THORNDIKE Lynn: A History of Magic and Experimental Science 1923 Vol 2
Short Description
Download THORNDIKE Lynn: A History of Magic and Experimental Science 1923 Vol 2...
Description
A HISTORY OF MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE VOLUME
II
A HISTORY OF MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE DURING THE FIRST THIRTEEN CENTURIES OF OUR ERA
BY
LYNN THORNDIKE
VOLUME
II
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
Copyright 1923 Columbia University Press by The Macmillan Company 1923
First published
ISBN Manufactured
0-231-08795-0
in the
United States of America
10 9 8 7
CONTENTS BOOK
IV.
THE TWELFTH CENTURY
CHAPTER 35.
36. 37.
PAGE
The Early
Scholastics: Peter Abelard and OF St. Victor
Hugh 3
Adelard of Bath William of Conches
14 50
40.
Some Twelfth Century Translators, Chiefly of Astrology from the Arabic Bernard Silvester; Astrology and Geomancy Saint Hildegard of Bingen
124
41.
John
155
42.
Daniel of Morley and Roger of Hereford
43.
Alexander Neckam on the Natures of Things
44.
Moses Maimonides
205
45.
Hermetic Books in the Middle Ages
214
46.
Kiranides
47.
Prester John and the Marvels of India
48.
The
49.
Solomon and the Ars Notoria Ancient and Medieval Dream-Books
38.
39.
50.
.
of Salisbury
51.
53. 54.
.... .
.
99
171
188
229
....
Pseudo-Aristotle
BOOK
52.
.
66
V.
"Z^^d
246 279
290
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
Foreword
305
Michael Scot William of Auvergne Thomas of Cantimpre Bartholomew of England
307 338 372 401
55.
Robert Grosseteste
436
56.
Vincent of Beauvais Early Thirteenth Century Medicine: Gilbert of England and William of England
457
57.
V
477
CONTENTS
vi CHAPTER
PAGE
58.
Petrus Hispanus
59.
Albertus Magnus I.
II.
III,
488 517
Life
As
521
a Scientist
His Allusions
528 to
Magic
IV. Marvelous Virtues
in
548
Nature
560
V. Attitude Toward Astrology 60.
Thomas Aquinas
61.
Roger Bacon I.
11.
III.
577 593
616
Life
619
Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning
.
Experimental Science
630 649
64.
Toward Magic and Astrology The Speculum Astronomiae Three Treatises Ascribed to Albert Experiments and Secrets: Medical and Biological
65.
Experiments AND Secrets: Chemical AND Magical
66.
PiCATRix
67.
70.
GUIDO BONATTI AND BARTHOLOMEW OF PaRMA Arnald OF Villanova Raymond Lull Peter of Abano
71.
Cecco d'Ascoli
948
72.
Conclusion
969
IV. Attitude
62. 63.
68. 69.
.
.
.
659 692 720
.
.
751
777 813
.
.
.
825 841
862 874
Indices:
General
985 1007
Bibliographical
Manuscripts
.
.
.
1027
A HISTORY OF MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE VOLUME
II
BOOK Chapter 35.
IV.
THE TWELFTH CENTURY
The Early
Hugh
Scholastics
:
Peter Abelard and
of St. Victor.
Adelard of Bath. "
"
37-
William of Conches.
38.
Some Twelfth Century
39-
Bernard Silvester
40.
St.
41.
45
John of Salisbury. Daniel of Morley and Roger of Hereford or, Astrology in England in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century. Alexander Neckam on the Natures of Things. Moses Maimonides. Hermetic Books in the Middle Ages.
46
Kiranides.
Translators, chiefly
of Astrology from the Arabic in Spain. " " "
"
42.
43
44
47 48
:
Astrology and Geomancy.
Hildegard of Bingen.
;
Prester John and the Marvels of India.
49
The Pseudo-Aristotle. Solomon and the Ars Notoria.
50
Ancient and Medieval Dream-Books.
—
CHAPTER XXXV THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS: PETER ABELARD AND HUGH OF ST.
VICTOR
— Character of Abe— 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 Victor— Character of the Didascalicon— Meaning of Physica — of 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 rebus. Relation of scholastic theology to our theme
lard's learning
—Incorrect
statements of his views
St.
:
et aliis
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
founders of scholastic theology.
Our
investigation
is
the
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 I
devoted as heretofore to the pursuit of natural science during
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 that period
relation to Christian thought.
we
It is
therefore with interest
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 interAs we proceed into the later twelfth and thirteenth ested. that
turn to the
centuries in subsequent chapters,
we
shall also take occa-
sion to note the utterances of other leading
who
men
of learning
speak largely from the theological standpoint, like John
of Salisbury and
Thomas Aquinas. 3
astic
theology to our
not theme.
very closely or directly concerned with scholastic theology,
which
Relation of schol-
Let us hasten to admit
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE also that the scholastic
made
felt in
itself
chap.
method of instruction and writing
natural science and medicine as well as
number of our subsequent chapters will ilwe shall furthermore be
in theology, as a
In the present chapter
lustrate.
brought again into contact with the topic of the Physiologus
and Latin
Bestiaries,
this sort has
Hugh
to Character of Abelard's
learning.
owing
to the fact that a treatise of
been ascribed, although probably incorrectly,
of St. Victor.
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
There
is
beginning.
His
career, as set forth in his
own
words,
illus-
His
trates educational conditions in Gaul at that time. 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 utterThis
ances of the fathers.
especially true of his state-
is
ments 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. Incorrect statements of his views.
Although not and
original,
their influences are the
writers
views concerning the stars
his
more
essential to expose, because
upon Abelard have misunderstood and consequently Joseph McCabe in his Life of Abe-
misinterpreted them. lard,^
for instance, asserts that Abelard calls mathematics
diabolical in one of his works.
some ways
in
excellent
-
'
J.
New
la
et
McCabe,
Peter
Abelard,
I'etat
de
la philo-
principalemcnt en France
premiere nioitie du Xlle
York, 1901.
Charles Jourdain in his
Dissertation sur
sophic natiirelle en Occident
pendant
And
siecle, praises
Abelard
' Especially considering Paris, 1838.
its
date,
THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS
XXXV
for what he regards as an admirable attack upon and
cism of astrology in his Expositio in "It will be
hard to find
in the writers
more discriminating on
Hexameron,
criti-
saying,
of a later age anything
the errors of astrology."
^
Jourdain
apparently did not realize the extent to which Abelard was
However,
simply repeating the writers of an earlier age. Abelard's presentation possesses a certain
freshness and
perhaps contains some original observations. In the passage in question
nature of the
stars.
He
^
Abelard
discusses the
first
The nature of
says that
it
is
no small question
the stars.
whether the planets are animat'^d, 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 Grod. tional,
Philosophers do not hesitate to declare them ra-
immortal, and impassive animals, and the Platonists
them not only gods but gods of gods, as being more excellent and having greater efficacy than the other stars.
call
Moreover, Augustine says
in his
Handbook
that he is un-
moon, and stars with the In his Retractions Augustine withdrew his earlier angels. 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 certain whether to class the sun,
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 Prediction the stars upon this earth and man. He grants that the and constars control heat and cold, drought and moisture; he ac- tingent .
.
events,
.
cepts the astrological division of the heavens into houses, ^
Ibid., p. 119.
*
Cousin, Opera hactenus seorsim edita (1849-1859),
I,
647-9.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
6
chap.
which each planet exerts its maximum of 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 in certain ones of
force
;
to his
mind are very valuable not only in agriculture but Moses himself is believed
medicine, and he mentions that
have been very is onl}^ to
skilful in this science of the Egyptians.
in
to It
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
you what other persons will 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 that, while they will foretell to
do, they refuse to
an astrologer is must be because
tell
able to predict such "contingent events,"
the devil has assisted him,
lard declares that he
who
promises anyone certitude concern-
ing "contingent happenings" by means of "astronomy" to be considered not so
This
is
it
and hence Abe-
much asfronomicus
the nearest approach that
I
is
as diaholicus.
have been able to find
McCabe's assertion that he once But possibly I have overcalled mathematics diabolical. looked some other passage where Abelard calls mathematica, In any case Abelard in the sense of divination, diabolical.^ in part accepts it with certain and rejects astrology only 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.- This familiar theme, as we have seen, had often occupied the pens of the church fathers, so in Abelard's writings to
The Magi ^ g"Jr^
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. *
I
His
have, however, searched for such in vain.
