a converted Spanish Jew. Walcher’s experimental observations would seem to have antedated his association with Pedro, since a chapter headed, “Of the writer’s experience,”[160] in lunar tables which he composed between 1107 and 1112, tells of an eclipse which he saw in Italy in 1091 but could not observe exactly because he had no clock (horologium) at hand to measure the time, and of another in the succeeding year after his return to England which he was able to observe more scientifically with the aid of an astrolabe. In 1120 Walcher translated into Latin, at least according to the testimony of the manuscripts, an astronomical work by Pedro Alfonso on the Dragon.[161] Pedro perhaps wrote the original in [Pg 69] Hebrew or Spanish or translated it from the Arabic into one of those languages, but we also know of his writing in Latin himself.

This Pedro Alfonso seems to have been the same[162] who in 1106 in his forty-fourth year was baptized at Huesca with the name of his godfather, King Alfonso I of Aragon, and who wrote the Disciplina clericalis and Dialogi cum Iudeo. Indeed we find the Disciplina clericalis and De dracone ascribed to him in the same manuscript.[163] In another manuscript chronological and astronomical tables are found under his name and the accompanying explanatory text opens, “Said Pedro Alfonso, servant of Jesus Christ and translator of this book.”[164] This expression is very similar, as Haskins has pointed out, to a heading in a manuscript of the Disciplina clericalis, “Said Pedro Alfonso, servant of Christ Jesus, physician of Henry the first (sic) king of the Angles, composer of this book.”[165] The experimental pretensions and astrological leanings of the astronomical treatise are suggested by Pedro’s statement that the [Pg 70] science of the stars divides into three parts, marvelous in reasoning, notable in the signification of events, and approved in experience; and that the third part is the science of the nature of the spheres and stars, and their significations in earthly affairs which happen from the virtue of their nature and the diversity of their movements, things known by experiment.

In a manuscript at the British Museum[166] I have read what seems to be a third astronomical treatise by Pedro Alfonso, differing both from the preceding and from the De dracone.[167] We meet as before the expression, “Said Alfonso, servant of Jesus Christ and translator of this book,”[168] and the emphasis upon experiment and astrology continues. It will be noted further that in this treatise, which takes the form of a letter to Peripatetics and those nourished by the milk of philosophy everywhere through France, Pedro is no longer connected with Englishmen, although this manuscript, too, is in an English library. After rehearsing the utility of grammar, dialectic, and arithmetic, Pedro finally comes to astronomy, an art with which “all of the Latins generally” are little acquainted, in which he himself has long been occupied, and a portion of which he presents to them as something rare and precious. It has come to his ears that some seekers after wisdom are preparing to traverse distant provinces and penetrate to remote regions in order to acquire fuller astronomical knowledge, and he proposes to save them from this inconvenience by bringing astronomy to them. Apparently, therefore, this letter to the Peripatetics and other students of philosophy is simply the advertisement of, or preface to, [Pg 71] a translation by Pedro of some astronomical or astrological work, presumably from the Arabic.[169] It is accordingly mainly devoted to a justification of the thorough study of astronomy and astrology. Many persons, in Pedro’s opinion, are simply too lazy to take the trouble to ground themselves properly therein. Those who think they know all about the subject because they have read Macrobius and a few other authors are found wanting in a crisis,—a passage meant doubtless as a hit at those who base their knowledge of astronomy simply upon Latin authors. Pedro also alludes to those who have been accustomed to regard themselves as teachers of astronomy and now hate to turn pupils again.

The contrast which Pedro draws, however, is not so much between Latin and Arabic writings as it is between dependence upon a few past authorities and adoption of the experimental method. He argues that the principles of astronomy were discovered in the first place only through experimentation, and that today no one can understand the art fundamentally without actual observation and experience. He believes that astrology as well as astronomy is proved by experience. “It has been proved therefore by experimental argument that we can truly affirm that the sun and moon and other planets exert their influences in earthly affairs.”[170] Or, as he says in another passage, “And indeed many other innumerable things happen on earth in accordance with the courses of the stars, and pass unnoticed by the senses of most men, but are discovered and understood by the subtle acumen of learned men who are skilled in this art.”[171] Pedro’s letter further includes some [Pg 72] astrological medicine, interesting in connection with the statement in another manuscript that he was the physician of Henry I of England. In this context, too, he shows familiarity with the translations from the Arabic of Constantinus Africanus.[172]

Pedro’s Disciplina clericalis,[173] although a collection of oriental tales rather than a work of natural science,[174] contains one or two passages of interest to us. Asked by a disciple what the seven arts are, the master gives a list somewhat different from the common Latin trivium and quadrivium, namely, logic, arithmetic, geometry, physics, music, and astronomy. As to the seventh there is some dispute, he says. Philosophers who believe in divination make necromancy the seventh; other philosophers who do not believe in predictions substitute philosophy; while persons who are ignorant of philosophy affirm that grammar is one of the seven arts.[175] Thus while Pedro retains all four arts of the quadrivium, he holds only to logic in the case of the trivium, omitting rhetoric entirely and tending to substitute physics and necromancy for it and grammar. This tendency away from belles-lettres to a curriculum made up of logic and philosophy, mathematical and natural science, also soon became characteristic of Latin learning, while the tendency to include necromancy as one of the liberal arts or natural sciences, although less successful, will be found in other writers who are to be considered in this chapter. In the passage just discussed the importance of the number seven also receives emphasis, as the master goes on to speak of other sevens than the arts. One is impressed also in reading the Disciplina clericalis by a sceptical note concerning [Pg 73] magic and the marvelous properties of natural objects, as in the tale of the thief who repeated a charm seven times and tried to take hold of a moonbeam, but as a result fell and was captured, and in the tale of the Churl and the Bird, who promised his captor, if released, to reveal three pieces of wisdom.[176] The first was not to believe everyone. “This saide,” in the quaint wording of the medieval English version, “the litel brid ascendid vpon the tree and with a sweete voice bigan to synge: ‘Blessid be god that hath shit and closed the sight of thyn eyen and taken awey thi wisdam, forwhi if thow haddest sought in the plites of myn entrailes thow shuldest have founde a jacinct the weight of an vnce.’” When the churl wept and beat his breast at this announcement of his lost opportunity, the bird again warned him not to be so credulous. “And how belivistow that in me shuld be a jacynt the weight of an vnce, whan I and al my body is nat of somoche weight?”

Apparently the chief and most voluminous translator of astrological works from Arabic into Latin in the twelfth century was John of Seville.[177] Although he translated some other mathematical, medical, and philosophical treatises, the majority of his translations seem to have been astrological, and they remained in use during the later middle ages and many of them appeared in print in early editions. So many Johns[178] are mentioned in medieval manuscripts and even wrote in almost the same fields as John of Seville that it is not easy to distinguish his works. Jourdain identified him with a John Avendeath or Avendehut (Joannes ibn David) who worked with the archdeacon Gundissalinus under the patronage of Raymond, archbishop of Toledo from 1126 to 1151.[179] John of Seville was perhaps not the man who worked with Gundissalinus[180] but he certainly appears to have addressed [Pg 74] translations to Archbishop Raymond. Thus in speaking of Costa ben Luca’s De differentia spiritus et animae we saw that the manuscripts stated that it was translated by John of Seville from Arabic into Latin for Archbishop Raymond of Toledo.[181] John of Seville is further styled of Luna or Limia, in one manuscript as bishop of Luna,[182] and also seems to be the same person as John of Toledo or of Spain. In one of the citations of the Speculum astronomiae of Albertus Magnus he is called “Joannes Ulgembus Hispalensis.”[183] John Paulinus, who translated a collection of twelve experiments with snakeskin entitled Life-saver which he discovered when he “was in Alexandria, a city of the Egyptians,” is in at least one manuscript of his translation identified with John of Spain.[184]

Certain dates in the career of John of Seville may be regarded as fairly well fixed. In the Arabic year 529, or 1135 A. D., he translated the Rudiments of Astronomy of Alfraganus (Ahmed b. Muh. b. Ketîr el-Fargânî, or Al-Fargani)[185]; in 1142 A. D. he compiled his own Epitome of [Pg 75] the Art of Astrology or Quadripartite Work of Judgments of the Stars,[186] consisting of Isagoge in astrologiam and four books of judgments. In 1153 A. D. he translated the Nativities of Albohali[187] (Yahyâ b. Gâlib, Abû Alî el-Chaiyât), if we accept the “John of Toledo” who is said to have translated that treatise as the same person as our John of Spain.[188] John of Spain is sometimes said to have died in [Pg 76] 1157, but Förster argued that the Tarasia, queen of Spain, to whom the medical portion of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets, translated by John of Spain, was dedicated, was not the queen of Portugal contemporary with Archbishop Raymond of Toledo, but queen of Leon from 1176 to 1180; and in 1175 a monk of Mt. Tabor is called Johannes Hispanus.[189] If a Vienna manuscript is correct in saying that a marvelous cure for a sore heel which it contains was sent to Pope Gregory by John of Spain, the pope meant must be Gregory VIII (1187).[190] There is of course no impossibility in the supposition that the literary career of John of Spain extended from the days of Archbishop Raymond to those of Gregory VIII or Queen Tarasia. Still there is some doubt whether all the works extant under the name John of Spain were composed by the same individual.[191]

Several books dealing with the science of judgments from the stars by John of Spain are included in the bibliography of deserving works of astrology in the Speculum Astronomiae of Albertus Magnus, but are perhaps simply sections of his Epitome[192] which, after discussing in the [Pg 77] Isagoge the natures of the signs and planets, takes up in turn the four main divisions of judicial astrology, namely; conjunctions and revolutions, nativities, interrogations, and elections. John seems to have translated several astrological treatises by Albumasar and Messahala (Mâ-sâ-allâh), the treatise by Thebit ben Corat on astrological images of which we have already treated, that by Abenragel (ʿAli b. abî’l-Rigâl, abû’l-Hasan) on elections, and the Introduction to the Mystery of Judgments from the Stars by Alchabitius or Alcabitius[193] (ʿAbdelʿazîz b. ʿOtmân el-Qabîsî), which should not be confused with his own somewhat similar Ysagoge. Of other translations by John of Spain, such as a portion of the Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle, the twelve experiments with pulverized snakeskin, and Costa ben Luca’s De differentia spiritus et animae, we treat elsewhere. He was perhaps also the author of a chiromancy.[194]

The experimental character of John’s own handbook on astrology is worth noting. In the main, it is true, he follows the works of the philosophers and astrologers of the past, especially when he finds them in agreement.[195] Besides constantly alluding to what astrologers in general or the ancients say on the point in question, he often cites of the Greeks Ptolemy and Dorotheus (“Dorothius”) and Hermes and Doronius, but probably through Arabic mediums. He also gives us the views of the masters of India, and distinguishes [Pg 78] as “more recent masters of this art”[196] the Arabic writers “Alchindus” and Messahala. The latter he seems to regard as an Indian or at least as skilful in their methods of judgment.[197] But he also notes when his authorities are in disagreement[198] or points out that his own experience in many nativities contradicts their views,[199] against which John’s readers are warned when they find them in the books of judgments. Even Ptolemy is twice criticized on the basis of actual experiment.[200] We see that John was not merely a translator or writer on astrology but an expert practitioner of the art. He supplements the divergent views of past authorities, or qualifies their consensus of opinion, by his own apparently rich experience as a practicing or experimental astrologer. Indeed, for him the theory and practice of the art, the paths of reason and experience, are so united that he not merely speaks of “this reasoning” or view as being “tested by experience,”[201] but seems to employ the words ratio and experimentum somewhat indiscriminately for astrological tenet or technique.[202]

The chief known work of Gundissalinus, the archdeacon who was for a time perhaps associated with John of Spain in the labor of translation, is his De divisione philosophiae, [Pg 79][203] a treatise which owes much to the Turkoman Al-Farabi (Muh. b. Muh. b. Tarchân b. Uzlag, Abû Nasr, el-Fârâbî). If Baur is right in thinking that Gundissalinus made use of translations by Gerard of Cremona, 1114-1187, in the De divisione philosophiae,[204] it would appear to be a later work than his translating for Archbishop Raymond, 1130-1150, which perhaps began as early as 1133.[205]

In the classification and description of the sciences which make up the bulk of the De divisione philosophiae Gundissalinus gives a certain place to the occult arts. At the beginning of the book, it is true, the magic arts are not classed among useful things of the spirit like the virtues and true sciences (honestae scientiae). Neither, however, are they grouped with pride, avarice, and vain glory as harmful vices, but are merely classed along with worldly honors as vanities. [Pg 80][206] “Nigromancy according to physics,” however, is later listed as one of eight sub-divisions of natural science together with alchemy, medicine, agriculture, navigation, the science of mirrors, and the sciences of images and of judgments.[207] Gundissalinus was innocent, however, of any detailed knowledge of necromancy or indeed of any of the other sub-divisions except medicine. He explains that he has not yet advanced as far as these subjects in his studies.[208] He is manifestly simply copying an Arabic classification, probably from Al-Farabi’s De ortu scientiarum, and one of which we find similar traces in other medieval Christian authors.[209]

This little treatise on The Rise of the Sciences by Al-Farabi, although it occupies only a leaf or two in the manuscripts and has only recently been printed,[210] is a rather important one to note, as other of its statements than its eight sub-divisions of natural science seem to be paralleled in medieval Latin writers. There seems, for instance, a resemblance between its attitude towards the sciences and classification of them and that of Roger Bacon in the Opus Maius.[211] Al-Farabi believes in God the Creator, as his opening words show, and he regards “divine science” as the end and perfection of the other sciences; “and beyond it investigation does not go, for it is itself the goal to which all inquiry tends.”[212] At the same time Al-Farabi emphasizes the importance of natural science, adding its eight parts to the four divisions of the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astrology, and music, and saying, “Moreover, this last (i. e. natural) science is greater and broader than any of those [Pg 81] sciences and disciplines (or, than any of those disciplinary sciences).” We need a science, he says in effect, which deals inclusively with changes in nature, showing how they are brought about and their causes and enabling us to repel their harmful action when we wish or to augment them,—a science of action and passion.[213] This suggestion of applied science and of a connection between it and magic also reminds one of Roger Bacon, as does Al-Farabi’s statement later that the beginning of all sciences is the science of language.

Both for Al-Farabi and Gundissalinus the sciences of images and judgments were undoubtedly astrological. Gundissalinus himself believes that the spiritual virtue of the celestial bodies is the efficient cause, ordained by the Creator, of generation, corruption, and other natural operations in this corporeal world. He defines astrologia as we would astronomy, while he explains that astronomia is the science of answering questions from the position of the planets and signs. There are many such sciences,—geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, chiromancy, and augury; but astronomy is superior to the rest because it predicts what will befall upon earth from the dispositions of the heavenly bodies. Gundissalinus also repeats Isidore’s distinction between astronomia and astrologia, and between the natural and superstitious varieties of “astronomy.”[214]

At this point it may be well to note briefly a later work with a very similar title to that of Gundissalinus, namely, the De ortu sive divisione scientiarum of Robert Kilwardby, [Pg 82][215] archbishop of Canterbury from 1272 to 1279. The work borrows a great deal from Isidore, Hugh of St. Victor, and Gundissalinus. One of its more original passages is that in which Kilwardby suggests an alteration in Hugh’s division of the mechanical arts, omitting theatrical performances as more suited to Gentiles than Catholics, and arranging the mechanical arts in a trivium consisting of earth-culture, food-science, and medicine, and a quadrivium made up of costuming, armor-making, architecture, and business-courses (mercatura), after the analogy of the seven liberal arts.[216] Kilwardby, as has been already noted elsewhere, repeats Hugh’s classification of the magic arts.[217]

Next in importance to John of Spain as a translator of Arabic astrology in the first half of the twelfth century should probably be ranked Plato of Tivoli. They seem to have worked independently and sometimes to have made distinct translations of the same work, as in the case of the Nativities of Albohali and the Epistle of Messahala. On the whole, Plato’s translations[218] would appear slightly to antedate John’s. Haskins has shown, however, that the date 1116, hitherto assigned for Plato’s translation of the Liber embadorum of Savasorda, should be 1145.[219] But Plato’s translation of Albohali is dated 1136, while John’s was not made until 1153.[220] In 1136 is also dated Plato’s translation of the astrological work of Almansor in the form of one hundred and fifty or so brief aphorisms, judgments, propositions, or capitula, which later appeared repeatedly in print. Two years later he turned the famous Quadripartitum of Ptolemy into Latin. His other translations include Albucasis (Abû’l-Qâsim Chalaf b. ʿAbbâs el-Zahrâwî) on the astrolabe, Haly (ʿAlî b. Ridwân b. ʿAlî b. Ğaʿfar, Abû’l-Hasan)[Pg 83] on nativities, and a geomancy. Most of Plato’s translations were produced at Barcelona.

In a manuscript at the British Museum[221] one of Plato of Tivoli’s translations is immediately preceded in the same large clear hand, different from the smaller and later writing employed in the remainder of the manuscript, by a translation of the Judgments of the astrologer Alkindi by Robert of Chester,[222] with an introduction to “my Hermann,” whom Robert commends highly as an astronomer. A letter written in 1143 by Peter the Venerable to St. Bernard tells how in 1141 he had induced two “acute and well trained scholars,” who were then residing in Spain near the river Ebro, to turn for a time from the arts of astrology which they had been studying there, and to translate the Koran. These two translators were the friends whom we have just mentioned, Hermann of Dalmatia and Robert of Chester. Robert, too, tells us in the prefatory letter to the translation of the Koran, completed in 1143, that this piece of work was “a digression from his principal studies of astronomy and geometry.” Besides such mathematical treatises as his translations of the Judicia of Alkindi, the Algebra of Al-Khowarizmi, a treatise on the astrolabe ascribed to Ptolemy, and several sets of astronomical tables, including a revision or rearrangement of Adelard of Bath’s translation of the Tables of Al-Khowarizmi, Robert on February 11, 1144, translated a treatise on alchemy which Morienus Romanus, a monk of Jerusalem, was supposed to have written for “Calid, king of Egypt,” or Prince Khalid ibn Jazid, a Mohammedan pretender and patron of learning at Alexandria. Of it we shall treat more fully in another chapter. About 1150 we seem to find Robert returned to his native England and writing at London.[223]

[Pg 84]

Hermann the Dalmatian, or twelfth century translator, must be distinguished on the one hand from Hermann the Lame who wrote on the astrolabe,[224] and apparently on the other hand from Hermann the German who translated Averroes and Aristotle in the thirteenth century.[225] To the twelfth century translator we may ascribe such works as a treatise on rains,[226] a brief glossary of Arabic astronomical terms,[227] and Latin versions of the Planisphere of Ptolemy,[228] of the astrological Fatidica of Zahel,[229] and of the Introduction to [Pg 85] Astronomy in eight books of the noted Arabic astrologer Albumasar, a work often entitled Searching of the Heart or Of Things Occult.[230] Hermann dedicated it to Robert of Chester, whom he also mentions in the preface of his translation of the Planisphere,[231] and in his chief work, the De essentiis, a cosmology which he finished at Béziers in the latter part of the same year 1143.[232]

Hugo Sanctelliensis or Hugh of Santalla[233] is another translator of the first half of the twelfth century in the Spanish peninsula who appears to have worked independently of the foregoing men, since he to some extent translated the same works, for instance, the Centiloquium ascribed to Ptolemy, Latin versions of which have also been credited to Plato of Tivoli and John of Seville. Hugh’s translations are undated but at least some of them may have antedated those of the men already mentioned,[234] since Haskins has [Pg 86] identified Hugh’s patron, “my lord, Bishop Michael,” with the holder of the see of Tarazona from 1119 to 1151. Hugh’s nine known translations are concerned with works of astronomy, astrology, and divination. Those on astrology include, besides the Centiloquium already mentioned, Albumasar’s Book of Rains, Messahala on nativities, and a Book of Aristotle from 255 volumes of the Indians, of which we shall have more to say in the chapter on the Pseudo-Aristotle. The works on other forms of divination are a geomancy[235] and De spatula, a treatise on divination from the shoulder-blades of animals. In the preface to the geomancy he promises to treat next of hydromancy but says that he has failed to find books of aeromancy or pyromancy.[236] Although, as has been said, Hugh seems to have labored independently of the other translators and in a somewhat out-of-the-way town, he nevertheless seems to have felt himself in touch with the learning of his time. In his various prefaces, like William of Conches, he speaks of “moderns” as well as the arcana of the ancients,[237] and his patron is continually [Pg 87] urging him to write not only what he has gathered from the books of the ancients but what he has learned by experiment.[238] In the preface to his translation of Albumasar’s Book of Rains he tells Bishop Michael that “what the modern astrologers of the Gauls most bemoan their lack of, your benignity may bestow upon posterity,”[239] and the distribution of manuscripts of his translations in European libraries indicates that they were widely influential.

The best source for the life and works of Gerard of Cremona[240] (1114-1187) is a memorandum attached by his friends to what was presumably his last work, a translation of the Tegni of Galen with the commentary of Haly, in imitation of Galen who in old age was induced to draw up a list of his own works. Gerard, however, is already dead when his associates write, having worked right up to life’s close and passed away in 1187 at the age of seventy-three. They state that from the very cradle he was educated in the lap of philosophy, and that he learned all he could in every department of it studied among the Latins. Then, moved by his passion for the Almagest, which he found nowhere among the Latins, he came to Toledo. There, beholding the [Pg 88] abundance of books in every field in Arabic and the poverty of the Latins in this respect, he devoted his life to the labor of translation, scorning the desires of the flesh, although he was rich in worldly goods, and adhering to things of the spirit alone. He toiled for the advantage of all both present and future, not unmindful of the injunction of Ptolemy to work good increasingly as you near your end. Now, that his name may not be hidden in silence and darkness, and that no alien name may be inscribed by presumptuous thievery in his translations, the more so since he (like Galen) never signed his own name to any of them, they have drawn up a list of all the works translated by him whether in dialectic or geometry, in “astrology” or philosophy, in medicine or in the other sciences.[241]

Another contemporary picture of Gerard’s activity at Toledo is provided us by the Englishman, Daniel of Morley, or de Merlai, who went to Spain to study the sciences of the quadrivium. He tells how Gerard of Toledo (Gerardus tholetanus), interpreting the Almagest in Latin with the aid of Galippus, the Mozarab,[242] asserted that various future [Pg 89] events followed necessarily from the movements and influences of the stars. Daniel was at first astounded by this utterance and brought forward the arguments against the mathematici or astrologers in the homily of St. Gregory. But Gerard answered them all glibly. It should perhaps be added that in another passage Daniel without mentioning Gerard speaks of setting down in Latin what he learned concerning the universe in the speech of Toledo from Galippus, the Mozarab.[243] Gerard’s translation of the Almagest seems to have been completed in 1175,[244] but meanwhile in Sicily an anonymous translation from the Greek had appeared, probably soon after 1160. Of it we shall presently have something to say. Gerard’s version was, however, the generally accepted one, as the number of manuscripts and citations of it show.

But to return to the list of Gerard’s translations. Only three of the long list are strictly dialectical, Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, the commentary of Themistius upon them, and Alfarabi on the syllogism. And only one or two of the translations listed under the heading De phylosophya are pure philosophy.[245] Most of Gerard’s work is mathematical and medical, natural and occult science. He translates Ptolemy and Euclid; Archimedes, Galen and Aristotle; Autolycus and Theodosius; and such writers in Arabic as Alkindi, Alfarabi, Albucasis, Alfraganus, Messahala, Thebit, Geber, Alhazen, Isaac, Rasis, and Avicenna. His mathematical translations include the fields of algebra and perspective as well as geometry and astronomy. Of Aristotle’s natural philosophy the list includes the Physics, De coelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione, De meteoris except the fourth and last book which he could not find,[246] and the first part of [Pg 90] the astrological De causis proprietatum et elementorum ascribed to Aristotle. Among his translations of Galen was the apocryphal De secretis, of which we shall have more to say in a later chapter on books of experiments. Three treatises of alchemy are included in the list of his translations and also a geomancy, although Boncompagni tries to saddle the latter upon Gerardus de Sabloneto. Gerard is also supposed to have translated some works not mentioned in this list but ascribed to him in the manuscripts. One of interest to us is a work on stones of the Pseudo-Aristotle.[247]

We must say a word of the anonymous Sicilian translation of the Almagest which preceded that of Gerard of Cremona, because of a defense in its preface[248] of natural science against a theological opposition of which the anonymous translator appears to be painfully conscious. After darkly hinting that he was prevented from speedily completing the translation by “other secret” obstacles[249] as well as by the manifest fact that he did not understand “the science of the stars” well,[250] and remarking that the artisan can hope for nothing where the art is in disrepute, the translator inveighs against those who rashly judge things about which they know nothing, and who, lest they seem ignorant themselves, call what they do not know useless and profane. Hence the Arabs say that there is no greater enemy of an art than one who is unacquainted with it. So far the tone of the preface reminds one strongly of those of William of Conches. The writer proceeds to complain that the opposition to mathematical studies has gone so far that “the science of numbers and mensuration is thought entirely superfluous [Pg 91] and useless, while the study of astronomy (i. e. astrology) is esteemed idolatry.”[251] Yet Remigius tells us that Abraham taught the Egyptians “astrology” (i. e. astronomy), and the translator ironically adds that he supposes it can be shown from Moses and Daniel that God condemned the science of the stars. He then dilates on how essential it is to study and understand the created world before rising to study of the Creator, and waxes sarcastic at the expense of those who study theology before they know anything else and think themselves able like eagles to soar aloft at once above the clouds, disdaining earth and earthly things, and to gaze unblinded upon the full sun:[252]—a passage somewhat similar to Roger Bacon’s diatribe against the “boy-theologians” in the following century.

The translator, although his own rendition is from a Greek manuscript, shows some familiarity with Arabic learning. Besides the Arabic saying already quoted, in giving the Greek title of Ptolemy’s thirteen books on astronomy he adds that the Saracens call it by the corrupt name, elmeguisti (i. e. Almagest).[253] He also acknowledges the aid he has received from Eugene, the admiral or emir, whose translation of Ptolemy’s Optics from the Arabic we have mentioned elsewhere, and whom he describes as equally skilled in Greek and Arabic, and “also not ignorant of Latin.” It may also be noted that as Adelard of Bath contrasted “the writings of men of old” with “the science of moderns,”[254] so this translator characterizes Ptolemy as veterum lima, specculum modernorum.

This seems the best place to call attention to some evidence for the existence of astronomical, and apparently also astrological, activity at Marseilles in the twelfth century, seemingly under the influence of the Arabic astronomy and astrology. In a manuscript at Paris which the catalogue dates of the twelfth century[255] is a treatise formerly [Pg 92] said to have been composed at Marseilles in the year 1111 A. D. But Duhem has suggested that the XI should be XL, since the author tells of a dispute at Marseilles in 1139.[256] The text tells how to find the location of the planets for the city of Marseilles and is accompanied by astronomical tables imitating Azarchel. The same treatise appears in a manuscript at Cambridge,[257] written before the year 1175, where it is entitled “The Book of the Courses of the Seven Planets for Marseilles” and seems to be attributed to a Raymond of that city. Duhem notes that our author often cites an earlier treatise of his, De compositione astrolabii. The treatise opens with allusion to “many of the Indians and Chaldeans and Arabs”; the author also says, “And since we were the first of the Latins to whom this science came after the translation of the Arabs,” and avers that he employs the Christian calendar and chronology in order to avoid all appearance of heresy or infidelity. So we would seem to be justified in connecting it with the diffusion of Arabic astronomy and astrology. Our author believes that God endowed the sky with the virtue of presaging the future, cites various authorities sacred and profane in favor of astrology, and emphasizes especially the importance of astrological medicine.[258] It was also at Marseilles that William of England early in the next century in the year 1219 wrote his brief but very popular treatise, found in many manuscripts, entitled “Of Urine Unseen” (De urina non visa), that is, how by astrology to diagnose a case and tell the color and substance of the urine without seeing it. Of it we shall treat again later in connection with thirteenth century medicine. But we may note here that [Pg 93] William, although of English nationality, was a citizen of Marseilles, and that the person to whom his work Of Urine Unseen was addressed had formerly studied with him at Marseilles. William is also spoken of as a professor of medicine. Furthermore in at least one manuscript William of England is called a translator from the Arabic, since he is said to have translated from that tongue into Latin “The very great Secret of Catenus, king of the Persians, concerning the virtue of the eagle.”[259] We may also note that it was in reply to inquiries which he had received from Jews of Marseilles that Moses Maimonides in 1194 addressed to them his letter on astrology.[260] Interest in astronomy and astrology thus appears to have prevailed at Marseilles from the first half to the close of the twelfth century.

SOME MEDIEVAL JOHNS, MENTIONED IN THE MANUSCRIPTS, IN THE FIELDS OF NATURAL AND OCCULT SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND MEDICINE

BERNARD SILVESTER: ASTROLOGY AND GEOMANCY

Bernard Silvester, of whom this chapter will treat, is now generally recognized as a different person from the Bernard of Chartres whom William of Conches followed and on whose teaching John of Salisbury looked back.[261] From John’s account it is plain that Bernard of Chartres belonged to the generation before William of Conches, and Clerval has shown reason to believe that he was [Pg 100] dead by 1130.[262] Bernard Silvester, on the other hand, wrote his De mundi universitate during the pontificate of Eugenius III, 1145-1153. Moreover, one of his pupils informs us that he taught at Tours.[263] This last fact also makes it difficult, although not impossible, to identify him with a Breton, named Bernard de Moelan, who, after serving as canon and chancellor at Chartres, became bishop of Quimper from 1159 to 1167.[264] At least they appear to have had somewhat similar interests, and Silvester seems to have had some connection with the school of Chartres, since he dedicated the De mundi universitate to Theodoric of Chartres.[265]

A number of works are extant under the name of Bernard Silvester. His interest in rhetoric and poetry is shown by a long Summa dictaminis (or, dictaminum) and by a Liber de metrificatura, in the Titulus of which he is called “a poet of the first rank” (optimi poetae).[266] He also wrote a commentary on the first books of the Aeneid.[267] Two other treatises are ascribed to him in which we are not here further interested, namely: De forma vitae honestae and De cura rei familiaris or Epistola ad Raimundum de modo rei familiaris gubernandae.[268] The three works of especial interest to us, while no one of them is exactly a treatise on astrology, all illustrate, albeit each in a different way, the dominance of astrological doctrine in the thought of the time. One is Experimentarius, an astrological geomancy translated into verse from the Arabic.[269] Another is a narrative [Pg 101] poem whose plot hinges upon an astrologer’s prediction and whose very title is Mathematicus.[270] The third work, variously entitled De mundi universitate, Megacosmus et Microcosmus, and Cosmographia[271] has much to say of the stars and their rule over inferior creation.[272] It is written partly in prose and partly in verse,[273] and shows that Bernard laid as much stress on literary form in his scientific or pseudo-scientific works as in those on rhetoric and meter. Sandys says of it, “The rhythm of the hexameters is clearly that of Lucan, while the vocabulary is mainly that of Ovid”; but Dr. Poole believes that the hexameters are modelled upon Lucretius.[274] He would date it either in 1145 or about 1147-1148.[275]

The manuscripts of these three works are fairly numerous, indicating that they were widely read, and no contemporary [Pg 102] objection appears to have been raised against their rather extreme astrological doctrines. As was well observed concerning the De mundi universitate over one hundred and fifty years ago, “These extravagances and some other similar ones did not prevent the book from achieving a very brilliant success from the moment of its first appearance,” as is shown by the contemporary testimony of Peter Cantor in the closing twelfth century and Eberhart de Bethune in the early thirteenth century, who says that the De mundi universitate was read in the schools. Gervaise of Tilbury and Vincent of Beauvais also cited it.[276] Indeed in our next chapter we shall find a Christian abbess, saint, and prophetess of Bernard’s own time charged—by a modern writer, it is true—with making use of it in her visions. Passages from Silvester are included in a thirteenth century collection of “Proverbs” from ancient and recent writers,[277] and more than one copy of the De mundi universitate is listed in such a medieval monastic library as St. Augustine’s, Canterbury.[278]

In the De mundi universitate we see the same influence of Platonism and astronomy, and of the Latin translation of the Timaeus in especial, as in the Philosophia of William of Conches. At the same time, its abstract personages and personified sciences, its Nous and Natura, its Urania and Physis with her two daughters, Theoretical and Practical, remind us of the pages of Martianus Capella and of Adelard of Bath’s De eodem et diverso. The characterization by Dr. Poole that the work “has an entirely pagan complexion,” and that Bernard’s scheme of cosmology is pantheistic and takes no account of Christian theology,[279] is essentially true, although occasionally some utterance indicates that the writer is acquainted with Christianity and no true pagan. Perhaps [Pg 103] it is just because Bernard makes no pretense of being a theologian, that at a time when William of Conches was retracting in his Dragmaticon some of the views expressed in his Philosophia and the Sicilian translator was conscious of a bigoted theological opposition, Bernard should display neither fear nor consciousness of the existence of any such opposition. And yet it does not appear that the Sicilian translator engaged in theological discussion. Yet he complains of those who call astronomy idolatry; Bernard calmly calls the stars gods, and no one seems to have raised the least objection. At least Bernard’s fearless outspokenness and its subsequent popularity should prevent our laying too much stress upon the timidity of other writers in expressing new views, and should make us hesitate before interpreting their attitude as a sure sign of real danger to freedom of thought and speech, and to scientific investigation.

What especially concerns our investigation are the views concerning stars and spirits expressed by Silvester. Like William of Conches, he describes the world of spirits in a Platonic or Neo-Platonic, rather than patristic, style. He differs from William in hardly using the word “demon” at all and in according the stars, like Adelard of Bath, a much higher place in his hierarchy. “The heaven itself is full of God,” says Bernard, “and the sky has its own animals, sidereal fires,”[280] just as man, who is in part a spiritual being, inhabits the earth. Bernard does not hesitate to call the stars “gods who serve God in person,” or “who serve in God’s very presence.”[281] There in the region of purer ether which extends as far as the sun they enjoy the vision of bliss eternal, free from all care and distraction, and resting in the peace of God which passeth all understanding.[282] He also [Pg 104] repeats the Platonic doctrine that the mind is from the sky and that the human soul, when at last it lays aside the body, “will return to its kindred stars, added as a god to the number of superior beings.”[283]

Between heaven and earth, between God and man, comes the mediate and composite order of “angelic creation.” “With the divinity of the stars” the members of this order share the attribute of deathlessness; with man they have this in common, to be stirred by passion and impulse.[284] Between sun and moon are benevolent angels who act as mediums between God and man. Other spirits inhabit the air beneath the moon. Some of them display an affinity to the near-by ether and fire, and live in tranquillity and mental serenity, although dwelling in the air. A second variety are the genii who are associated each with some man from birth to warn and guide him. But in the lower atmosphere are disorderly and malignant spirits who often are divinely commissioned to torment evil-doers, or sometimes torment men of their own volition. Often they invisibly invade human minds and thoughts by silent suggestion; again they assume bodies and take on ghostly forms. These Bernard calls angelos desertores, or fallen angels. But there are still left to be noted the spirits who inhabit the earth, on mountains or in forests and by streams: Silvani, Pans, and Nerei. They are of harmless character (innocua conversatione) and, being composed of the elements in a pure state, are long-lived but in the process of time will dissolve again.[285] This classification of spirits seems to follow Martianus Capella.