*Migne,
PL
178, 409-17.
first t)oint is
that
THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS
XXXV
Magi were
the
7
of the Gentiles to become
fittingly the first
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
He
magicians and takes that word in the worst sense.
is
aware, however, that some identify them not with sorcerers (malefici)
He
but with astronomers.
repeats the legend
from the spurious homily of Chrysostom which we have already recounted ^ 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 pearing to note that this
God
in silence,
without ap-
contrary to his previous use of
is
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.
discusses without satisfactory results the question
new
star
was seen only by
In a chapter
"On
Etkica sen Scito
te
He
also
why
this
the Magi.
the Suggestions of
Demons"
ipsnm~ Abelard attempts
men by
extent a natural explanation of the tempting of
demons and within us.
in his
to a certain
the arousing of lust and other evil passions
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
make times, *
use of them for their
all
own
these occult properties evil ends.
and
Thus they some-
by divine permission, send men into trances or give
See above, chapter
20,
page 474.
'
Cap.
4,
in
Migne,
PL
178, 647.
Demons j"^^^ nature,
.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
8
chap.
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
Magic and natural science.
demons and of
may
occult virtues in nature
by which marvels
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 be worked.
prove that
scientific
research
is
necessarily
diabolical
or
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 experimenthat
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 tation
powers of things.
Also magic, since
it
ral forces, is akin to natural science,
may hope some day mons and to
were St. Victor.
to
conclusions, but other medieval writers
do so before very long.
Upon Hugh
Hugh of
while natural science
knowledge of the deAbelard does not go on
to rival both the
the marvels of magic.
draw any of these
avails itself of natu-
of St. Victor Vincent of Beauvais in the
century following looked back as "illustrious in religion and
knowledge of time in lard's
in
skill
in
younger contemporary, born almost twenty years
Saxony
His
and as "second to no one of his Hugh was Abethe seven liberal arts." ^
literature"
in
uncle, the bishop of Halberstadt,
had preceded him
Paris as a student under William of Champeaux.
Hugh, St.
later
1096 but dying a year before Abelard in 1141. at
When
as an Augustinian canon, reached the monastery of
Victor at Paris, William had ceased to teach and be-
come a
bishop.
Hugh was
himself chosen head of the school
^Speculum doctrinale (1472?), XVIII, 62, "Hugo Parisiensis sancti victoris canonicus religione
literarum scientia clarus et in peritia artium liberalium nulli sui temporis secundus fuit." et
VII
:
:
THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS
XXXV
He is famous as a mystic, but also composed exand dogmatic works, and is noted for his classification of the sciences. Edward Myers well observes in this in
1
133.
egetical
connection see that
it
"Historians of philosophy are
:
now coming
to
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.
and could not
not,
such intensity as lative
be, isolated
was
it
in the
Speculative thought
from
middle ages, when that specu-
thought was active everywhere,
in every degree of the social scale."
Hildegard of Bingen, we
St.
was
religious life lived with
shall
^
in
every profession,
Later, in the case of
meet an even more
strik-
ing combination of mysticism and natural science.
Of Hugh's
writings
the Didascalicon,
whose "
six ^
is
of
St.
Victor,"
good bibon Hugh's
also given a
liography of works theology, philosophy,
psychology,
and pedagogy. * I have employed the text
Migne
shall be chiefly
PL
in
739-812. It should be noted, however, that B. Haureau, Les GLuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Essai critique, nouvelle edition, Paris, demonstrated that 1886, there should be only six books of the Didascalicon instead of seven as in this edition and that of 1648. vol.
176, cols.
This will not affect our investigation, as we shall make no use of the seventh book, but we shall have later to discuss whether a passage on magic belongs at the sixth book or not. There appears to be a somewhat general impression that the edition of 1648 is the earliest edition of Hugh's works, but the British close
of
the
Museum lum
concerned with Character a brief
books occupy some seventy columns
CE "Hugh
where
we
or Eruditio didascalica,-
has an undated incunabuof the "Didascolon" num-
bered IB. 850, fol. 254. Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth century speaks of the "Didascolon" as in five books
in
work
Migne's
{Speculum
doctrinale, XVIII, 62) probably mistaken. The MSS seem uniformly to divide the work into a prologue and six books, as in the following at Oxford New College 144, nth {sic) century, folio bene exaratus et servatus, fols. 105-43, "Incipit pro-
but
is
logus in Didascalicon." Jesus College 35, 12th century, fol.
26-
St.
John's 98, 14th century,
fol.
123-
Corpus tury, fol.
Christi
223,
15th
cen-
72,-
MSS
I have not noted what of the Didascalicon there are in the British Museum. The following elsewhere may be worth listing as of early date Grenoble 246, 12th century, fols. 99-133. fol. 13334, .i2th century,
MSS
BN
de arte didascalica, is prob» ably our treatise, although the catalogue names no author. 15256, 13th century, fol. 128-. Still other will be mentioned in a subsequent note. 52-,
BN
MSS
Didalcali2y,
'B. Haureau, Le Mathematicus Paris, Silvestris, Bernard de II.
'Clerval (1895), pp. 158, 173. BN 6415, f ol. 74V, "Terrico veris scientiarum titulis doctori *
bernardus
silvestris
Clerval (1895), pp. 173-4Ex16246, 15th century. tracts from it are printed by Cousin, Fragments philosophiques, II, 348-52. John of Salisbury in 1159 used it in the Polycraticus, ed. Webb (1909) I. x^x, xlii-xliii. °
*
BN
MSS
BN
Many at Paris, 3195, 5698, 6395, 6477, 6480, 7054, 8299, 8513, and probably others. catalogues often ascribe it to ''
113-26.
1895, p.
famosissimo opus suum."
MSS
Bernard. Attention was first called to it Langlois, Maitrc by BernardSt. *
:
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
poem whose
rative
diction
et
hinges upon an astrologer's pre-
plot
and whose very
title
The third Megacosmus
Mathematicus}
is
De mundi
work, variously entitled
lOI
universitate,
Microcosmus, and Cosmographia - has much and their rule over inferior creation.^
stars
to say of the It
written
is
shows that Bernard form in his scientific or pseudo-scientific v/orks 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.^ He would date it either in 1145 or about 1147partly in prose and partly in verse,^ and
laid
much
as
stress
on
literary
;
ii48.«
The manuscripts of
works are fairly numerwere widely read, and no con-
these three
ous, indicating that they
has not been printed. some of the MSS of it will be found in Appendix I at the close of this chapter. 1893.
A
It
description of
^
B. Haureau,
Le Mathematicus
de Bernard Silvestris, Paris, 1895, contains the text and lists the following MSS: BN 3718, 5129, 6415; Tours 300; Cambrai 875; Bodleian A-44; Vatican 344, 370, 1440 de la Reine; Berlin Cod. Theol. Octavo 94. Printed in Migne PL 171, 1365-80, among the poems of Hildebert of Tours. ' Ed. by Wrobel and Barach, in Bibl. Philos.
bruck,
1876,
mediae
aetatis, Inns-
from and
two
MSS,
Vienna 526 CLM 22,^^A. HL XII (1763), p. 261 et seq., had already listed six MSS in the then Royal Library at Paris (now there are at least eight, BN 3245, 6415, 6752A, 7994, 8320, 875 1 C, 8808A, and 15009, I2-I3th cenlury, fol. four at the 187), Vatican, and many others elsewhere. The following may be
added Cotton Titus D-XX, fols. iioviiSr, Bernardi Sylvestris de utroque mundo, majore et minore. Cotton Cleopatra A-XIV, fols. 1-26, Bernardi Sylvestris cosmographia proso-metrice in qua de multis
rebus physicis
agitur.
Additional 35112, Liber de munauthor not named. Sloane 2477 and Royal 15-A-
di philosophia,
XXXII.
CU
Trinity century, fols.
1335, early 13th Bernardi 1-25V,
Cosmographia.
Silvestris
CU
Trinity (II), late 1368 I2th century, 50 leaves, Bernardi
Megacosmus
Silvestris
et
Mi-
crocosmus. 'Clerval's
(1895)
pp.
"Le systeme de Bernard
259-61, Silves-
is limited to the De mundi universitate and says nothing of his obvious astrological doctrine, although at p. 240 Clerval briefly states that in that work Bernard takes over many figures from pagan astrology. XII (1763) p. 261 et seq., besides the De nvundi universitate mentioned "two poems in elegiacs written expressly in defense of the influence of the constella-
ter,"
*HL
tions."
These were very probably
the Matheniaticus and Experimentarius, or the two parts or versions of the latter. ^ History of Classical Scholarship (1903) I, 515; Illustrations of Medieval Thought (1884) p. 118.
"EHR
(1920)
p. 331.
Their influence.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
102
chap.
temporary objection appears to have been raised against As was well their rather extreme astrological doctrines. observed concerning the De mundi unwersitate over one
hundred and
years ago, "These extravagances and some
fifty
other similar ones did not prevent the book from achieving
a very brilliant success from the pearance," as
shown by
is
moment
of
first
its
ap-
contemporary testimony of
the
Peter Cantor in the closing twelfth century and Eberhart
who
says that the
read in the schools.
Gervaise of
de Bethune in the early thirteenth century,
De mundi
nnirersitate
was
Tilbury and Vincent of Beauvais also cited
our next chapter we
prophetess of Bernard's writer,
it
is
true
—with
own
time charged
making use of
Passages from Silvester are included tury collection writers,^
of
Indeed in
it.^
shall find a Christian abbess, saint,
in
her visions.
a thirteenth cen-
from ancient and recent
"Proverbs"
and more than one copy of the
tafe is listed in such a
in
—
it
and
by a modern
De mundi
universi-
medieval monastic library as
St.
Au-
gustine's, Canterbury.^
In the
Disregard tianthe-' ology.
De mundi
imiversitate
we
see the
same
influence
^^ Platonism and astronomy, and of the Latin translation of the Timaeiis in especial, as in the Philosophia of William
of Conches.
At
the
personified sciences,
same its
time,
its
abstract personages and
Nous and Nat lira,
its
Urania and
Physis with her two daughters. Theoretical and Practical,
remind us of the pages of Martianus Capella and of Adelard The characterization by of Bath's De eodem et diverso.
work "has an
pagan complexion," and that Bernard's scheme of cosmology is pantheistic and takes no account of Christian theology,^ is essentially true, Dr. Poole that the
entirely
although occasionally some utterance indicates that the writer acquainted with Christianity and no true pagan.
is
HL
XII (1763) p. 261 et seq. ^Berlin 193 (Phillips 1827), fol. 25V, "Proverbia." ^Indeed, the 15th century catalogue of that abbey lists one MS, which contains both the 1482, *
Per-
Afcgacosmus and Mathcvujticus, with the treatise of Valerius to Rufinus on not getting married sandwiched in between. * Poole (1884) pp. 1 17-18.
BERNARD SILVESTER
..xxxix
haps
Bernard makes no pretense of being when William of Conches was
just because
is
it
103
a theologian, that at a time retracting in his his
Dragmaticon some of the views expressed
in
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 op-
And
position.
yet
does not appear that the Sicilian trans-
it
Yet he complains astronomy idolatry; Bernard calmly calls gods, and no one seems to have raised the least ob-
lator engaged in theological discussion.
who
of those the stars
At
jection.
call
least Bernard's fearless
outspokenness and
its
much
subsequent popularity should prevent our laying too
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. stress
What
especially concerns
concerning stars and
spirits
our investigation are the views The divine ^^^"' expressed by Silvester. Like
William of Conches, he describes the world of
spirits in
Platonic or Neo-Platonic, rather than patristic, style.
from William
differs all
and
in
word "demon" at like Adelard of Bath, a much "The heaven itself is full of
hardly using the
according the stars,
in
higher place in his hierarchy.
God," says Bernard, "and the sky has real fires,"
^
man, who
just as
who
"gods
stars
serve
God's very presence."
which extends
^
God
est.
De mundi
^
universitate,
II,
6,
"Caelum ipsum Deo plenum Sua caelo animalia ignes .
.
siderei.
.
." .
.
Ibid., I, 3, 6-7,
"Motus
circuitus
_
numina
turba
deum Dice deos
animals, side-
in part a spiritual being,
"who
call
the
serve in
in the region of purer ether
as far as the sun they enjoy the vision of bliss
from all care and peace of God which passeth ''
own
in person," or
There
eternal, free
10,
is
its
Bernard does not hesitate to
inhabits the earth.
a
He
quorum ante Deum
distraction, all
and resting
understanding.^
in the
He
also
praesentia servit." II, 4, 39, "deos caelumque." ^ Ibid., II, 6, "Qui quia 49, aeternae beatitudinis visione perfruuntur, ab omni distrahentis
Also
curae sollicitudine feriati in pace Dei quae omnem sensum superat conquiescunt."
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
104
repeats the Platonic doctrine that the
mind
and that the human
it
"will return to
its
ber of superior beings," Orders of spirits.
when
soul,
kindred
at last
stars,
is
chap.
from the sky
lays aside the body,
added as a god
to the
num-
^
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
this in
common,
to be stirred
of this order
man
share the attribute of deathlessness; with
they have
by passion and impulse.-
Be-
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 tween sun and
A
serenity, although dwelling in the air.
the genii to
who
second variety are
man from
are associated each with some
warn and guide him.
But
who
often are divinely
evil-doers, or
sometimes torment
disorderly and malignant spirits
commissioned to torment
birth
lower atmosphere are
in the
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 But there are still calls angelos desertores, or fallen angels. 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 longlived but in the process of time will dissolve again. ^ classification of spirits
The
stars rule nature and reveal the future.
This
seems to follow Martianus Capella.
is accomwould 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 spe-
Bernard's assertion that the stars are gods
panied, as one
^De mundi
univcrsiiate,
II,
4,
49-50.
"Corpore reibit
Additus deus."
iam
posito
cognata
ad astra in
numero
'Ibid.,
II,
6,
36-,
"Participat-
enim angelicae creationis numerus cum siderum divinitate quod non moritur cum homine, quod passionum aflFectibus incitatur." ;
superum
'
Ibid.,
II, 6,
92
et
scq.
:
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
105
of the universe by inevitable necessity."
cies
from
^
Life comes
from God, and the move from their tracks, did they not absorb vivifying motions from the sky,^ 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 to the world of nature
the sky as
if
creatures of the earth, air, and water could not
the future in cryptic letters, the
more
that
God
learned."
have revealed to the eyes of
I
In another passage Bernard affirms
^
writes in the stars of the sky
what can come "from
movements of the
stars control all ages,
fatal law," that the
that there already
which long time
is
a series of events
latent in the stars
will unfold,
and that all the events of hishave been foreshadowed by
tory, even the birth of Christ,
the stars. "Scribit
enim caelum
Quod
stellis
totumque figurat
de fatali lege venire potest,
Praesignat qualique
Omnia
modo
qualique tenore
sidereus saecula motus agat.
Praejacet in
stellis series
quam
longior aetas
Explicet et spatiis temporis ordo suis
Sceptra Phoronei, fratrum discordia Thebae,
Flammae In
stellis
Phaethonis, Deucalionis aquae.
Codri paupertas, copia Croesi,
Incestus Paridis, Hippolytique pudor;
In
stellis
Priami
species,
audacia Turni,
Sensus Ulixeus, Herculeusque vigor. In
stellis
pugil est Pollux, et navita Typhis,
Et Cicero In
stellis
rhetor, et
lepidus dictat
Fulgurat in
geometra Thales;
Maro, Milo
latia nobilitate
figurat,
Nero.