Bernard’s assertion that the stars are gods is accompanied, as one would naturally expect, by a belief in their control of nature and revelation of the future. From their proximity to God they receive from His mind the secrets of the future, which they “establish through the lower species [Pg 105] of the universe by inevitable necessity.”[286] Life comes to the world of nature from the sky as if from God, and the creatures of the earth, air, and water could not move from their tracks, did they not absorb vivifying motions from the sky.[287] Nous or Intelligence says to Nature, “I would have you behold the sky, inscribed with a multiform variety of images, which, like a book with open pages, containing the future in cryptic letters, I have revealed to the eyes of the more learned.”[288] In another passage Bernard affirms that God writes in the stars of the sky what can come “from fatal law,” that the movements of the stars control all ages, that there already is latent in the stars a series of events which long time will unfold, and that all the events of history, even the birth of Christ, have been foreshadowed by the stars.

[Pg 106]

Yet Bernard urges man to model his life after the stars,[290] and once speaks of “what is free in the will and what is of necessity.” He thus appears, like the author of the treatise on fate ascribed to Plutarch, like Boethius, and like a host of other theologians, philosophers, and astrologers, to believe in the co-existence of free will, inevitable fate, and “variable fortune.”[291]

Bernard Silvester’s interest and faith in the art of astrology is further exemplified by his poem Mathematicus, a narrative which throughout assumes the truth of astrological prediction concerning human fortune. Hauréau showed that it had been incorrectly included among the works of Hildebert of Tours and Le Mans, and that the theme is suggested in the fourth Pseudo-Quintillian declamation, but that Bernard has added largely to the plot there briefly outlined. A Roman knight and lady were in every respect well endowed both by nature and fortune except that their marriage had up to the moment when the story opens been a childless one. At last the wife consulted an astrologer or mathematicus, “who could learn from the stars,” we are told, “the intentions of the gods, the mind of the fates, and the plan of Jove, and discover the hidden causes and secrets of nature.” He informed her that she would bear a son who would become a great genius and the ruler of Rome, but who would one day kill his father. When the wife told her husband of this prediction, he made her promise to kill the child in infancy. But when the time came, her mother love prevailed and she secretly sent the boy away to be reared, while she assured her husband that he was dead. She named her son Patricida in order that he might abhor the crime of patricide the more. The boy early gave signs of great intellectual capacity. Among other studies he learned “the [Pg 107] orbits of the stars and how human fate is under the stars,” and he “clasped divine Aristotle to his breast.” Later on, when Rome was hard pressed by the Carthaginians and her king was in captivity, he rallied her defeated forces and ended the war in triumph.

The king thereupon abdicated in favor of Patricida, whom he addressed in these words, “O youth, on whose birth, if there is any power in the stars, a favorable horoscope looked down.”

The mother rejoiced to hear of her son’s success, and marveled at the correctness of the astrologer’s prediction, but was now the more troubled as to her husband’s fate. He noticed her distraction and at last induced her to tell him its cause. But then, instead of being angry at the deception which she had practiced upon him, and instead of being alarmed at the prospect of his own death, he, too, rejoiced in his son’s success, and said that he would die happy, if he could but see and embrace him. He accordingly made himself known to his son and told him how he had once ordered his death but had been thwarted by the eternal predestined order of events, and how some day his son would slay him, not of evil intent but compelled by the courses of the stars. “And manifest is the fault of the gods in that you cannot be kinder to your father.”

The son thereupon determines that he will evade the decree of the stars by committing suicide. He is represented as soliloquizing as follows:

Patricida accordingly summons all the Romans together, and, after inducing them by an eloquent rehearsal of his great services in their behalf to grant him any boon that he may ask, says that his wish is to die; and at this point the poem ends, leaving us uninformed whether the last part of the astrologer’s prediction remained unfulfilled, or whether Patricida’s suicide caused his father’s death, or whether possibly some solution was found in a play upon the word Patricida. Hauréau, however, believed that the poem is complete as it stands.

The purpose of the poet and his attitude towards astrology have been interpreted in diametrically opposite ways by different scholars. Before Hauréau it was customary to attribute the poem to Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, and to regard it as an attack upon astrology. The early editors of the Histoire Littéraire de la France supported their assertion that the most judicious men of letters in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had only a sovereign scorn for the widely current astrological superstition of their time by citing Hildebert as ridiculing the art in his Mathematicus.[292] A century later Charles Jourdain again represented Hildebert as turning to ridicule the vain speculations of the astrologers.[293] Bourassé, the editor of Hildebert’s works as they appear in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, seems to have felt that the poem was scarcely an outspoken attack upon astrology and tried to explain it as an academic exercise which was not to be taken seriously, but regarded as satire upon judicial astrology. Hauréau not only denied Archbishop Hildebert’s authorship, but took the common sense view that the poet believes fully in astrology. It would, indeed, be difficult to detect any suggestion of ridicule or satire about the poem. Its plot is a tragic one and it seems written in all seriousness. Even Patricida, despite his assertion [Pg 109] that “man is not subject to the stars,” does not doubt that he will kill his father conformably to the learned astrologer’s prediction, if he himself continues to live. It is only by the tour de force of self-slaughter that he hopes to cheat fate.

Even Archbishop Hildebert shows a tendency towards astrology in other poems attributed to him; for example, in his Nativity of Christ and in a short poem, The Hermaphrodite, which reads as follows, representing the fulfillment of a horoscope:

This poem has always been greatly admired by students of Latin literature for its epigrammatic neatness and conciseness, and has been thought too good to be the work of a medieval writer, and has been even attributed to Petronius. Another version, by the medieval poet, Peter Riga, entitled De ortu et morte pueri monstruosi, is longer and far less elegant. Hauréau, however, regarded the Hermaphrodite as a medieval composition, since there are no manuscripts of it earlier than the twelfth century; but he was in doubt whether to ascribe it to Hildebert or to Matthew of Vendôme, who in listing his own poems mentions hic et haec hermaphroditus homo.[295]

[Pg 110]

We turn to the association of the name of Bernard Silvester with the superstitious art of geomancy. It may be briefly defined as a method of divination in which, by marking down a number of points at random and then connecting or cancelling them by lines, a number or figure is obtained which is used as a key to sets of tables or to astrological constellations. The only reason for calling this geomancy, that is, divination by means of the element earth, would seem to be that at first the marks were made and figures drawn in the sand or dust, like those of Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse. But by the middle ages, at least, any kind of writing material would do as well. Although a somewhat more abstruse form of superstition than the ouija board, it seems to have been nearly as popular in the medieval period as the ouija board is now.

The name of Bernard Silvester is persistently associated in the manuscripts with a work bearing the title Experimentarius, which seems to consist of sets of geomantic tables translated from the Arabic. Its prologue is unmistakable, but it is less easy to make out what text should go with it and how the text should be arranged. Sometimes the prologue is found alone in the manuscripts,[296] and the text which accompanies it in others varies in amount and sometimes is more or less mixed up with other similar modes of divination. The prologue is sometimes headed, Evidencia operis subsequentis, and regularly subdivides into three brief sections. The first, opening with the words, Materia huius libelli, describes the subject-matter of the text as “the effect and efficacy of the moon and other planets and of the constellations, which they exert upon inferior things.” The writer’s opinion is that God permits mortals who make sane and sober inquiry to learn by subtle consideration of the [Pg 111] constellations many things concerning the future and persons who are absent, and that astrology also gives information concerning human character, health and sickness, prosperity, fertility of the soil, the state of sea and air, business matters and journeys. In a second paragraph, opening, Utilitas autem huius libelli, the writer states that the use of his book is that one may avoid the perils of which the stars give warning by penitence and prayers and vows to God who, as the astrologer Albumasar admits, controls the stars. And through them the Creator reveals his will, as in the case of the three Magi who learned from a star that a great prophet had been born. Finally, in a paragraph of a single sentence, which opens with the words, Titulus vero talis est, we are informed that the title is the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester, “not because he was the original author but the faithful translator from Arabic into Latin.”

In one manuscript which contains the Experimentarius there is twice depicted, although the second time in different colors, a seated human figure evidently intended to represent Bernard Silvester. He is bearded and sits in a chair writing, with a pen in one hand and a knife or scalpel in the other. Neither miniature is in juxtaposition to the prologue in which Bernard is named, but in both cases the figure is accompanied by five lines of text, written alternately in red and blue colors and proclaiming that Bernard Silvester is the translator and that the number seven is the basis in this infallible book of lot-casting.[297] It would not be safe, however, to accept this miniature as an accurate representation of Bernard, since the manuscript is not contemporary [Pg 112] and it contains similar portraits of Socrates and Plato, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Cicero.

Both in the manuscript which we have just been describing and another of older date[298] is a picture of two persons seated. In both manuscripts one is called Euclid, in the older manuscript only is the other named, and designated as Hermann. According to Black’s description Euclid “uplifts a sphere with his right hand, and with his left holds a telescope through which he is observing the stars; towards whom ‘Hermannus,’ on the other side, holds forth a circular instrument hanging from his fingers, which is superscribed ‘Astrolabium.’” The picture in the other manuscript is similar, but in view of the fact that they were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the rod along which, or tube through which ‘Euclid’ is squinting, can scarcely be regarded as a telescope without more definite proof of the invention of that instrument before the time of Galileo. Perhaps it is a dioptra[299] or spying-tube of the sort described by the ancients, Polybius and Hero, and used in surveying. But I mention the picture for the further reason that Clerval[300] asserted a connection between Hermann of Dalmatia, the twelfth century translator, and Bernard Silvester, affirming that Hermann sent Bernard his work on the uses of the astrolabe and that he really translated the Experimentarius from the Arabic and sent it to Bernard who merely versified it. But we have already proved that it was Hermann the Lame of the eleventh century who wrote on the astrolabe and that he did so a century before Bernard Silvester. The aforesaid picture is clearly of him and not of Hermann the Dalmatian. And whether the “B” at whose request Hermann wrote on the astrolabe be meant [Pg 113] for Berengarius or Bernard, it certainly cannot be meant for Bernard Silvester, who was not born yet.

Apparently the text proper of the Experimentarius opens with the usual instructions of geomancies for the chance casting of points and drawing of lines. The number of points left over as a result of this procedure is used as a guide in finding the answer to the question which one has in mind. In a preliminary table are listed 28 subjects of inquiry such as life and death, marriage, imprisonment, enemies, gain. One turns to the topic in which one is interested and, according as the number of points obtained by chance is over or under seven, reckons forward or backward that many times from the number opposite his theme of inquiry, or, if exactly seven points were left over, takes the number of the theme of inquiry as he finds it. In one manuscript the new number thus obtained is that of the “Judge of the Fates” to whom one should next turn. There are 28 such judges, whose names are the Arabic designations for the 28 divisions of the circle of the zodiac or mansions of the moon, which spends a day in each of them.[301] A page is devoted to each judge, under whose name are twenty-eight lines containing as many responses to the twenty-eight subjects of inquiry. The inquirer selects a line corresponding to his number of points and the tables are so arranged that he thus always receives the answer which fits his inquiry. But most of the manuscripts, instead of at once referring the inquirer to his Judge as we have described, insert other preliminary tables in which he is first referred to a planet and then to a day of the moon. This unnecessarily indirect and complicated system is probably intended to mystify the reader and to emphasize further the supposedly astrological basis of the [Pg 114] procedure, whereas it is in reality purely a matter of lot-casting.

Now in most of the manuscripts which I have examined there are two versions of these twenty-eight pages of Judges of the Fates, worded differently, although the corresponding lines always seem to answer the same questions and apply to the same topics of inquiry as before. In the version which comes first, for example, the first line under the first Judge, Almazene or the belly of Aries, is

Tuum indumentum durabit tempore longo

while in the second version the same line reads,

Hoc ornamentum decus est et fama ferentum. [302]

Both versions seem to be regarded as the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester, for in the manuscripts where they occur together the first usually follows its prologue, while the second is preceded by his picture and the line, Translator Bernardus Silvester.[303] In one manuscript[304] the prologue is immediately followed by the second version and the first set of Judges does not occur. In some manuscripts,[305] however, the second version occurs without the first and without the prologue, in which cases, I think, there is nothing to indicate that it is by Bernard Silvester or a part of the Experimentarius. The first version ends in several manuscripts with the words, Explicit libellus de constellationibus[306] rather than some such phrase as Explicit Experimentarius. Furthermore in some manuscripts where it [Pg 115] occurs alone this first set of Judges is called the book of Alchandiandus or Alkardianus.[307] He may, however, have been the Arabic author and Bernard his translator, and the liber alkardiani phylosophi opens in at least one manuscript with words appropriate to the title, Experimentarius, “Since everything that is tested by experience is experienced either for its own sake or on some other account.”[308]

There are so many treatises of this type in medieval manuscripts and they are so frequently collected in one codex that they are liable to be confused with one another. Thus in two manuscripts a method of divination ascribed to the physician of King Amalricus[309] is in such juxtaposition to the Experimentarius that Macray takes it to be part of the Experimentarius, while the catalogue of the Sloane Manuscripts combines the two as “a compilation ‘concerning the art of Ptolemy.’” Macray also includes in the Experimentarius a Praenostica Socratis Basilei, which is of frequent occurrence in the manuscripts, and other treatises on divination which are either anonymous or ascribed to Pythagoras and, judging from the miniatures prefixed to them, to Anaxagoras and Cicero, who thus again is appropriately punished for having written a work against divination. I doubt if these other modes of divination are parts of the Experimentarius, which often is found without them, as are some of them without it. But they are so much like it in general form and procedure that we may consider them now, especially as they are of such dubious date and authorship that it would be difficult to place them more exactly.

[Pg 116]

The treatise which is assigned to the physician of King Amalricus and which is said to have been composed in memory of that monarch’s great victory over the Saracens and Turks in Egypt, obtains its key number by revolution of a wheel[310] rather than by the geomantic casting of points, and introduces a trifle more of astrological observance. If on first applying the inquirer receives an unfavorable reply, he may wait for thirty days and try again, but after the third failure he must desist entirely. “It is not allowed to inquire concerning one thing more than three times.” The twenty-eight subjects of inquiry are divided in groups of four among the seven planets, and the inquirer is told to return on the weekday named after the planet under which his query falls. On the day set the astrologer must further determine with the astrolabe when the hour of the same planet has arrived, and not until then may the divination by means of the wheel take place, as a result of which the inquirer is directed as before to one of 28 Judges who in this case, however, are said to be associated with mansions of the sun[311] rather than moon. At the close of the treatise of the physician of King Amalricus in both manuscripts[312] that I have examined is inserted some sceptical person’s opinion to the effect that these methods of divination are subtle trifles which are not utterly useless as a means of diversion, but that faith should not be placed in them. The more apparent the devil’s nets are, concludes the passage, the more wary the human bird will be.

In the Prenostica or Prenosticon Socratis Basilei—Prognostic of Socrates the King—a number from one to nine is obtained by chance either by geomancy or by revolving a wheel on which an image of “King Socrates” points his finger. The inquirer then consults a table where sixteen questions are so arranged in compartments designated [Pg 117] by letters of the alphabet that each question is found in two compartments. Say that the inquirer finds his question in A and E. He then consults another table where 144 names of birds, beasts, fish, stones, herbs, flowers, cities, and other “species” are arranged in nine rows opposite the numbers from one to nine and in sixteen columns headed by the sixteen possible pairs of letters such as the AE of our inquirer. Looking in the row corresponding to his number and the column AE he obtains a name. He must then find this name in a series of twelve circular tables where the aforesaid names are listed under their proper species, each table containing twelve names. He now is referred on to one of sixteen kings of the Turks, India, Spain, Francia, Babylonia, the Saracens, Romania, etc. Under each king nine answers are listed and here at last under his original number obtained by lot he finds the appropriate answer.[313]

In the Prenostica Pitagorice we are assured that we may rest easy as to the integrity of the Catholic Faith being observed, “for that does not happen of necessity which human caution forewarned, can avoid.” It answers any one of a list of thirty-six questions by means of a number obtained by chance between one and twelve. The inquirer is referred [Pg 118] to one of 36 birds whose pictures are drawn in the margins with twelve lines of answers opposite each bird. Other schemes of divination found with the Experimentarius in some manuscripts differ from the foregoing only in the number of questions concerning which inquiry can be made, the number of Judges and the names given them, the number of lines under each Judge, and the number of intermediate directory tables that have to be consulted before the final Judge is reached. As Judges we meet the twelve sons of Jacob, the thirty-six decans or thirds of the twelve signs, and another astrological group of twenty made up of the twelve signs, seven planets, and the dragon.[314]

In one manuscript[315] the directions for consulting this last group of Judges are given under the heading, Documentum experimenti retrogradi, which like Bernard’s Experimentarius suggests the experimental character of the art of geomancy or the arts of divination in general. Later we shall hear Albertus Magnus in the Speculum astronomiae call treatises of aerimancy,[316] pyromancy, and hydromancy, as well as of geomancy “experimental books.”

Geomancies are of frequent occurrence in libraries of medieval manuscripts.[317] Many are anonymous[318] but others bear the names of noted men of learning. The art must have had great currency among the Arabs,[319] for not only are [Pg 119] treatises current in Latin under such names as Abdallah,[320] Albedatus,[321] Alcherius,[322] Alkindi,[323] and Alpharinus,[324] but almost every prominent translator of the time seems to have tried his hand at a geomancy. In the manuscripts we find geomancies attributed to Gerard of Cremona,[325] Plato of Tivoli,[326] Michael Scot,[327] Hugo Sanctelliensis,[328] William of [Pg 120] Moerbeke,[329] William de Saliceto of Piacenza,[330] and Peter of Abano,[331] and even to their medical confrère and contemporary, Bernard Gordon, who is not usually classed as a translator.[332] Some of these, however, were translators from the Greek or the Hebrew rather than Arabic, and some of the geomantic treatises in the manuscripts claim an origin from India.[333] But a Robert or Roger Scriptoris who compiled a geomancy towards the close of the medieval period thinks first among his sources of “the Arabs of antiquity and the wise moderns, William of Moerbeke, Bartholomew of Parma, Gerard of Cremona, and many others.”[334] These other geomancies are not necessarily like the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester[335] and we shall describe another [Pg 121] sort when we come to speak of Bartholomew of Parma in a later chapter.

In the fifteenth century such intellectual statesmen as Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry VII of England displayed an interest in geomancy, judging from a manuscript de luxe of Guido Bonatti’s work on astrology which was made for Henry VII and contains a picture of him, and also Plato’s translation of the geomancy of Alpharinus and geomantic “tables of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.”[336] The interest of the clergy in this superstitious art is attested not only by the translation of such a person as William of Moerbeke, who was papal penitentiary and later archbishop of Corinth, but by a geomancy which we find in two fifteenth century manuscripts written by Martin, an abbot of Burgos, at the request of another abbot of Paris.[337] Treatises on geomancy continue to be found in the manuscripts as late as the eighteenth century, that of Gerard of Cremona especially.

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE EXPERIMENTARIUS OF BERNARD SILVESTER

These three MSS are much alike both in the Experimentarius proper and the other tracts of divination which accompany it. Digby 46 has more of them than either of the others and more pictures than Ashmole 304. Sloane 3857 has no pictures. I have given the numbers of the folios only for the Experimentarius proper.

The following MSS also contain only this second version:

The first set of 28 Judges is found without mention of Bernard Silvester in the following MSS:

[Pg 123]

The prologue of the Experimentarius is found alone in

SAINT HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: 1098-1179

The discussion of macrocosm and microcosm, nous and hyle, by Bernard Silvester in the De mundi universitate is believed by Dr. Charles Singer, in a recent essay on “The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard,” to have influenced her later writings, such as the Liber vitae meritorum and the Liber divinorum operum. He writes “The work of Bernard ... corresponds so closely both in form, in spirit, and sometimes even in phraseology to the Liber divinorum operum that it appears to us certain that Hildegard must have had access to it.”[338] Without subscribing unreservedly [Pg 125] to this view, we pass on from the Platonist and geomancer of Tours to the Christian “sibyl of the Rhine.”[339]

[Pg 126]

From repeated statements in the prefaces to Hildegard’s works, in which she tells exactly when she wrote them and how old she was at the time,—for not only was she not reticent on this point but her different statements of her age at different times are all consistent with one another—it is evident that she was born in 1098. Her birthplace was near Sponheim. From the age of five, she tells us in the Scivias, she had been subject to visions which did not come to her in her sleep but in her wakeful hours, yet were not seen or heard with the eyes and ears of sense. During her lifetime she was also subject to frequent illness, and very likely there was some connection between her state of health and her susceptibility to visions. She spent her life from her eighth year in religious houses along the Nahe river, and in 1147 became head of a nunnery at its mouth opposite Bingen, the place with which her name was henceforth connected. She became famed for her cures of diseases as well as her visions and ascetic life, and it is Kaiser’s opinion that her medical skill contributed more to her popular reputation for saintliness than all her writings. At any rate she became very well known, and her prayers and predictions were much sought after. Thomas Becket, who seems to have been rather too inclined to pry into the future, as we shall see later, wrote asking for “the visions and oracles of that sainted and most celebrated Hildegard,” and inquiring whether any revelation had been vouchsafed her as to the duration of the existing papal schism. “For in the days of Pope Eugenius she predicted that not until his last days would he have peace and grace in the city.”[340] It is very doubtful whether St. Bernard visited her monastery and called the attention of Pope Eugenius III to her visions, but her letters[341] show her in correspondence with St. Bernard and several popes and emperors, with numerous [Pg 127] archbishops and bishops, abbots and other potentates, to whom she did not hesitate to administer reproofs and warnings. For this purpose and to aid in the repression of heresy she also made tours from Bingen to various parts of Germany. There is some disagreement whether she died in 1179 or 1180.[342] Proceedings were instituted by the pope in 1233 to investigate her claims to sainthood, but she seems never to have been formally canonized. Gebenon, a Cistercian prior in Eberbach, made a compendium from her Scivias, Liber divinorum operum, and Letters, “because few can own or read her works.”[343]

As was stated above, we can date some of Hildegard’s works with exactness. In her preface to the one entitled Scivias[344] she says that in the year 1141, when she was forty-two years and seven months old, a voice from heaven bade her commit her visions to writing. She adds that she scarcely finished the book in ten years, so we infer that she was working at it from 1141 to 1150. This fits exactly with what she tells us in the preface to the Liber vitae meritorum, which she was divinely instructed to write in 1158, when she was sixty years old. Moreover, she says that the eight years preceding, that is from 1151 to 1158, had been spent in writing other treatises which also appear to have been revealed in visions and among which were “subtilitates diversarum naturarum creaturarum,” the title of another of her works with which we shall be concerned. On the Liber vitae meritorum she spent five years, so it should have been completed by 1163. In that year, the preface to the Liber divinorum operum informs us,—and the sixty-fifth year of her life—a voice instructed her to begin its composition, and seven more years were required to complete it. This leaves undated only one of the five [Pg 128] works by her which we shall consider, namely, the Causae et curae, or Liber compositae medicinae as it is sometimes called, while the Subtilitates diversarum naturarum creaturarum bears a corresponding alternative title, Liber simplicis medicinae.

“Some would impugn the genuineness of all her writings,” says the article on Hildegard in The Catholic Encyclopedia, “but without sufficient reason.”[345] Kaiser, who edited the Causae et curae, had no doubt that both it and the Subtilitates were genuine works. Recently Singer has excluded them both from his discussion of Hildegard’s scientific views on the ground that they are probably spurious, but his arguments are unconvincing. His objection that they are full of German expressions which are absent in her other works is of little consequence, since it would be natural to employ vernacular proper names for homely herbs and local fish and birds and common ailments, while in works of an astronomical and theological character like her other visions there would be little reason for departing from the Latin. Anyway Hildegard’s own assertion in the preface of the Liber vitae meritorum is decisive that she wrote that work. The almost contemporary biography of her also states that she wrote “certain things concerning the nature of man and the elements, and of diverse creatures,”[346] which may be a blanket reference to the Causae et curae as well as the Subtilitates diversarum naturarum creaturarum. The records which we have of the proceedings instituted by the pope in 1233 to investigate Hildegard’s title to sainthood mention both the Liber simplicis medicinae and Liber compositae medicinae as her works; and later in the same century Matthew of Westminster ascribed both treatises to her, stating [Pg 129] further that the Liber simplicis medicinae secundum creationem was in eight books and giving the full title of the other as Liber compositae medicinae de aegritudinum causis signis et curis.[347] Kaiser has pointed out a number of parallel passages in it and the Subtilitates, while its introductory cosmology seems to me very similar to that of Hildegard’s other three works. Indeed, as we consider the contents of these five works together, it will become evident that the same peculiar views and personality run through them all.

In the preface to the Liber vitae meritorum Hildegard speaks of a man and a girl who gave her some assistance in writing out her visions.[348] From such passages in her own works and from statements of her biographers and other writers[349] it has been inferred that she was untrained in Latin grammar and required literary assistance.[350] Or sometimes it is said that she miraculously became able to speak and write Latin without having ever been instructed in that language.[351] Certainly the Causae et curae is a lucid, condensed, and straightforward presentation which it would be very difficult to summarize or excerpt. One must read it all, for further condensation is impossible. One can hardly say as much for her other works, but a new critical edition of them such as the Causae et curae has enjoyed might result in an improvement of the style. But our concern is rather with their subject-matter.

Three of the five works which we shall consider are written out in the form of visions, and are primarily religious [Pg 130] in their contents but contain considerable cosmology and some human anatomy, as well as some allusions to magic and astrology. The other two deal primarily with medicine and natural science, and give no internal indication of having been revealed in visions, presenting their material in somewhat didactic manner, and being divided into books and chapters, like other medieval treatises on the same subjects. As printed in Migne, the Subtleties of Different Natural Creatures or Book of Medicinal Simples is in nine books dealing respectively with plants, elements, trees, stones, fish, birds, animals, reptiles, and metals. In this arrangement there is no plan evident[352] and it would seem more logical to have the books on plants and trees and stones and metals together. In Schott’s edition of 1533 the discussion of stones was omitted—perhaps properly, since Matthew of Westminster spoke of but eight books—and the remaining topics were grouped in four books instead of eight as in Migne. First came the elements, then metals, then a third book treating of plants and trees, and a fourth book including all sorts of animals.[353] That the Subtleties was a widely read and influential work is indicated by the number of manuscripts of it listed by Schmelzeis and Kaiser. Of the five books of the Causae et curae the first, beginning with the creation of the universe, Hyle, the creation of the angels, fall of Lucifer, and so forth, deals chiefly with celestial phenomena and the waters of the sea and firmament. The second combines some discussion of Adam and Eve and the deluge with an account of the four elements and humors, human anatomy, and various other natural phenomena.[354] With book three the listing of [Pg 131] cures begins and German words appear occasionally in the text.

So much attention to the Biblical story of creation and of Adam and Eve as is shown in the first two books of the Causae et curae might give one the impression that Hildegard’s natural science is highly colored by and entirely subordinated to a religious point of view. But this is not quite the impression that one should take away. A notable thing about even her religious visions is the essential conformity of their cosmology and physiology to the then prevalent theories of natural science. The theory of four elements, the hypothesis of concentric spheres surrounding the earth, the current notions concerning veins and humors, are introduced with slight variations in visions supposed to be of divine origin. In matters of detail Hildegard may make mistakes, or at least differ from the then more generally accepted view, and she displays no little originality in giving a new turn to some of the familiar concepts, as in her five powers of fire, four of air, fifteen of water, and seven of earth.[355] But she does not evolve any really new principles of nature. Possibly it is the spiritual application of these scientific verities that is regarded as the pith of the revelation, but Hildegard certainly says that she sees the natural facts in her visions. The hypotheses of past and contemporary natural science, somewhat obscured or distorted by the figurative and mystical mode of description proper to visions, are embodied in a saint’s reveries and [Pg 132] utilized in inspired revelation. Science serves religion, it is true, but religion for its part does not hesitate to accept science.

We cannot take the time to note all of Hildegard’s minor variations from the natural science of her time, but may note one or two characteristic points in which her views concerning the universe and nature seem rather daring and unusual, not to say crude and erroneous. In the Scivias she represents a blast and lesser winds as emanating from each of four concentric heavens which she depicts as surrounding the earth, namely, a sphere of fire, a shadowy sphere like a skin, a heaven of pure ether, and a region of watery air under it.[356] In the Liber divinorum operum she speaks of winds which drive the firmament from east to west and the planets from west to east.[357] In the Subtilitates Hildegard seems to entertain the strange notion that rivers are sent forth from the sea like the blood in the veins of the human body.[358] One gets the impression that the rivers flow up-hill toward their sources, since one reads that “the Rhine is sent forth by the force of the sea”[359] and that “some rivers go forth from the sea impetuously, others slowly according to the winds.”

Since Hildegard lived on the Nahe or Rhine all her life she must indeed have been absorbed in her visions and monastic life not to have learned in which direction a river flows; and perhaps we should supply the explanation, which she certainly does not expressly give in the Subtilitates, that the sea feeds the rivers by evaporation or through subterranean [Pg 133] passages. Perhaps a passage in the Causae et curae may be taken as a correction or explanation of the preceding assertions, in which case that work would seem to be of later date than the Subtilitates. In it too Hildegard states that “springs and rivers” which “flow from the sea” are better in the east than in the west, but her next sentence straightway adds that they are salt and leave a salt deposit on the sands where they flow which is medicinal.[360] The waters rising from the southern sea are also spoken of by her as salt.[361] Even in the Causae et curae she speaks of the water of the great sea which surrounds the world as forming a sort of flank to the waters above the firmament.[362]

On the subject of whether waters are wholesome to drink or not Hildegard comes a trifle nearer the truth and somewhat reminds us of the discussions of the same subject in Pliny and Vitruvius.[363] She says that swamp water should always be boiled,[364] that well water is better to drink than spring-water and spring-water than river water, which should be boiled and allowed to cool before drinking;[365] that rain-water is inferior to spring-water[366] and that drinking snow-water is dangerous to the health.[367] The salt waters of the west she regards as too turbid, while the fresh waters of the west are not warmed sufficiently by the sun and should be boiled and allowed to cool before using.[368] The salt waters arising from the south sea are venomous from the presence in them of worms and small animals. Southern fresh waters have been purged by the heat, but make the [Pg 134] flesh of men fatty and of black color.[369] Hildegard is not the first author to advise the boiling of drinking-water,[370] but she certainly lays great stress on this point.

While the scheme of the universe put forward by ancient and medieval science is, as we have seen, on the whole adopted even in Hildegard’s most visionary writings, it is equally true that the religious interest is by no means absent from her two works of medicine and natural history. In the first place, the devil is a force in nature which she often mentions. Her opening the Causae et curae with a discussion of creation—of course a usual starting-point with the medieval scientist—soon leads her to speak of the fall of Lucifer. She has a rather good theory that Lucifer in his perverse will strove to raise himself to Nothing, and that since what he wished to do was Nothing, he fell into nothingness and could not stand because he could find no foundation under him.[371] But after the devil was unable to create anything out of nothing and fell from heaven, God created the firmament and sun, moon, and stars to show how great He was and to make the devil realize what glory he had lost.[372] Other creatures who willingly join themselves to the devil lose their own characteristics and become nothing.[373] Lucifer himself is not permitted to move from Tartarus or he would upset the elements and celestial bodies, but a [Pg 135] throng of demons of varying individual strength plot with him against the universe.[374] But in other passages Hildegard seems to admit freely the influence, if not the complete presence, of the devil in nature. And he has the power of deceiving by assumed appearances, as Adam was seduced by the serpent.

Indeed, the dragon to this day hates mankind and has such a nature and such diabolical arts in itself that sometimes when it emits its fiery breath, the spirits of the air disturb the air.[375] This illustrates a common feature of Hildegard’s natural history and pharmacy; namely, the association of natural substances with evil spirits either in friendly or hostile relationships. In the preface to the first book of the Subtleties she states that some herbs cannot be endured by demons, while there are others of which the devil is fond and to which he joins himself. In mandragora, for example, “the influence of the devil is more present than in other herbs; consequently man is stimulated by it according to his desires, whether they be good or bad.”[376] On the other hand, the holm-oak is hostile to the spirits of the air; one who sleeps under its shade is free from diabolical illusions, and fumigating a house with it drives out the evil spirits.[377] Certain fish, too, have the property of expelling demons, whether one eats them or burns their livers or bones.[378] Finally, stones and metals have their relations to evil spirits. It is advisable for a woman in childbirth to hold the gem jasper in her hand, “in order that malignant spirits of the air may be the less able to harm her and her child; for the tongue of the ancient serpent extends itself towards the perspiration of the child, as it emerges from the mother’s womb.”[379] Not only does the touch of red-hot steel weaken the force of poison in food or drink, but that metal also signifies the divinity of God, and the devil flees from and avoids it.[380]

[Pg 136]

It is perhaps not very surprising that we should find in Hildegard’s works notions concerning nature which we met back in the Enoch literature, since some of her writings take the same form of recorded visions as Enoch’s, while one of them, the Liber vitae meritorum, is equally apocalyptic. At any rate, in the Scivias in the second vision, where Lucifer is cast out of glory because of his pride, the fallen angels are seen as a great multitude of stars, as in the Book of Enoch, and we are told that the four elements were in harmony before Lucifer’s fall.[381] The disturbing effect of sin, even human, upon nature is again stated in the Causae et curae, where it is said that normally the elements serve man quietly and perform his works. But when men engage in wars and give way to hate and envy, the elements are apt to rage until men repent and seek after God again.[382] In the Liber vitae meritorum, too, the elements complain that they are overturned and upset by human depravity and iniquity.[383]

The influence of the Christian religion is further shown and that of the Bible in particular is manifested by numerous allusions to Adam and the earliest period of Biblical history, but very few of them find any justification in the scriptural narrative. Thus the Liber divinorum operum states[384] that after the fall of Adam and before the deluge the sun and moon and planets and other stars were “somewhat turbulent from excessive heat,” and that the men of that time possessed great bodily strength in order that they might endure this heat. The deluge reduced the temperature and men since have been weaker. In the preface to the fifth book of the Subtleties we are told that there are certain plants which fish eat, and which, if man could procure and eat, would enable him to go without food for four or five months. Adam used to eat them at times after he [Pg 137] had been cast out of Eden, but not when he could get enough other food, as they make the flesh tough. In the preface to the eighth book Hildegard says that all creatures were good before Adam’s fall, but when Abel’s blood stained the soil noxious humors arose from which venomous and deadly reptiles were generated. These perished in the deluge, but others were generated from their putrefying carcasses. In the Causae et curae, too, the names of Adam and Eve occasionally appear in the chapter headings, for instance, “Of Adam’s fall and of melancholy.”[385]

Hildegard also held the view, common among medieval Christian writers, that one purpose of the natural world about us is to illustrate the spiritual world and life to come, and that invisible and eternal truths may be manifested in visible and temporal objects. In the Scivias she hears a voice from heaven saying, “God who established all things by His will, created them to make His Name known and honored, not only moreover showing in the same what are visible and temporal, but also manifesting in them what are invisible and eternal.”[386] But neither Hildegard nor medieval Christians in general thought that the only purpose of natural phenomena and science was to illustrate spiritual truth and point a moral. But this always constituted a good excuse which sounded well when one of the clergy wished to investigate or write about things of nature. Not that we mean to question the sincerity of the medieval writers one whit more than that of certain “Christian colleges” of the present which deem it wise to demonstrate their piety and orthodoxy by maintaining compulsory chapel attendance and holding an occasional “Convocation.” But certainly our abbess of Bingen in the course of her writings, especially the Subtleties and Causae et curae, lists many natural phenomena and medical recipes without making any mention of what spiritual truth they may or may not illustrate.