Astra notat Persis, Aegyptus parturit Graecia docta
legit, praelia
Roma
artes,
gerit.
Exemplar specimenque Dei virguncula Christum Parturit, et verum saecula numen habent." * ^ Ibid., II, i, 23-. ^ De mundi universitate, II, 6, 47-. 'Ibid.,
*
I,
4,
5-.
Ibid., 1, 3,
33 et seq.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
io6
Yet Bernard urges man to model
and once speaks of "what
He
necessity."
on
is
chap.
his life after the stars,^
free in the will
and what
is
of
thus appears, like the author of the treatise
fate ascribed to Plutarch, like Boethius,
and
like a hpst
of other theologians, philosophers, and astrologers, to believe in the co-existence of
"variable fortune."
Bernard Silvester's trology
is
free will, inevitable
fate,
and
^
and
interest
faith in the art of as-
further exemplified by his
poem Mathcmaticus,
a narrative which throughout assumes the truth of astrological prediction
that
it
concerning
human
Haureau showed
fortune.
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 mathematiais, "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. \\'hen 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 w^as dead.
She named
her son Patricida in order that he might abhor the crime of patricide the more. intellectual capacity.
^
De mundi
The boy
Among
universitate, II, 4, 30-32. ^ Ibid., II, I, 33-35^ , "Parcarum leges et ineluctabile
31-50; and
II,
I,
early gave signs of great
other studies he learned "the fatum Fortunaeque vices
Quae
sit
guidve
variabilis arbitrio res libera necesse."
in
BERNARD SILVESTER
xxxix
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,
ended the war
he rallied her defeated forces and
in triumph.
"And because the fatal order demands it so shall The fates gave him this path to dominion. .
.
Blind chance sways the
Our world
is
the plaything
The king thereupon is
any power
of men;
and sport of the gods."
abdicated in favor of Patricida,
he addressed in these words, there
silly toiling
be, .
"O
whom
youth, on whose birth,
if
horoscope looked
in the stars, a favorable
down."
The mother marveled but was
rejoiced to hear of her son's success, and
at the correctness of the astrologer's prediction,
now
the
more troubled as
He
to her husband's fate.
noticed her distraction and at last induced her to
tell
him
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 its
cause.
in his son's success,
and said that he would die happy,
could but see and embrace him. self
known
to his son
and
told
He
if
he
made him-
accordingly
him how he had once ordered
had been thwarted by the eternal predestined 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." his death but
order of events, and
The son thereupon determines
that he will evade the
decree of the stars by committing suicide.
He
is
represented
as soliloquizing as follows:
"How If
it
is
our mind akin to the ethereal
stars,
suffers the sad necessity of harsh Lachesis?
In vain
we
possess a particle of the divine mind.
If our reason cannot
make
provision for
itself.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
xo8
God
so
made
That man
is
the elements, so
made
chap.
the fiery stars,
not subject to the stars."
Patricida accordingly
summons
the
all
Romans
together,
and, after inducing them by an eloquent rehearsal of his
him any boon
great services in their behalf to grant
may
ask, says that his
poem
wish
is
to die
;
and
that he
at this point the
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 Haureau, however, believed that the poem is
Patricida.
complete as Different interpretations put upon the
Mathematicus.
it
stands.
The purpose of
his attitude
towards
in diametrically opposite
Before Haureau
different scholars.
poem
and
the poet
ogy have been interpreted
it
astrol-
ways by
was customary
to at-
and to upon astrology. The early editors of the Histoire Littercdre 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 tribute the
regard
it
to Hildebert, archbishop of Tours,
as an attack
citing Hildebert as ridiculing the art in his Mathematiciis}
A
century later Charles Jourdain again represented Hilde-
bert as turning to ridicule the vain speculations of the astrologers.^
Bourasse, the editor of Hildebert's works as
they appear in Migne's Patrologia Latina, seems to have that the
poem was
upon aswhich but regarded as satire upon
scarcely an outspoken attack
trology and tried to explain
was not
it
as an academic exercise
to be taken seriously,
judicial astrology.
Haureau not only denied Archbishop
Hildebert's authorship, but took the
common
that the poet believes fully in astrology.
be
difficult
to detect
about the poem. ten in
*HL '
C.
all
Jourdain,
any suggestion of
Its plot is a tragic
seriousness.
VII (1746)
felt
Even
Dissertation
sur
would, indeed,
ridicule or satire
one and
it
seems writ-
Patricida, despite his assertion I'etat
p. 137.
It
sense view
etc.,
de
la
Paris,
philosophic naturelle 1838,
p.
116,
note.
:
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
"man
that
he will
:
is
kill his
prediction,
if
109
not subject to the stars," does not doubt that father conformably to the learned astrologer's
he himself continues to
It
live.
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 Nativitv of Christ
and
in a short
poem, The Herfulfill-
ment of a horoscope
my
pregnant mother bore
me
in the
womb,
'tis
what she should bring forth. Phoebus said, 'It is a boy' Mars, 'A girl' Juno, 'Neither.' So when I was born, I was a hermaphrodite. When I seek to die, the goddess says, 'He shall be slain by a said the gods
deliberated
;
weapon'
;
;
Mars, 'By crucifixion'
;
Phoebus, 'By drowning.'
So it turned out. A tree shades the water I climb it the sword I carry by chance slips from its scabbard I myself fall upon it; my trunk is impaled in the branches; my head falls into the river. Thus I, man, woman, and neither, suffered flood, sword, and cross." ^ ;
;
;
This poem has always been greatly admired by students of Latin literature for ness,
its
epigrammatic neatness and concise-
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 nwnstruosi, is longer and far less elegant. Haureau, however, regarded the Hennaphrodiie as a medieval composition, since there are
of
it
no manuscripts was in doubt
earlier than the twelfth century; but he
whether to ascribe
dome,
who
it
Matthew of Venown poems mentions hie et haec
to Hildebert or to
in listing his
hermaphroditiis homo." *
Migne,
PL
171,
1446.
Juno
here stands for the planet Venus see
Hyginus
II, 42,
"Stella
Vene-
nomine, quam nonnulli .Tunonis esse dixerunt"; and ris,
Lucifer
Hermaphrodite's
horoscope.
maphrodite, which reads as follows, representing the
"While
Hilde-
other passages cited by Bouchegrecque, Leclercq, L'Astrologie 1899, p. 99, note 2. ']. B. Haureau, Les melanges poetiques d' Hildebert, 1882, pp.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
no The art
We
of
geomancy.
turn to the association of the
name
of Bernard
Silvester with the superstitious art of geomancy.
be briefly defined as a method of divination
chap.
in
It
may
which, bv
marking down a number of points at random and then connecting or canceUing them by Hnes, 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
any kind of writing material would do as well. Although a somewhat more abstruse form of superstition least,
than the ouija board, in the
The name
Prologue of the
Ex peri-
in the
mentarius.
tariits,
_
seems to have been nearly as popular
of Bernard Silvester
which seems
it is
from
and how
less
to consist of sets of
the Arabic.
easy to
make
prologue
Its
now.
is
persistently associated
is
manuscripts with a work bearing the
translated
but
it
medieval period as the ouija board
title
Experimen-
geomantic tables is
unmistakable,
out what text should go with
it
Sometimes the proand the text which accompanies it in others varies in amount and sometimes is more or less mixed up with other similar modes of divinaThe prologue is sometimes headed, Ezndencia operis tion. subseqitentis, and regularly subdivides into three brief seclogue
tions. libelli,
and
is
the text should be arranged.
found alone
The
first,
in the manuscripts,^
opening with the words, Materia ludus
describes the subject-matter of the text as "the effect
moon and other planets and of the conwhich they exert upon inferior things." The
efficacy of the
stellations,
writer's opinion
is
and sober inquiry
that
God
permits mortals
who make
sane
to learn by subtle consideration of the
In Digby 53, a poetical 138-47. miscellany of the end of the 12th century, no author is named for the "De Ermaphrodito" nor for some other items which appear in the printed edition of Hildebert's poems, although Hildebert's
name the
in
is
attached to a few pieces
MS.
Ashmole 345, late 14th century, fol. 64. Bodleian Auct. F. 3. 104V. For a summary fol. 13, of the see Appendix I at the close of this chapter. '
MSS
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX constellations
who
sons
many
things concerning the future and per-
are absent, and that astrology also gives informa-
human
tion concerning
character, health
and
perity, fertility of the soil, the state of sea
matters and journeys.
autem
Utilitas
of his book
God who,
is
air,
business
In a second paragraph, opening,
huiiis lihelH, the writer states that the use
that one
may
avoid the perils of which the
as the astrologer
And
through them the Creator reveals his
the case of the three
Magi who learned from
single sentence,
we
will, as in
a ?tar that a
Finally, in a paragraph of a
great prophet had been born.
talis est,
sickness, pros-
and
warning by penitence and prayers and vows to Albumasar admits, controls the
stars give
stars.
III
which opens with the words, Titulus vero
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 Pictures of Ber-
twice depicted, although the second time in different nard colors, a seated human figure evidently intended to repre- Silvester. there
is
He
sent Bernard Silvester.
writing, with a pen in one
logue in which Bernard
accompanied by
sits in
hand and a knife or
Neither miniature
the other.
bearded and
is
is
is
a chair
scalpel in
in juxtaposition to the pro-
named, but
in both cases the
figure
is
in red
and blue colors and proclaiming that Bernard Silvesthe translator and that the number seven is the basis
ter
is
in this infallible
book of
five lines
of text, written alternately
lot-casting.^
It
would not be
safe,
however, to accept this miniature as an accurate representation of Bernard, since the manuscript is not contemporary ^
Digby
46,
14th
century, fol. the next
IV, the first line is blue,
red,
etc.
An
sors instabilis melius ferat ars docet eius
In septem stabis minus una petens nutnerabis Post septem sursuni numerando periice
cursum
Translator Bernardus Silvester
Hie infallibilis liber incipit autem peius. At fol. 25V, the same five lines except that first,
long,
the
last
line
is
put
where it would seem to beand is accordingly colored
red instead of blue as before, the colors of the other four lines remaining the same as before.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
chap.
contains similar portraits of Socrates and
Plato,
112
and
it
Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Cicero.
Both
Problem
in the
manuscript which
of a spying-tube
scribing and another of older date
and Hermann's
sons seated.
relation to the
Experimentarius.
as
we have
Hermann.
is
is
;
towards
whom
per-
the other named, and desig-
According
Black's
to
holds a telescope through which he
stars
two
called Euclid, in
Euclid "uplifts a sphere with his right hand, left
just been de-
a picture of
is
In both manuscripts one
the older manuscript only
nated
^
is
description
and with
his
observing the
'Hermannus,' on the other
side,
holds
forth a circular instrument hanging from his fingers, which
superscribed 'Astrolabium.' "
is
manuscript
is
similar, but in
The
picture in the other
view of the fact that they were
written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the rod
along which, or tube through which 'Euclid'
squinting,
is
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
or spying-tube of the
~
by the ancients, Polybius and Hero, and used surveying. But I mention the picture for the further
sort described in
reason that Clerval
^
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
Experimentariiis 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 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
Bernard
*Ashmole
304, 13th century, fol.
'
In this connection the follow-
MS
might prove of interest: Trinity 1352, 17th century, neatly written, Dioptrica Practica. Fol. I is missing and with it the full title. Cap i, de Telescoing
CU
ac
piorttm tione,
2V.
Microscopium Inven-
diversitate,
ct
varictati.
Quid sunt Tclescopia quomodo ac quando inventa.
Quacstio et
I,
After fol. 90 diagrams. 'Clerval 91.
is
a single leaf of
(1895),
pp.
169,
190-
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
for Berengarius or Bernard,
it
who was
for Bernard Silvester,
113
meant
certainly cannot be
bom
not
yet.
Apparently the text proper of the Experiment arius opens Text with the usual instructions of geomancies for the chance ^^^^ The number of mentarius. casting of points and drawing of lines. •
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
In a preliminary table are listed 28 subjects of
mind.
inquiry such as
life
One
enemies, gain.
and death, marriage, imprisonment, turns to the topic in which one
number of
terested and, according as the
over or under seven, reckons forward or back-
by chance
is
ward
many
that
of inquiry, takes the
times from the
or,
number of
number opposite
seven
exactly
if
were
points
his
theme
left
over,
the theme of inquiry as he
In one manuscript the
new number
of the "Judge of the Fates" to
finds
thus obtained
whom
is
it.
that
one should next
There are 28 such judges, whose names are the
turn.
Arabic designations for the 28 divisions of the zodiac or mansions in
in-
is
points obtained
A
each of them.^
of
the moon,
page
circle of the
which spends a day
devoted to each judge, under
is
whose name are twenty-eight
lines containing as
sponses to the twenty-eight subjects of inquiry. quirer selects a line corresponding to his
many The
number of
rein-
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
Judge as we have described, in which he is first referred of the moon.
system
is
referring the
inquirer to his
insert other preliminary tables
to a planet
and then to a day
This unnecessarily indirect and complicated
probably intended to mystify the reader and to
emphasize further the supposedly astrological basis of the ^ These 28 Judges, or mansions of the moon, are seldom spelled twice alike in the MSS, but are somewhat as follows Almazene, :
Anatha, Albathon, Arthura, Adoran, Almusan, Atha, Avian, Ana-
thia, Althare, Albuza, Alcoreten, Arpha, Alana, Asionet, Algaphar, Asavenu, Alakyal, Alcalu, Aleutn, Avaadh, Avelde, Cathateue, Eadabula, Eadatauht, Eadalana, Alga-
falmar, Algagafalui.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
114
procedure, whereas
it
is
chap.
a matter of
in reality purely
lot-
casting.
Now
Two versions of the 28 judges.
most of the manuscripts which
in
have examined
I
there are two versions of these twenty-eight pages of Judges
Qf
^j^g
worded
Fates,
although the corresponding
differently,
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, lines
Almazene or
the belly of Aries,
Tuum indumentum
is
durabit tempore longo
while in the second version the same line reads,
Hoc ornamentum
decus
est et
fama ferentum}
Both versions seem to be regarded as the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester, for in the manuscripts where they occur together the the second
usually follow's
prologue, while
Trans-
line.
In one manuscript
the pro-
^
immediately followed by the second version and
first
In some manuset of Judges does not occur. however, the second version occurs without the
scripts,^
and without the prologue,
nothing to indicate that
is
its
is
logue
first
first
preceded by his picture and the
Bernardus Silvesterr
lator
the
is
it
part of the Experimentarius.
which
in is
cases, I think, there
by Bernard Silvester or a
The
first
version ends in sev-
eral manuscripts with the words, Explicit libellus de constel-
lationibus
rather than
^
perimentarius.
some such phrase as Explicit Exin some manuscripts where it
Furthermore
^ In the MSS, which are very slovenly often carelessly and written, the wording of these lines varies a good deal, for instance,
Digby
in
46, fol.
monumentum longo," (II),
and
fol.
iir,
"Sum
{sic)
tempore durabit Trinity 1404 in
2r,
CU
"Hoc ornamentum
et fama parentum." Digby 46, fol. 25V in Ashmole 304 the corresponding leaf
est
*
;
has been cut out, probably for the sake of the miniature; Sloane 3857, fol. 181V, omits the picture but has the phrase, "Translator
Bernardus Silvester." * Sloane 3554, fol. 13V-. *
Ashmole
tury, 1
Ashmole fols.
early
342,
14th
cen-
2.
399, late 13th century,
54-8.
Royal 12-C-XII,
fols.
108-23.
CU
Trinity 1404 (II), 14- 15th century, fols. 2-16. Some of these I have not
MSS
seen. °
Digby
304, fol. i8ov.
46,
i6v;
24V Sloane
fol.
;
Ashmole 3857,
fol.