[Pg 138]

Associating natural substances as much with the devil or spirits of the air as she does, it is not surprising that Hildegard believes in the reality of magic and has something to say about it. Magic is regarded by Hildegard as an evil and diabolical art. She describes it in a vision of the Scivias, where God Himself is represented as speaking, as the art of seeing and hearing the devil, which was taught to men by Satan himself.[387] Similarly in the Liber divinorum operum it is stated that Antichrist will excel “in all diabolical arts” and in “the magic art.”[388] This was of course the usual Christian view. In the Liber vitae meritorum with more apparent originality Magic or Maleficium is presented as one of the personified Vices and is allowed to speak for itself. It is represented as having the body of a dog, the head of a wolf, and the tail of a lion. This beast or image speaks in its own praise and defense as follows.

“Of Mercury and other philosophers I will say many things, who by their investigations harnessed the elements in such wise that they discovered most certainly everything that they wished. Those very daring and very wise men learned such things partly from God and partly from evil spirits. And why shouldn’t they? And they named the planets after themselves, since they had made many investigations and learned a great deal concerning the sun and moon and stars. I, moreover, rule and reign wherever I list in those arts, forsooth in the heavenly luminaries, in trees and herbs and all that grows in the earth, and in beasts and animals upon the earth, and in worms both above and below the earth. And on my marches who is there that resists me? God created all things, so in these arts I do Him no injury. For He wishes it, as is proved in His scriptures and perfect works. And what would be the advantage, if His works were so blind that no cause could be studied in them? There wouldn’t be any.”[389]

[Pg 139]

To this bold attempt of Magic to identify itself with scientific investigation, the True Worship of God responds with the counter question, “Whether it is more pleasing to God to adore Him or His works?” and reminds Maleficium that mere creatures which proceed from God can give life to no one and that man is the only rational created being. “You, moreover, O Magic Art, have the circle without the center, and while you investigate many problems in the circle of creation ... you have robbed God of His very name.” This reply does not seem to separate magic and scientific investigation or to deny Magic’s claim that they are identical, and its force would seem about as cogent against science as against magic. But a little later in the same work Hildegard reverts to her former charge that maleficium is “by diabolical arts,” and that its devotees “by directing all their works to impurity turn their science also to the pursuit of evils.” “For they name demons as their gods and worship them instead of God.”[390]

That magic, however diabolical it may be, does employ natural forces and substances, is not only asserted by Magic Art itself, but freely admitted by Hildegard in her discussions of the properties of animals, plants, and minerals in her other two works, the Subtleties of Diverse Creatures and Cases and Cures. In the latter work she states that while herbs in the east are full of virtue and have a good odor and medicinal properties, those in the west are potent in the magic art and for other phantasms but do not contribute much to the health of the human body.[391] In the former work she tells that the tree-toad is much employed in diabolical arts, especially when the trees are beginning to leaf and blossom, since at this time the spirits of the air are especially active.[392] Sometimes, however, there is a way to remove this magic virtue from a natural substance. The root mandragora “is no longer efficacious for magic and fantastic purposes,” if it is purified in a fountain for a [Pg 140] day and a night immediately after it has been dug from the earth.[393]

There are also substances which counteract magic. It has little force in any place where a fir-tree grows, for the spirits of the air hate and avoid such spots.[394] In the Causae et curae Hildegard tells how to compound a powder “against poison and against magic words.”[395] It also “confers health and courage and prosperity on him who carries it with him.” First one takes a root of geranium (storkesnabil) with its leaves, two mallow plants, and seven shoots of the plantagenet. These must be plucked at midday in the middle of April. Then they are to be laid on moist earth and sprinkled with water to keep them green for a while. Next they are dried in the setting sun and in the rising sun until the third hour, when they should once more be laid on moist earth and sprinkled with water until noon. Then they are to be removed and placed facing the south in the full sunshine until the ninth hour, when they should be wrapped in a cloth, with a stick on top to hold them in place, until a trifle before midnight. Then the night begins to incline towards day and all the evils of darkness and night begin to flee. A little before midnight, therefore, they should be transferred to a high window or placed above a door or in some garden where the cool air may have access to them. As soon as midnight is passed, they are to be removed once more, pulverized with the middle finger, and put in a new pill-box with a little bisemum to keep them from decaying but not a sufficient quantity to overcome the scent of the herbs. A little of this powder may be applied daily to the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, or it may be bound on the body as an antiaphrodisiac, or it may be held over wine without touching it but so that its odor can reach the wine, which should then be drunk with a bit of saffron as a preventive of indigestion, poison, magic, and so forth.

[Pg 141]

In the Subtilitates[396] the following procedure is recommended, if anyone is bewitched by phantasms or magic words so that he goes mad. Take a wheaten loaf and cut the upper crust in the form of a cross. First draw a jacinth through one line of the cross, saying, “May God who cast away all the preciousness of gems from the devil when he transgressed His precept, remove from you N. all phantasms and magic words and free you from the ill of this madness.” Then the jacinth is to be drawn through the other arm of the cross and this formula is to be repeated, “As the splendor which the devil once possessed departed from him because of his transgression, so may this madness which harasses N. by varied phantasies and magic arts be removed from you and depart from you.” The ceremony is then completed by the bewitched person eating the bread around the cross.

These two illustrations make it apparent that Hildegard has a licit magic of her own which is every whit as superstitious as the magic art which she condemns. It is evident that she accepts not only marvelous and occult virtues of natural substances such as herbs and gems, but also the power of words and incantations, and rites and ceremonies of a most decidedly magical character. In the second passage this procedure assumed a Christian character, but the plucking and drying of the herbs in the first passage perhaps preserves the flavor of primitive Teutonic or Celtic paganism. Nor is such superstitious procedure resorted to merely against magic, to whose operations it forms a sort of homeopathic counterpart. It is also employed for ordinary medicinal purposes, and is a characteristic feature of Hildegard’s conception of nature and whole mental attitude. This we may further illustrate by running through the books of the Subtilitates.

Except for passages connecting the devil with certain herbs which we have already noted, Hildegard’s discussion of vegetation is for the most part limited to medicinal properties [Pg 142] of herbs, which are effective without the addition of fantastic ceremonial. Sometimes nevertheless the herbs are either prepared or administered in a rather bizarre fashion. Insanity may be alleviated, we are told, by shaving the patient’s head and washing it in the hot water in which agrimonia has been boiled, while the hot herbs themselves are bound in a cloth first over his heart and then upon his forehead and temples.[397] An unguent beneficial alike for digestive and mental disorders is made of the bark, leaves, and bits of the green wood of the fir-tree, combined with saliva to half their weight. This mess is to be boiled in water until it becomes thick, then butter is to be added, and the whole strained through a cloth.[398] The mandragora root should first be worn bound between the breast and navel for three days and three nights, then divided in halves and these bound on the thighs for three days and three nights. Finally the left half of the root, which resembles the human figure, should be pulverized, camphor added to it, and eaten.[399] If a man is always sad and in the dumps, after purifying the mandragora root in a fountain, let him take it to bed with him, hold it so that it will be warmed by the heat of his body, and say, “God, who madest man from the dust of the earth without grief, I now place next me that earth which has never transgressed”—Hildegard has already stated that the mandragora is composed “of that earth of which Adam was created”—“in order that my clay may feel that peace just as Thou didst create it.” That the prayer or incantation is more essential than the virtue of the mandragora in this operation, is indicated by the statement that shoots of beech, cedar, or aspen may be used instead of the mandragora.

Other marvelous effects than routing the devil, which Hildegard attributes to gems in the course of the fourth book of the Subtilitates, are to confer intellect and science for the day, to banish anger and dulness, bestow an equable temper, restrain lust, cure all sorts of diseases and infirmities, [Pg 143] endow with the gift of sound speech, prevent thefts at night, and enable one to fast. These marvelous results are produced either by merely having the stone in one’s possession, or by holding it in the hand, placing it next the skin, taking it to bed with one and warming it by the heat of the body, breathing on it, holding it in the mouth especially when fasting, suspending it about the neck, or making the sign of the cross with it. In the cure of insanity by use of the magnet the stone should be moistened with the patient’s saliva and drawn across his forehead while an incantation is repeated.[400] A man may be brought out of an epileptic fit by putting an emerald in his mouth.[401] Having recovered, he should remove the gem from his mouth and say, “As the spirit of the Lord filled the earth, so may His grace fill the temple of my body that it may never be moved.” This ceremony is to be repeated on nine successive mornings, and that here the gem is as important as the prayer is indicated by the direction that the patient should have the gem with him each time and take it out and look at it as he repeats the incantation. Different is the procedure for curing epilepsy by means of the gem achates.[402] In this case the stone should be soaked in water for three days at the full moon; this water should be slightly warmed, and then preserved, and all the patient’s food cooked in it dum luna tota crescat. The gem should also be placed in everything that he drinks. This astrological procedure is to be repeated for ten months.

We have already heard that certain fish have the property of expelling demons. Fish also have other remarkable virtues. The eye of a copprea, worn in a gold or silver ring so that it touches one’s finger, arouses a sluggish intellect.[403] The lung of a tunny fish, taken in water, is good for a fever, and it keeps one in good health to wear shoes and a belt made of its skin.[404] Pulverized salmon bones are recommended [Pg 144] for bad teeth.[405] But eating the head of a barbo gives one a headache and fever.[406] Hildegard also tells some wonderful stories concerning the modes of generation of different varieties of fish. In the Causae et curae[407] for dimness of the eyes it is recommended to dry some walrus skin in the sun, soften it in pure wine, and apply it in a cloth between the eyes at night. It should be removed at midnight and applied only on alternate nights for a week. “Either it will remove dimness of the eyes, or God does not permit this to be done.”

To render available or to enhance the occult virtues of birds Hildegard suggests a great amount of complicated ceremonial. The heart of a vulture, split in two, dried before a slow fire and in the sun, and worn sewn up in a belt of doeskin, makes one tremble in the presence of poison.[408] This is explained by the vulture’s own antipathy to poison, which is increased and purified by the fire, sun, and especially by the belt, for the doe is swifter and more sensitive than other animals. Mistiness is marvelously removed from the eyes by catching a nightingale before day-break, adding a single drop of dew found on clean grass to its gall, and anointing the eyebrows and lashes frequently with the same.[409] Another eye-cure consists in cooking a heron’s head in water, removing its eyes, alternately drying them in the sun and softening them in cold water for three successive times, pulverizing and dissolving them in wine, and at night frequently touching the eyes and lids with the tip of a feather dipped in this concoction.[410] The blood of a crane, dried and preserved, and its right foot are employed in varied ways to facilitate child-birth.[411] Hildegard also often tells how to make a medicinal unguent by cooking some bird in some prescribed manner and then pulverizing certain portions of the carcass with various herbs or other animal substances.[412] Even without the employment of ceremonial [Pg 145] sufficiently remarkable powers are attributed to the bodies or parts of birds. Eating the flesh of one reduces fat and benefits epileptics, while eating its liver is good for melancholy.[413] The liver of a swan has the different property of purifying the lungs, while the lung of a swan is a cure for the spleen.[414] Again, a heron’s liver cures stomach trouble, while a cure for spleen is to drink water in which its bones have been stewed, and if one who is sad eats its heart, it will make him glad.[415]

Hildegard’s chapters on quadrupeds are so delightfully quaint that I cannot pass them over, although the properties which she attributes to them and the methods by which their virtues are utilized are not essentially different from those in examples already given. The camel, however, is peculiar in that its different humps have quite different virtues.[416] The one next to its neck has the virtues of the lion; the second, those of the leopard; the third, those of the horse. A cap of lion’s skin cures ailments of the head whether physical or mental.[417] Deafness may be remedied by cutting off a lion’s right ear and holding it over the patient’s ear just long enough to warm it and to say, “Hear adimacus by the living God and the keen virtue of a lion’s hearing.” This process is to be repeated many times. The heart of a lion is somewhat similarly employed, but without any incantation, to make a stupid person prudent. Burying a lion’s heart in the house is regarded as fire insurance against its being struck by lightning, “for the lion is accustomed to roar when he hears thunder.” Digestion is aided by drinking water in which the dried liver of a lion has been left for a short time. Placing a bit of the skin from between a bear’s eyes over one’s heart removes timidity and anxiety.[418] If anyone suffers from paralysis or one of those changeable diseases which wax and wane with the moon like lunacy, let him select a spot where an ass has been slain, or has died a natural death, or has wallowed, and let him [Pg 146] spread a cloth on the grass or ground and repose there a short time and sleep if he can. Afterwards you should take him by the right hand and say, “Lazarus slept and rested and rose again; and as Christ roused him from foul decay, so may you rise from this perilous pestilence and the changing phases of fever in that conjunction in which Christ applied Himself to the alleviation of such complaints, prefiguring that He would redeem man from his sins and raise him from the dead.” With a brief interval of time allowed between, the same performance is to be repeated thrice in the same place on the same day, and then again thrice on the next and the third days, when the patient will be cured.[419]

The liver and skin of the unicorn have great medicinal virtues, but that animal can never be caught except by means of girls, for it flees from men but stops to gaze diligently at girls, because it marvels that they have human forms, yet no beards. “And if there are two or three girls together, it marvels so much the more and is the more quickly captured while its eyes are fixed on them. Moreover, the girls employed in capturing it should be of noble, not peasant birth, and of the middle period of adolescence.”[420] When one weasel is sick, another digs up a certain herb and breathes and urinates on it for an hour, and then brings it to the sick weasel who is cured by it.[421] But what this herb is is unknown to men and other animals, and it would do them no good if they did know it, since its unaided virtue is not efficacious, nor would the action of their breath or urine make it so. But the heart of a weasel, dried and placed with wax in the ear, benefits headache or deafness, and the head of a weasel, worn in two pieces in a belt next the skin, strengthens and comforts the bearer and keeps him from harm. The mouse, besides being responsible for two other equally marvelous cures, is a remedy for epilepsy. “For inasmuch as the mouse runs away from everything, therefore it drives away the falling disease.”[422] It should be [Pg 147] put in a dish of water, and the patient should drink some of this water and also wash his feet and forehead in it.

Hildegard gives some strange advice what animal products to eat and wear. “Sheepskins are good for human wear, because they do not induce pride or lust or pestilence as the skins of certain other animals do.”[423] Pork is not good for either sick or healthy persons to eat, in her opinion, while beef, on account of its intrinsic cold, is not good for a man of cold constitution to eat.[424] On the other hand, she recommends as edible various birds which would strike the modern reader as disgusting.[425]

Fleas remain underground in winter but come forth to plague mankind when the sun dries the soil in summer. But one may be rid of them by heating some earth until it is quite dry and then scattering it upon the bed.[426] Hildegard also describes a complicated cure for leprosy by use of the earth from an ant-hill.[427] If a man kills a certain venomous snake just after it has skinned itself in the cleft of a rock, and cautiously removes its heart and dries the same in the sun, and then preserves it in a thin metal cover, it will serve as an amulet. Holding it in his hand will render him immune to venom and cheer him up if he becomes gloomy or sorrowful.[428]

In the Causae et curae Hildegard combines the virtues of parts of a number of animals into one composite medicine for epilepsy.[429] Four parts of dried mole’s blood are used because the mole sometimes shows himself and sometimes hides, like the epilepsy itself. Two parts of powdered duck’s bill are added because the duck’s strength is in its beak, “and because it touches both pure and impure things with its bill, it is repugnant to this disease which is sudden and silent.” One portion of the powdered claws of a goose, minus the skin and flesh, is added for much the same reason, and the claw of a goose rather than a gander is required [Pg 148] because the female bird is the more silent of the two. These constituents are bound together in a cloth, placed for three days near a recent molecast,—for such earth is more wholesome, then are put near ice to cool and then in the sun to dry. Cakes are then to be made with this powder and the livers of some edible animal and bird and a little meal and cummin seed, and eaten for five days. Against diabolical phantasms is recommended a belt made of the skin of a roebuck, which is a pure animal, and of the skin of the helun, which is a brave beast, and hence both are abhorred by evil spirits.[430] The two strips of skin are to be fastened together by four little steel[431] nails, and as each is clasped one repeats the formula, “In the most potent strength of almighty God I adjure you to safeguard me”; only in the second, third, and fourth instance instead of saying “I adjure” (adiuro), the words benedico, constituo, and confirmo are respectively substituted. One should be girded with this belt night and day, and magic words will not harm one.

We have already encountered more than one instance of observance of the phases of the moon in Hildegard’s medicinal and magical procedure, and have met in one of her formulae a hint that Christ employed astrological election of a favorable conjunction in performing His miracles. Thus as usual the influence of the stars is difficult to separate from other occult virtues of natural substances, and we may complete our survey of Hildegard’s writings by considering her views concerning the celestial bodies and divination of the future.

In the passage of the Scivias to which we have already referred God condemned astrology and divination as well as magic.[432] Mathematici are called “deadly instructors and followers of the Gentiles in unbelief,” and man is reproved [Pg 149] for believing that the stars allot his years of life and regulate all human actions, and for cultivating in the place of his Creator mere creatures such as the stars and heavens, which cannot console or help him, or confer either prosperity or happiness. Man should not consult the stars as to the length of his life, which he can neither know beforehand nor alter. He should not seek signs of the future in either stars or fire or birds or any other creature. “The error of augury” is expressly rebuked. Man should abstain not only from worshiping or invoking the devil but from making any inquiries from him, “since if you wish to know more than you should, you will be deceived by the old seducer.”

It is true that sometimes by divine permission the stars are signs to men, for the Son of God Himself says in the Gospel by Luke that “There shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars,” and His incarnation was revealed by a star. But it is a stupid popular error to suppose that other men each have a star of their own, and, continues God, speaking through the medium of Hildegard, “That star brought no aid to My Son other than that it faithfully announced His incarnation to the people, since all stars and creatures fear Me and simply fulfill My dictates and have no signification of anything in any creature.” This last observation receives further interpretation in a passage of the Causae et Curae[433] which explains that the stars sometimes show many signs, but not of the future or hidden thoughts of men, but of matters which they have already revealed by act of will or voice or deed, so that the air has received an impression of it which the stars can reflect back to other men if God allows it. But the sun and moon and planets do not always thus portray the works of men, but only rarely, and in the case of some great event affecting the public welfare.

[Pg 150]

If the stars do not even signify the fate and future of man, they are none the less potent forces and, under God, causes in the world of nature. “God who created all things,” writes Hildegard in the Liber divinorum operum,[434] “so constituted superiors that He also strengthens and purifies things below through these, and in the human form introduces also those things allotted for the soul’s salvation.” This passage has two sides; it affirms the rule of superiors over inferiors, but it makes special provision for the salvation of the human soul. And thus it is a good brief summary of Hildegard’s position. Sun, moon, and stars are represented as by the will of God cooperating with the winds—which play an important part in Hildegard’s cosmology—in driving the elements to and fro;[435] and the humors in the human body now rage fiercely like the leopard, now move sluggishly like the crab, now proceed in other ways analogous to the wolf or deer or bear or serpent or lamb or lion—animals whose heads, belching forth winds, are seen in the vision about the rim of the heavenly spheres.[436] They suggest the influence of the signs of the zodiac, although there appears to be no exact correspondence to these in Hildegard’s visionary scheme of the universe as detailed in the Liber divinorum operum. In the Causae et curae, on the other hand, she gives a detailed account of how pairs or triplets of planets accompany the sun through each of the twelve signs.[437] In other passages[438] she affirms that the sun and moon serve man by divine order, and bring him strength or weakness according to the temper of the air.

Hildegard more especially emphasizes the influence of the moon, in which respect she resembles many an astrologer. In the Causae et curae[439] she states that some days of the moon are good, others bad; some, useful and others, useless; some, strong and others, weak. “And since the moon [Pg 151] has this changeability in itself, therefore the moisture in man has its vicissitudes and mutability in pain, in labor, in wisdom, and in prosperity.” Similarly in the Liber divinorum operum[440] it is noted that human blood and brain are augmented when the moon is full and diminish as it wanes, and that these changes affect human health variously. Sometimes one incurs epilepsy when the moon is in eclipse.[441] The moon is the mother of all seasons. Hildegard marvels in the Causae et curae[442] that while men have sense enough not to sow crops in mid-summer or the coldest part of winter, they persist in begetting offspring at any time according to their pleasure without regard either to the proper period of their own lives or to the time of the moon. The natural consequence of their heedlessness is the birth of defective children. Hildegard then adds[443] by way of qualification that the time of the moon does not dominate the nature of man as if it were his god, or as if man received any power of nature from it, or as if it conferred any part of human nature. The moon simply affects the air, and the air affects man’s blood and the humors of his body.

Hildegard, however, not only believed that as the humors were perturbed and the veins boiled, the health of the body would be affected and perhaps a fever set in,[444] but also that passions, such as wrath and petulance, were thereby aroused and the mind affected.[445] This is suggested in a general way in the Liber divinorum operum, but is brought out in more detail in the Causae et curae, where various types of men are delineated according to the combinations of humors in their bodies, and their characters are sketched and even their fate to some extent predicted therefrom. In one case[446] “the man will be a good scholar, but headlong and too vehement in his studies, so that he scatters his knowledge [Pg 152] over too wide a field, as straw is blown by the wind; and he seeks to have dominion over others. In body he is healthy except that his legs are weak and he is prone to gout; but he can live a long while, if it so please God.” Such a passage hardly sounds consistent with Hildegard’s statement elsewhere already noted that man cannot know the length of his life beforehand. In the case of choleric, sanguine, melancholy, and phlegmatic men[447] Hildegard states what the relations of each type will be with women and even to some extent what sort of children they will have. She also discusses four types of women in very similar style.[448] These are not exactly astrological predictions, but they have much the same flavor and seem to leave little place for freedom of the will.

In one passage, however, Hildegard comfortingly adds that nevertheless the Holy Spirit can penetrate the whole nature of man and overcome his mutable nature as the sun dispels clouds, and so counteract the moist influence of the moon. She also states concerning the significations of the stars concerning man’s future, “These significations are not produced by the virtue of the planets themselves alone or stars or clouds, but by the permission and will and decree of God, according as God wished to demonstrate to men the works of the same, just as a coin shows the image of its lord.”[449] In another passage, on the other hand, Hildegard recognizes, like Aquinas later, that it is only rarely and with difficulty that the flesh can be restrained from sinning.[450]

Finally, the Causae et curae close with predictions for each day of the moon of the type of male or female who will be conceived on that day.[451] Selecting the eighteenth day by lot as an example of the others, we read that a male conceived then will be a thief and will be caught in the act and will be deprived of his landed property so that he possesses neither fields nor vineyards, but strives to [Pg 153] take from others what is not his. He will be healthy in body and live a long life, if left to himself. A woman conceived on that day will be cunning and deceitful of speech and will lead upright men to death if she can. She too will be sound of body and naturally long-lived, but sometimes insane. Hildegard then seems to feel it advisable to add, “But such morals, both in men and in women, are hateful to God.”

The theory of macrocosm and microcosm had a considerable attraction for Hildegard. At the beginning of the Causae et curae she exclaims, “O man, look at man! For man has in himself heavens and earth ... and in him all things are latent.”[452] Presently she compares the firmament to man’s head, sun, moon, and stars to the eyes, air to hearing, the winds to smelling, dew to taste, and “the sides of the world” to the arms and sense of touch. The earth is like the heart, and other creatures in the world are like the belly.[453] In the Liber divinorum operum she goes into further detail. Between the divine image in human form which she sees in her visions and the wheel or sphere of the universe she notes such relationships as these. The sun spreads its rays from the brain to the heel, and the moon directs its rays from the eyebrows to the ankles.[454] Elsewhere she says, “The eyebrows of man declare the journeyings of the moon, namely, the one route by which it approaches the sun in order to restore itself, and the other by which it recedes after it has been burnt by the sun.”[455] Again, from the top of the cerebral cavity to “the last extremity of the forehead” there are seven distinct and equal spaces, by which are signified the seven planets which are equidistant from one another in the firmament.[456] An even more surprising assumption as to astronomical distances is involved in the comparison[457] that as the three intervals between the top of the human head and the end of the throat and the navel and the groin are all equal, so are the spaces intervening [Pg 154] between the highest firmament and lowest clouds and the earth’s surface and center. Corresponding to these intervals Hildegard notes three ages of man, infancy, adolescence, and old age. One more passage may be noted, since it also involves a similar explanation of weeping for joy to that given by Adelard of Bath. As the heart is stirred by emotion, whether of joy or of sorrow, humors are excited in the lungs and breast which rise to the brain and are emitted through the eyes in the form of tears. And in like manner, when the moon begins to wax or wane, the firmament is disturbed by winds which raise fogs from the sea and other waters.[458]

If Hildegard resorts to a magic of her own in order to counteract the diabolical arts, and if she accepts a certain amount of astrological doctrine for all her censure of it, it is not surprising to find her in the Causae et curae saying a word in favor of natural divination in dreams despite her rejection of augury and such arts. She believes that, when God sent sleep to Adam before he had yet sinned, his soul saw many things in true prophecy, and that the human soul may still sometimes do the same, although too often it is clouded by diabolical illusions.[459] But when the body is in a temperate condition and the marrow warmed in due measure, and there is no disturbance of vices or contrariety of morals, then very often a sleeper sees true dreams.[460] Hildegard’s own visions, as we have seen, came to her in her waking hours.

JOHN OF SALISBURY

In 1159 John of Salisbury completed his two chief works, the Metalogicus and the Polycraticus.[461] In the former he tells the interesting story of his education in the schools of northern France, and describes the teachers and methods of the humanistic school of Chartres and the schools of logic at Paris. This valuable picture of educational conditions in the middle of the twelfth century has already supplied us with a number of bits of information concerning authors of whom we have treated. Its importance in the history of the study of the classics and of scholasticism has long been recognized, and its content has often been reproduced in secondary works, so that we need not dwell upon it specifically here.[462] Moreover, although John spent some twelve years in his studies in France, he appears from his [Pg 156] own statements to have passed from the study of logic and “grammar” to that of theology without devoting much attention to natural science,[463] although he received some instruction in the Quadrivium from Richard Bishop and Hardewin the Teuton. He was, it is true, according to his own statement, a pupil of William of Conches for three years, but he always alludes to William as a grammarian, not as a writer on natural philosophy and astronomy. This one-sided description of William’s teaching warns us not to place too implicit faith in John’s account of the learned world of his times. Even if reliable as it stands, it is not in itself a complete or adequate picture. In the Polycraticus, however, he engages in a rather long discussion of magic, astrology and other forms of divination which it behooves us to note.

John tells us that he was a mere lad when in 1136 he first came from England to Gaul to hear the famous Abelard lecture. Like many medieval students, he was or soon came to be in a needy condition and eked out a living at one time by tutoring the sons of nobles. During the time that had elapsed between his long training in the liberal arts and theology and his writing of the Metalogicus in 1159, he had led a busy life in the employ of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, crossing the Alps ten times, journeying twice all the way from England to Apulia, and frequently traveling about England and what is now France (John says, “the Gauls”—Gallias). In 1159 he addressed the Polycraticus to Thomas Becket, then absent with Henry II as his chancellor at the siege of Toulouse. Thomas was just about John’s age and, before he became chancellor in 1154 at the age of thirty-six, had been like John first a student and then in the employ of Archbishop Theobald. John sided with Thomas Becket in the struggle with Henry II, retired to France, and returned to England with him in 1170. In 1176 he crowned his career by becoming bishop [Pg 157] of Chartres where perhaps some years of his early studies had been spent. His death was in 1180.

In the Metalogicus John tells us that he has scarcely touched a book of logic since he left the palaestra of the dialecticians so many years ago, but he returns to the subject again in that work. In the Polycraticus his literary tastes and interests are more manifest. He writes a good Latin style and shows a wide acquaintance with classical authors and ancient history as well as with patristic literature. The character and content of the Polycraticus is more clearly suggested by its sub-title, “Courtiers’ Trifles and Philosophers’ Footprints” (De nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum). In part it is satirical, although there is considerable serious discussion of the state and philosophy and much moralizing for the benefit of contemporary courts and statesmen. John confesses that the entire work is little more than a patch-work of other men’s opinions, sometimes without specific acknowledgment of the authorities. He professes to believe that Thomas will recognize the sources of these passages without being told, while other readers who are more ignorant will be thereby spurred on to wider reading. These quotations, moreover, are either from ancient classical or comparatively early Christian writers. John does not epitomize recent literature and thought, although he makes application of the thought of the past to contemporary society and politics, and although he shows some acquaintance with the works of contemporary writers such as Bernard Silvester. In the main his attitude is essentially conservative; he repeats traditional views in an attractive but somewhat dilettante literary form, with such rational criticism as a study of the classics might be expected to produce when qualified by scrupulous adherence to medieval Christian dogma. This is especially true of his discussion of the magic arts and astrology.

John begins to discuss magic in the first of the eight books of the Polycraticus after a few chapters have been taken up with such other triflings of courtiers as hunting, [Pg 158] dicing, music, and theatrical shows and spectacles. More harmful than the illusions of the stage, he declares, are those of the magic arts and various kinds of disreputable mathematica, long since forbidden by the holy fathers who knew that all these artificia, or rather maleficia arose from a fatal familiarity of men and demons.[464] John thus takes as practically synonymous the three terms, magica, mathematica and maleficium. He presently explains that the word mathesis in one sense denotes learning in general, but that when it has a long penultima, it signifies the figments of divination,[465] which belong under magic, whose varieties are many and diverse. Thus magic is John’s most general and inclusive term for all occult arts.

The account of magic in John’s ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth chapters is largely derived without acknowledgment from that of Isidore of Seville.[466] We have already seen how this became a stock description of the subject copied with little change by successive writers and embodied in the decretals of the church. It is rather surprising that a writer as well versed in the classics as John is generally supposed to be should not have borrowed his account more directly from some such ancient Latin writers as Pliny and Apuleius. John, however, alters the wording and arrangement and consequently the emphasis considerably. He makes it seem, for example, that several magic arts, which really have nothing to do with predicting the future, are sub-varieties of divination. He also adds some new varieties to Isidore’s list of practitioners of the magic arts. The vultivoli try to affect men by making images of them from wax or clay. Imaginarii, on the other hand, make images with the intent that demons should enter these images and instruct them in regard to doubtful matters. Besides interpreters of dreams (conjectores) and chiromancers John further mentions specularii who practise divination by gazing into polished surfaces such as the edges of swords, [Pg 159] basins, and mirrors. It was this art that Joseph is described as exercising or pretending to exercise, when he charged his brothers with having made off with the cup in which he was wont to practice divination. The thirteenth and closing chapter of John’s first book is a long list of omens from Roman history and Latin literature, especially Vergil.

In the second book he resumes the same subject after a brief and somewhat apologetic preface in which he states that all things are of use to the wise man. Therefore he responds with alacrity to Thomas Becket’s request that he publish his trifles, introducing interpreters of dreams and astrologers with some other triflers. We shall later meet with some further explanation of Thomas’ interest in such matters. It is perhaps significant that John further expresses his confidence that Thomas will faithfully protect those in whom he has inspired boldness of utterance,[467] but it would be too much to assume from it that John fears any persecution because he discusses such subjects. More likely he merely shares the common medieval fear of the envious bite of critics and reviewers, or wishes to remind Thomas of his need of his patronage. At any rate he closes the prologue with the request that Thomas will correct any mistake in either book.

In opening his second book John subscribes to the proverb that he who trusts in dreams and auguries will never be secure and asks—like Cicero in his De divinatione[468]—what possible connection there can be between sneezes, yawns, and other such things accepted as signs and the events which they are supposed to signify. With Isidore and Augustine[469]—although he names neither—he rejects those empty incantations [Pg 160] and superstitious ligatures which the entire medical art condemns, although some call them physica.[470] This seems like an admirable approach to an attitude of rational criticism, but John after all may be merely repeating others’ statements like a parrot, and he entirely spoils its effect by what he goes on to say. He believes that the cloak of St. Stephen raised the dead, and that such practices as saying the Lord’s prayer while plucking or administering medicinal herbs, or wearing or hearing or repeating the names of the four evangelists,[471] are not only allowable but most useful. He adds further that the force of all omens depends upon the faith of the recipient.

Although opposing faith in omens and augury, John admits that God provides signs for His creatures, such as those of the weather which sailors and farmers learn by experience and the birds are not ignorant of, or the indications by which doctors can prognosticate the course of diseases. Unfortunately the demons also are able to show signs and thus lead men astray. Mention of signs which preceded the fall of Jerusalem then leads John into a digression for several chapters concerning the horrors of the siege itself and Vespasian and Titus, a passage which was very likely inserted because Henry II and Becket were at that very time engaged in laying siege to Toulouse.