XXXIX
BERNARD SILVESTER
occurs alone this
first set
of Judges
Alchandiandus or Alkardianus.^
book of may, however, have
is
He
"5
called the
been the Arabic author and Bernard his translator, and the liher alkardiani
phylosophi opens in at least one manuscript
with words appropriate to the everything that for
own
its
is
tested
title,
Expcrhnentarms "Since
by experience
,
is
experienced either
sake or on some other account."
-
There are so many treatises of this type in medieval Other manuscripts and they are so frequently collected in one divination 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 ^ 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 Experi-
mentarius a Praenostica Socratis Basilei, which
is
of fre-
quent 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 appro-
work against divinamodes 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
priately punished for having written a tion.
I
doubt
if
these other
now, especially as they are of such dubious date and authorship that it would be difficult to place them more exactly. ^Additional 15236, English hand of
I3-I4th century,
fols.
i30-52r,
BN
Alchandiandi" 7486, century, fol. 30V, "Incipit liber alkardiani phylosophi. Cum omne quod experitur sit experiendum propter se vel propter ali." ud. And see above, the latter pages of Chapter 30. ^ See the preceding note. ' Sloane Digby 46, 3554, fol. ifols. 3r-5v, and fol. gor. But in both it precedes the prologue "libellus
;
14th
.
.
;
MSS
Macray was probably induced to regard everything in Digby 46 up to fol.
of the Experimentarius.
92r as Experimentarius by the picture of Bernard Silvester which occurs at fol. iv with the accom-
panying
five lines stating that he the translator of "this infallible book." But the picture is probably misplaced, since it occurs again at fol. 25V before the second version of the 28 Judges.
is
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
ii6 Divination of the physician of King
Amal-
chap,
which is assigned to the physician of King which is said to have been composed in and Amalricus memory of that monarch's great victory over the Saracens and Turks in Egypt, obtains its key number by revolution of a wheel ^ rather than by the geomantic casting of points,
The
treatise
and introduces a trifle more of astrological observance. If on first applying the inquirer receives an unfavorable rep]y, he may wait for thirty days and try again, but after the **It is not allowed to third failure he must desist entirely. more than three times." The thing inquire concerning one twenty-eight subjects of inquiry are divided in groups of
four
among
the seven planets,
named
and the inquirer
told to
is
which must further his query falls. 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 At the close of the treatise the sun ^ rather than moon. return on the weekday
On
the
day
after the planet under
set the astrologer
of the physician of King Amalricus in both manuscripts
examined
that I have
inserted
is
some
sceptical
®
person's
opinion to the effect that these methods of divination are
which are not
subtle trifles
utterly useless as a
means of
version, but that faith should not be placed in them.
more apparent the more wary Prenostica Socratis Basilei.
In
the
the devil's nets are, concludes the passage,
the
human
bird will be.
—
Prenostica or Prenosticon Socratis Basilei
—a number
Prognostic of Socrates the King nine
is
di-
The
from one
to
obtained by chance either by geomancy or by re-
volving 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 desig-
Digby 46 are
Inset inside the thick cover of two interlocking wooden cogwheels for this purpose, with 28 and 13 teeth re-
^ In Digby 46 diagrams showing the number of stars in each are given.
spectively.
fol.
*
^
Digby I2r.
46, f ol.
5v
;
Sloane 3554,
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
117
is found two compartments. Say that the inquirer finds his quesHe then consults another table where 144 tion in A and E. 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
nated by letters of the alphabet that each question in
sixteen possible pairs of letters such as the
AE
of our in-
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 He now is referred on to table containing twelve names. quirer.
one of sixteen kings of the Turks, India, Spain, Francia, Under each king Babylonia, the Saracens, Romania, etc. nine answers are listed and here at last under his original
number obtained by
lot
he finds the appropriate answer.^
In the Prenostica Pitagorice
we
are assured that
we may
rest easy as to the integrity of the Catholic Faith being ob-
which human answers any one of a
served, "for that does not happen of necessity
caution forewarned, can avoid."
It
list of thirty-six questions by means of a number obtained by chance between one and twelve. The inquirer is referred
have described the Prenosit is found in Digby 46, fol. 4or-, with a picture at fol. 41V of Socrates seated and Plato standing behind him and point*
I
tica
as
ing. Ashmole 304 has the same text and picture; and the text is in Sloane practically the same 3857, fols. 196-207, "Documentum subscquentis considerationis quae
Socratica dicitur." In Additional 15236, I3-I4th century, fols. gsrio8r, the inquirer is first directed to implore divine aid and repeat a Paternoster and Ave Maria^ and some details are slightly different, hut the general method is identical. The final answers are given in French. In 7420A, 14th century, fol. I26r- (or clxxxxvi, or col. 451), "Liber magni solacii socratis philosophi" is also essentially the same indeed, its opening words are, "Pronosticis So-
BN
;
cratis
basilii."
Preceding
it are divination, of i2iv (or clxxxxii
methods
similar
beginning at fol. or col. 440), "Si vis operare de geomancia dehes facere quatuor ." Evidently the follineas. lowing is also our treatise: CU Trinity 1404 (IV), I4-I5th cen.
.
liber dicitur Rota fortune in qua sunt 16 qiiestiones determinate in pronosticis sen-
tury, Iste
(sic) basilici que sub sequentibus inscribuntur et sunt 12 spere et 16 Reges pro iudicibus constittiti et habent determinare veritatem de questionibus antedictis cum auxilio sortium. James (HI, 423) adds, "The questions,
tentiat'.
listed
.
and
spheres,
tables,
low.
.
in
."
Our
John
catalogue of Priory, No. 409,
Kings
treatise
is
fol-
also
Why tef eld's 1389 MSS in Dover fol. 192V,
tica socratis phi.
Pronos-
Further 3iv?nat?on
;
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
ii8
chap.
to one of 36 birds whose pictures are drawn in the margins Other with twelve lines of answers opposite each bird. schemes of divination found with the Experimentariiis in
some manuscripts
differ
from
the foregoing only in the
num-
ber of questions concerning which inquiry can be made, the
number of Judges and
the
names given them,
the
number of
under each Judge, and the number of intermediate directory tables that have to be consulted before the final lines
Judge
is
reached.
As Judges we meet
the twelve sons of
Jacob, the thirty-six decans or thirds of the twelve signs,
Experimental
char-
acter of
geomancy.
and another astrological group of twenty made up of the twelve signs, seven planets, and the dragon.^ In one manuscript ^ the directions for consulting this last group of Judges are given under the heading, Dociimentiim experivienti retrogradi, which like Bernard's Experimentariiis suggests the experimental character of the art of
geomancy or
the arts of divination in general.
hear Albertus Magnus
Later
we
Speculum astronomiae shall call treatises of aerimancy,^ pyromancy ,and hydromancy, as well as of geomancy "experimental books." Geomancies are of frequent occurrence
Various other geoinancies.
in the
bear the
Many
in libraries of
anonymous ^ but others names of noted men of learning. The art must have
medieval manuscripts.'*
are
had great currency among the Arabs,^ for not only are ^ These tracts of divination are found in Digby 46, fols. 52r-92r, and partially in Ashmole 304, Sloane 3857, and Sloane 2472. * Sloane 2472, fol. 22r. * The word seems to be regularly so spelled in the middle ages, although modern dictionaries give only aeromancy. * For instance, at Munich the following MSS are devoted to
works of geomancy:
CLM
192, 392, 398, 421, 436, 456, 458, 483, 489, 541. 547, 588, 671, 677, 905, 1 1 998, 24940, 26061, 196,
240,
242,
276,
*
For 174,
carum
siz'c fatorum." Additional 9600 is a geomancy in Aral>ic, and Addit. 8790, La Geomantia del S. Christoforo Catianeo, Genonese. I'inz'entore di dctta Ahnadel Arabico. ^
26062. to
centurv, fols. 62-79, five treatises Qu. 365, fol. 83; Qu. 368, 14th century, fol. 30; Qu. 374, 14th century, fols. 1-60; Qu. 277, 14th century, fols. Amplon. 70-76; Octavo 88, 14th century, fols. 510; Amplon. Duodecimo 17, 14th century, fols. Harleian 27-35. 671; 4166, 15th century; Royal 12-C-XVI, 15th century; Sloane 887. i6th century, fols. 3-59; 1437, i6th century; 2186, 17th century; 3281, I3-I4th century, fols. 25-34, "Liber 28 iudicum" or "Liber par-
instance, Amplon. Quar14th century, fol. 120,
Geomancia parva: Qu. 345, 14th century, fols. geomancia 47-50, cum theorica sua; Qu. 361, I4tb
;
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX
119
Latin under such names as Abdallah/
treatises current in
Albedatus,^ Alcherius,^ Alkindi,^ and Alpharinus,^ but
al-
most every prominent translator of the time seems to have In the manuscripts we find tried his hand at a geomancy. attributed to Gerard of Cremona,** Plato of geomancies Michael Scot,*
Tivoli,'^
Hugo
*
Vatic. Urbin. Lat. 262, I4-I5th gcomantiae Abdallah century, fragmenta. Amplon. Folio 389, 14th century, fols. 56-99, Geomantia Abdalla astrologi cum figuris; perhaps the same as Math. 47, Geomuncia cum egregiis tabulis Abdana astrologi, in the 1412 catalogue. Amplon. Quarto 380, early 14th century, fols. 1-47, geomancia op-
tima Abdallah filii AH. Magliabech. XX-13, 15th tury,
208-10,
fols.
"II
libra
di
.
.
."
Amplon,
Octavo 88, early 14th century, fols. 1-5, geomancia Al'
bedato attributa, fols. 107-10, Albedatii de sortilegiis.
CLM
106-14,
14th century, fols. "Belio regi Persarum
398,
vates Albedatus salutem." 7486, 14th century, fol. 46r-, Albedaci philosophi ars punctorum: here the work is addressed to "Delyo regi Persarum" and is said to be translated by
king and philosopher." follows another It immediately geomancy by Alkardianus, of whom we have spoken elsewhere. "Euclid,
Berlin
965, i6th century, fol. 64-, "Incipit liber Albedachi vatis Arabici de sortilegiis ad Delium
regem Persarum
I Finis adest libri de sortilegiis" similarly Amplonius in 1412 listed Math, 8, "liber subtilis valde Alga-
Arabis
bre geomaniicus negociaciones." *
ad
futurorum
Vienna
5508, I4-I5th century, 200-201V, "Ego Alcherius inter mutta prodigia I nudus postea quolibet subhumetur." Is this the fols.
Alcherius
mentioned
by
Mrs.
Merrifield (1849) I, 54-6 as copying in 1409 "Experiments with Color," from a which he had
MS
489,
i6th
century,
fols.
Alchindi libellus de geo-
mantia;
also
in
CLM
15th
392,
century.
"Arundel 66, isth century, fols. 269-77, "Liber sciencie arienalis de judicis gcomansie ab Alpharino filio Abrahe Judeo editus et a Platone de Hebreico sermone
Latinum
in
translatus."
1 1998, anno 209-, Alfakini Arabici
fol.
1741,
quaestiones geomantiae a Platone in Latinum translatae anno 1533 (which cannot be right). CU Magdalene College 27 (F. 4.27, Haenel 2^) late 14th cenfilii
tury, fols. I20-I2SV, "Incipit liber arenalis scicncie ab alfarino
abizarch editus et Platone a Tiburtino de Arabico in latinum translatus." *
BN
Algabri
*CLM 207-22,
CLM
cen-
Zaccheria ebrio il quale compuose Disse il tavole de giudici. le famiglio di Abdalla.
William of
Sanctelliensis,^
borrowed?
Bologna
University
Library
14th century, "Geomantia ex Arabico translata per Magistrum Gerardum de Cremona. Si quis partem geomanticam I multum
449,
bonum
signi."
Magliabech XX-13,
Digby
74,
fol.
61.
i5-i6th century, fols.
t-52.
Sloane 310, 15th century.
Amplon. Quarto tury, 32-37-
fols.
CLM
1-3 1,
276,
373,
with
14th
cennotes at
14th
century,
fols.
Geomantia mag. Gerardi Cremonensis lOb aU>ctoribus via
69-75,
astronomice conposita. Also printed under the title Geomantia astronomica in H. C. Agrippa, Opera, 1600, pp. 540-53. ^ See note 5.
*CLM 174-,
489,
i6th
century,
fol.
Michaelis Scoti geomantia.
'MSS of Hugo's geomancy have already been listed in chapter 38, p. 86.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
120
chap.
Moerbeke,^ William de Saliceto of Piacenza,^ and Peter of Abano,' and even to their medical confrere and contem-
who
porary, Bernard Gordon,
Some
not usually classed as a
is
however, were translator? from the Greek or the Hebrew rather than Arabic, and some of the geomantic treatises in the manuscripts claim an origin translator.*
from
India.'"'
piled a
of
these,
But a Robert or Roger Scriptoris who com-
geomancy towards
the close of the medieval period
among his sources wise modems, William
thinks
first
of "the Arabs of antiquity
of Moerbeke, Bartholomew and the of Parma, Gerard of Cremona, and many others." ® These other geomancies are not necessarily like the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester ^ and we shall describe another
*CLM
588, 14th century, fols. "Incipit peomantia a fratre gilberto (?) de morbeca domini compilata penitentionario pape
6-58,
quatn magistro arnulfo nepoti suo coniiiiendaznt." 905, 15th
CLM
Wilheltni de
1-64,
century,
fols.
Morbeca Geo-
Saliceto."
'CLM
392, 15th century; 489, century, fol. 222, Petri de Abano Patavini modus iudicandi quaestiones; in both accompanied by the geomancy ascribed to Alkindi. Printed in
i6th
MSS
Italian translation,
*BN
tnantia.
14th cen2725, "Geomantia fratris Guildc Marbeta pcnitenciarii
Wolfenbiittel tury,
hehni domini
pape
dedicata Anno dofnini
nepoti.
Arnulpho millesimo
ducentcsimo octuagcsimo octavo. Hoc opus est scientie geomancie."
Vienna
5508,
century,
I4-I5th
"Liber geomancie editus a fratre Wilhelmo de Marbeta. Omnipotcns sempiterne Deus I fol.
I-,
quercnti vel in brevi."
Amplon. Quarto tury,
39-118;
fols.
373,
14th cen-
Qu. 377, 62-
67; Qu. 384.
For
MSS
in Paris see
HL
21;
Magliabech. tury,
fol.
101-,
CU
XX-13, in
isth
cen-
Italian.
Trinity 1447, 14th century, a French translation made by Walter the Breton in He states that Moerbeke's 1347. Latin version was translated from the Greek. * Magliabech, XX-13, I5th century, fol. 210-, "del detto ^acheria Albigarich," translated from Hebrew into Latin by "maestro fols.
i-ii2r,
century,
Archanum magni Dei revelatum Tholomeo regi Arabum fol.
87-,
reductione geomancie ad ortr. de Bernard de Gordon, datee de 1295. ° Harleian 2404, English hand, two geomancies (indeana). Sloane 314, 15th century, fols. 2-64, Latin and French, "Et est Gremmgi Indyana, que vacatur de
bem,
aiia astronomic quam fecit unus sapientum Indie."
With
the opinions of
Siger of
Brabant in 1277 was condemned a book of geomancy which opened "Estimavcrunt Indi" ; Chart. Univ. Paris,
146.
1542.
i3-i4th
I53S3,
CU
I.
543.
Magdalene College 27 (F.
4. 27), late 14th century, fols. 7288, "Hec est geomantia Indiana." *
Sloane
fols. 2-193,
3487,
15th
century,
Geomantia Ra. Scrip-
"...
fol. 2r, arabcs antiquissimi sapientes et moderni Guillelmus de morbeca, Bartholomeus de Parma, Gerardus Cre-
toris.
m^onensis, et
A
alii
geomancy
plures."
by Ralph of Toulouse, however, preserved in *
BERNARD SILVESTER
XXXIX sort
a
when we come
to speak of
121
Bartholomew of Parma
in
later chapter.