Returning to the subject of signs, John interprets the verse in Luke, “There shall be signs in sun and moon and stars” as having reference to unnatural signs, and the obscuration of the sun during Christ’s passion as not a natural eclipse.[472] John explains that by nature he means “the accustomed course of things or the occult causes of events for which a reason can be given.”[473] If, however, we accept Plato’s definition of nature as the will of God there will be no unnatural events. But John would distinguish between the gradual growth of leaves and fruit on tree or [Pg 161] vine by means of roots drawing nutriment from earth’s vitals and sap produced within the trunk, which is indeed marvelous and has the most occult causes, and the performance of the same process without any interval of time, which he regards as a miracle and of a divine height which transcends our understanding. After drawing this distinction between divine miracle and wonders wrought by occult virtues in nature John returns again to the subject of signs.

For some chapters the topic of dreams and their interpretation absorbs his attention,[474] and at first he discusses in an apparently credulous and approving tone “the varied significations of dreams, which both experience approves and the authority of our ancestors confirms.”[475] He explains that now the dream concerns the dreamer himself, now someone else, now common interests, sometimes the public or general welfare; and he quotes Nestor to the effect that “trust is put in the king’s dream concerning public matters.”[476] After referring credulously to the Sibylline verses predicting Christ’s incarnation, passion, and ascension, John continues his exposition of the interpretation of dreams. He explains that the season of year when one dreams, the place where one dreams, and the personal characteristics of the dreamer must all be taken into account; that sometimes interpretations should be by contraries, and again from like to like. But then he checks himself with the words: “But while we pursue these traditions of the interpreters, I fear lest we deservedly seem not so much to trace the art of interpretation, which is either no art at all or an idle one, as to dream ourselves.” He adds further, “Whoever fastens his credulity to the significations of dreams evidently wanders as far from sincere faith as from the path of reason.”[477]

[Pg 162]

John then attacks the Dream-Book of Daniel, which he says “circulates impudently among the hands of the curious” and gives a specific interpretation for each thing imagined by the dreamer. He denies the truth and authority of the book and argues at some length that neither Joseph nor Daniel would have composed such a work, and that they interpreted dreams by divine inspiration, not by any occult art learned in Chaldea or Egypt. In the first place, the method of interpretation set forth in this book is faulty and crude. The remainder of John’s argument is worth quoting in part:

“Daniel indeed had the grace to interpret visions and dreams, which the Lord inspired in him, but it is inconceivable that a holy man should reduce this vanity to an art, when he knew that the Mosaic law prohibited any of the faithful to heed dreams, being aware how Satan’s satellite for the subversion of men is transformed into an angel of light and how suggestions are made by bad angels. Joseph, too, won the rule of Egypt by his ability to predict.... But if this could have come from any science of human wisdom, I should think that some one of his ancestors before him would have merited it, or I should think that the saint, desirous of serving science and full of pious impulses, would have left the art as a legacy, if not to the human race at large, which would nevertheless have been just, at any rate to his brothers and sons. Besides, Moses, trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, either was ignorant of or spurned this art, since, detesting the error of impiety, he took pains to exterminate it from among God’s people. Furthermore, St. Daniel learned the studies and wisdom of the Chaldeans, which, as a saint, he would not have done, had he thought it sinful to be instructed in their lore. And he had companions in his education whom he rejoiced to have as comrades in divine law and justice. For at the same time Ananias, Axarias, [Pg 163] Misael learned whatever a Chaldean would learn.... But notice that the privilege which man could not confer was given to Daniel alone, to bring to light the riddles of dreams and to scatter the obscurities of figures....”

Pointing out that Daniel read the king’s thoughts and prophesied “the mystery of salvation” in addition to interpreting the dream, John then concludes sarcastically: “Are the interpreters of dreams thus wont to examine thoughts and remove obscurities, to explain what is involved and illuminate the darkness of figures? If there is any who enjoys a like portion of grace, let him join Daniel and Joseph and like them ascribe to God the glory. He whom the spirit of truth does not illume vainly puts his confidence in the art of dreams.”[478]

John concludes that many dreams are the work of demons.[479] Especially as of this sort he classifies the illusions of those who think that they have taken part during the night in witches’ Sabbats. “What they suffer in spirit they most wretchedly and falsely believe to have occurred in the body.”[480] And such dreams come mainly to women, feeble-minded men, and those weak in the Christian faith. Too much stress must not, however, be laid upon this apparent opposition to the witchcraft delusion.[481] John admits that the demons send dreams, and if he denies their verity, he merely repeats a hesitation as to the extent and reality of the power of demons over the body of men and the world of nature which we have frequently met in [Pg 164] patristic literature and which is due to a natural reluctance to admit that their magic is as real as God’s miracles.

From divination by dreams and demons John passes to astrology. To start with he admits the attraction which the art has for men of intellect in his own time. “Would,” he exclaims, “that the error of the mathematici could be as readily removed from enlightened minds as the works of the demons fade before true faith and a sane consciousness of their illusions. But in it men go astray with the greater peril in that they seem to base their error upon nature’s firm foundation and reason’s strength.”[482] Beginning with mathematical and astronomical truths based on nature, reason and experience, they gradually slip into error, submitting human destiny to the stars and pretending to knowledge which belongs to God alone.

John ridicules the astrologers for attributing sex to the stars and stating the exact characteristics and influences of each planet, when they cannot agree among themselves whether the stars are composed of the four elements or some fifth essence, and when they are confounded by a schoolboy’s question whether the stars are hard or soft.[483] He grants that the sun’s heat and the moon’s control of humors as it waxes and wanes are potent forces, and that the other heavenly bodies are the causes of many utilities, and that from their position and signs the weather may be predicted. But he complains that the astrologers magnify the influence of the stars at the expense of God’s control of nature and of human free will. “They ascribe everything to their constellations.” Some have even reached such a degree of madness that they believe that “an image can be formed in accordance with the constellations so that it will receive the spirit of life at the nod of the stars and will [Pg 165] reveal the secrets of hidden truth.”[484] Whether John has some magic automaton or merely an engraved astrological image in mind is not entirely clear.

John is aware, however, that many astrologers will deny that their science detracts in any way from divine prerogative and power, and will “appear to themselves to excuse their error quite readily” by asserting with Plotinus that God foreknew and consequently foredisposed everything that is to occur, and that the stars are as much under his control as any part of nature.[485] But John will have none of this sort of argument. “These hypotheses of theirs are indeed plausible but nevertheless venom lies under the honey. For they impose on things a certain fatal necessity under the guise of humility and reverence to God, fearing lest his intent should perchance alter, if the outcome of things were not made necessary. Furthermore, they encroach upon the domain of divine majesty, when they lay claim to that science of foreseeing times and seasons, which by the Son’s testimony are reserved to the power of the Father, even to the degree that they were hid from the eyes of those to whom the Son of God revealed whatever He heard from the Father.”[486]

John furthermore contends that divine foreknowledge does not require fatal necessity. For instance, although God knew that Adam would sin, Adam was under no compulsion to do so. God knew that by his guilt Adam would bring death into the world, but no condition of nature impelled him to this; in the beginning man was immortal. At this point John wanders off into a joust at the Stoics and Epicureans, whom he censures as equally in error, since the one subjected all to chance, the other to necessity. It is true, John argues, that I know a stone will fall to earth if I hurl it skywards, but it “does not act under necessity, for it might fall or not.” But that it does fall, “though not [Pg 166] necessary, is true.” John presently recognizes that he has given away his previous argument against astrology and that the devotee of the stars will say that he does not care whether his predictions are necessary or not provided they are true. “‘Nor does it make any difference to me,’ says the devotee of the stars, ‘whether the affair in question might be otherwise, provided I am not doubtful that it will be (as I think.)’”[487]

John accordingly resorts to other arguments and to facetious sarcasm to cover his confusion. Then he recovers sufficiently to reiterate his belief that God frequently interferes in the operation of nature by special providences; and asserts that God has been known to change His mind, while the astrologers assert that the stars are constant in their influences. Expressing doubt, however, whether Thomas Becket will be convinced by his arguments, especially the one concerning fate and Providence, or whether he will not laugh up his sleeve at such a clumsy attempt to refute so formidable a doctrine, John lamely concludes by citing Augustine and Gregory against the art, and by affirming that every astrologer whom he has known has come to some bad end,[488] in which assertion he probably simply echoes Tertullian.

Resuming his discussion of the varieties of magic John briefly dismisses necromancers with the bon mot that those deserve death who try to acquire knowledge from the dead.[489] A number of other terms in Isidore’s list—auspices, augurs, salissatores, arioli, pythonici, aruspices—he says it is needless to discuss further since these arts are no longer practiced in his day, or at least not openly. Turning to more living superstitions of the present, he explains that chiromancy professes to discern truths which lie hidden in the wrinkles of the hands, but that since there is no apparent [Pg 167] reason for this belief it is not necessary to contravert it.

John wishes to ask Thomas one thing, however, and that is what triflers of this sort say when they are interrogated concerning uncertain future matters. He knows that Becket is familiar with such men because on the occasion of a recent royal expedition against Brittany he consulted both an aruspex and a chiromancer. John notes that a few days afterwards Thomas “lost without warning the morning-star so to speak of your race,” and warns him that such men by their vanity deserve to be consulted no more. This gentle rebuke did not avail, however, to wean Thomas entirely from his practice of consulting diviners, which he continued to do even after he became Archbishop of Canterbury. In a letter written to the future martyr and saint in 1170 John again chides Thomas for having delayed certain important letters because he had been “deluded by soothsayings which were not of the Spirit” and exhorts him “So let us renounce soothsayings in the future.”[490]

Despite his previous declaration that he need not discuss the pythonici, John now proceeds to do so, listing instances of ambiguous and deceptive Delphic oracles and discussing at length the well-worn subject of Saul and the witch of Endor. He concludes the chapter by a warning against abuse of the practice of exorcism: “For such is the slyness of evil spirits that what they do of their own accord and what men do at their suggestion, they with great pains disguise so that they appear to perform it unwillingly. They pretend to be coerced and simulate to be drawn out as it were by the power of exorcisms, and that they may be the less guarded against they compose exorcisms apparently expressed in the name of God or in the faith of the Trinity or in the power of the incarnation or passion; and they transmit the same to men and obey men who use these, until they finally involve them with themselves in the crime of sacrilege [Pg 168] and penalty of damnation. Sometimes they even transform themselves into angels of light, they teach only things of good repute, forbid unlawful things, strive to imitate purity, make provision for needs, so that, as if good and favoring, they are received the more familiarly, are heard the more kindly, are loved the more closely, are the more readily obeyed. They also put on the guise of venerable persons....”[491]

“The specularii,” John continues, “flatter themselves that they immolate no victims, harm no one, often do good as when they detect thefts, purge the world of sorceries, and seek only useful or necessary truth.”[492] He insists that the success of their efforts is none the less due to demon aid. John tells how as a boy he was handed over for instruction in the Psalms to a priest who turned out to be a practitioner of this variety of magic, who after performing various adjurations and sorceries tried to have John and another boy look into polished basins or finger-nails smeared with holy oil or chrism and report what they saw. The other boy saw some ghostly shapes but John thanks God that he could see nothing and so was not employed henceforth in this manner. He adds that he has known many specularii and that they have all suffered loss of their sight or some other evil except the aforesaid priest and a deacon, and that they took refuge in monasteries and later suffered evils above their fellows in their respective congregations.

John closes his second book with a chapter on natural scientists and medical men, for he seems to apply the term physici in both senses, although towards the close of the chapter he also employs the word medici. He begins by saying that it is permissible to consult concerning the future anyone who has the spirit of prophecy or who from scientific training knows by natural signs what will happen in the bodies of animals, or who “has learned experimentally the nature of the time impending,” provided only that these latter men say and do nothing prejudicial to the Christian [Pg 169] faith. But sometimes the physici attribute too much to nature,[493] and John has heard many of them disputing concerning the soul and its virtues and operations, the increase and diminution of the body, the resurrection, and the creation, in a way far from accord with the Christian faith. “Of God Himself too they sometimes so speak, ‘As if earth-born giants assailed the stars.’”[494] John recognizes, however, their knowledge of animals and medicine, although he finds their theories sometimes in conflict. As for practicing physicians, he dares not speak ill of them, for he too often falls into their hands, and he grants that no one is more necessary or useful than a good doctor. John makes considerable use of the Natural History of Pliny and of Solinus, and sometimes for occult or marvelous phenomena, as when he cites Pliny concerning men who have the power of fascination by voice and tongue or by their glances, and adds the testimony of the Physiognomists.[495]

It may be well to review and further emphasize some of the chief features of John’s rather rambling discussion. Despite its frequent quotations from classic poets and moralists, it is theological in tone and content to a degree perhaps greater than I have succeeded in suggesting, for to repeat all its scriptural passages would be tedious. There is even some theological jealousy and suspicion of natural science shown. John perhaps more nearly duplicates the attitude of Augustine than that of any other writer. Magic is represented as inevitably associated with, and the work of, demons. John sometimes charges the magic arts with being irrational or injurious, but these charges are in a way but corollaries of his main thesis. The arts must be harmful [Pg 170] since demons are concerned with them, while the influence of demons seems the only rational explanation for their existence. John repeats the old Isidorian definition of magic but he adds some current superstitions and shows that the magic arts are far from having fallen into disuse. Finally he shows us how vain must have been all the ecclesiastical thunders and warnings of demons and damnation, like his own, directed against magic, from the fact that not merely kings of the past like Saul and Pharaoh, but clergy of the present themselves—a priest and a deacon, a chancellor and an archbishop of England—practice or patronize such arts. Sometimes John’s own condemnation of them seems a bit perfunctory; he takes more relish, it seems at times, in describing them. Again, as in the case of astrology, he evidently feels that his opposition will be of little avail.

DANIEL OF MORLEY AND ROGER OF HEREFORD: OR ASTROLOGY IN ENGLAND IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

In discussing Gerard of Cremona in a previous chapter we noticed the studies at Toledo of Daniel de Merlai or of Morley, how he heard Gerard translate the Almagest into [Pg 172] Latin and defend the fatal influence of the stars, and Galippus, the Mozarab, teach concerning the universe in “the tongue of Toledo,”—presumably Spanish. Like Adelard of Bath, Daniel had long absented himself from England in the pursuit of learning, and had first spent some time at Paris, apparently engaged in the study of Roman law. He became disgusted, however, with the instruction [Pg 173] there and in his preface[496] speaks sarcastically of “the brutes” (bestiales) who occupied professorial chairs “with grave authority” and read from codices too heavy to carry (importabiles) which reproduced in golden letters the traditions of Ulpian. Holding lead pencils in their hands, they marked these volumes reverently with obeli and asterisks. They wished to conceal their ignorance by maintaining a dignified and statuesque silence, “but when they tried to say something, I found them most childish.” Daniel accordingly made haste away to Spain to acquire the learning of the Arabs and to hear “wiser philosophers of the universe.” Finally, however, his friends summoned him back to England [Pg 174] and he returned “with an abundant supply of precious volumes.” On his arrival he found that the interest in Roman law had almost completely eclipsed that in Greek philosophy, and that Aristotle and Plato were assigned to oblivion. Not wishing to remain the sole Greek among Romans, he prepared to withdraw again where the studies in which he was interested flourished. But on the way he met John, bishop of Norwich (1175-1200) who asked him many questions concerning his studies at Toledo and the marvels of that city, and concerning astronomy and the rule of the superior bodies over this sublunar world. Daniel’s present treatise gives a fuller reply to these inquiries than time then permitted him to make.

Daniel warns his readers at the start not to scorn the simple language and lucid style in which the doctrines of the Arabs are set forth, or to mistake the laborious circumlocutions and ambiguous obscurities of contemporary Latins for signs of profound learning. Nor should anyone be alarmed because he presents the opinions of Gentile philosophers instead of church fathers in treating of the creation of the world. They may not have been Christians, but where their opinions seem sound, Daniel believes in taking spoils of learning even from pagans and infidels, as God instructed the Hebrews to do in the case of the golden and silver vessels of the Egyptians. Thus he borrows the theory of a triple universe from an Arabic work. The first universe exists only in the divine mind and is neither visible nor corporeal, but is eternal. The second universe is in work and is visible, corporeal, and in that state not eternal. It was created simultaneously with time. The third universe is imitative. It is the microcosm and was formed in time and is visible and corporeal, but is in part eternal.[497] In a later passage[498] Daniel again defends his use of Arabian authorities, contending that it is only just that one who is already informed concerning the opinions about things supercelestial of the philosophers in use among the Latins should [Pg 175] also not disdain to listen attentively to the views of the Arabs which cannot be impugned. It may be perilous to imitate them in some respects, but one should be informed even on such points in order to be able to refute and avoid the errors to which they lead.

In general plan, tone, and content, as well as in the title, Philosophia, Daniel’s treatise roughly resembles that of William of Conches. As Daniel says in his preface, the first part deals with the inferior portion of the universe, and the second part with the superior part. The work proper opens with a discussion of the creation, in which Daniel expresses some rather original ideas, although he treats of such time-worn topics as God’s creation of the angels, of the universe, and of man in His own image, and then of man’s fall through concupiscence, virtue and vice, and like matters. Later he argues against those who hold that the world is eternal, but he is not quite ready to accept the Mosaic account of creation entire. He argues that in the beginning God created heaven and earth and cites Augustine, Isidore, and Bede to show that the meaning is that heaven and earth were created simultaneously. He then adds that philosophers are loath to accept the division of the works of creation over six days; in human works it is true that one thing must be done before another, but God could dispense everything with “one eternal word.”[499]

The four elements are discussed a good deal and it is explained that fire is hot and dry, air is hot and wet, and so on.[500] To fire correspond cholera, the light of the eyes, and curiosity; to air, blood, words, and loquacity; to water, phlegm, abundance of natural humors, and lust; to earth, melancholy, corpulence, and cruelty.[501] Daniel, like Adelard of Bath and William of Conches, repeats the doctrine that the four elements are not found in a pure state in any bodies perceptible to our sense, that no one has ever touched earth or water, or seen pure air or fire, and that the four elements [Pg 176] are perceptible only to the intellect. Daniel differs from Adelard and William, however, in denying that the stars are made merely out of the purer parts of the four elements. He declares that the Arabs will not agree to this, but that the higher authorities in astrology assert that the stars are composed of a fifth essence.[502] Daniel furthermore speaks of three bonds existing between the four elements, stating that scientists call the relation between fire and air, obedience; that between air and water, harmony; and that between water and earth, necessity.[503] This faintly reminds one of the three relationships between the four principles of things which were associated with the names of the three fates in the essay on fate ascribed to Plutarch.

But the greatest bond in nature is that existing between the superior and inferior worlds. An oft-repeated and fundamental principle of Daniel’s philosophy, and one which explains the division of his work into two parts, is the doctrine that superiors conquer inferiors, that the world of the sky controls the world of the four elements, and that the science of the stars is superior to all other disciplines.[504] “The sages of this world have divided the world into two parts, of which the superior one which extends from the circle of the moon even to the immovable heaven is the agent. The other, from the lunar globe downwards, is the patient.”[505] Much depends, however, not only upon the force emitted by the agent but upon the readiness of the patient to receive the celestial influence.

Daniel of course believed in a spherical earth and a geocentric universe. Influenced probably by the Almagest, he explains the eccentrics of the five planets in a way which he regards as superior to what he calls the errors of Martianus Capella and almost all Latins, and to the obscure traditions which the Arabs have handed down but scarcely understood themselves.[506] He affirms that there are not ten heavens or [Pg 177] spheres, as some have said, but only eight, as Alphraganus truly teaches.[507]

There are some men who deny any efficacy to the motions of the stars, but Daniel charges that they for the most part condemn the science without knowing anything about it, “and hold astronomy in hatred from its name alone.”[508] He replies that it is useful to foreknow the future and defends astrology in much the usual manner. He details the qualities of the seven planets[509] whom the Arabs call “lords of nativities.”[510] Also he takes up the properties and attributes of the signs of the zodiac and how the Arabs divide the parts of the human body among them.[511]

Daniel interprets the scope of astrology very broadly, asserting that it has eight parts: the science of judgments, or what we should call judicial astrology; medicine; nigromancy according to physics; agriculture; illusions or magic (de praestigiis); alchemy, “which is the science of the transmutation of metals into other species; the science of images, which Thoz Grecus set forth in the great and universal book of Venus; and the science of mirrors, which is of broader scope and aim than the rest, as Aristotle shows in the treatise on the burning glass.”[512] Except that magic illusions have replaced navigation, this list of eight branches of learning is the same as that which Gundissalinus repeated from Al-Farabi, but which they called branches of natural science rather than of astrology. At any rate we see again the close association of natural science and useful arts with astrology and magic, and necromancy and alchemy, and with pseudo-writings of Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus. In other passages Daniel cites genuine Aristotelian treatises[513] and speaks of “the great Mercury” and of the other “Mercury [Pg 178] Trismegistus, the nephew of the aforesaid.”[514] Despite his subordination of alchemy to astrology in the above passage, Daniel does not seem to have it in mind when he remarks that there are “some who assign diverse colors of metals to the planets,” as lead to Saturn, silver to Jupiter, white to Venus, and black to Mercury.[515] He goes on to deny that the stars are really colored any more than the sky is.

Some modern scholars have drawn inferences from Daniel’s treatise with which I am unable to agree. Mr. S. A. Hirsch in his edition of Roger Bacon’s Greek Grammar follows Cardinal Gasquet[516] in observing concerning Daniel’s preface, “There can be no clearer testimony than this to the complete oblivion into which Greek had in those days fallen in western Europe, including England.” It may be granted that there was and had been little knowledge of Greek grammar and the Greek language in twelfth century England, but that is not what Daniel is talking about: indeed, there seems to be no reason for believing Daniel himself proficient in either Greek grammar or Greek literature, although he was shrewd enough to question whether Chalcidius always interpreted Plato aright.[517] When he calls himself “the only Greek among Romans,” he means the only one interested in Greek philosophy and astronomy and in translations of the same made largely from the Arabic. But earlier in the same century we have seen Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, and Bernard Silvester interested either in Platonism or Arabic science, and the anonymous Sicilian translator of the Almagest from the Greek, and before him Burgundio of Pisa and other translators from the Greek. Therefore all that Daniel’s remarks seems to indicate is that [Pg 179] there was less interest in Greek philosophy in England after his return than before he went away, owing to the temporary popularity of the study of Roman law. But he knew where the studies in which he was interested still flourished.

A more serious misinterpretation of Daniel’s relation to his age is Valentin Rose’s assertion that, because of Daniel’s addiction to Arabian and astrological doctrines, “his book found no favor in the eyes of the church and was shunned like poison. It has left no traces in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.”[518] Rose spoke on the assumption that only one copy of Daniel’s treatise had reached us, whereas now we know of several manuscripts of it. If it did not become so widely known as some works, the more probable reason for this may well be that his brief résumé of Arabic and astrological doctrines appeared too late, when the fuller works of Ptolemy and of the Arabic astrologers were already becoming known through complete Latin translations. Brief pioneer treatises, like those of Adelard of Bath and William of Conches, which had appeared earlier in the century, had had time to become widely known during a period when there was perhaps nothing fuller and better available. But Daniel’s little trickle of learning from Toledo, which does not represent any very considerable advance over Adelard and William, might well be engulfed in the great stream of translations that now poured from Spain into Christian western Europe.[519] It is unreasonable to conjecture that Daniel’s book, which is rather mild anyway in its astrological doctrine, and which was called forth by the favoring questions of a bishop, was then crushed by bitter ecclesiastical opposition; when we know that William’s book, which actually encountered an ecclesiastical [Pg 180] opposition of which we have no evidence in Daniel’s case, nevertheless continued in circulation and was much cited in the next century; and when we know that both Arabic and astrological doctrines and books were widespread in Christian western Europe both in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Treatises with more poison of astrology in them than his were read and cited and seem to have weathered successfully, if not to have escaped unscathed, whatever ecclesiastical censure may have been directed against them. If Daniel’s own composition did not secure a wide circle of readers, the chances are that “the multitude of precious volumes” which he imported from Spain to England did. And if the work of the pupil remained little cited, the translations of the master, Gerard of Cremona, who had taught him astrology at Toledo, became known throughout western Europe. Thus, while Daniel’s personal influence may not have been vast, he reflects for us the progress of a great movement of which he was but a part.

But Rose was further mistaken in his assertion that Daniel’s De philosophia “has left no trace in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.” Not only is the work found complete in three manuscripts of which Rose did not know, and of which one appears to be twice removed from the original. In a manuscript of the fourteenth century at Oriel College, Oxford,[520] in the fitting company of excerpts from Adelard of Bath and Gundissalinus, are over three double column folio pages of extracts drawn from various portions of the Philosophia. These begin with Daniel’s excuse for borrowing the eloquence and wisdom of the infidels and with some of his utterances anent the creation of the world. They include a number of his citations of other writers, his story of the two fountains outside the walls of Toledo which varied in fulness with the moon’s phases and contained salt water although remote six days journey from the sea, and other bits of his astrological doctrine. [Pg 181] A similar, although not identical, selection of pearls from Daniel’s philosophy is found in one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne,[521] the Elizabethan antiquary, who gives the title of Daniel’s work as De superioribus et inferioribus and makes extracts both from its first and second books. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript’s writer seem to have been particularly impressed with Daniel’s views concerning the creation, rather than his retailing of astrological doctrine. Twyne first repeats his statement that the quantity of the universe reveals the power of its Maker; its quality, His wisdom; and its marvelous beauty, His unbounded good will. Twyne also notes Daniel’s phrase, “court of the world,” for the universe. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript note the passage concerning the triple universe, and another in which Daniel tells how the three human qualities, reason, irascibility, and desire, may be either used to discern and resist evil, or perverted to evil courses. Both also notice his contention that the chaos preceding creation was not hyle or matter but a certain contrariety present in matter.

In the same manuscript with Daniel’s treatise is a work by another Englishman, Roger of Hereford,[522] who was contemporary with him, who wrote treatises both in astronomy and astrology, and who, again like Daniel, was encouraged by a bishop. We are not, I believe, directly informed whether any of his works were translations from the Arabic or whether he was ever in Spain, but some of them sound as if they might be at least adaptations from the Arabic. At any rate Alfred of England dedicated to Roger the translation which he made from the Arabic of the pseudo-Aristotelian De vegetabilibus. Astronomical tables which Roger calculated for the meridian of Hereford in 1178 are based upon tables for Marseilles and Toledo, and the manuscript of one of his works is said by the copyist of 1476 to have been [Pg 182] taken by him from an ancient codex written in Toledo in the year 1247.[523] Other astronomical treatises attributed to Roger are a Theory of the Planets, a Treatise concerning the rising and setting of the Signs, and a Compotus which dates itself in 1176 and is addressed to a Gilbert[524] who seems to be no other than Foliot, bishop of Hereford until 1163 and thereafter bishop of London. The signature of Roger of Hereford attests one of his documents in 1173-1174. In 1176 in the preface to the Compotus[525] Roger speaks of himself as iuvenis, and the heading in the manuscript even calls him “Child Roger” or “Roger Child,”[526] but he also says that he has devoted many years to learning, so that we need not regard him as especially youthful at that time. The definite dates in his career seem to fall in the decade from 1170 to 1180, although his association with Alfred of England may well have been later.

Professor Haskins ascribes one or more astrological works to Roger of Hereford and lists a number of manuscripts with three different Incipits.[527] Some of these manuscripts I have examined. One at Paris has the Titulus, “In the name of God the pious and merciful, here opens the book of the division of astronomy and its four parts composed by the famous astrologer Roger of Hereford.”[Pg 183][528] Roger explains that the first part is general and concerned with such matters as “peoples, events, and states, changes of weather, famine, and mortality.” The second is special and deals with the fate of the individual from birth to life’s close. The third deals with interrogations and the fourth with elections. The first chapter of the first part is entitled, “Of the properties of the signs and planets in any country,” and opens with the statement that it has been proved by experience that the signs Aries and Jupiter have dominion in the land “baldac and babel and herach,” Libra and Saturn in the land of the Christians, Scorpion and Venus in the land of the Arabs, Capricorn and Mercury in India, Leo and Mars over the Turks, Aquarius and the Sun in Babylonia, Virgo and the Moon in Spain. The other five signs seem to be left without a country.[529] Chapter two tells how to find what sign dominates in any villa; three, of the powers of the planets in universal events; four, of the science of the annual significance of the planets; five, knowledge of rains for the four seasons; six, knowledge of winds in any villa;[530] nine, the twenty-eight mansions of the moon. After the tenth chapter distinguishing these mansions as dry and wet and temperate, the second part on nativities opens with the retrospective statement, “Now we have treated of the first part of this art, omitting what many astrologers have said [Pg 184] without experience and without reason.”[531] After a dozen chapters on the significance of the twelve houses in nativities, the author again asserts that in his discussion of that subject he has said nothing except what learned men agree upon and experience has tested.[532] After devoting three chapters to the familiar astrological theme of the revolution of years, he takes up in the third and fourth books[533] interrogations according to the twelve houses and elections, which are made in two ways according as the nativity is or is not known. The invocation of God the pious and compassionate in the Titulus and the list of countries and peoples in the first chapter have a Mohammedan and oriental flavor and suggest that the work is a translation.

Different from the foregoing is another work dealing with four parts of judicial astrology which the manuscripts ascribe to Roger of Hereford. Its opening words[534] and the subjects of its four parts all differ from those of the other treatise. Its first part deals with “simple judgment”; its fourth part, with “the reason of judgment”; while its second and third parts instead of third and fourth, as in the foregoing treatise, deal with interrogations, now called Cogitatio, and elections.[535] I know of no manuscript where this second work is to be found complete; in fact, I am inclined to surmise that usually the manuscripts give only the first of its four parts.[536] It professes at the start to be a [Pg 185] brief collection of rules of judicial astrology hitherto only to be found scattered through various works. Astrology is extolled as an art of incomparable excellence without which other branches of learning are fruitless. “They appear to a few through experiments; ... it gives most certain experiments.”[537] The first book treats of the properties of the signs and planets, of the twelve houses, and defines a long list of astrological terms such as respectus, applicatio, separatio, periclitus, solitudo, allevatio, translatio, collatio, redditio, contradictio, impeditio, evasio, interruptio, compassio, renuntiatio, and receptio.[538] Some tables are also given, in connection with one of which we are told that the longest hour at Hereford exceeds the shortest by eleven degrees and forty minutes.[539]

To Roger is also ascribed a Book of Three General Judgments of Astronomy, from which all others flow, which sometimes is listed separately in the manuscripts and apparently is found alone as a distinct work,[540] but in other manuscripts[541] seems to be an integral part of the work of four parts which we have just described. Its three general judgments are: gaining honors and escaping evils; intentio vel meditacio, which, like the cogitacio mentioned above, refers [Pg 186] to interrogations; and comparatio vel electio which of course is elections. Thus the second and third parts of this Book of Three General Judgments deal with the same subjects as the second and third books of the work in four parts, which makes it difficult to distinguish them. I am inclined to think that in those manuscripts where the Book of Three General Judgments seems an integral part of the work in four parts, we really have simply the first of the four parts, followed by the Book of Three General Judgments.[542] At any rate it seems clear that most of Roger’s astrological composition is on the theme of interrogations and elections. Iudicia Herefordensis,[543] found in more than one manuscript, may come from a fourth work of his or be portions of the foregoing works.

In this chapter we have treated of two Englishmen of the latter half of the twelfth century who are not generally known.[544] They were not, however, without influence, as we [Pg 187] have already shown in the case of Daniel of Morley and as the number of manuscripts of the works of Roger of Hereford sufficiently attests for him. Daniel and Roger show that the same interest in astrology and astronomy from Arabic sources prevails at the close of the century in England as at its beginning in the cases of Walcher, prior of Malvern, and Adelard of Bath. Daniel, like Adelard, illustrates the relation of science to Christian thought; Roger, like Walcher, is an astronomer who makes and carefully records observations of his own,[545] while he trusts in astrology as based upon experience. As Alfred of England dedicated his translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian De vegetabilibus to Roger, so he dedicated his De motu cordis (On the Motion of the Heart) to a third Englishman, Alexander Neckam, to whom we turn in the next chapter for a picture of the state of science and his work On the Natures of Things (De naturis rerum) in his time.

ALEXANDER NECKAM ON THE NATURES OF THINGS

In the year 1157 an Englishwoman was nursing two babies. One was a foster child; the other, her own son. During the next fifty years these two boys were to become prominent in different fields. The fame of the one was to be unsurpassed on the battlefield and in the world of popular music and poetry. He was to become king of England, lord of half of France, foremost of knights and crusaders, and the idol of the troubadours. He was Richard, Cœur de Lion. The other, in different fields and a humbler fashion, was none the less also to attain prominence; he was to be clerk and monk instead of king and crusader, and to win fame in the domain of Latin learning rather than Provençal literature. This was Alexander Neckam. Of his happy childhood at St. Albans he tells us himself in Latin verse somewhat suggestive of Gray’s lines on Eton:

A number of years of his life were spent as teacher at Dunstable in a school under the control of the monastery [Pg 189] of St. Albans. It was at Paris, however, that he received his higher education and also taught for a while. Scarcely any place, he wrote late in life, was better known to him than the city in whose schools he had been “a small pillar” and where he “faithfully learned and taught the arts, then turned to the study of Holy Writ, heard lectures in Canon Law, and upon Hippocrates and Galen, and did not find Civil Law distasteful.” This passage not only illustrates his own broad education in the liberal arts, the two laws, medicine, and theology, but also suggests that these four faculties were already formed or forming at Paris. Neckam visited Italy, as his humorous poem bidding Rome good-by attests, and from two of the stories which he tells in The Natures of Things[546] we may infer that he had been in Rouen and Meaux. In 1213 Neckam was elected abbot of Cirencester, and died in 1217. An amusing story is told in connection with Neckam’s first becoming a monk. He is said to have first applied for admission to a Benedictine monastery, but when the abbot made a bad pun upon his good name, saying, Si bonus es, venias; si nequam, nequaquam (If you are a good man you may come; if Neckam, by no means), he joined the Augustinians instead.[547]

Neckam gives us a glimpse of the learned world of his time as well as of his own education. He thinks past times happy, when he recalls that “the greatest princes were diligent and industrious in aiding investigation of nature,” and that it was then commonly said, “An illiterate king is a crowned ass.”[548] But he is not ashamed of the schools of his own day. After speaking of the learning of Greece and Egypt in antiquity and stating that schools no longer flourish in those lands, he exclaims, “But what shall I say of [Pg 190] Salerno and Montpellier where the diligent skill of medical students, serving the public welfare, provides remedies to the whole world against bodily ills? Italy arrogates to itself proficiency in the civil law, but celestial scripture and the liberal arts prefer Paris to all other cities as their home. And in accord with Merlin’s prophecy the wisdom now flourishes at Oxford which in his time was in process of transfer to Ireland.”[549] Neckam’s assertion that there were no schools in the Greece and Egypt of his day is interesting as implying the insignificance of Byzantine and Mohammedan learning in the second half of the twelfth century. He perhaps does not think of Constantinople as in “Greece,” but in Egypt he must certainly include Cairo, where the mosque el-Azhar, devoted in 988 to educational purposes, “has been ever since one of the chief universities of Islam.”[550] At any rate it is clear that to his mind the intellectual supremacy has now passed to western Europe.

In his praises of learning Neckam is a little too inclined, like many other Latin writers, to speak slightingly of the vulgus or common crowd. In antiquity, he affirms, the liberal arts were the monopoly of free men; mechanical or adulterine arts were for the ignoble.[551] This does not mean, however, that his eyes are closed to the value of practical inventions, since both in The Natures of Things and his De utensilibus we find what are perhaps the earliest references to the mariner’s compass[552] and to glass mirrors.[553] Indeed, he often entertains us with popular gossip and superstition, mentioning for the first time the belief in a man in the moon,[554] and telling such stories of daily life as that of the lonely sailor whose dog helped him reef the sails and manage the ropes of the boat in crossing the Channel,[555] or of the sea-fowl whose daily cry announced to the sheep in the [Pg 191] tidal meadow that it was time to seek higher pasture, until one day its beak was caught by the shell of an oyster it tried to devour and the sheep were drowned for lack of warning.[556]

Neckam’s writings were numerous, and, as might have been expected from his wide studies, in varied fields. They include grammatical treatises,[557] works on Ovid and classical mythology, commentaries upon the books of the Bible such as the Psalms and Song of Songs, and the writings of Aristotle, and other works of a literary, scientific, or theological character.[558] Most of them, however, if extant, are still in manuscript. Only a few have been printed;[559] among them is The Natures of Things which we shall presently consider.

Neckam is a good illustration of the humanistic movement in the twelfth century. He wrote Latin verse[560] as well as prose; took pains with and pride in his Latin style; and shows acquaintance with a large number of classical authors. He had some slight knowledge, at least, of Hebrew. He [Pg 192] was especially addicted, according to Wright,[561] to those ingenious but philologically absurd derivations of words in which the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville had dealt, explaining, for example, the Latin word for corpse (cadaver) as compounded from the three roots seen in the words for flesh (caro), given (data), to worms (vermibus). Yet in one chapter of The Natures of Things Neckam attacks “the verbal cavils” and use of obsolete words in his time as “useless and frivolous,” and asks if one cannot be a good jurist or physician or philosopher without all this linguistic and verbal display.[562] Wright, moreover, was also impressed by Neckam’s interest in natural science, calling him “certainly one of the most remarkable English men of science in the twelfth century,”[563] and noting that “he not infrequently displays a taste for experimental science.”[564]

The Natures of Things, however, is not primarily a scientific or philosophical dissertation, as Alexander is careful to explain in the preface, but a vehicle for moral instruction. Natural phenomena are described, but following each comes some moral application or spiritual allegory thereof. The spots on the moon, for instance, are explained by some as due to mountains and to depressions which the sun’s light cannot reach, by others as due to the greater natural obscurity of portions of the moon. Neckam adds that they are for our instruction, showing how even the heavenly bodies were stained by the sin of our first parents, and reminding us that during this present life there will always be some blot upon holy church, but that when all the planets and stars shall stand as it were justified, our state too will become stable, and both the material moon and holy church will be spotless before the Lamb.[565] Neckam intends to admire God through His creatures and in so doing humbly to kiss as it were the feet of the Creator. Despite this religious tone and the moralizing, Wright regarded the work “as an interesting monument of the history of science in western Europe [Pg 193] and especially in England during the latter half of the twelfth century,”[566] and as such we shall consider it. That it was written before 1200 is to be inferred from a quotation from it by a chronicler of John’s reign.[567] It seems to have been the best known of Neckam’s works. The brevity of The Natures of Things, which consists of but two books, if we omit the other three of its five books which consist of commentaries upon Genesis and Ecclesiastes, hardly allows us to call it an encyclopedia; but its title and arrangement by topics and chapters closely resemble the later works which are usually spoken of as medieval encyclopedias. Later in life Neckam wrote a poetical paraphrase of it with considerable changes, which is entitled De laudibus divinae sapientiae.

The citations of authorities in the De naturis rerum are of much interest. A number of references to the law books of Justinian show Neckam’s knowledge of the Roman law,[568] and, as we should expect after hearing of his commentary upon Ovid’s Metamorphoses, allusions to that work, the Fasti, and the Ars amandi are frequent. Claudian is once quoted for two solid pages and considerable use is made of other Latin poets such as Vergil, Lucan, Martial, and Juvenal. Neckam believed that the diligent investigator could find much that was useful in the inventions of the poets and that beneath their fables moral instruction sometimes lay hid.[569] Neckam quotes Plato, perhaps indirectly, and repeats in different words the fable of the crow and fox, as given in [Pg 194] Apuleius.[570] The church fathers are of course utilized—Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Basil, and a more recent theologian like Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury; and familiarity is shown with the early medieval standard authorities, such as Boethius, Cassiodorus, Bede, and Isidore. Of writers who may be regarded as dealing more particularly with natural science there are mentioned Pliny and Solinus on animals—but he seems to use Pliny very little and Solinus a great deal, Macer and Dioscorides on the properties and effects of herbs,[571] while works in the domain of astronomy or astrology are attributed to Julius (perhaps really Firmicus) and Augustus Caesar as well as to Ptolemy.[572]

But what is most impressive is the frequent citation from Euclid and Aristotle, especially the latter. Not only the logical treatises are cited, but also the History of Animals[573] and the Liber Coeli et Mundi, while allusion is also made to Aristotle’s opinions concerning vision, motion, melancholy, waters, and various astronomical matters.[574] Such passages—as well as the fact that commentaries on Aristotle are ascribed to Neckam—suggest that Roger Bacon was mistaken in the much-quoted passage in which he states that the works of Aristotle on natural philosophy were first introduced to the medieval (Latin) learned world [Pg 195] in Latin translations by Michael Scot about 1230. Neckam perhaps cites the History of Animals indirectly: at any rate he makes little use of it; but his numerous mentions of Aristotle’s views on nature make it evident that “the truth of Aristotelian” doctrine is already known in the twelfth century. And he already regards “the most acute Aristotle” as the pre-eminent authority among all philosophers. After stating that “all philosophers generally seem to teach” that the planets move in a contrary direction to the firmament like flies walking on a rushing wheel, Neckam adds a number of objections to this view, and adds, “It therefore was the opinion of Aristotle, the most acute, that the planets moved only with the firmament.” He then expresses his amazement that the other philosophers should have dared to oppose Aristotle, should have presumed to set their opinions against so great a philosopher. It is as if a peacock spread its spotted tail in rivalry with the starry sky, or as if owls and bats should vie with the eagle’s unblinking eye in staring at the mid-day sun.[575]

That Neckam had some acquaintance with Arabic and Jewish writers is indicated by his citing Alfraganus and Isaac. Of Christian writers of the century before him Neckam quotes from Hildebert, and four times from Bernard [Pg 196] Silvester. He cites the Pantegni or Tegni of Constantinus Africanus more than once.[576] He does not mention Adelard of Bath by name but in discussing experiments with vacuums repeats the experiment of the water jar. In another chapter he states that, if the earth were perforated, an enormous weight of lead would fall only to the center. Neckam’s chapter on “Why in the same earth plants grow of contrary effects” is similar to the third chapter of the Natural Questions of Adelard, and his chapter on “Why certain animals ruminate” is like Adelard’s seventh in the same work.[577]

Roger Bacon, whose estimates of his contemporaries have sometimes been accepted at too high a value, wrote of Neckam some fifty years after Alexander’s death: “This Alexander wrote true and useful books on many subjects, but he cannot with justice be named as an authority.”[578] Bacon himself, however, seems on at least one occasion to have used Neckam as an authority without naming him.[579] On the other hand, another Englishman of note in science, Alfred of Sarchel or Sareshel, dedicated his book on The Movement of the Heart (De motu cordis) to Neckam.

Whatever Neckam’s own scientific attainments may have been, there can be no doubt that he had a high regard for scientia and that he was not wanting in sympathetic appreciation of the scientific spirit. This fact shines out in the pages of the De naturis rerum amid its moral lessons and spiritual illustrations, its erroneous etymologies and popular anecdotes. “Science is acquired,” he says in one passage, “at great expense, by frequent vigils, by great expenditure of time, by sedulous diligence of labor, by vehement application of mind.”[580] But its acquisition abundantly justifies itself even in practical life and destructive war. “What craftiness of the foe is there that does not yield to the precise knowledge of those who have tracked down the elusive [Pg 197] subtleties of things hidden in the very bosom of nature?”[581] He often cites these experts in natural science, whom he always seems to regard with respect as authorities.[582] Not that he believes that they have solved all problems. Some things forsooth are so hidden that it seems as if Nature is saying, “This is my secret, this is my secret!”[583] On the other hand, there are many natural phenomena too familiar through daily use and experience to need mention in books, since even those who do not read are acquainted with them. Neckam consequently will follow a middle course in selecting the contents of his volume.

Although a Christian clergyman, Neckam seems to experience little difficulty in adopting the scientific theories of Aristotle; or, if there are Aristotelian doctrines known to him with which he disagrees, he usually quietly disregards them.[584] But he does raise the question several times of the correctness of Biblical statements concerning nature. He explains that Adam’s body was composed of all four elements and not made merely from earth, as the account of creation in the Book of Genesis might seem to imply.[585] And of the scriptural assertion that “God made two great lights” he says, “The historical narrative follows the judgment of the eye and the popular notion,” but of course the moon is not one of the largest planets.[586] In a third chapter entitled, “That water is not lower than earth,” he notes that the statement of the prophet that “God founded the earth upon the waters” does not agree with Alfraganus’ dictum that there is one sphere of earth and waters.[587] Wright quite unreasonably interprets this chapter as showing “to what a degree science had become the slave of scriptural phraseology.”[588] What it really shows is just the contrary, for even the Biblical expositors, Neckam tells us, say that the passage [Pg 198] is to be taken in the sense that one speaks of Paris as located on the Seine. Neckam then makes a suggestion of his own, that what is really above the waters is the terrestrial paradise, since it is even beyond the sphere of the moon, and Enoch, translated thither, suffered no inconvenience whatever from the waters of the deluge. Moreover, the terrestrial paradise symbolizes the church which is founded on the waters of baptism. All of which is of course far-fetched and fanciful, but in no way can be said to make science “the slave of scriptural phraseology.” On the contrary it makes scriptural phraseology the slave of mysticism, while it subjects Enoch’s translation to somewhat material limitations. Possibly there may be used here some of the apocryphal books current under Enoch’s name.[589] On one occasion Neckam does accept a statement of the Bible which seems inconsistent with the views of philosophers concerning the four elements. This is the assertion that after the day of judgment there will be neither fire nor water but only air and earth will be left. To an imaginary philosopher who seems unwilling to accept this assertion Neckam says, “If you don’t believe me, at least believe Peter, the chief of the apostles, who says the same in his canonical epistle. Says what? Says that fire and water will not exist after the judgment day.”[590] But if Neckam prefers to believe his Bible as to what will occur in the world of nature after the day of judgment, he prefers also, as we have seen, to follow natural science in regard to present natural phenomena. Moreover, in neither the canonical nor apocryphal books can I find any such statement in the Epistles of Peter as Neckam here credits him with, unless after the elements have melted with fervent heat, the new heavens and a new earth are to be interpreted as made respectively of air and earth!

We may agree at least with Wright that Neckam’s scientific attainments are considerable for his time. In physics and astronomy he shows himself fairly well versed. He [Pg 199] knows something of vacuums and syphoning; he argues that water tends naturally to take a spherical shape;[591] he twice points out that the walls of buildings should not be exactly parallel, since they should ultimately meet, if prolonged far enough, at the center of the earth;[592] and he asserts that the so-called “antipodes” are no more under our feet than we are under theirs.[593] He gives us what is perhaps our earliest information of some medieval inventions, such as the mariner’s compass and mirrors of glass.[594] But he does not attempt to explain differences in the images in convex and concave mirrors.[595] He is modest in regard to his biological attainments, saying that he “is not ashamed to confess” that there are species of which he does not even know the names, to say nothing of their natures.[596] But when Wright calls Neckam’s account of animals “a mere compilation” and says that “much of it is taken from the old writers, such as Solinus, Isidore, and Cassiodorus,”[597] he is basing his conclusion simply on the fact that marginal notes in the medieval manuscripts themselves ascribe a number of passages to these authors. This ascription is correct. But there are many passages on animals where the manuscripts name no authorities, and with one exception—the chapter on the hyena from Solinus—Wright fails to name any source from which Neckam has borrowed these other passages. It is easy to show that Neckam is a compiler when he himself or others have stated his authorities but it is equally fair to suppose that he is honest and original when he cites no authorities or has not been detected in borrowing. And he sometimes criticizes or discriminates between the earlier writers. After quoting Bernard Silvester’s statement that the beaver castrates itself to escape its hunters, he adds, “But [Pg 200] those who are more reliably informed as to the natures of things assert that Bernard has followed the ridiculous popular notion and not reached the true fact.”[598] Neckam also questions the belief that a lynx has such keen sight that it can see through nine walls. This is supposed to have been demonstrated experimentally by observing a lynx with nine walls between it and a person carrying some raw meat. The lynx will move along its side of the walls whenever the meat is moved on the other side and will stop opposite the spot where the person carrying the meat stops. Neckam does not question the accuracy of this absurd experiment, but remarks that some natural scientists attribute it rather to the animal’s sense of smell than to its power of vision.[599]

But as a rule Neckam’s treatment of animals is far more credulous than sceptical. He believes that the barnacle bird is generated from fir-wood which has been soaked in the salt water for a long time,[600] and that the wren, after it has been killed and is being roasted, turns itself on the spit.[601] He tells a number of delightful but incredible stories in which animals display remarkable sagacity and manifest emotions and motives similar to those of human beings. Some of these tales concern particular pets or wild beasts; others are of the habits of a species. The hawk, for example, keeps warm on wintry nights by seizing some other bird in its claws and holding it tight against its own body; but when day returns it gratefully releases this bird and satisfies its morning appetite upon some other victim.[602] Neckam also shares the common belief that animals were acquainted with the medicinal virtues of herbs. When the weasel is wounded by a venomous animal, it hastens to seek salubrious plants. For “educated by nature, it knows the virtues of herbs, although it has neither studied medicine at Salerno nor been drilled in the schools at Montpellier.”[603]

[Pg 201]

Neckam’s chapter on the barnyard cock perhaps will illustrate the divergences between medieval and modern science as well as any other. As a rooster approaches old age, he sometimes lays an egg upon which a toad sits, and from which is hatched the basilisk. How is it that the cock “distinguishes the hours by his song”? From great heat ebullition of the humors within the said bird arises, it produces saltiness, the saltiness causes itching, from the itching comes tickling, from the tickling comes delectation, and delectation excites one to song. Now nature sets certain periods to the movements of humors and therefore the cock crows at certain hours. But why have roosters crests and hens not? This is because of their very moist brains and the presence near the top of their heads of some bones which are not firmly joined. So the gross humor arising from the humidity escapes through the openings and produces the crest.[604]

Neckam harbored the notion, which we met long before in the pagan Philostratus, in the Hebraic Enoch literature, in the Christian Pseudo-Clementines and Basil’s Hexaemeron, and more recently in the writings of Hildegard, that man’s sin has its physical effects upon nature. To Adam’s fall he attributes not only the spots on the moon but the wildness of most animals, and the existence of insects to plague, and venomous animals to poison, and diseases to injure mankind.[605] But for the fall of man, moreover, all living creatures would be subsisting upon a vegetarian diet.

Magic is hardly mentioned in the De naturis rerum. In a passage, however, telling how Aristotle ordered some of his subtlest works to be buried with him, Neckam adds that he so guarded the neighborhood of his sepulcher “by some mysterious force of nature or power of art, not to say feat of the magic art, that no one in those days could enter it.”[Pg 202][606] But Neckam is a believer in occult virtues and to a certain extent in astrology. He would also seem to believe in the force of incantations from his assertion that “in words and herbs and stones diligent investigators of nature have discovered great virtue. Most certain experience, moreover, makes our statement trustworthy.”[607] He mentions a much smaller number of stones than Marbod, but ascribes the same occult virtues to those which he does name. In the preface to his first book he says that some gems have greater virtue when set in silver than when set in gold. A tooth separated from the jaw of a wild boar remains sharp only as long as the animal remains alive, an interesting bit of sympathetic magic.[608] The occult property of taming wild bulls possessed by the fig-tree which we have already seen noted by various authors is also remarked by Neckam.[609] A moonbeam shining through a narrow aperture in the wall of a stable fell directly on a sore on a horse’s back and caused the death of a groom standing nearby. Out-of-doors the effect would not have been fatal, since the force of the moon’s rays would not have been so concentrated upon one spot and the humidity would have had a better chance to diffuse through space.[610]

After telling of the fatal glances of the basilisk and wolf, Neckam says that fascination is explained as due to evil rays from someone who looks at you. He adds that nurses lick the face of a child who has been fascinated.[611]

Neckam will not believe that the seven planets are animals.[612] He does believe, however, that they not merely adorn the heavens but exert upon inferiors those effects which God has assigned to them.[613] Each planet rules in turn three hours of the day. As there are twenty-four hours in all, the last three hours of each day are governed by the same planet which ruled the first three. Hence the names of the days [Pg 203]in the planetary week, Sunday being the day when the sun governs the first three and last three hours, Monday the day when the moon controls the opening and closing hours of day, and so on.[614] But the stars do not impose necessity upon the human will which remains free. Nevertheless the planet Mars, for instance, bestows the gift of counsel; and science is associated with the planet Venus which is hot and moist, as are persons of sanguine temperament in whom science is wont to flourish. Neckam also associates each of the seven planets which illuminate the universe with one of the seven liberal arts which shed light on all knowledge.[615] He alludes to the great year of which the philosophers tell, when after 36,000 years the stars complete their courses,[616] and to the music of the spheres when, to secure the perfect consonance of an octave, the eighth sphere of the fixed stars completes the harmony of the seven planets. But he fears that someone may think he is raving when he speaks with the philosophers of this harmony of the eight spheres.[617]

At Jesus College, Oxford, in a manuscript of the early thirteenth century, which is exclusively devoted to religious writings by Neckam,[618] there occurs at the close an address of the author to his work, which is in the same hand as the rest of the manuscript, which we may therefore not unreasonably suppose to have been Neckam’s own writing. As he is spoken of in the manuscript as abbot of Cirencester, perhaps these are also actually the last words he wrote. We may therefore appropriately terminate our account of Neckam by quoting them.

“Perchance, O book, you will survive Alexander, and worms will eat me before the book-worm gnaws you; for my body is due the worms and book-worms will demolish you. You are the mirror of my soul, the interpreter of my meditations, the surest index of my meaning, the faithful messenger [Pg 204] of my mind’s emotions, the sweet comforter of my grief, the true witness of my conscience. To you as faithful depositary I have confided my heart’s secrets; you restore faithfully to me those things which I have committed to your trust; in you I read myself. You will come, you will come into the hands of some pious reader who will deign to pour forth prayers for me. Then indeed, little book, you will profit your master; then you will recompense your Alexander by a most grateful interchange. There will come, nor do I begrudge my labor, the devotion of a pious reader, who will now let you repose in his lap, now move you to his breast, sometimes place you as a sweet pillow beneath his head, sometimes gently closing you with glad hands, he will fervently pray for me to Lord Jesus Christ, who with Father and Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through infinite cycles of ages. Amen.”

MOSES MAIMONIDES (MUSA IBN MAIMUN) 1135-1204

In this chapter we turn to consider perhaps the leading representative of Hebrew learning in the middle ages, Moses Maimonides[619] or Musa ibn Maimum or Moses ben Maimon, as he is variously briefly styled, not to entangle ourselves in the intricacies of his full Arabic name. In the Latin versions of his works he is spoken of as Rabbi Moyses of Cordova[620] or is made to call himself an Israelite of Cordova, [Pg 206][621] but it seems to have been not much more than the scene of his birth and childhood, since the invasion of the fanatical Almohades in 1148 forced his father to flee with his family first from place to place in Spain, in 1160 to Fez, later to Syria and Egypt. From about 1165 on Maimonides seems to have lived most of the time at Cairo and there to have done most of his work. After the deaths of his father and brother forced him to earn a livelihood by practicing medicine, he became physician to the vizier of Saladin and head of the Jewish community in Cairo.

Whether or not he returned to Spain before his death in 1204, he was certainly known to the western world of learning. In 1194 he wrote a letter on the subject of astrology in response to inquiries which he had received from Jews of Marseilles.[622] In it he tells them that his Repetition of the Law (Iteratio legis) has already spread through the island of Sicily. But he apparently was still in Cairo, where in July, 1198, he wrote his treatise on Poisons for the Cadi Fadhil.[623] After his death, however, it was between the conservative and liberal parties among the Jews of France and Spain that a struggle ensued over the orthodoxy of his works, which was finally settled, we are told, by reference in 1234 to the Christian authorities, who ordered his books to be burned. His Guide for the Perplexed, first published in Egypt in Arabic in 1190, had been translated into Hebrew at Lunel in southern France before the close of the twelfth century, and then again by a Spanish poet.[624] But the rabbis of northern France opposed the introduction of Maimonides’ works there and, when they were anathematized for it by those of the south, are said to have reported the writings [Pg 207] to the Inquisition. The Maimonist party then accused them of delation and several of them were punished by having their tongues cut out.[625]

If certain Christian authorities really did thus burn the books of Maimonides, their action was unavailing to check the spread of his writings even in Christian lands, and certainly was not characteristic of the attitude of Christian Latin learning in general. The Guide of the Perplexed had already been translated into Latin before 1234,[626] and we find Moses of Cordova cited by such staunch churchmen as Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus,[627] Thomas Aquinas, and Vincent of Beauvais. It was for Pope Clement V himself that Ermengard Blasius of Montpellier translated at Barcelona Maimonides’ work on Poisons at the beginning of the fourteenth century from Arabic into Latin.[628]

It was not surprising that Albert and Aquinas should cite Maimonides, for he did for Jewish thought what they attempted for Christian, namely, the reconciliation of Aristotle and the Bible, philosophy and written revelation. If he anteceded them in this and perhaps to some extent showed them the way, we must remember that William of Conches, who was earlier than he, had already faced this difficulty of the relations between science and religion, the scriptures and the writings of the philosophers, although he of course did not know all the books of Aristotle. As for Maimonides, continuing the allegorical [Pg 208] method of Philo, he tried to discover in the Old Testament and Talmud all the Aristotelian philosophy, and was convinced that the prophets of old had received further revelations of a philosophical character, which had been transmitted orally for a time but then lost during the periods of Jewish wandering and persecution.[629] He defended Moses from the slurs of Galen who had charged the lawgiver with an unscientific attitude.[630] He denied the eternity of matter[631] and of the heavens,[632] but held that the celestial bodies were living animated beings and that the heavenly spheres were conscious and free.[633] He spoke of belief in demons as “idle and fallacious,” holding that evil is mere privation and that the personal Devil of Scripture was an allegory for this, while the possession by demons was merely the disease of melancholy.[634] Yet he believed that God does nothing without the mediation of an angel and that belief in the existence of angels is only second in importance to a belief in God.[635] Thus the rationalism and scepticism which modern Jewish admirers have ascribed to Maimonides had their decided limitations.

An interesting discussion of magic occurs in the Guide for the Perplexed[636] in connection with the precepts of the Mosaic law against idolatry. Maimonides holds that magicians and diviners are closely akin to idolaters, and this part of his discussion is very similar to patristic treatments which we have already encountered. He goes on, however, to say that astrology and magic were especially characteristic of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Canaanites, and to distinguish three varieties of magic: one employing the properties of plants, animals and metals; a second determining the times when these works should be performed;[Pg 209] a third employing gesticulations, actions, and cries of the human operator himself. Thus he recognizes the three elements of materials, times, and rites in magic. He sees that they may be combined in one operation, as when an herb is plucked when the moon is in a specified degree. He notes that magic is largely performed by women, towards whom men are more merciful than towards their own sex. He also notes that magicians claim to do good or at least to ward off evils such as snakes and wild beasts or the blight from plants. But the lawgiver forbade “all those practices which contrary to natural science are said to produce utility by special and occult virtues and properties, ... such forsooth as proceed not from a natural cause but a magical operation and which rely upon the constellations to such a degree as to involve worship and veneration of them.”[637]

But then Maimonides goes on to say that “everything is licit in which any natural cause appears.” And he goes farther than that. He says that the reader need not feel uneasy because the rabbis have allowed the use in suspensions of a nail from the yoke worn by criminals or the tooth of a fox. “For in those times they placed faith in these things because they were confirmed by experience and served in the place of medicine.” Similarly in Maimonides’ own day Galen’s remedy of the suspension of a peony from the patient’s neck was employed in cases of epilepsy, dog’s dung was used against pustules and sore throat, and so forth. “For whatever is proved by experience to be true, although no natural cause may be apparent, its use is permitted, because it acts as a medicine.” Thus he condemns magic, but approves of empirical medicine as well as of natural science, and evidently does not regard the employment of occult virtues as necessarily magical and forbidden.

[Pg 210]

In another passage of the Guide Maimonides cautions, however, against the abuse of divine names, and, while he holds to the Tetragrammaton “which is written but is not pronounced as it is spelled,” deplores the many inventions of meaningless and inefficacious names which superstitious and insane men have too often imposed upon the credulity of good men as possessed of peculiar sanctity and purity and having the virtue of working miracles. He therefore warns his readers against such “amulets or experimental charts.”[638]

Maimonides again approves of empirical remedies and of occult virtues in his treatise on poisons. He holds that counter-poisons do not act by any physical or chemical quality but by their entire substance or by a special property.[639] Lemon pips, peeled and applied in a compress; a powdered emerald, which should be a beautiful green, quite transparent, and of good water; and the animal bezoar, which comes from the eyes or gall bladder of deer; these are antidotes whose efficacy is proved by incontestible experimentation. When terra sigillata cannot be had, a powdered emerald of the sort just described may be substituted for it as an ingredient in the grand theriac.[640] Maimonides believes that this last named remedy is the outcome of experiments with vipers carried on through the course of centuries by ancient philosophers and physicians.[641] As for the stone bezoar, the writings of the moderns are full of marvelous tales concerning it, but Galen does not mention it, and Maimonides has tried all the varieties which he could obtain against scorpion bites without the least success. But experience confirms the virtue of the bezoar of animal origin, as has been stated. Maimonides’ observations concerning cures for the bites of mad dogs are interesting. He states that at first the bite of a mad dog does not feel any different from that of a dog who is not mad. He also warns his readers not to trust to books to distinguish between [Pg 211] the two, but unless they are sure that the dog was not mad, to keep on the safe side by taking the remedies against the bite of a mad dog.[642] He also states that all of the various remedies listed for the cure of the bite of a mad dog must be employed before hydrophobia manifests itself, “for after the appearance of that symptom, I have never seen a patient survive.”[643] In speaking of sucking the venom from a wound, Maimonides affirms that it is better to have this done by a fasting person, since the spittle of such a person is itself hostile to poisons.[644]

That Maimonides was well acquainted with the art of astrology may be inferred from his assertion that he has read every book in Arabic on the subject.[645] Maimonides not only believed that the stars were living, animated beings and that there were as many pure intelligences as there were spheres,[646] but he states twice in the Guide for the Perplexed[647] that all philosophers agree that this inferior world of generation and corruption is ruled by the virtues and influences of the celestial spheres. While their influence is diffused through all things, each star or planet also has particular species especially under its influence. According to Lévy[648] he further held not only that the movement of the celestial sphere starts every motion in the universe, but that every soul has its origin in the soul of the celestial sphere. In his letter on astrology to the Jews of Marseilles he repeats that all the philosophers have held, and that Hebrew masters of the past have agreed with them, that whatever is in this inferior world the blessed God has brought about by that virtue which arises from the spheres and stars. As God performs signs and miracles by angels, so natural processes and operations by the spheres and stars which are animated and endowed with knowledge and science. All this is true and in no way derogates from the Jewish faith. But Maimonides regards as folly and not [Pg 212] wisdom the doctrine found in Arabic works of astrology that a man’s nativity compels everything to happen to him just as it does and in no otherwise. He regards this doctrine as derived from the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Canaanites and makes the rather rash assertion that no Greek philosopher ever wrote a book of this sort. This doctrine would make no distinction between a man whom a lion meets and tears limb from limb and the mouse which a cat plays with. It would make men warring for kingdoms no different from dogs fighting over a carcass. These illustrations may seem to the reader rather favorable to the doctrine which Maimonides is endeavoring to combat, but he upholds human free will and man’s responsibility for his actions, which he declares are fundamental tenets of the Jewish law. For some reason which is not clear to me he identifies the doctrine of nativities and the control of human destiny by the constellations with the rule of blind chance and the happening of everything fortuitously, which would seem quite a different matter and third alternative.[649] Maimonides holds that God planned all human affairs beforehand, and that just as He planned the course of nature so as to allow for the occurrence of miracles, so He planned human affairs in such a way that men could be held responsible and punished for their sins. Maimonides regards the rule of chance and the doctrine of nativities as incompatible with this.

Yet Maimonides believed in a human faculty of natural divination, stating that the ability to conjecture and divine is found in all men to some degree, and that in some imagination and divination are so strong and sure that they correctly forecast all future events or the greater part of them.[650] The difference between true prophets and the diviners and observers of times “is that the observers of times, diviners, [Pg 213] and such men, some of their words may be fulfilled and some of them may not be fulfilled.”[651]

In his Aphorisms which are drawn largely from the works of Galen Maimonides repeats many marvelous stories, instances of belief in occult virtue, and medical methods bordering upon the practice of magic.[652] Most of these have already been mentioned in our chapters upon Galen and need not be reiterated here. It is perhaps worth noting that Maimonides displays some critical sense as to the authenticity of works ascribed to Galen. He does not accept as his a treatise forbidding the burial of a man until twenty-four hours after his supposed death, although the patriarch who translated it from Greek into Arabic regarded it as Galen’s. Maimonides suggests that it may be by some other Galen than the great physician “whose books are well known.” Maimonides also notes that in the work of Hippocrates on female ailments which Galen commented upon and Hunain translated there have been added many statements of a marvelous character by some third hand.

HERMETIC BOOKS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Al-Mas’udi, who lived from about 885 to 956 A. D., has preserved a single recipe for making gold from the alchemical poem, The Paradise of Wisdom, originally consisting of some 2315 verses and written by the Ommiad prince, Khalid ibn Jazid (635-704 A. D.) of Alexandria. Other Arabic writers of the ninth and tenth centuries represent this prince as interested in natural science and medicine, alchemy and astrology, and as the first to promote translations from the Greek and Coptic. Thus the alchemistic Book of Crates is said to have been translated either by him or under his direction. The Fihrist further states that Khalid was instructed in alchemy by one Morienes, who was himself a disciple of Adfar.[653] There is still extant, but only in Latin translation, what purports to be the book of this same Morienes, or Morienus as he is called in Latin, addressed to this same Khalid. The book cites or invents various Greek alchemists but claims the Thrice-Great Hermes as its original author. It is of this work that we shall now treat as the first of a number of medieval Hermetic books.

[Pg 215]

One of the earliest treatises of alchemy translated from Arabic into Latin would appear to be this which Morienus Romanus, a hermit of Jerusalem, edited for “Calid, king of the Egyptians,” and which Robert of Chester turned into Latin[654] on the eleventh day of February in the year 1182 of the Spanish era or 1144 A. D. Of Robert’s other translations we have spoken elsewhere.[655] He opens his preface to the present treatise with an account of three Hermeses—Enoch, Noah, and the king, philosopher, and prophet who reigned in Egypt after the flood and was called Hermes Triplex. This account is very similar to one which we shall presently find prefixed to an astrological treatise by Hermes Trismegistus. It was this Hermes, Robert continues, who rediscovered and edited all the arts and sciences after the deluge, and who first found and published the present work, which is a book divine and most replete with divinity, and which is entitled, The Book of the Composition of Alchemy. “And since,” says Robert, “what alchemy is and what is its composition, your Latin world does not yet know truly,[656] I will elucidate the same in the present treatise.” Alchemy is that substance which joins the more precious bodies which are compounded from one original matter and by this same natural union converts them to the higher type. In other words, it is the philosopher’s [Pg 216] stone by which metals may be transmuted. Although Robert is a relatively young man and his Latinity perhaps not of the best, he essays the task of translating this so great and important a work and reveals his own name in the preface lest some other person steal the fruits of his labor and the praise which is his due. Lippmann dismisses the translation rather testily as “surpassed by no later work for emptiness, confusion, and sheer drivel,”[657] but we shall attempt some further description.

Following Robert’s preface comes an account, in the usual style of apocryphal and occult works, told partly in the first person by Morienus and partly of him in the third person by someone else. Long after Christ’s passion an Adfar of Alexandria found the book of Hermes, mastered it after long study, and himself gave forth innumerable precepts which were spread abroad and finally reached the ears of Morienus, then a young man at Rome. This reminds us of the opening of the Recognitions of Clement. Morienus left his home, parents, and native land, and hastened to Alexandria to the house of Adfar. When Adfar learned that Morienus was a Christian, he promised to divulge to him “the secrets of all divinity,” which he had hitherto kept concealed from nearly everyone. When Adfar died, Morienus left Alexandria and became a hermit at Jerusalem. Not many years thereafter a king arose in Egypt named Macoya. He begat a son named Gezid who reigned after his father’s death and in his turn begat a son named Calid who reigned after his death. This Calid was a great patron of science and searched all lands for someone who could reveal this book of Hermes to him. Morienus was still living, and when a traveler brought him news of Calid and his desire, he came to his court, not for the sake of the gifts of gold which the king had offered, but in order to instruct him with spiritual gifts. Saluting Calid with the words, “O good king, may God convert you to a better,” he asked for a house or laboratory in which to prepare his [Pg 217] masterpiece of perfection, but departed secretly as soon as it was consummated. When Calid saw the gold which Morienus had made, he ordered the heads to be cut off of all the other alchemists whom he had employed for years, and grieved that the hermit had left without revealing his secret.

More years passed before Calid’s trusty slave, Galip, learned the identity and whereabouts of Morienus from another hermit of Jerusalem and was despatched with a large retinue to bring him back. The king and the hermit at first engaged in a moral and religious discussion, and many days passed before Calid ventured to broach the subject of alchemy. He then put to Morienus a succession of questions, such as whether there is one fundamental substance, and concerning the nature and color of the philosopher’s stone, also its natural composition, weight and taste, cheapness or expensiveness, rarity or abundance, and whether there is any other stone like unto it or which has its effect. This last query Morienus answered in the negative, since in the philosopher’s stone are contained the four elements and it is like unto the universe and the composition of the universe. In the process of obtaining it decay must come first, then purification. As in human generation, there must first be coitus, then conception, then pregnancy, then birth, then nutrition. To such general observations and analogies, which are commonplaces of alchemy, are finally added several pages of specific directions as to alchemistic operations. Such enigmatic nomenclature is employed as “white smoke,” and “green lion,” but Morienus later explains to Calid the significance of most of these phrases. “Green lion” is glass; “impure body” is lead; “pure body” is tin, and so on.

In so far as I have examined the alchemical manuscripts of the later middle ages,[658] which I have not done very [Pg 218] extensively owing to the fact that most of them consist of anonymous and spurious compositions which are probably of a later date than the period with which we are directly concerned,[659] I have hardly found as many treatises ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus as might be expected. Perhaps as many works are ascribed to Aristotle, Geber, and other famous names as to Hermes or Mercury. Thus out of some forty items in an alchemical miscellany of the fourteenth or fifteenth century[660] two are attributed to Hermes and Mercury, two to Aristotle, one to Plato, three to Geber, two to Albertus Magnus, and others to his contemporaries like Roger Bacon, Brother Elias, Bonaventura, and Arnald of Villanova. Of the two titles connected with Hermes one is simply a Book of Hermes; the other, A Treatise of Mercury to his disciple Mirnesindus. Other specimens of works ascribed to Hermes in medieval Latin manuscripts are: The Secrets of Hermes the philosopher, inventor of metals, according to the nature of transmutation[661] or in another manuscript, “inventor of transformation,”[662] a treatise [Pg 219] on the fountain of youth by Trismegistus;[663] and a work on alcohol ascribed to “father Hermes.”[664] The Early English Text Society has reprinted an English translation of the Latin treatise on the fifth essence “that Hermes, the prophet and king of Egypt, after the flood of Noah, father of philosophers, had by revelation of an angel of God to him sent,” which was first published “about 1460-1476 by Fred J. Furnival.”[665] “The book of Hermogenes” is also to be accredited to Hermes Trismegistus.[666]

Among the Arabs and in medieval Latin learning the reputation of Hermes continued not only as an alchemist, but as a fountain of wisdom in general. Roger Bacon spoke of “Hermes Mercurius, the father of philosophers.”[667] Daniel of Morley we have heard cite works of Trismegistus and distinguish between “two most excellent authorities,” the “great Mercury,” and his nephew, “Trismegistus Mercurius.”[668] Albertus Magnus cited “The so-called Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius,”[669] an astrological treatise of which the Greek version has been mentioned in our earlier chapter on Hermes, Orpheus, and Zoroaster. And Albert’s contemporary, William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, makes use several times[670] of the dialogue between Mercurius Trismegistus, “the Egyptian philosopher and magician,” and Asclepius from a Liber de hellera or De deo deorum, which is presumably the Greek Ἱερὰ βίβλος. Trismegistus is [Pg 220] represented as affirming that there is divine power in herbs and stones. In the Speculum astronomiae[671] Albert listed a number of bad books on necromantic images[672] by Hermes of which Christians were to beware: a book of images for each of the seven planets, an eighth treatise following them, a work on The seven rings of the seven planets, a book of magical illusions (liber praestigiorum),[673] and a book addressed to Aristotle. William of Auvergne seems to allude to the same literature when he twice repeats a story of two fallen angels from Hermes, citing his Seven Planets in one case and Book of Venus in the other.[674] Albertus Magnus also cites “books of incantations” by Hermes in his work on vegetables and plants;[675] and a Liber Alcorath is ascribed to Hermes in the Liber aggregationis or Experimenta Alberti which is current under Albert’s name. The astrologer Cecco d’Ascoli in the early fourteenth century cites a treatise by Hermes entitled De speculis et luce (Of mirrors and light).[676] These few instances of medieval citation of Hermes could of course be greatly multiplied but suffice to suggest the importance of his name in the later history of magic and astrology as well as of alchemy.

We may, however, briefly examine some specimens of the works themselves, chiefly, as in the citations, of a magical and astrological character, which are current under Hermes’ name in the medieval manuscripts. A treatise on fifteen stars, fifteen stones, fifteen herbs, and fifteen images to be engraved on the stones, is ascribed sometimes to Hermes and sometimes to Enoch.[677] The number fifteen is difficult to [Pg 221] relate to planets, signs, or decans; in fact the fifteen stars are fixed stars supposed to exceed others in virtue. John Gower in the fourteenth century treated of the same subject in his Confessio amantis.[678] In the middle ages a Centiloquium, or series of brief astrological dicta, was ascribed to Hermes as well as to Ptolemy. Some manuscripts imply that the Centiloquium of Hermes was a selection from the astrological treatises of Hermes put together by Stephen of Messina for Manfred, king of Sicily.[679] In a fifteenth century manuscript is ascribed to Hermes a Latin astrological treatise of considerable length opening with the thirty-six decans and their astrological influence[680] but dealing with various other matters bearing upon the prediction of nativities; and a much briefer but equally astrological [Pg 222] work on Accidents, which we are told was rewritten by Haly before it was translated into Latin.[681] Two books of “Hermes the Philosopher” on the revolutions of nativities by some unspecified translator were printed by H. Wolf in 1559.[682] A work on medical diagnosis of diseases from the stars without inspection of urine which is ascribed to Hermes in a Wolfenbüttel manuscript[683] would probably turn out upon examination to be the treatise on that theme of William of England.

By the thirteenth century, if not before, a treatise was in existence by “Hermes Mercurius Triplex” on the six principles of things[684] with a prologue concerning the three Mercuries,[685] of whom we have already heard Robert of Chester speak in his preface. Here too the first is identified with Enoch, the second with Noah, and the third is called triplex because he was at once king, philosopher, and prophet, ruling Egypt after the flood with supreme equity, renowned in both the liberal and mechanical arts, and the first to elucidate astronomy. He wrote The Golden Bough, Book of Longitude and Latitude, Book of Election, Canons on the Planets, and a treatise on the astrolabe. Among his pastimes he brought to light alchemy which the philosopher Morienus developed in his writings. The Six Principles of [Pg 223] Things is a treatise part astronomical and part astrological, considering the natures of the signs and the powers of the planets in their houses. Citations of such authors as Zahel and Dorotheus show that the work is much later than Hermes. It is followed by four other brief treatises, of which the first discusses time, the winds, pestilences, divination from thunder, and eclipses of the sun and the moon; the second and the third deal with the astrological topics, Of the triple power of the celestial bodies, and Of the efficacy of medicines according to the power of the planets and the effect of the signs. The fourth treatise tells how to use the astrolabe.

Of the books of bad necromantic images for each of the seven planets by Hermes, which the Speculum astronomiae censured, at least one seems to have been preserved for our inspection in the manuscripts, since it has the same Incipit as that cited by Albert, “Probavi omnes libros ...,” and the same title, Liber lune,[686] or Book of the Moon, or, as it is more fully described, of the twenty-eight mansions and twenty-eight images of the moon and the fifty-four angels who serve the images. And as Albert spoke of a treatise of magic illusions which accompanied the seven books of necromantic images for the planets, so this Liber lune is itself also called Mercury’s magic illusion.[687] It probably is the same Book of Images of the Moon which William of Auvergne described as attempting to work magic by the [Pg 224] names of God. The treatise opens in the usual style of apocryphal literature by narrating how this marvelous volume came to be discovered. After some “investigator of wisdom and truth and friend of nature had read the volumes of many wise men,” he found this one in a golden ark within a silver chest which was in turn placed in a casket of lead,—a variant on Portia’s method. He then translated it into Arabic for the benefit of the many. Nevertheless we have the usual caution to fear God and not show the book to anyone nor allow any polluted man to touch it, since with it all evils as well as all goods may be accomplished. It tells how to engrave images as the moon passes through each of its twenty-eight houses. The names of angels have to be repeated seven times and suffumigations performed seven times in the name of God the merciful and pious. Just as the moon is nearer to us than other planets and more efficacious, so this book, if we understand it aright, is more precious than any other. Hermes declares that he has proved all the books of the seven planets and not found one truer or more perfect than this most precious portion. Balenuch, however, a superior and most skilful philosopher, does much of the talking for his master Hermes. The Latin text retains the Arabic names for the mansions of the moon, the fifty-four angels also have outlandish names, and a wood that grows in an island in India is required in the suffumigations. Instructions are given for engraving images which will destroy villa, region, or town; make men dumb; restrain sexual intercourse within a given area; heat baths at night; congregate ten thousand birds and bees; or twist a man’s limbs. Four special recipes are given to injure an enemy or cause him to sicken.

We shall leave until our chapter on the Pseudo-Aristotle “The book of the spiritual works of Aristotle, or the book Antimaquis, which is the book of the secrets of Hermes ... the ancient book of the seven planets.” But in at least one manuscript the work of Hermes on the images of the moon is accompanied by another briefer treatise [Pg 225] ascribed to him on the images of the seven planets, one for each day of the week, to be made in the first hour of that day which is ruled by the planet after which the day is named. This little treatise begins with the words, “Said Hermes, editor of this book, I have examined many sciences of images.”[688] Altogether I have noted traces of it in four manuscripts.

In two of these manuscripts the work of Hermes on images of the seven planets is immediately followed by a work of Toc or Toz Graecus on the occult virtues of stones called the Book of Venus or of the twelve stones of Venus.[689] The first part of the treatise, however, consists of instructions, largely astrological in character but also including use of names of spirits and suffumigations, for casting a metal image in the name of Venus. Astrological symbols are to be placed on the breast, right palm, and foot of the image.

In the discussion of stones each paragraph opens with the words, “Said Toz.” The use of these stones is mainly medicinal, however, and consists usually in taking a certain weight of the stone in question. Of astrology, spirits, and power of words there is little more said. Some marvelous virtues are attributed to stones nevertheless. With one, if you secretly touch two persons who have hitherto been firm friends, you will make them enemies “even to the end of [Pg 226] the world. And if anyone grates from it the weight of one argenteus and mixes it with serpent’s blood (possibly the herb of that name) and gives it to anyone to drink, he will flee from place to place.”

Toz Graecus was cited by more than one medieval writer and the work which we have just been describing was not the only one that then circulated under his name, although it seems to be cited by Daniel Morley in the twelfth century.[690] Albertus Magnus in his list of evil books on images in the Speculum astronomiae included a work on the images of Venus,[691] another on the four mirrors of Venus, and a third on stations for the cult of Venus. This last is also alluded to by William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, in his De universo, and ascribed by him to “Thot grecus.”[692] There also was once among the manuscripts of Amplonius at Erfurt a “book of Toz Grecus containing fifty chapters on the stations of the planets.”[693] Cecco d’Ascoli, the early fourteenth century astrologer, mentions together “Evax king of the Arabs and Zot grecus and Germa of Babylon.” Which reminds one of Albert’s allusion in his theological Summa[694] to “the teachings of that branch of necromancy” which treats of “images and rings and mirrors of Venus and seals of demons,” and is expounded in the works of Achot of Greece—who is probably our Toz Graecus, Grema of Babylon, and Hermes the Egyptian. And again in his [Pg 227] work on minerals[695] Albert lists together as authorities on the engraving of gems with images the names of Magor Graecus, Germa of Babylon, and Hermes the Egyptian.

Moreover, not only is the work of Toz closely associated both in the extant manuscripts and by Albertus Magnus with that of Hermes, but William of Auvergne’s spelling “Thot” shows what has perhaps already occurred to the reader, that this Toc or Toz Graecus is no other than the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian god Thoth; in other words, Hermes Trismegistus himself. I have not yet mentioned one other treatise found in a seventeenth century manuscript, and which, while very likely a later invention, shows at least that Toz remained a name to conjure with down into modern times.[696] The work is called A commentary by Toz Graecus, philosopher of great name, upon the books of Solomon to Rehoboam concerning secrets of secrets. A long preface tells how Solomon summed up all his vast knowledge in this book for the benefit of his son Rehoboam, and Rehoboam buried it in his tomb in an ivory casket, and Toz after its discovery wept at his inability to comprehend it, until it was revealed to him through an angel of God on condition that he explain it only to the worthy.

The text is full of magic experiments: experiments of theft; experiments in invisibility; love experiments; experiments in gaining favor; experiments in hate and destruction; “extraordinary experiments”; “playful experiments”; and so on. These with conjurations, characters, and suffumigations make up the bulk of the first book. The second book deals chiefly with “how exorcists and their allies and disciples should conduct themselves,” and with the varied paraphernalia required by magicians: fasts, baths, vestments, the knife or sword, the magic circle, fumigations, water and hyssop; light and fire, pen and ink, blood, parchment, stylus, wax, needle, membrane, characters, [Pg 228] sacrifices, and astrological images. Two of its twenty-two chapters deal with “the places where by rights experiments should be performed” and with “all the precepts of the arts or experiments.” In another seventeenth century manuscript are Seven Books of Magical Experiments of Hermes Trismegistus. “And they are magic secrets of the kings of Egypt,” drawn, we are told, from the treasury of Rudolph II, Holy Roman emperor from 1576 to 1612.[697] Another manuscript at Vienna contains a German translation of the same work.[698]

KIRANIDES

The virtues, especially medicinal, of plants and animals comprise the contents of a work in Latin of uncertain date and authorship, usually called the Kiranides of Kiranus, King of Persia.[699] Thomas Browne, in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Inquiry into Vulgar Errors, included in his list of “authors who have most promoted popular conceits, ... Kiranides, which is a collection out of Harpocration the Greek and sundry Arabick writers delivering not only the Naturall but Magicall propriety of things, a work as full of vanity as variety, containing many relations, whose invention is as difficult as their beliefs, and their experiments sometime as hard as either.”[700] The work purports to be a translation from the Greek version which in its turn was from the Arabic,[701] and Berthelot affirms[702] that in antiquity Kiranides was cited by Galen and by Olympiodorus, the historian and alchemist of the early fifth century, [Pg 230] while Kroll cites a Greek manuscript at Paris as ascribing the third book of Kiranides to Hermes Trismegistus.[703]

The preface of the medieval Latin translator is by “a lowly cleric” who addresses some ecclesiastical or scholastic superior, possibly the Chancellor at Paris.[704] He marvels that the mind of his patron, which has penetrated beyond the seven heavens to contemplate supernatural things above our sphere, should nevertheless not disdain an interest in the most lowly of terrene “experiments.” The master has asked him to translate this medical book from Greek into Latin, a task easier to ask than to execute. There are several Greek versions of it, all professedly translations from some oriental original, but the volume which his patron gave him to translate into Latin is that translated into Greek at Constantinople in 1168[705] or 1169[706] by order of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenus, whom we shall also find associated with the Letter of Prester John of which we shall treat in the next chapter. The translator speaks of the work as The Book of Natural Virtues, Complaints, and Cures, but adds that it is a compilation from two other books, namely, The Experience of the Kiranides of Kiranus, King of Persia, and The Book of Harpocration[707] of Alexandria to his Daughter. There then follows the preface of Harpocration to his daughter, which tells of a certain city and of encountering an aged sage there, of great towers and of precious writing on a column which Harpocration proceeds to transcribe. We are given to understand [Pg 231] that the original was written in “antique archaic Syriac” and was as old as the Euphrates.

The text is divided into four books, each arranged alphabetically. The first book subdivides into “Elements.” For example, Elementum XII is devoted to a tree, a bird, a stone, and a fish, each of which begins with the letter M. Most, however, of the virtues and medicinal prescriptions which follow have to do with the tree or herb only. The second book treats of beasts or quadrupeds, the third of birds, and the fourth of fish.

Much superstition and magical procedure is found scattered through, or better, crowded into, the book. For instance, in a medicinal application of the cyme of the tree Μορέα, one is to face the southwest wind, use two fingers of the left hand to remove the cyme, then look behind one toward the east, wrap the cyme in purple or red silk (vera?), and touch the patient with it or bind it about her. In another recipe the fruit of this tree is to be compounded in varying proportions with such substances as an Indian stone and the tips of the wings of crows and is then to be stirred with a crow’s feather until the mixture is “soft and sticky.” In a third prescription a stone engraved with an image of the fish mentioned under the letter M—μόρμυρος, and enclosed in an iron box, is to be combined with the “eyes” (buds?) of the tree Morea as an amulet against certain ills.

In some cases the end sought as well as the procedure employed is magical rather than medicinal. In another chapter of the first book, for example, the reader is instructed how to make a licinium or combustible compound in whose light those present will appear to one another like flaming demons. Or in book two the reader is told that wearing the dried tongue of a weasel inside his socks will close the mouths of his enemies. The weasel’s testicles, right and left, are used as charms to stimulate and prevent conception respectively.

[Pg 232]

Incantations are employed in connection with the eagle, the first of forty-four birds taken up in the third book. Catch one, collect the dung it makes during the first day and night of its captivity, then bind its feet and beak and whisper in its ear, “Oh, eagle, friend of man, I am about to slay you for the cure of every infirmity. I conjure you by the God of earth and sky and by the four elements that you efficaciously work each and every cure for which you are oblated.” The eagle is then decapitated with a sword composed entirely of iron, all its blood is carefully caught in a bowl, its heart and entrails are removed and placed in wine, and other directions observed. The discussion of the virtues of fish in the fourth and last book is essentially identical in character with the examples already given for plants, birds, and beasts.

In a sixteenth century manuscript at Venice[708] is a Latin version which would seem to be translated from the Arabic since it gives the author’s name as Alchiranus, although some scholiast has interpolated and added to the words of this author and of Harpocration. As described by Valentinelli the arrangement into books is the same as that which we have noted. Valentinelli also was impressed by the fact that “medical substances are used to produce not merely physical but moral effects, such as prescience of the future, dispelling demons and evil phantoms, avoiding shipwreck by binding the heart of a foca to the mast of the vessel; discovering what sort of life a woman has led, becoming invisible, averting storms, perils, wild beasts, robbers.” And further that “the efficacy of the medicaments is dependent upon their mode of preparation or application, at the rising or setting of the sun, at the waning or waxing of the moon, by uttering certain words or engraving stones.”[709]

[Pg 233]

The Latin translator of the Kiranides says that it should be preceded by the book of Alexander the Great concerning seven herbs and the seven planets, and by the Mystery of Thessalus to Hermes about twelve herbs for the twelve signs of the zodiac and seven herbs for the seven stars. And in what is left of the preface to the latter treatise in an Erfurt manuscript we are told that after discovering the volumes of the Kyranides the writer found also in the city of Troy the present treatise enclosed in a monument along with the bones of the first king named Kyrannis.[710] The first treatise on seven herbs, however, seems to be more often ascribed in the manuscripts to an Alexius Affricus[711] or Flaccus Africanus[712] than to Alexander the Great.[713] Alexius [Pg 234] or Flaccus seems to address his work to a Claudius or Glandiger of Athens. The work of Thessalus, whose name is sometimes corrupted to Tesalus or Texilus, and whose work is variously styled of twelve or of nineteen herbs, usually is found with the other treatise in the manuscripts.[714] It was one of the authorities acknowledged by Jacobus de Dondis in his Aggregatio Medicamentorum, written in 1355.[715] The treatise on seven herbs of Alexander or Flaccus Africanus closes with the direction that the herbs should be gathered from the twenty-first to twenty-seventh day of the moon, with Mercury rising during the entire first hour of the day. As they are plucked, the passion of our Lord should be mentioned, and they should be preserved in barley or wheat. But one manuscript adds, “But do not put credulity in them beyond due measure.”[716] We have, of course, already met with similar treatises ascribed to Enoch and Hermes.[717]

The Belenus, as whose disciple Flaccus Africanus is represented, is also the reputed author of a work on astrological images found in several manuscripts of the British Museum.[718] Albertus Magnus in the Speculum astronomiae attributed to Belenus two reprehensible books of necromantic images.[719] The Turba philosophorum, a medieval work of alchemy consisting in large measure of Latin re-translation [Pg 235] of Arabic versions from Greek alchemists, also cites a Belus or Belinus. The name is believed to be a corruption from Apollonius of Tyana, with whom Apollonius of Perga, the mathematician, is perhaps also confused.[720] One of the Incipits of the tracts listed in the Speculum astronomiae is, “Said Belenus who is also called Apollo.” However, many medieval Latin manuscripts attribute works to Apollonius under that name, as in the case of a work on the Notory Art which we shall mention in another chapter.[721]

PRESTER JOHN AND THE MARVELS OF INDIA

In a twelfth century manuscript at Berlin a treatise on precious stones and their medicinal and other marvelous virtues which is ascribed to St. Jerome,[722] opens with a prologue describing a voyage to India, the home of the carbuncle, emerald, and other gems, and the land of mountains of gold guarded by dragons, griffins, and other monsters. According to this prologue the navigation of the Red Sea is extremely dangerous and takes six months, while another full year is required to cross the ocean to India and the Ganges.

India was still a distant land of wonders and home of magic to the minds of medieval men, as it had been in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and as even to-day many westerners are credulous concerning its jugglers, fakirs, yogis, and theosophists. So William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, writing in the first half of the thirteenth century, states that feats of magic are very seldom wrought in the Europe of his time. For one thing, as Origen and other early church fathers had already explained, the demons since the coming of Christ to earth had largely ceased their magical activities in Christian lands. But another reason was that the materials for working natural magic, the gems and herbs and animals with marvelous virtues, were seldom found in European lands. In India and other countries [Pg 237] adjacent to it, on the contrary, such materials were abundant. Hence natural magic still flourished there and it was a land of many experimenters and of skilful marvel-workers.[723] Similarly Albertus Magnus, discussing the marvelous powers of astrological images, states that the best gems upon which to engrave them are those from India.[724] Costa ben Luca says in his work on physical ligatures that doctors in India are firm believers in the efficacy of incantations and adjurations; and about 1295 Peter of Abano speaks in his Phisionomia of the wise men of India as prolix on astrological themes. Medieval geomancies, too, often claim a connection with India.[725]

It should also be kept in mind, however, that medieval men believed that they derived from India learning which seems to us even to-day as sound and useful as it did to them then; for example, the Hindu-Arabic numerals.[726] Leonardo of Pisa, the great arithmetician of the early thirteenth century, tells us in the preface to his Liber Abaci[727] how, summoned as a boy to join his father who was a customs official at a trading station in Algeria, he was introduced to [Pg 238] the art of reckoning “by a marvelous method through the nine figures of the Indians.” Thus we see that India’s marvels were not always false. Later he traveled in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence and studied their various methods of reckoning, but vastly preferred the Indian method to all others, returned to a more intensive study of it, and developed it further by additions from Euclid and contributions of his own. Not always, it is true, were medieval mathematicians as favorable to Indian methods as this. Jordanus Nemorarius in one passage characterizes an Indian theorem as “nothing but mere credulity without demonstration.”[728] But to return to the natural marvels of India.

In the extraordinary accounts of Prester John,[729] which are first met in the twelfth century and were added to with succeeding centuries and which had great currency from the start, as the number of extant manuscripts shows, the natural marvels of India vie in impressiveness and wonderment with the power of Prester John himself and with the miracles of the Apostle Thomas.

Odo, Abbot of St. Rémy from 1118 to 1151, states in a letter in response to the inquiry of a Count Thomas what had happened when he was recently in Rome. Byzantine ambassadors introduced to the pope an archbishop of India who had already had the extraordinary and disconcerting experience of having to return a third time to Constantinople for a new prince for his country, each previous Byzantine nominee having died on his hands. This archbishop said that the body of the Apostle Thomas was preserved in his country in a church rich in treasure and ornaments and surrounded by a river fordable only at the time [Pg 239] of the saint’s festival. On that solemn occasion the Apostle’s body was shown to believers and the Apostle would raise his arm and open his hand to receive their gifts, but close it and refuse to receive any gift offered by a heretic. When this tale reached the pope’s ears he forbade the archbishop to disseminate such falsehoods further under pain of anathema, but the archbishop finally convinced the pope by taking an oath on the holy gospels.

Another longer and anonymous account has come down from manuscripts going back to the twelfth century of the visit of a Patriarch John of India to Rome under Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124). It is this account which is often joined in the manuscripts and early printed editions with the Letter of Prester John of which we shall presently speak. In this account the Patriarch John told “of memorable matters of his Indian region that were unknown to the Romans,” such as of the gold and gems in the river Physon which flows from Paradise, “but especially of the miracles of the most holy Apostle Thomas.” Without going into further details, such as that of the miraculous balsam lamp, which differ a good deal from Odo’s account, it may be noted that in this account the Apostle’s hand ministers the Eucharist to believers and refuses it to infidels and sinners.

We have progressed from an archbishop of India to a Patriarch John; we now come to Prester John the monarch. The historian, Otto of Freising, learned in 1145 from a Syrian bishop at Rome of a great victory recently gained over the Moslems by “a certain John who lived beyond Persia and Armenia in the extreme East, a king and priest, since he was a Christian by race but a Nestorian ... Prester John, for so they are wont to call him.” He was of the ancient progeny of the Magi mentioned in the Gospel, ruled the same races as they, and enjoyed such glory and abundance that he was said to use only an emerald scepter. After his victory he would have come to the aid of the crusaders at Jerusalem, but could not cross the Tigris, although [Pg 240] he marched north along its eastern bank and waited for some years in the hope that it would freeze over.[730]

This Prester John was to be heard from again, however, for in the same century there appeared a letter purporting to have been written by him to the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel (1143-1180).[731] It is in this letter that the natural and artificial marvels of India and adjacent territories—Prester John’s dominion reaches from farther India to the Babylonian desert—are especially recorded. This letter even in its earliest and briefest form seems without doubt a western forgery and bears the marks of its Latin origin, [Pg 241][732] since despite the use of a few Greek ecclesiastical and official terms[733] and the attempt to rehearse unheard-of wonders, the writer indulges in a sneer at Greek adoration of the emperor[734] and is unable to conceive of Prester John except as a feudal overlord[735] with the usual kings, dukes and counts, archbishops, bishops and abbots under him. The letter then is of value chiefly as showing us what ideas prevailed concerning India and the orient in the Latin world of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, for the letter received many additions and variations, was translated into the vernacular languages, and appeared in print before 1500.[736] In the following account of its contents, however, I shall try to describe the letter as it existed in the twelfth century, after which I shall mention what seem to be interpolations of the thirteenth or later centuries.

But while different copies of the work vary, all have the same general character. Prester John tells what a mighty and Christian potentate he is and describes his marvelous palaces and contrivances or the natural marvels, strange beasts and serpents, monstrous races of men, potent herbs, stones, and fountains, to be found in the lands owning his sway. In one province is the herb assidios which enables its bearer to rout an impure spirit and force him to [Pg 242] disclose his name and whence he comes. “Wherefore impure spirits in that land dare not take possession of anyone.”[737] A fountain flows from Mount Olympus not three days’ journey from Paradise whence Adam was expelled. Three draughts from it taken fasting insure one henceforth from all infirmity, and however long one may live, one will seem henceforth but thirty years of age.[738] Then there are some little stones which eagles often bring to Prester John’s territories and which worn on the finger preserve or restore the sight, or if consecrated with a lawful incantation, make one invisible and dispel envy and hatred and promote concord.[739] After a description of a sea of sand in which there are various kinds of edible fish and a river of stones, Prester John soon mentions the worms which in his language are called salamanders, who cannot live except in fire, and from whose skins he has robes made which can be cleansed only by fire.[740] After some boasting concerning the absence of poverty, crime, and falsehood in his country and about the pomp and wealth with which he goes forth to war, Prester John then comes to the description of his palace, which is similar to that which the Apostle Thomas built for Gundaphorus, King of India. Its gates of sardonyx mixed with cornu cerastis (horn of the horned serpents) prevent the secret introduction of poison; a couch of sapphire keeps [Pg 243] John chaste; the square before the palace where judicial duels are held is paved with onyx “in order that the courage of the fighters may be increased by the virtue of the stone.”[741] Near this square is a magic mirror which reveals all plots in the provinces subject to Prester John or in adjacent lands.[742] In some manuscripts of the twelfth century is a description of another palace which before Prester John’s birth his father was instructed in a dream to build for his son. One feature of it is that no matter how hungry one may be on entering it, he always comes out feeling as full as if he had partaken of a sumptuous banquet.[743]

To such marvels in the early versions of the Letter of Prester John were added others in the course of the thirteenth century and later middle ages:—the huge man-eating ants who mined gold by night;[744] the land where men lived on manna, a substance which we shall find somewhat similarly mentioned by Michael Scot and Thomas of Cantimpré;[745] the tale, which we shall also hear from Roger Bacon, of men who tame flying dragons by their incantations and magic, saddle and bridle them, and ride them through the air;[746] the five marvelous stones that froze or heated or reduced to an even state of temperature or made light or dark everything within a radius of five miles; the second five stones, of which two were unconsecrated and turned water to milk or wine, while three were consecrated and would respectively cause fish to congregate, wild beasts to follow one, and, sprinkled with hot lion’s blood, produce a conflagration which could only be quenched by sprinkling the stone with hot dragon’s blood;[747] the marvelous mill operated by the occult virtue of the stone adamant;[748] the [Pg 244] wonderful tree on which the wonderful healing apple grew;[749] the marvelous chapel of glass, always just big enough for as many persons as entered it;[750] and the stone and the fountain that served as fireless heaters.[751] In another case a marvel is wrought by stone and fountain combined. Two old men guard a large stone and admit to its hollow only Christians or those who desire to become Christians. If this profession of faith is genuine, the water in the hollow which is usually only four fingers deep thrice rises above the head of the person admitted, who thereupon emerges recovered from all sickness.[752]

How real Prester John was to the men of the twelfth century may be seen from the fact that Pope Alexander III on September 27, 1177, addressed from the Rialto in Venice a letter to him or to some actual eastern potentate whom he had confused with him.[753] The Pope does not expressly mention Prester John’s letter to Manuel but says that he has heard of him from many persons and common report, and more especially from “Master Philip, our friend and physician,” who had talked “with great and honourable men of your kingdom,” by whom he had been informed of their ruler’s desire for a church and altar at Jerusalem. It is this Philip whom the Pope now sends with his letter to Prester John and to instruct him in the doctrine of the Roman church. But it is a long and laborious journey involving many hardships and vicissitudes and the traversing of many countries with barbarous and unknown languages.

Whether Philip ever succeeded in delivering the letter is not known and he has himself been regarded as a mysterious personage of whom nothing further was known.[754] I would suggest, however, that, as he seems to have been conversant with Syria and the Holy Land, he may have been the Philip of whose translation of the Secret of [Pg 245] Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle we shall treat in the next chapter, a work which he found in Antioch and dedicated to the bishop of Tripoli. Or, if we do not meet this particular Philip again, we shall find in close relations with other popes other physicians whose names are prominent in the natural and occult science of the age.

THE PSEUDO-ARISTOTLE

In a previous chapter we have seen what a wide currency the legend of Alexander had both in east and west in the later Roman Empire and early middle ages, and how with Alexander was associated the magician and astrologer Nectanebus. We also saw that by about 800 A. D. at least a separate Letter of Alexander to Aristotle on the Marvels of India was current in the Latin west, and in the present chapter it is especially to the Pseudo-Aristotle and his connection with Alexander and India, rather than to the Pseudo-Callisthenes, that we turn. The tremendous historical importance of the career of Alexander the Great and of the writings of Aristotle impressed itself perhaps even unduly upon both the Arabian and the medieval mind. The personal [Pg 247] connection between the two men—Aristotle was for a time Alexander’s tutor—was seized upon and magnified. Pliny in his Natural History had stated that Alexander had empowered Aristotle to send two thousand men to different parts of the world to test by experience all things on the face of the earth.[755] This account of their scientific co-operation was enlarged upon by spurious writings associated with their names like the letter on the marvels of India.[756] With the introduction into western Europe in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries of many genuine works of Aristotle unknown to the early middle ages, which had possessed only certain of his logical treatises, there also came into circulation a number of spurious writings ascribed to him.

It is not surprising that many spurious works were attributed to Aristotle in the middle ages, when we remember that his writings came to them for the most part indirectly through corrupt translations, and that some writing from so great a master was eagerly looked for upon every subject in which they were interested. It seemed to them that so encyclopedic a genius must have touched on all fields of knowledge and they often failed to realize that in Aristotle’s time the departments of learning had been somewhat different from their own and that new interests and doctrine had developed since then. There was also a tendency to ascribe to Aristotle any work of unknown or uncertain authorship. At the close of the twelfth century Alexander Neckam[757] lists among historic instances of envy Aristotle’s holding back from posterity certain of his most subtle writings, which he ordered should be buried with [Pg 248] him. At the same time he so guarded the place of his sepulcher, whether by some force of nature or power of art or prodigy of magic is uncertain, that no one has yet been able to approach it, although some think that Antichrist will be able to inspect these books when he comes. Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century believed that Aristotle had written over a thousand works and complained bitterly because certain treatises, which were probably really apocryphal, had not been translated into Latin.[758] Indeed, some of the works ascribed to Aristotle in the Oriental and Mohammedan worlds were never translated into Latin, such as the astrological De impressionibus coelestibus which Bacon mentions, or the Syriac text which K. Ahrens edited in 1892 with a German translation as “Das Buch der Naturgegenstände”; or first appeared in Latin guise after the invention of printing, as was the case with the so-called Theology of Aristotle,[759] a work which was little more than a series of extracts from the Enneads of Plotinus.[760] Some treatises attributed to Aristotle in medieval Latin do not bear especially upon our investigation, such as Grammar which Grosseteste is said to have translated from Greek.[761]

[Pg 249]

For our purposes the Pseudo-Aristotelian writings may be sub-divided under seven heads: experiment, alchemy, astrology, spirits, occult virtues of stones and herbs, chiromancy and physiognomy, and last the famous Secret of Secrets. Under the first of these heads may be put a treatise on the conduct of waters, which consists of a series of experiments in siphoning and the like illustrated in the manuscript by lettered and colored figures and diagrams.[762] In a Vatican manuscript it is perhaps more correctly ascribed to Philo of Byzantium.

From experiment to alchemy is an easy step, for the alchemists experimented a good deal in the period which we are now considering. The fourth book of the Meteorology of Aristotle, which, if not a genuine portion of that work, at least goes back to the third century before Christ,[763] has been called a manual of chemistry,[764] and apparently is the oldest such extant. Its doctrines are also believed to have been influential in the development of alchemy; and there were passages in this fourth book which led men later to regard Aristotle as favorable to the doctrine of the transmutation of metals. Gerard of Cremona had translated only the first three books of the Meteorology; the fourth was supplied from a translation from the Greek made by Henricus Aristippus who died in 1162; to this fourth book were added three chapters translated by Alfred of England or of Sareshel from the Arabic,[765] apparently of Avicenna. [Pg 250][766] These additions of Alfred from Avicenna discussed the formation of metals but attacked the alchemists.[767] Vincent of Beauvais[768] and Albertus Magnus[769] were both aware, however, that this attack upon the alchemists was probably not by Aristotle. The short treatise On colors,[770] which is included in so many medieval manuscript collections of the works of Aristotle in Latin,[771] by its very title would suggest to medieval readers that he had been interested in the art of alchemy, although its actual contents deal only in small part with dyes and tinctures. Its form and contents are not regarded as Aristotle’s, but it was perhaps by someone of the Peripatetic school. Thus works which, if not by Aristotle himself, at least had been written in Greek long before the medieval period, gave medieval readers the impression that Aristotle was favorable to alchemy.

[Pg 251]

It is therefore not surprising that works of alchemy appeared in medieval Latin under Aristotle’s name. The names of Plato and Aristotle had headed the lists of alchemists in Greek manuscripts although no works ascribed to Aristotle have been preserved in the same.[772] Berthelot, however, speaks of a pseudo-Aristotle in Arabic,[773] and in an Oxford manuscript of the thirteenth century under the name of Aristotle appears a treatise On the twelve waters of the secret river said to be “translated from Arabic into Latin.”[774] In the preface the author promises that whoever becomes skilled, adept, and expert in these twelve waters will never lose hope nor be depressed by want. He regards this treatise as the chief among his works, since he has learned these waters by experiment. They are all chemical rather than medical; a brief “chapter” or paragraph is devoted to each. In another manuscript at the Bodleian two brief tracts are ascribed to Aristotle; one describes the seven metals, the other deals with transmutation.[775] In a single manuscript at Munich both a theoretical treatise in medicine and alchemy and a Practica are attributed to Aristotle, and in two other manuscripts he is credited with the Book of Seventy Precepts which sometimes is ascribed to Geber.[776] Thomas of [Pg 252] Cantimpré cites Aristotle in the Lumen luminum as saying that the best gold is made from yellow copper ore and the urine of a boy, but Thomas hastens to add that such gold is best in color rather than in substance.[777] The translation of the Lumen luminum is ascribed both to Michael Scot and brother Elias.[778] Aristotle is quoted several times in De alchimia, ascribed to Albertus Magnus, but only in the later “Additions” to it, where Roger Bacon also is cited, is the specific title Liber de perfecto magisterio given as Aristotle’s.[779] Sometimes works of alchemy were very carelessly ascribed to Aristotle, when it is perfectly evident from the works themselves that they could not have been written by him.[780]

The alchemical discoveries and writings ascribed to Aristotle are often associated in some way with Alexander the Great as well. In one manuscript John of Spain’s translation of the Secret of Secrets is followed by a description of the virtues and compositions of four stones “which Aristotle sent to Alexander the Great.”[781] It seems obvious that these are philosopher’s stones and not natural gems. The Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus, composed in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, ascribes to Aristotle the discovery of two marvelous kinds of fires. One, which he discovered while traveling with Alexander the king, will burn for a year without cessation. The other, in the composition of which observance of the dog-days is requisite, “Aristotle [Pg 253] asserts will last for nine years.”[782] A collection of chemical experiments by a Nicholas, of whom we shall have more to say in a later chapter, gives “a fire which Aristotle discovered with Alexander for obscure places.”[783] A letter of Aristotle to Alexander in a collection of alchemical tracts is hardly worth noting, as it is only seven lines long, but it is interesting to observe that it cites Aristotle’s Meteorology.[784] Perhaps by a mistake one or two alchemical treatises are ascribed to Alexander rather than Aristotle.[785]

Aristotle’s genuine works give even more encouragement to the pretensions of astrology than to those of alchemy. His opinion that the four elements were insufficient to explain natural phenomena and his theory of a fifth essence were favorable to the belief in occult virtue and the influence of the stars upon inferior objects. In his work on [Pg 254] generation[786] he held that the elements alone were mere tools without a workman; the missing agent is supplied by the revolution of the heavens. In the twelfth book of the Metaphysics he described the stars and planets as eternal and acting as intermediaries between the prime Mover and inferior beings. Thus they are the direct causes of all life and action in our world. Charles Jourdain regarded the introduction of the Metaphysics into western Europe at the opening of the thirteenth century as a principal cause for the great prevalence of astrology from that time on, the other main cause being the translation of Arabian astrological treatises.[787] Jourdain did not duly appreciate the great hold which astrology already had in the twelfth century, but it is nevertheless true that in the new Aristotle astrology found further support.

Astrology crops out here and there in most of the spurious works extant under Aristotle’s name, just as it does in medieval learning everywhere. One section of a dozen pages in the Theology discusses the influence of the stars upon nature and the working of magic by making use of these celestial forces and the natural attraction which things have for one another. It regards artificial magic as a fraud but natural and astrological magic as a reality. However, as in the original text of Plotinus which the Theology follows, it is only the animal soul which is affected by magic and the man of impulse who is moved thereby; the thinking man can free himself from its influence by use of the rational soul. In the treatise, De pomo,[788] which seems not to have been translated into Latin until the thirteenth century under Manfred,[789] Aristotle on his death bed, holding in his hand an [Pg 255] apple from which the treatise takes its title, is represented as telling his disciples why a philosopher need not fear death and repudiating the doctrines of the mortality of the soul and eternity of the universe. He also tells how the Creator made the spheres and placed lucid stars in each and gave them the virtue of ruling over this inferior world and causing good and evil and life or death. They do not, however, do this of themselves, but men at first thought so and erroneously worshiped the stars until the time of Noah who was the first to recognize the Creator of the spheres.[790]

There are also attributed to Aristotle treatises primarily astrological. A “Book on the Properties of the Elements and of the Planets” is cited under his name by Peter of Abano at the end of the thirteenth century in his work on poisons,[791] by Peter d’Ailly in his Vigintiloquium[792] written in 1414, and by Pico della Mirandola, who declares it spurious, in his work against astrology written at the close of the fifteenth century. D’Ailly and Pico cite it in regard to the theory of great conjunctions; Abano, for a tale of Socrates and two dragons which we shall repeat later. It is probable that all these citations were from the paraphrase of and commentary on the work by Albertus Magnus[793] who accepted it as a genuine writing of Aristotle. We shall consider its contents in our chapter upon Albertus Magnus.

In a manuscript of the Cotton collection in the British Museum is a work of some length upon astrology ascribed to Aristotle.[794] After a discussion of general principles in which the planets, signs, and houses are treated, there are separate books upon the subjects of nativities,[795] and of elections and [Pg 256] interrogations.[796] In a Paris manuscript a treatise on interrogations is ascribed in a marginal heading to “Aristoteles Milesius, a Peripatetic physician.”[797] In the Cotton Manuscript in commentaries which then follow, and which are labelled as commentaries “upon the preceding treatise” Ptolemy is mentioned rather than Aristotle.[798] In an astrological manuscript of the fifteenth century at Grenoble written in French, works of Messahala and Zaël translated for Charles V of France are preceded by “a book of judicial astrology according to Aristotle,” which opens with “the preface of the last translator,” and is in four parts.[799] Perhaps both the above-mentioned manuscripts contain, like a third manuscript at Munich, “The book of judgments which is said by Albert in his Speculum to be Aristotle’s.”[800] This work also occurs in a manuscript at Erfurt.[801] Roger Bacon was much impressed by an astrological treatise ascribed to Aristotle entitled De impressionibus coelestibus, and told Pope Clement IV that it was “superior to the entire philosophy of the Latins and can be translated by your order.”[802]

A treatise found in two manuscripts of the Bodleian Library bears the titles, Commentary of Aristotle on Astrology, and The book of Aristotle from two hundred and fifty-five volumes of the Indians, containing a digest of all problems, whether pertaining to the sphere or to genethlialogy. [Pg 257][803] From the text itself and the preface of Hugo Sanctelliensis, the twelfth century translator from Arabic into Latin, addressed to his lord, Michael, bishop of Tarazona, we see that the work is neither entirely by Aristotle nor from the books of the Indians but is a compilation by someone who draws or pretends to draw from some 250 or 255 books[804] of the philosophers, including in addition to treatises by both Aristotle and the Indians, 13 books by Hermes, 13 by Doronius (Dorotheus?), 4 by Ptolemy, one by Democritus, two by Plato, 44 by the Babylonians, 7 by Antiochus, and others by authors whose names are unfamiliar to me and probably misspelled in the manuscripts. In one of the works of Aristotle of which the present work is supposed to make use, there are said to have been described the nativities of twelve thousand men, collected in an effort to establish an experimental basis for astrology.[805] It is not so surprising that the present work bears Aristotle’s name, since Hugh had promised his patron Michael, in the prologue to his translation of the Geometry of Hanus ben Hanne,[806] that if life endured and opportunity was given he would next set to work as ordered by his patron, not only upon Haly’s commentaries on the Quadripartite and Almagest of Ptolemy, but also upon a certain general commentary by Aristotle on the entire art of astrology.

The Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle is immediately followed in one manuscript by chapters or treatises addressed to Alexander and entitled, Of ideas and forms, Of the impression of forms, and Of images and rings.[807] The [Pg 258] theory, very like that of Alkindi, is maintained that “all forms are ruled by supercelestial forms through the spirits of the spheres” and that incantations and images receive their force from the spheres. The seven planets pass on these supercelestial ideas and forms to our inferior world. By selecting proper times for operating one can work good or ill by means of the rays and impressions of the planets. The scientific investigator who properly concentrates and fixes intent, desire, and appetite upon the desired goal can penetrate hidden secrets of secrets and occult science both universal and particular. The writer goes on to emphasize the importance of understanding all the different positions and relationships of the heavenly bodies and also the distribution of terrestrial objects under the planets. He then describes an astrological image which will cause men to reverence and obey you, will repel your enemies in terror, afflict the envious, send visions, and perform other marvelous and stupefying feats too numerous to mention.

As the Speculum astronomiae of Albertus Magnus listed a Book of Judgments by Aristotle among deserving works of astronomy and astrology, so in its list of evil books dealing with necromantic images appear a treatise by Hermes addressed to Aristotle and opening, “Aristotle said, ‘You have seen me, O Hermes,’” and a treatise ascribed to Aristotle with the sinister title, Death of the Soul, opening, “Said Aristotle to King Alexander, ‘If you want to perceive.’” This treatise the Speculum calls “the worst of all” the evil books on images. Roger Bacon, too, alludes to it by title as filled with figments of the magicians, but does not name Aristotle as author.[808] Peter of Abano in his Lucidator follows the Speculum astronomiae in listing it among depraved, obscene, and detestable works.[809]

[Pg 259]

Alexander himself, as well as Aristotle, had some medieval reputation as an astrologer. We have already seen[810] in the tenth and eleventh century manuscripts of the Mathematica of Alhandreus, supreme astrologer, that “Alexander of Macedon” was more than once cited as an authority, and that there were also given “Excerpts from the books of Alexander, astrologer, king,” and a “Letter of Argafalan to Alexander.” Different from this, moreover, was the Mathematica of Alexander, supreme astrologer, found in a thirteenth century manuscript, in which from the movements of the planets through the signs one is instructed how to foretell prosperous and adverse journeys, abundance and poverty, misfortune or death of a friend, or to discover stolen articles, sorceries, buried treasure and so forth.[811] A treatise on seven herbs related to the seven planets is sometimes ascribed to Alexander,[812] but perhaps more often to Flaccus Africanus, as we saw in Chapter 46, and at least once to Aristotle.[813]

The association of astrological images with spirits of the spheres in one of the above-mentioned works ascribed to Aristotle has already brought us to the border-line of our next topic, Aristotle and spirits. Under this caption may be placed a work found in a fifteenth century manuscript. [Pg 260][814] It also is in part astrological and is associated with the name of Hermes as well as of Aristotle. Its title runs, The book of the spiritual works of Aristotle, or the book Antimaquis, which is the book of the secrets of Hermes: wonderful things can be accomplished by means of this book and ’tis the ancient book of the seven planets. The treatise opens, “To every people and clime pertains a group of spirits.” It then maps out these regions of different spirits in accordance with the planets and signs of the zodiac. Apparently this is the same work as that which Hunain ibn Ishak translated into Arabic and of which he says, “Among the works of Aristotle which we have found and translated from Greek into Arabic was The book of the Causes of Spirituals which has Hermes for author.... It is the book in which Aristotle treats of the causes of spirituals, talismans, the art of their operation, and how to hinder it, ordered after the seven climates.”[815] It was probably some such spurious work that William of Auvergne had in mind when he spoke of Aristotle’s boast that a spirit had descended unto him from the sphere of Venus.[816]

No genuine work of Aristotle on vegetables or minerals has come down to us to accompany his celebrated History of Animals, but supposititious writings were soon found by the Arabs to fill this gap. On plants a brief treatise by Nicolaus Damascenus passed for Aristotle’s. Alfred of Sarchel translated it from Arabic into Latin,[817] presumably before the close of the twelfth century, since he dedicated it to Roger of Hereford, and Albertus Magnus expanded its two short books into seven long ones in his De vegetabilibus et plantis. There also existed in Arabic a Lapidary ascribed to Aristotle,[818] which we have heard cited in the ninth [Pg 261] century by Costa ben Luca. Ruska believes the work to be of Syrian and Persian origin,[819] although one Latin text professes to have been originally translated from Greek into Syriac.[820] Valentin Rose regarded it as the basis of all subsequent Arabic mineralogy, but found only two Latin manuscripts of it.[821] Albertus Magnus in his Minerals confesses that, although he had sought diligently in divers regions of the world, he had seen only excerpts from Aristotle’s work. But another writer of the thirteenth century, Arnold of Saxony, cites translations of Aristotle on stones both by Dioscorides, which would seem sheer nonsense, and by Gerard, presumably of Cremona. Gerard’s translation occurs in one of Rose’s manuscripts; the other seems to give a version translated from the Hebrew.

In Gerard’s translation, a work marked by puerile Latin style, the Lapidary of Aristotle is about equally devoted to marvelous properties of stones and tales of Alexander the Great. After some general discussion of stones and their wonderful properties, particular gems are taken up. The gesha brings misfortune. Its wearer sleeps poorly, has many worries, many altercations and law-suits. If it is hung about a boy’s neck, it makes him drivel. “There is great occult force” in the magnet, and instructions are given how to set water on fire with it. Several stones possess the property of neutralizing spells and counteracting the work of demons. With another stone the Indians make many [Pg 262] incantations. Vultures were the first to discover the virtue of the stone filcrum coarton in hastening delivery. When a female vulture was near death from the eggs hardening in her body, the male flew off to India and brought back this stone which afforded instant relief. Another stone is so soporific that suspended about the neck it induces a sleep lasting three days and nights, and the effects of which are thrown off with difficulty even on the fourth day, when the sleeper will awake but will act as if he were intoxicated and will still seem sleepier than anyone else. Another stone prevents a horse from whinnying, if suspended from his neck.

Other gems suggest stories of Alexander. Near the frontier of India in a valley guarded by deadly serpents whose mere glance was fatal were many precious gems. Alexander disposed of the serpents by erecting mirrors in which they might stare themselves to death, and he then secured the gems by employing the carcasses of sheep in the manner which we have already heard described by Epiphanius.[822] A somewhat similar tale is told of Socrates by Albertus Magnus in his commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian work on the properties of the elements and planets.[823] In the reign of Philip of Macedon, who is himself described as a philosopher and astronomer, the road between two mountains in Armenia became so poisoned that no one could pass. Philip vainly inquired the cause from his sages until Socrates came to the rescue and, by erecting a tower as high as the mountains with a steel mirror on top of it, saw two dragons polluting the air. The mere glance of these dragons was apparently not deadly, for men in air-tight armor went in and killed them. The same story is told by William of St. Cloud, who composed astronomical tables based upon his own observations from about 1285 to 1321, in which he detected errors in the earlier tables of Thebit, Toulouse, and Toledo.[824] In Peter of Abano’s treatise on [Pg 263] poisons,[825] however, although he too cites the Pseudo-Aristotle On the causes of the elements, the mirror has become a glass cave in which Socrates ensconces himself to observe the serpents. A Lapidary dedicated to King Wenzel II of Bohemia tells of Socrates’ killing a dragon by use of quicksilver.[826] That Socrates also shared the medieval reputation of Aristotle and Plato for astrology and divination we have already seen from the Prenostica Socratis Basilei.

Similar to Abano’s tale of Socrates in the glass cave is the story told a century earlier by Alexander Neckam of Alexander himself. So sedulous an investigator of nature was the Macedonian, says Neckam, that he went down in a glass vessel to observe the natures and customs of the fishes. He would seem to have remained submerged for some time, since Neckam informs us that he took a cock with him in order to tell when it was dawn by the bird’s crowing. This primitive submarine had at least a suggestion of war about it, since Neckam goes on to say that Alexander learned how to lay ambushes against the foe by observing one army of fishes attack another. Unfortunately, however, Alexander failed to commit to writing his observations, whether military or scientific, of deep-sea life; and Neckam grieves that very few data on the natures of fishes have come to his attention.[827] We shall hear Roger Bacon tell of Alexander’s descending to see the secrets of the deep on the authority of Ethicus.[828]

[Pg 264]

Neckam’s account differs a good deal from the story as told by the Arabian historian, Masʿudi, in the tenth century. There we read that, when Alexander was building the city of Alexandria, monsters came from the sea every night and overthrew the walls that had been built during the day. Night watchmen proved of no avail, so Alexander had a box made ten cubits long and five wide, with glass sides fastened into the frame work by means of pitch and resin. He then entered the box with two draughtsmen, who, after it had been let down to the bottom of the sea, made exact drawings of the monsters, who had human bodies but the heads of beasts. From these sketches Alexander had images constructed and placed on pillars, and these magic figures served to keep off the monsters until the city was completed. But the effect apparently began to wear off and talismans had to be added on the pillars to prevent the monsters from coming and devouring the inhabitants, as they had begun to do again.[829] Another Arab, Abu-Shâker, of the thirteenth century, repeats a current tradition that Aristotle gave Alexander a box of wax soldiers which were nailed, with inverted spears and swords and severed bow-strings, face-downwards in the box, which in its turn was fastened by a chain. As long as the box remained in Alexander’s possession and he repeated the formulae which Aristotle taught him whenever he took the box up or put it down, he would triumph over his foes in war.[830] This reminds one of the methods of warfare employed by Alexander’s fabled natural father, Nectanebus.

While we are speaking of military matters, it may be noted that in a manuscript of the thirteenth century which once belonged to an Albertus Bohemus or Beham, dean of the church at Padua, and seems to have been his note-book, we find between the Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle and a treatise on the significations of the moon in the signs “a delineation of a brazen horn made with marvelous [Pg 265] art by which Alexander in time of war summoned his army from a distance of sixty miles.”[831] Such a horn “of Temistius” is mentioned in some versions of the Secret of Secrets.[832]

But to return to other tales of Alexander in the Lapidary. Once he saw afar enchanters and enchantresses who slew and wounded the men of his army by their diabolical power until Alexander prayed to God, who revealed two stones which counteracted the sorcery. On another occasion when by Alexander’s order his barons had carried off certain gems, during the night following they suffered much insult from demons and were sore afraid, since sticks and stones were thrown about the camp by unseen hands and men were beaten without knowing whence the blows came. It thus became apparent that the demons cherished those gems as their especial property and were accustomed to perform occult operations with them of which they did not wish men to learn the secret. Alexander found that these gems would protect him from any beast, serpent, or demon, although the nocturnal experience of his barons would scarcely seem to support this last point. On a third occasion his troops were held motionless and gazed open-mouthed at certain stones, until a bird fluttered down and covered the gems with its outstretched wings. Then Alexander had his followers close their eyes and carry the stones away under cover and place them on top of the wall of one of his cities so that no one might scale the wall to spy upon the town.

Yet another curious story of Alexander and a stone is repeated by Peter of Abano in his work on poisons[833] from a treatise “On the Nature of Serpents” which he ascribes to Aristotle. Alexander always wore a certain stone in his belt to give him good luck in his battles, but on his return from India, while bathing in the Euphrates, he removed [Pg 266] the belt, whereupon a serpent suddenly appeared, bit the stone out of the belt, and vomited it into the river. Deprived of his talisman, Alexander presently met his death.[834]

Another Lapidary, printed as Aristotle’s at Merseburg in 1473, is really a compilation of previous medieval works on the subject with the addition of some items derived from the personal knowledge or experience of the author. It was composed “to the honor of almighty God and the glory and perpetual memory of that virtuous and most glorious prince, Wenzel II, King of Bohemia” (1278-1305). As the treatise itself states, “the Lapidary of Aristotle in the recent translation from the Greek” is only one of its sources along with Avicenna, Constantinus Africanus, Albertus Magnus, and others.

Another work which claims Aristotelian authorship only in its title is the Chiromancy of Aristotle, printed at Ulm in 1490, which quotes freely from Albertus Magnus and Avicenna. There are also brief tracts on chiromancy ascribed to Aristotle in manuscripts of the thirteenth or fourteenth century.[835] Förster has identified Polemon as the author of the Greek treatise on physiognomy ascribed to Aristotle.[836] The art of physiognomy of course professed to read character from the face or other parts of the body, and chiromancy which we have just mentioned is really a branch of it. In Latin translation the treatise was accepted as Aristotle’s [Pg 267] by such medieval schoolmen as Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. There are many manuscripts of it in the British Museum, including one which perhaps dates back to the twelfth century.[837] Its popularity continued long after the invention of printing, as is shown by separate editions of it brought out at Paris in 1535 and at Wittenberg in 1538, and by commentaries upon it[838] published at Paris in 1611, at Bologna in 1621, and at Toulouse in 1636. Besides such separate manuscripts and editions of it, it was also regularly embodied in the numerous copies of the pseudo-Aristotelian work to which we next turn.

Most widely influential upon the medieval mind of all the spurious works attributed to Aristotle was The Secret of Secrets. Förster enumerated two hundred and seven Latin manuscripts of it and his list is probably far from complete.[839] Gaster calls it “The most popular book of the middle ages.”[840] This is not surprising since it purports to sum up in concise form what the greatest of ancient philosophers deemed it essential for the greatest of ancient rulers to know, and since under the alluring pretense of revealing great secrets in parable and riddle it really masses together a number of the best-tested and most often repeated maxims of personal hygiene and practical philosophy, and some of the superstitions to which men have shown themselves most inclined. Every European library of consequence contains a number of copies of it. It was translated into almost every European language and was often versified, as in Lydgate’s [Pg 268] and Burgh’s Secrees of old Philisoffres.[841] Albertus Magnus cited it as Aristotle’s;[842] Roger Bacon wrote a rather jejune commentary upon it.[843] It was printed a number of times before 1500.[844]

The Secrets of Secrets is believed to be the outcome of a gradual process of compilation from very varied sources, and to have reached something like its present form by the seventh or eighth century of our era. But its chapters on physiognomy, as we have seen, go back to Polemon’s treatise, and part of its medical discussion is said to be borrowed from Diocles Caristes who wrote about 320 B. C. Some Graeco-Persian treatise is thought to be the basis of its discussion of kingship. It is also believed to have appropriated bits from popular literature to its own uses. In Arabic there is extant both a longer and a shorter version, and Gaster has edited a Hebrew text which is apparently [Pg 269] derived from an Arabic original different from that of any Latin text. The process of successive compilation, or at least, re-editing and repeated translation which the work underwent is suggested by a series of prologues which occur at the beginning. Following the preface of the Latin translator and the table of contents comes what is called “the prologue of a certain doctor in commendation of Aristotle,”[845] in which omnipotent God is prayed to guard the king and some anonymous editor states that he has executed the mandate enjoined upon him to procure the moral work on royal conduct called The Secret of Secrets, which Aristotle, chief of philosophers, composed. After some talk about Aristotle and Alexander a second prologue begins with the sentence, “John who translated this book, son of a patrician, most skilful and faithful interpreter of languages, says.” This John appears to have been Yuhanna ibn el-Batrik, or Ibn Yahya al-Batrik, who died in 815 A. D.[846] What he says is that he searched the world over until he came to an oracle of the sun which Esculapides had constructed. There he found a solitary abstemious sage who presented him with this book which he translated from Greek into Chaldaic and thence into Arabic. This passage reminds one of Harpocration’s prefatory remarks to his daughter in the Kiranides; indeed, it is quite in the usual style of apocryphal writings.

In the matter of the Latin translation we are on somewhat more certain ground. John of Spain in the first half of the twelfth century seems to have translated only the medical portion.[847] Manuscripts of this partial translation are [Pg 270] relatively few,[848] and it was presently superseded by the complete translation made either in the twelfth or early thirteenth century[849] by Philip, “the least of his clerics” for “his most excellent lord, most strenuous in the cult of the Christian religion, Guido of Valencia, glorious pontiff of the city of Tripoli.” Philip goes on to say in his dedicatory preface that it was when he was with Guido in Antioch that they found “this pearl of philosophy, ... this book which contains something useful about almost every science,” and which it pleased Guido to have translated from Arabic into Latin. Although the various printed editions and manuscripts of The Secret of Secrets in Latin vary considerably, they regularly are preceded by this ascription of the Latin translation to Philip, and usually by the other prologues afore-mentioned. Who this Philip was, other than a cleric of Tripoli, is still undetermined. If he was the same as the papal physician whom Alexander III in 1177 proposed to send on a mission to Prester John,[850] he had probably made his translation before that date. J. Wood Brown would identify him with Philip of Salerno, a royal notary whose name appears in 1200 on deeds in the kingdom of Sicily. [Pg 271][851] I have already suggested that possibly he translated the Kiranides.

Returning to Philip’s preface to Guido, it may be noted that he states that Latins do not have the work, and that it is rare among the Arabs.[852] His translation is a free one since the Arabic idiom is different from the Latin. Aristotle wrote this book in response to the petition of King Alexander his disciple who demanded that Aristotle should either come to him or faithfully reveal the secrets of certain arts, namely, the motion, operation, and power of the stars in astronomy, the art of alchemy, the art of knowing natures and working enchantments, and the art of geomancy. Aristotle was too old to come in person, and although it had been his intention to conceal in every way the secrets of the said sciences, yet he did not venture to contradict the will and command of so great a lord. He hid some matters, however, under enigmas and figurative locutions. For Alexander’s convenience he divided the work into ten books, each of which is divided into chapters and headings. Philip adds that for his readers’ convenience he has collected these headings at the beginning of the work, and a table of contents follows.[853] Then come the two older prologues [Pg 272] which we have already described, next a letter of Aristotle to Alexander on the extrinsic and intrinsic causes of his work,[854] and then with a chapter which is usually headed Distinctio regum or Reges sunt quatuor begins the discussion of kingship which is the backbone of the work.

It is evident from Philip’s preface that occult science also forms a leading feature in the work as known to him. Gaster, who contended that the Hebrew translation from the Arabic which he edited was as old as either John of Spain’s or Philip’s Latin translations, although the oldest of the four manuscripts which he collated for his text is dated only in 1382 A. D., made a rather misleading statement when he affirmed, “Of the astrology looming so largely in the later European recensions the Hebrew has only a faint trace.”[855] As a matter of fact some of the printed editions contain less astrology than the thirteenth century manuscripts, while Gaster’s Hebrew version has much more than “a faint trace” of astrology. But more of this later.

On the other hand, I cannot fully subscribe to Steinschneider’s characterization of The Secret of Secrets as “a wretched compilation of philosophical mysticism and varied superstition.”[856] Of superstition there is a great deal, but of philosophical mysticism there is practically none. Despite the title and the promise in Philip’s preface of enigmatic and figurative language, the tone of the text is seldom mystical, and its philosophy is of a very practical sort.

Nor can The Secret of Secrets be dismissed as merely “a wretched compilation.” Those portions which deal with [Pg 273] kingcraft and government display shrewdness and common sense, worldly wisdom and knowledge of human nature, are not restricted by being written from any one premise or view-point, and often evince real enlightenment. Those historians who have declared the love of fame a new product of the Italian Renaissance should have read the chapter on fame in this most popular book of the middle ages, where we find such statements as that royal power ought not to be desired for its own sake but for the sole purpose of achieving fame. Other noteworthy utterances indicative of the tone and thought of the book are that “the intellect ... is the root of all things praiseworthy”; that kings should cultivate the sciences; that liberality involves respect for others’ property; that “war destroys order and devastates the lands and turns everything to chaos”; that no earthly ruler should shed blood, which is reserved for God alone, but limit his punishments to imprisonment, flogging, and torture; that the king, as Chief Justice Coke later told James I, is under the law; that taxes upon merchants should be light so that they will remain in the country and contribute to its prosperity; that his people are a king’s true treasury and that he should acquaint himself with their needs and watch over their interests.

From the medical passages of the book one would infer that the art of healing at first developed more slowly than the art of ruling in the world’s history. The medical theory of The Secret of Secrets is not of an advanced or complex sort, but is a combination of curious notions, such as that vomiting once a month or oftener is beneficial, and sensible ideas, such as that life consists of natural heat and that it is very important to keep the abdomen warm and the bowels moving regularly. Turkish baths are described for perhaps the first time in Europe, and Alexander is advised to keep his teeth and mouth clean. The well-known apothegm of Hippocrates is quoted, “I would rather eat to live than live to eat,” and Alexander is advised to cease eating while he still has an appetite.

[Pg 274]

Much of the advice offered to Alexander by Aristotle in The Secret of Secrets is astrological. Among those studies which the king should promote, the only one specifically mentioned is astrology, which considers “the course of the year and of the stars, the coming festivals and solemnities of the month, the course of the planets, the cause of the shortening and lengthening of days and nights, the signs of the stars which determine the future and many other things which pertain to prediction of the future.”[857] Alexander is adjured “not to rise up or sit down or eat or drink or do anything without consulting a man skilled in the art of astronomy.”[858] Later the two parts of astronomy are distinguished, that is, astronomy and astrology in our sense of the words. Alexander is further warned to put no faith in the utterances of those stupid persons who declare that the science of the stars is too difficult to master. No less stupid is the argument of others who affirm that God has foreseen and foreordained everything from eternity and that consequently all things happen of necessity and it is therefore of no advantage to predict events which cannot be avoided. For even if things happened of necessity, it would be easier to bear them by foreknowing and preparing for them beforehand, just as men make preparations against the coming of a cold winter—the familiar contention of Ptolemy. But The Secret of Secrets also believes that one should pray God in His mercy to avert future evils and ordain otherwise, “For He has not so ordained things that to ordain otherwise derogates in any respect from His Providence.” But this is not so approved astrological doctrine. Later in the work Alexander is once more urged never to take medicine or open a vein except with the approval of his astronomers,[859] and directions are given as to the constellations under which [Pg 275] bleeding should be performed and also concerning the taking of laxatives with reference to the position of the moon in the signs of the zodiac.[860] Later the work discusses the relations of the four elements and of various herbs to the seven planets,[861] and in the next to last chapter Alexander is advised to conduct his wars under the guidance of astrology.[862]

There is much indulging in astrological theory in the midst of the chapter on Justice, and the constitution of the universe is set forth from the first and highest simple spiritual substance down through the nine heavens and spheres to the lowest inferiors. To illustrate the power of the stars the story is presently told of two boys,[863] one a weaver’s son, the other a royal prince of India. Sages who were chance guests in the weaver’s house at the time of the child’s birth noted that his horoscope was that of a courtier high in royal councils but kept their discovery to themselves. The boy’s parents vainly tried to make a weaver of him, but even beatings were in vain; he was finally allowed to follow his natural inclination, secured an education, and became in time a royal governor. The king’s son, on the contrary, despite his royal birth and the fact that his father sent him through all his provinces to learn the sciences, would take no interest in anything except mechanics conformably to his horoscope.

In The Secret of Secrets the Pseudo-Aristotle refers Alexander for the virtues of gems and herbs to his treatises on stones and plants, presumably those which we have already described. He does not entirely refrain from discussion [Pg 276] of such marvelous properties in the present work, however, mentioning the use of the virtues of stones in connection with incantations. We also again hear of stones which will prevent any army from withstanding Alexander or which will cause horses to whinny or keep them from doing so; and of herbs which bring true or false dreams or cause joy, love, hate, honor, reverence, courage, and inertia.[864] One recipe reads, “If you take in the name of someone seven grains of the seeds of the herb called androsimon, and hold them in his name when Lucifer and Venus are rising so that their rays touch him (or them?), and if you give him those seven grains to eat or pulverized in drink, fear of you will ever abide in his heart and he will obey you for the rest of his life.”[865] The discussion of incantations, astrological images, and amulets is omitted from many Latin manuscripts but occurs in Roger Bacon’s version.[866]

The extreme powers attributed to herbs and stones in The Secret of Secrets aroused some scepticism among its Latin readers of the thirteenth century.[867] Geoffrey of Waterford, a Dominican from Ireland who died about 1300, translated The Secret of Secrets into French. He criticized, however, its assertions concerning the virtues of stones and herbs as more akin to fables than to philosophy, a fact of which, he adds, all clerks who know Latin well are aware. He wonders why Alexander had to win his battles by hard fighting when Aristotle is supposed to inform him in this book of a stone which will always rout the enemy. Geoffrey decides that such false statements are the work of the translators and that Aristotle is the author only of what is well said or reasonable in the work.

Something is said in The Secret of Secrets of the occult properties and relative perfection of numbers, and as usual [Pg 277] the preference is for the numbers, three, four, seven, and ten.[868] The Hebrew version adds a puerile method of divining who will be victor in a battle by a numerical calculation based upon the letters in the names of the generals. The Latin versions of the thirteenth century contain a chapter on alchemy which had great influence and gives a recipe for the philosopher’s stone and the Emerald Table of Hermes.[869] But in the Hebrew version and Achillini’s printed text occurs a passage in which Alexander is warned that alchemy is not a true science.[870]

We may conclude our picture of the work’s contents with two of its stories, namely, concerning the poisonous maiden and the Jew and the Magus. A beautiful maiden was sent from India to Alexander with other rich gifts. But she had been fed upon poison from infancy “until she was of the nature of a snake. And had I not perceived it,” continues Aristotle in the Hebrew version, “for I suspected the clever men of those countries and their craft, and had I not found by tests that she would kill thee by her embrace and by her perspiration, she surely would have killed thee.”[871] This venomous maiden is also alluded to in various medieval discussions of poisons. Peter of Abano mentions her in his De venenis.[872] Gilbert of England, following no doubt Gerard of Cremona’s translation of Avicenna, cites Ruffus rather than the Pseudo-Aristotle concerning her and says nothing of her relations with Alexander, but adds that animals who approached her spittle were killed by it.[873] In Le Secret aux philosophes, a French work of the closing thirteenth [Pg 278] century, where the story is told at considerable length, Socrates rather than Aristotle saves Alexander from the poisonous maid.[874]

In the other story a Magus is represented in a much more favorable light than magicians generally were; he seems to represent rather one of the Persian sages. He was traveling on a mule with provisions and met a Jew traveling on foot. Their talk soon turned to their respective religions and moral standards. The Magus professed altruism; the Jew was inclined to get the better of all men except Jews. When these principles had been stated, the Jew requested the Magus, since he professed to observe the law of love, to dismount and let him ride the mule. No sooner had this been done than the Jew, true to his law of selfishness and hate, made off with both mule and provisions. This misfortune did not lead the Magus to lose his faith in God, however, and as he plodded along he by and by came again upon the Jew who had fallen off the mule and broken his neck. The Magus then mercifully brought the Jew to the nearest town where he died, while the king of the country made the Magus one of his trusted ministers of state.[875]

SOLOMON AND THE ARS NOTORIA

It was only natural that Solomon, regarded as the wisest man in the history of the world, should be represented in oriental tradition as the worker of many marvels and that in the course of time books of magic should be attributed to him, just as treatises on the interpretation of dreams were ascribed to Joseph and Daniel. Roger Bacon speaks of the magic books in a grand-sounding style which were falsely ascribed to Solomon and which “ought all to be prohibited by law.”[876] Solomon’s reputation as a magician, even in the western Latin-speaking world, was much older than the thirteenth century, however. In 1918 Roman archaeologists excavated at Ostia a bronze disc, on one side of which was depicted Solomon as a magician, stirring with a long ladle some mess in a large cauldron. On the other side of the disc was a figure of the triple Hecate, who, like Solomon, was surrounded by mystic signs and magic characters.[877]

But to return to the medieval period. In the first half of the thirteenth century William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, in his treatise on laws declares that there is no divinity [Pg 280] in the angles of Solomon’s pentagon, that the rings of Solomon and the seals of Solomon and the nine candles (candariae) are a form of idolatry, and involve execrable consecrations and detestable invocations and images. “As for that horrible image called the Idea Salomonis et entocta, let it never be mentioned among Christians.” In the same class are the book called Sacratus and the figure Mandel or Amandel.[878] Some years later Albertus Magnus, listing evil books of necromantic images in his Speculum astronomiae,[879] includes five treatises current under the name of Solomon, and seems to have in mind about the same works as William. One is De figura Almandel, another De novem candariis, and a third on the four rings (De quatuor annulis) opens with the words “De arte eutonica et ideica,” which remind one of William’s “Idea Salomonis et entocta,” and is perhaps also identical with a Liber de umbris idearum cited under the name of Solomon by Cecco d’Ascoli in his necromantic commentary upon the Sphere of Sacrobosco,[880] written in the early fourteenth century.

Moreover, these same works are apparently still extant in manuscripts in European libraries. The figure Almandal or Almandel and the rings of Solomon are found in fifteenth century manuscripts at Florence and Paris,[881] while in the Sloane collection of the British Museum we find Solomon’s pentagon, the divine seal, the four rings, and the nine candles, all in seventeenth century manuscripts.[882] In these seventeenth century manuscripts also appear, and more than once, the Clavicula or Key of Solomon, in French, Italian, [Pg 281] and English,[883] the book by Solomon called Cephar or Saphar Raziel,[884] and the Liber sacer or sacratus.[885] The last-named work, mentioned at least twice in the thirteenth century by William of Auvergne, who calls it “a cursed and execrable book,”[886] is also found in manuscripts of the fourteenth or fifteenth century,[887] and we shall presently consider it in particular as a specimen of the Pseudo-Solomon literature and of medieval books of magic, theurgy, and necromancy.

Let us first, however, note some other works ascribed to Solomon and which have to do with the Ars Notoria, or Notory Art, which seeks to gain knowledge from or communion with God by invocation of angels, mystic figures, and magical prayers. We are told that the Creator revealed this art through an angel to Solomon one night while he was praying, and that by it one can in a short time acquire all the liberal and mechanical arts.[888] There seems to be little difference between the notory art of Solomon, that of [Pg 282] Solomon, Machineus, and Euclid,[889] and the Golden Flowers of Apollonius,[890] in which Solomon is mentioned almost every other sentence. Cecco d’Ascoli may have had it in mind when he cited the Book of Magic Art of Apollonius and the Angelic Faction of the same author.[891] In one manuscript at the close of the Golden Flowers of Apollonius are prayers which one “brother John Monk” confesses he himself has composed in the years 1304-1307.[892] In a later manuscript we find his prayers described as given to him by the blessed God and as “perfect science,” and they are followed by “The Pauline art,” discovered by the Apostle Paul after he had been snatched up to the third heaven, and delivered by him at Corinth.[893] Other works of notory art are listed in the manuscript catalogues without name of author.[894] But all alike are apt to impress the present reader as unmeaning jumbles of diagrams and magic words.[895] We shall sufficiently [Pg 283] illustrate them all when we come to speak of the Liber sacratus which is itself in large measure concerned with the Notory Art.

Certain works may be mentioned which are ascribed to Solomon or to Apollonius in the medieval manuscripts, and which do not seem to be concerned with the notory art. Experiments ascribed to Solomon will be mentioned in another place in connection with experimental literature. Treatises of alchemy and astrology also were attributed to him.[896] Under the name of Apollonius we find a work on the properties or occult virtue of things, and another, or possibly the same, on the principal causes of things.[897] One wonders if it may have any connection with the book on six principles of things ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus and which has been discussed in our chapter on Hermetic Books in the Middle Ages. A treatise on palmistry is ascribed to Solomon in a fourteenth century manuscript at Cambridge.[898] A “Philosophy of Solomon” in a manuscript of the late twelfth century in the British Museum consists of “notes perhaps from more than one source on the analogy between the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the three divisions of philosophy (moralis, naturalis, inspectiva), and the three books of Solomon.”[899]

The Liber sacratus, as William of Auvergne twice entitles it, or the Liber sacer or Liber juratus, as it is also [Pg 284] called in the manuscripts,[900] is associated with the name Honorius as well as Solomon, and is often spoken of as The Sworn Book of Honorius. The preface, as given in the Latin manuscripts of the fourteenth century—one of which once belonged to Ben Jonson—states that under the influence of evil spirits the pope and cardinals had passed a decree aiming at the complete extirpation of the magic art and condemning magicians to death. The grounds for this action were that magicians and necromancers were injuring everyone, transgressing the statutes of holy mother church, making invocations and sacrifices to demons, and dragging ignorant people down to damnation by their marvelous illusions. These charges the magicians hotly deny as inspired by the envy and cupidity of the devil who wished to keep a monopoly of such marvels. The magicians declare that it is impossible for a wicked or impure man to work truly by the magic art, in which they assert that the spirits are compelled against their will by pure men. The magicians further profess to have been forewarned by their art of this legislation against them. They hesitate, however, to summon the demons to their aid lest those spirits avail themselves of the opportunity to destroy the populace utterly. Instead an assembly of 89 masters from Naples, Athens, and Toledo has chosen Honorius, son of Euclid,[901] a master of Thebes, to reduce their magic books to one volume containing 93 chapters, which they may more readily conceal and preserve. And inasmuch as it has pleased the prelates and princes to order the burning of their books and the destruction of schools of magic, the followers of that art have taken an oath not to give this volume to anyone until its owner is on his death-bed, never to have more than three copies of it made at a time, and never to give it to a woman or to a man who is not of mature years and proved fidelity. Each new recipient of the sacred volume is also to take this oath. [Pg 285] Hence the name, Juratus or Sworn-Book. Its other titles, Sacer or Sacratus, refer either to the sacred names of God which constitute much of its text or to its consecration by the angels.

After this proemium, which, like the magic art itself, is probably more impressive than true, the work proper opens with the statement, “In the name of almighty God and Jesus Christ, one and true God, I, Honorius, have thus ordered the works of Solomon in my book.” Later Honorius reiterates that he is following the precepts and in the foot-prints of Solomon, whom he also often cites or quotes in course. The Explicit of the Sworn-Book is unusually long and sets forth in grandiloquent style the purpose of the volume.

“So ends the book of the life of the rational soul,[902] which is entitled Liber sacer or The Book of the Angels or Liber juratus, which Honorius, Master of Thebes, made. This is the book by which one can see God in this life. This is the book by which anyone can be saved and led beyond a doubt to life eternal. This is the book by which one can see hell and purgatory without death. This is the book by which every creature can be subjected except the nine orders of angels. This is the book by which all science can be learned. This is the book by which the weakest substance can overcome and subjugate the strongest substances. This is the book which no religion possesses except the Christian, or if it does, does so to no avail. This is the book which is a greater joy than any other joy given by God exclusive of the sacraments. This is the book by which corporeal and visible nature can converse and reason with the incorporeal and invisible and be instructed. This is the book by which countless treasures can be had. And by means of it many other things can be done which it would take too long to enumerate; therefore it is deservedly called The Holy Book.”

From this description it will be seen that the work has a good deal to do with the so-called Notory Art. Moreover, [Pg 286] in the manuscript copy said to have belonged to Ben Jonson the word Theurgia is written on the fly-leaves before the beginning and after the close of the text. This calls to mind the passage in The City of God[903] where Augustine speaks of “incantations and formulae composed by an art of depraved curiosity which they either call magic or by the more detestable name goetia or by the honorable title theurgia. For they try to distinguish between these arts and condemn some men, whom the populace calls malefici, as devoted to illicit arts, for these, they say, are concerned with goetia; but others they want to make out praiseworthy as being engaged in theurgy. But they are both entangled in the deceptive rites of demons who masquerade under the names of angels.”

The text is full of the names of spirits, prayers in strange words, supposedly derived from Hebrew or Chaldaic, and other gibberish. Series of letters and figures often occur and names inscribed in stars, hexagons, and circles. An English translation in a fifteenth century manuscript[904] is adorned with pictures of rows of spirits dressed like monks in robes and caps but with angelic wings. The text does not seem to be complete in any of the manuscripts that I have examined,[905] but Sloane 3854 of the fourteenth century contains an apparently complete table of contents. The chapter headings, anyway, are more intelligible than the jargon of the text. The first chapter deals with the composition of the great name of God which contains 72 letters. The second is about the divine vision and by the time it is finished we are nearly two-thirds through the space allotted to the Liber juratus in one manuscript. The third chapter is on knowledge of the divine power, the fourth on absolution from sin, the fifth deals with mortal sin, the sixth with the redemption of souls from purgatory. With this the “first work” of the collection of Honorius ends. The [Pg 287] opening chapters of the second work discuss the heavens, the angels found in each heaven and at the four points of the compass, their names and powers, seals and virtues, and invocation. Chapters 14 and 15 tell how to get your wish from any angel or to acquire the sciences. Chapter 16 tells how to learn the hour of one’s death, and chapter 17 how to know all things, past, present, or future. It was perhaps these chapters that William of Auvergne had in mind when, in censuring works on divination by inspection of mirrors, sword-blades, and human nails to discover stolen articles and other hidden things, he added that “from this pest of curiosity proceeded that accursed and execrable work called Liber sacratus.”[906] That work next returns for three chapters to the stars and planets and their virtues and influence. Chapter 21 then instructs how to turn day into night or night into day. Next spirits are further considered, those of air and those of fire, their names and their superior spirits, their powers, virtues, and seals. Attention is then given to the four elements and bodies composed thereof, to herbs and plants, and to human nature, after which aquatic and terrestrial spirits are discussed. The future life is then considered and the 33rd chapter, which is the last one of the “second work,” deals with “the consecration of this book.”

The “third work,” which extends from chapter 34 to 87 inclusive, treats of the control of spirits by words, by seals, by tables, and by shutting them up. It tells how to provoke thunder and lightning, storms, snow, ice, rain, or dew; how to produce flowers and fruit; how to become invisible; how to wage war and to make an indestructible castle, how to destroy a town by means of mirrors; how to sow discord or concord, how to open closed doors, to catch thieves, fish, and animals, and to produce varied apparitions.

The fourth work deals with similar marvels but it is stated that two of its chapters, namely, 91 on the apparition of dead bodies which speak and seem to be resuscitated, and 92 on the apparent creation of animals from earth, will be [Pg 288] omitted as contrary to the will of God. The fifth work or book, which seems to coincide with the 93rd and last chapter of Honorius, is in reality divided into five chapters, which return to themes similar to those of the first work.

To illustrate further the character of the work a few particular passages may be noticed. We are told that there are three ways of operating by means of spirits: the pagan, Jewish, and Christian. The pagans sacrificed to spirits of earth and air but did not really constrain them. The spirits only pretended to be coerced in order to encourage such idolatrous practices. “Whoever wishes to operate by such experiments” (mark the word!), “deserts the Lord God.” As for the Jews, they get along only so-so, and “do in no wise work to obtain the vision of the deity.” Only a Christian, therefore, can operate successfully in such visions. “And although three kinds of men work at this art of magic, one should not think that there is any evil included in this name of magus, for a magus per se is called a philosopher in Greek, a scribe in Hebrew, and a sage in Latin.”[907]

Very elaborate directions are given for the composition of the seal of the living God. Circles are drawn of certain proportions emblematic of divine mysteries, a cross is made within, numerous letters are written down equidistant from one another. A pentagon and two hexagons have to be placed just so in relation to one another; characters are inscribed in their angles; and various sacred names of God, Raphael, Michael, and other angels are written along their sides. Different parts must be executed in different colors; a particular kind of parchment must be employed; and the blood of a mole or hoopoe or bat must be used as ink for some of the writing. Finally, there are sacrifices, purifications, suffumigations, invocations, and prayers to be performed and offered. This seal, we are told, “will conquer the celestial powers, subjugate the aerial and terrestrial together with the infernal; invoke, transmit, conjure, constrain, excite, gather, disperse, bind, and restore unharmed;[Pg 289] will placate men and gain petitions from them graciously, pacify enemies,”[908] etc., etc.

The spirits associated with the planet Saturn are Bohel, Casziel, Uuchathon, and Dacdel. Their nature is to cause sadness and wrath and hate, to produce ice and snow. Their bodies are long and large, pale or golden. Their region is in the north and they have five or nine demons under them.[909] As a rule spirits of the north and south are ferocious, those of the east and the west gentle.[910]

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL DREAM-BOOKS

Both Jews and Greeks at the beginning of the Christian era were much given to the interpretation of dreams. There were “established and frequented dreaming places” at the shrines of Asclepius at Epidaurus, Amphiaraus at Oropus, Amphilochus at Mallos, Sarpedon in the Troad, Trophonius at Lebedea, Mopsus in Cilicia, Hermonia in Macedon, and Pasiphaë in Laconia. We hear of dream-books by Artemon, Antiphon, Strato, Philochoros, Epicharmus, Serapion, Cratippus, Dionysius of Rhodes, and Hermippus of Beirut. But the chief work upon the interpretation of dreams which has reached us from the time of the Roman Empire is that of Artemidorus, who was born at Ephesus and lived in Lydia in the time of the Antonines. He of course wrote in Greek and, despite the superstitious character of his work, in a pure and refined Attic style. The Ὀνειροκριτικά has also been translated into Latin, French, and Italian.[911] It is [Pg 291] a compilation in five books gathered from previous literature on the subject and by the author personally in travel in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere. The first thirteen chapters of the fourth book, which Artemidorus opens with a general instruction to his son, deal with such preliminary and general considerations as the different types of dreams and more especially those divinely sent, the significance of times, the personal qualifications requisite in the interpreter, and certain rules of interpretation such as that native customs are good signs and foreign ways bad signs in dreams. But the great bulk of the work consists of specific interpretation arranged either under topical headings such as “Concerning Nativity,” or listed as single dreams.

In the edition of 1603[912] the work of Artemidorus is followed by much briefer metrical treatises on the same subject by Astrampsychos and Nicephorus.[913] These poems, if they may be so called, devote a line of interpretation to each of the things seen in dreams, and these verses are arranged in alphabetical order. This was to be the method of arrangement adopted in the medieval dream-books ascribed to the prophet Daniel. Astrampsychos is first named by Diogenes Laertius[914] in the early third century. He was supposed to have been one of the Persian Magi, and other occult treatises are ascribed to him, including astrological writings, a book of oracles addressed to Ptolemy, and love charms in a papyrus in the British Museum.[915]

Still another work on the interpretation of dreams contained in the edition of 1603[916] is ascribed to “Achmet, the [Pg 292] son of Sereim” or Ahmed ben Sirin.[917] The Greek text states that he was interpreter of dreams to Mamoun, the first minister of the Caliph, which fixes his date as about 820 A. D.[918] Perhaps he is the same Achmet who wrote an astrological treatise extant in Greek which he says he compiled from books from Adam’s time to the present day.[919] Of the work on dreams there is a Latin version in the medieval manuscripts translated from the Greek by Leo Tuscus,[920] who died in 1182 and was interpreter of imperial letters in the time of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenus. Leo prefixes to his translation a prologue addressed [Pg 293][921] to his brother Hugo Eterianus or Eteriarius (Ecerialius). This work of Achmet is of about the same length as that of Artemidorus and contains over three hundred chapters. It is or pretends to be drawn mainly from Indian, Persian, and Egyptian sources and often cites in turn the doctrine or interpretation of those three peoples, or mentions by name interpreters of dreams of the kings and pharaohs of those countries.[922] The preface states that the same dream must be interpreted differently in the case of king and commoner, of rich and poor, and according to sex. The time of the dream must also be taken into account. For example, to see a tree blossom is a good sign in spring but a bad omen in autumn. The hour of the night when the dream occurs and the phases of the moon are other time factors which must be reckoned with. The remainder of the treatise is devoted to specific interpretation of dreams.

To Joseph and Daniel, as the chief Biblical interpreters of dreams, books on the subject were assigned in the middle ages, as John of Salisbury has informed us. Daniel, however, seems to have been the greater favorite. Liutprand the Lombard, who died in 972, says in the account of his embassy to Constantinople, “The Greeks and Saracens have books which they call the horaseis, or Visions, of Daniel, but I should call them Sibylline. In them is found written how many years each emperor will live, and what will be the character of his reign, whether peace or strife, whether favorable or hostile relations with the Saracens.”[Pg 294][923] A brief set of Greek verses in alphabetical order ascribed to the emperor Leo, which occur in a late manuscript with various works of the fathers, seem to resemble the Latin alphabetical dream-books of which we shall presently treat.[924] Works of divination were also attributed to Daniel in Syriac and Arabic, such as predictions of rain, hail, and the like for each day of the year, and of eclipses and earthquakes,[925] or astrological forecasts for each month of the year.[926] There is even a geomancy in Turkish ascribed to the prophet Daniel.[927]

Dream-Books ascribed to the prophet Daniel are found in Latin manuscripts at least as early as the tenth century, and continue through the fifteenth century despite the denial of their authenticity by John of Salisbury in the twelfth century. At least three different types of Dream-Books of Daniel are represented in incunabula editions in the British Museum.[928] The Dream-Book of Joseph occurs with less [Pg 295] frequency.[929] These Latin Dream-Books do not go into details of politics like the Byzantine books which Liutprand described. The simplest form, which we have already mentioned in speaking of the Moon-Books of the tenth and eleventh centuries, is according to the days of the moon.[930] It is often embodied in the fuller versions. Their usual arrangement is an alphabetical list of objects seen in dreams with a line of interpretation for each and perhaps a page for each letter of the alphabet. Sample lines are:

This alphabetical arrangement already appears in the early manuscripts.[931] Sometimes, however, the procedure is by opening the Psalter at random, taking the first letter on the page opened to, and then referring to a list where the letters of the alphabet have various significations, such as “A signifies power of delight,” “B signifies victory in war.”[932] This last method might, of course, be employed without having any dream at all, and perhaps should not be regarded as a Dream-Book. It is interesting to note that in one manuscript it is called Experiments of Daniel. In these books of [Pg 296] Daniel further instructions are sometimes given, as when it is stated that dreams which occur before midnight are of no value for purposes of interpretation, or when one is told before opening the Psalter to repeat on bended knees a Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, and Miserere. Days to be observed are also sometimes mentioned as a sort of accompaniment to the Dream-Book: forty dangerous days “which the masters of the Greeks have tested by experiment,”[933] “bromantic days” from the twenty-fourth of November to the eighteenth of December, and “perentalic days” from the first of January to the first of March. “And these are the days when the leaves fall from the trees,” which is apparently supposed to have a disturbing effect upon the clarity of dreams.[934]

A Sompniale dilucidarium Pharaonis, as it is entitled in the manuscript of it which I have examined,[935] or Morale somnium Pharaonis, as it is called in the printed editions,[936] was addressed by a John of Limoges[937] to Theobald, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne and Brie, who died in 1216.[938] It is really not a Dream-Book but a series of imaginary and fulsomely rhetorical letters between Pharaoh and his Magi, Pharaoh and Joseph, and Joseph and adulators and detractors. John states in his introductory letter to Theobald that the famous dream of Pharaoh will here be “morally expounded concerning royal discipline.” Pharaoh typifies any curious king; Egypt stands for any studious kingdom; Joseph represents any virtuous counselor; and the [Pg 297] dream will be interpolated with flowers of rhetoric and theology.

More elaborate and making more pretense to philosophical character than the brief Dream-Books of Daniel is an anonymous work on dreams contained in a Paris manuscript of apparently the later part of the thirteenth century.[939] It is the first treatise in the manuscript, which further contains two important works of the first half of the twelfth century, namely, the Imago mundi of Honorius of Autun and the De philosophia of William of Conches. The texts of these two latter works are much cut up and intermixed with each other. It is therefore not unlikely that the opening treatise on dreams is also a work of the twelfth century, although there does not seem to be much reason for ascribing it either to Honorius of Autun or William of Conches. A long prohemium fails to throw much light upon the personality of the author, but the work does not seem to be a translation. That it is not earlier than the twelfth century is indicated by its citation of the Viaticum and Passionarius, presumably the well known medical works of Constantine Africanus and Gariopontus,[940]—unless indeed it be by Constantinus himself, to some of whose views it shows a resemblance.

The preface opens by stating that a desirable treasure lies hidden in the heart of the wise but that it is of no utility unless it is revealed. In other words, dreams must be interpreted. [Pg 298] The author regards dreams, like thoughts in general, as beginning with the spiritus which rises from the heart and ascends through two arteries to the brain.[941] Our author perhaps still holds to Aristotle’s view of the importance of the heart in the nervous system as against Galen’s exclusive emphasis upon the brain, since he allots the heart a share even in mental processes; and he seems to be ignorant of Galen’s discovery that the arteries contain blood and not spiritus.

The preface goes on to justify the study of dreams on the ground that “the most ancient Magi and perfect physicians” thereby adjudged to each man health and sickness, life and death. “Medicine and divine thoughts, dreams, visions, or oracles are not prohibited, but demoniacal incantations, sorcery, lot-castings, insomnia, and vain phantasms are condemned that you may not readily trust in them.”[942] No doctrine is to be spurned wholesale, but only what is vicious in it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego excelled all the Magi and soothsayers of the Chaldeans. Our author explains that among the Chaldeans then as today learning consisted not of the philosophy and sophistry of the Greeks and Latins, but of astronomy and interpretations of dreams. He alludes to a prayer of seven verses which they repeat when going to bed in order to receive responses in dreams. They pay little heed to the superficial meaning of their dreams, but by examining the inner meaning they learn either past or future. The author exhorts the person to whom he addresses the preface to do the same, laying aside all terrors that dreams may arouse in him. He points out that interpretation of dreams has Biblical sanction and that Joseph, Daniel, and Marduch all profited thereby.

As for the present treatise, it is collected from divine and human scripture, based upon experience as well as reason, [Pg 299] and drawn from Latins, Greeks, Persians, and the annals of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar in which many of their dreams are recorded, for they were both lovers of the future and, since they had no philosophers like the Gentiles, God allowed them as a compensation to foresee the future in dreams. For by dreams life and death, poverty and riches, sickness and health, sorrow and joy, flight and victory, are known more easily than through astrology, a more difficult and manifold art.[943] But lest his introduction grow too long, the author at this point ends it and begins the text proper.

After stating what a dream is, the author discusses the origin and causes of dreams further. Some are from the devil or at least are influenced by demons, as when a monk was led to become a Jew by a dream in which he saw Moses with a chorus of angels in white, while Christ was surrounded by men in black. But when we see chimeras in dreams, this is generally due to impurity of the blood. The author also opines that, while the sage can judge from the nature of the dream whether there is fallacy and illusion of the demon in it, the origin of virtues and vices is mainly in ourselves. He who goes to sleep with an easy conscience is unlikely to be disturbed by nightmares and is more likely in quiet slumber to behold secrets and mysteries. The author next discusses the effect of the passions and exercise of the mental faculties upon the liver, heart, and brain. He adopts the common medieval view that the brain contains three ventricles devoted respectively to imagination, reason, and memory. He explains that the so-called incubus, popularly thought of as a dwarf or satyr who sits on the sleeper, is really a feeling of suffocation produced by blood-pressure near the heart. The interpretation of a dream must vary according to the social rank of the person concerned. As images in a mirror deceive the ordinary observer but are readily accounted for by the geometer, and as the philosopher notes the significations of other planets than the sun and moon, whose effects alone impress the vulgar herd, so [Pg 300] there are dreams which only a skilled interpreter can explain. Dreams are affected by food and by the humors prevailing in the body, and also by the occult virtues of gems, of which a list is given from “Evax” or Marbod.[944]

The second book takes up again the varying significations of dreams according to the person concerned, and also the significance of the time of the dream. The four seasons, the phases of the moon, nativity of the dreamer, and hour of the night are discussed. The remaining two-thirds of the treatise consists in stating the interpretation to be placed upon the varied persons and things seen in dreams, beginning with God and Jesus Christ, and continuing with crucifixes, idols, statues, bells, hell, the resurrection of the dead, and so on and so forth. Early mention of eunuchs and icons suggests a Byzantine source. More especially in the last third of the treatise, various marginal headings indicate that the interpretations are “according to the Indians” or “according to the Persians and Egyptians,” which suggests that use is being made of the work of Achmet or of Leo Tuscus’ translation thereof.

The influence of Achmet’s work is also seen in a treatise on the prognostication of dreams compiled by master William of Aragon.[945] It opens by referring to the labors in this art of the ancient philosophers of India, Persia, Egypt, and Greece, and later it cites Smarchas the Indian,[946] whom I take to be the same as the Strbachan of Achmet’s second chapter. William justifies writing his treatise by saying that while there may be many Dream-Books in existence already, they are mere Practice and without reason, while he intends to base the prediction of the future from dreams upon rational [Pg 301] speculation, and to support his particular reasoning by specific examples.[947] He makes more use of Aristotle’s classification of dreams[948] than the anonymous work just considered, from which he further differs in dwelling more upon the connection of dreams with the constellations.[949] The second part of his treatise consists of twelve chapters devoted to the twelve astrological houses.[950] Earlier he mentions that at the nativity of Alexander an eagle with extended wings rested all day on the roof of the palace of his father Philip.[951] In stating the signification of various objects William has a chapter on what different parts of the human body signify when seen in dreams.[952] Like our previous works on divination from dreams, he lays considerable stress upon experience, illustrating his statement that dreams are often due to bodily ills by cases which “I have seen,”[953] and also asserting that it is shown by experience that dreams seen on the first four days of the week are most quickly fulfilled.[954]

This William of Aragon is no doubt the same who commented upon the Centiloquium ascribed to Ptolemy.[955] From his medical experience and his tendency to give an astrological explanation for everything one is tempted to identify him further with the William Anglicus or William of Marseilles who wrote the treatise of astrological medicine entitled, Of Urine Unseen, in the year 1219, but it is of course unlikely that the same man would be called of Aragon as well as of England and Marseilles or that the words Anglicus and Aragonia should be confused by copyists.

The treatise on dreams has been printed among the works of Arnald of Villanova,[956] a physician who interpreted dreams for the kings of Aragon and Sicily at the end of the thirteenth century, under the title Expositio (or, Expositiones) [Pg 302] visionum quae fiunt in somniis.[957] The Histoire Littéraire de la France[958] has noted that in the manuscript copies the work was anonymous and not ascribed to Arnald, but I believe that I am the first to identify it with the work of William of Aragon.

In the same manuscript with the Sompniale dilucidarium Pharaonis and the work of William of Aragon on dreams just described is another long anonymous work on the interpretation of dreams.[959] It makes the usual points that the meaning of dreams varies with times and persons. But the treatise consists chiefly[960] of a mass of significations which are not even arranged in alphabetical order, a failing which it is attempted to remedy by an alphabetical index at the close.[961]

In our preceding book on the twelfth century we included some writers, like Alexander Neckam, who lived on a few years into the following century but whose works were probably written in the twelfth. We now, with Michael Scot, begin to treat of authors whose period of literary productivity dates after 1200. We shall endeavor to consider the various authors and works in something like chronological order, but this is often difficult to determine and in one or two cases we shall purposely disregard strict chronology in order to bring works of the same sort together. Our last four chapters on Arnald of Villanova, Raymond Lull, Peter of Abano, and Cecco d’Ascoli carry us over the threshold of the fourteenth century, the death of the last-named not occurring until 1327.

Greater voluminousness and thoroughness mark the work of these writers as compared with those of the twelfth century. The work of translation has been partly accomplished; that of compilation, reconciliation, criticism, and further personal investigation and experimentation proceeds more rapidly and extensively. The new Friar Orders invade the world of learning as of everything else: of the writers whose names head the following chapters Bartholomew of England and Roger Bacon were Franciscans;[962] Thomas of Cantimpré, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas were Dominicans. In these representatives of the new religious Orders, however, theology [Pg 306] cannot be said to absorb attention at the expense of natural science. The prohibitions of the study of the works of Aristotle in the field of natural philosophy by the University of Paris early in the century preceded the friars and were not lasting, and the mid-century struggle of the friars with the other teachers at Paris[963] was one over privilege and organization rather than tenets. Teachers and writers were, however, sometimes condemned for their intellectual views at Paris and elsewhere in the thirteenth century, and whether the study of natural science and astrology was persecuted is a question which will arise more than once. In any case the friars seem to have declined in scientific prowess as in other respects toward the close of the century. Petrus Hispanus, who became Pope John XXI in 1276-1277, had not been a friar himself, and is said to have been more favorable to men of learning than to the regular clergy. Finally, in Guido Bonatti, Arnald of Villanova, Peter of Abano, and Cecco d’Ascoli we come to laymen, physicians and astrologers, who were to some extent either anti-clerical themselves or the object of clerical attack.

This was the century in which Roger Bacon launched his famous eulogy of experimental science. A good-sized fleet of passages recognizing its importance will be found, however, in our other authors, and we shall need to devote two chapters to experimental books which were either anonymous or pretended to date back to ancient or Arabic authors. And not without some justification, since we have been tracing the history of experimental science through our previous books.

MICHAEL SCOT

But little can be said with certainty concerning the life of Michael Scot.[964] However, a poem by Henry of Avranches, [Pg 308] addressed to the emperor Frederick II in 1235 or 1236,[965] [Pg 309] shows that Michael was then dead and that he apparently had occupied the position of astrologer at the court of Frederick II at the time of his death. The poet explains how astrologers (mathematici) “reveal the secrets of things,” by their art affecting numbers, by numbers affecting the procession of the stars, and by the stars moving the universe. He recalls having heard “certain predictions concerning you, O Caesar, from Michael Scot who was a scrutinizer of the stars, an augur, a soothsayer, a second Apollo”; and then tells how “the truthful diviner Michael” ceased to publish his secrets to the world, and “the announcer of fates submitted to fate,” apparently in the midst of some prediction made on his death-bed. Michael’s own statements also show that he was one of Frederick’s astrologers.[966] If at the time of his death Michael was Frederick’s astrologer, it is more questionable at what date his association with Frederick began, and in what countries Michael resided with the emperor, or accompanied him to, whether Sicily, southern Italy, northern Italy, or Germany. From the fact that three of Michael Scot’s works, or rather, the three chief divisions of his longest extant work,[967] namely, Liber Introductorius, Liber Particularis, and Phisionomia, were written at the request of Frederick II for beginners[968] and apparently in the time of Innocent III,[969] J. Wood Brown jumped to the conclusion that Michael was Frederick’s tutor before that monarch came of age, and that he spent some time in the island of Sicily, from which Brown failed to distinguish [Pg 310] Frederick’s larger kingdom of Sicily.[970] As a matter of fact, there would seem to be rather more evidence for connecting Michael with Salerno than with any Sicilian city, since in one manuscript of his translation for the emperor of the work of Avicenna on animals he is spoken of as “an astronomer of Salerno,”[971] while in another manuscript he is associated with a Philip, clerk of the king of Sicily, and this royal notary in two deeds of 1200 is called Philip of Salerno.[972] Brown was inclined to identify him further with Philip of Tripoli, the translator of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets.

No date in Michael’s career before the thirteenth century is fixed. If it is true that the three sections of his main work were written under Innocent III, that places them between 1198 and 1216. The date of his translation of the astronomical work of Alpetragius or Alpetrangi (Nûr ed-din el-Betrûgî, Abû Ishâq) seems to have been in the year 1217 on Friday, August 18, in the third hour and at Toledo. [Pg 311][973] Brown holds that Michael translated Avicenna on animals in 1210 for Frederick II and that the emperor kept it to himself until 1232, when he allowed Henry of Cologne to copy it.[974] But the date 1210 perhaps applies only to a glossary of Arabic terms which accompanies the work and which is ascribed to a “Master Al.”[975] In a thirteenth century manuscript at Cambridge Michael Scot’s translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals is accompanied by a note which begins, “And I Michael Scot who translated this book into Latin swear that in the year 1221 on Wednesday, October twenty-first.”[976] The note and date, however, do not refer to the completion of the translation but to a consultation in which a woman showed him two stones like eggs which came from another woman’s womb and of which he gives a painstakingly detailed description. There is, however, something wrong with the date, since in 1221 the twenty-first of October fell on Thursday.[977]