In the fifteenth century such intellectual statesmen as
Humphrey, Duke of
Henry
VH
Interest oi
of England anddSg" displayed an interest in geomancy, judging from a manu- in the art. Gloucester, and
de luxe of Guido Bonatti's work on astrology which was made for Henry VH and contains a picture of him, and also Plato's translation of the geomancy of Alpharinus and geomantic "tables of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester." ^ script
The
interest of the clergy in this superstitious art
attested
is
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, Treatises on
at the request of another abbot of
Paris,^
geomancy continue
manuscripts as
to be
found
in the
the eighteenth century, that of Gerard of
late
Cremona
as
espe-
cially. a 14th century MS, has, like Bernard's, the four pages of key twenty-eight the followed by pages of "judges of the fates," from "Almatene" to "Algaga282-, Berlin fol. lauro." 969,
compilatus per magistrum Martinum Hispanum phisicutn abbatern de Cernatis in ecclesia Vurgensi quam composuit ad preces nobilis et discreti viri domini Archimbaldi abbatis sancti As-
magistri RadulU "Divinaciones de Tolosa." ^Arundel 66 (see above, p. 119, note s) the portrait of Henry is
teensis ac canonici Parisiensis." Ashmole 360-II, fols. 15-44, Explicit as above except "Burgensi," "Archtbaldi/' and "Astern."
;
at
fol.
201,
at
fols.
277V-87,
"Tabulae Humfridi Ducts Gljiwcestriae in judiciis artis
geoman-
*
monastic Libraries
sie."
52,
Also by the cies in the
Corpus
Christi 190, fols. 11"Explicit liber Geomancie
Dover,
listing of
geoman-
medieval catalogues of libraries. See James, Canterbury and of
:
APPENDIX
I
MANUSCRIPTS OF THE EXPERIMENTARIUS OF BERNARD SILVESTER Digby 46, 14th century, fols. 7V-39V. Ashmole 304, 13th century, fols. 2r-30v. Sloane 3857, 17th century,
fols.
164-95.
These three MSS are much alike both in the Experimenproper and the other tracts of divination which accompany it. Digby 46 has more of them than either of tariiis
the others and
3857 has no
more
pictures.
Ashmole 304.
pictures than I
Sloane
have given the numbers of the folios
only for the Experimentarins proper. Sloane 2472, a quarto in skin containing 30 leaves, dated in the old written catalogue as late 12th, but in Scott's printed Index as 14th century, fols. 3r-i4v, the prologue and 22 of 28 Judges of the
first
version;
fols.
i5r-2iv, the last part of the
method of
divination by the 36 decans, "Thoas Index X" to "Sorab Index XXXVI"; fols. 23r-30v, divination by planets and signs as in
Digby
46.
Sloane 3554, 15th century, contains the divination of the physician of King Amalricus, the prologue of the Experimentarius, and the second set only of 28 Judges.
The following
MSS
also contain only this second ver-
sion:
Ashmole Ashmole
342, early 14th century, 52. 399, late 13th century, fols. 54-8.
CU
Trinity 1404 (II), I4-I5th century, fols. 2-16. Royal 12-C-XII, fols. 108-23, has the second version of the Experimentarius but also a few of the other items of divination
found in Ashmole 304.
The
first set
of 28 Judges
Bernard Silvester
is
found without mention of
in the following
MSS
BERNARD SILVESTER
CHAP. XXXIX
BN
7486, 14th century,
sophi.
Cum omne
fol.
30V-,
123
"Incipit liber alkardiani phylo-
quod experitur
sit
experiendum propter
se vel
propter aliud."
Additional "libellus
15236,
I3-I4th
Alchandiandi"
century, ;
and
English hand,
at
fols.
95r-io8r,
fols.
i30-52r,
Prenosticon
Socratis Basilei.
The prologue of Ashmole
345, late
the Experimentarius
14th century,
fol.
Bodleian (Bernard 2177, #6) Auct. F. silvestris."
64,
is
found alone
in
"Bernardinus."
3. 13, fol.
104V, "Bernardini
— ;;
CHAPTER XL SAINT HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
:
IO98-II79
Hildegard influenced by Bernard Silvester? — (Bibliographical — Her personality and reputation— Dates of her works Question of their genuineness — Question of her knowledge of Latin— Subject-matter of her works — Relations between science and religion them— Her peculiar views concerning winds and rivers Her suggestions concerning drinking-water — The devil as the negative principle— Natural substances and — Stars and fallen angels the antediluvian period sin and nature— Nature in Adam's time Spiritual lessons from natural phenomena — Hildegard's attitude toward magic— Magic Art's defense — True Worship's reply— Magic properties of natural substances — Instances of counter-magic— Ceremony with a jacinth and wheaten loaf — Her superstitious procedure — Use of herbs Marvelous virtues of gems— Remarkable properties of —Use of the parts of birds — Cures from quadrupeds — The unicorn, weasel, and mouse— What animals to eat and wear — Insects and reptiles — Animal compounds — Magic and astrology closely connected — Astrology and divination condemned — Signs the stars — Superiors and inferiors effect of stars and winds on elements and humors — Influence of the moon on human health and generation— Relation of the four humors to human character and fate— Hildegard's varying position — Nativities for the days of the moon— Man the microcosm— Divination dreams.
Was
note)
in
evil spirits ;
fish
in
in
The
Was Hildegard influenced
by Bernard Silvester
?
macrocosm and microcosm, notis and hyle, by Bernard Silvester in the De mundi universifate is believed by Dr. Charles Singer, in a recent essay on "The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard," to have discussion of
influenced her later writings, such as the Liber zntae nieri-
torum and the Liber diznnoriim operuni. He writes "The work of Bernard corresponds so closely both in form, in spirit, and sometimes even in phraseology to the Liber diznnorum opcrum that it appears to us certain that Hildegard must have had access to it." ^ Without subscribing un.
.
,
^
Singer
(1917)
124
p.
19.
:
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
CHAP, XL
we
reservedly to this view,
geomancer of Tours ^
pass on from the Platonist and
to the Christian "sibyl of the Rhine."
Migne, Patrologia Latina,
chis,
etc.
;
sarum
et
nwna-
Theodorico
the Subtilitatum diver-
naturaruni
crcaturarunv
novcm, as edited by Daremberg and Reuss the Scivias and the Liber divinorum opcrum simlibri
;
shall cite this hominis. I following chapter simply as Migne without repeating the number of the volume. plicis
the
in
Pitra,
Analecta sacra, This volume
VIII
vol.
contains printed edition of the Liber vitae mcritorutn, pp. 1-244, Heinemann, in describing a thirteenth century copy of it (MS 1053, S. Hildegardis liber meritorum vite) in 1886 in his CataWolfenbiittel logue of MSS, was therefore mistaken in speaking of it as "unprinted," an imperfect edition of the Liber compositae medicinae de aegritudinum caiists signis atqiic ciiris, and other works by Hildegard. better edition of the last (1882). the only
—
—
A
named
work
is
Hildegardis
:
curae, ed. Paulus Kaiser, Leipzig, Teubner, 1903. Earlier editions of the Subtilitates were printed at Strasburg by J. Schott in 1533 and 1544 as
causae
et
follows
Physica S. Hildegardis elemenfluniinum aliquot Germaniac mctcllorum leguminum fructuunt et herbarum arborutn et arbustorunt piscium denique volatilium et animantiunv terrae
torum
operationes IV libris mirabili experientia posteritati tradens, Argentorati, 1533. Expcrimentarius medicinae conlinois Trot u lac curandarum
naturas
et
aegritudinum muliebrum item quatuor Hildegardis de .
.
.
ele-
mentorum fluminum
aliquot Germaniae metallorum herbarum piscium et animantium terrae .
naturis
et
Kraut, 1544,
.
.
operationibus,
ed.
G.
^
A. Reuss, De libris physicis Hildegardis comtncntatio his-
F.
vol.
ihis volume contains the account of Hildegard in the Acta Sanctorum, including the Vita auctoribus Hildcgardis sanctae 197.
Godefrido
125
S.
torico-medica, VViirzburg, 1835. F. A. Reuss, Der heiligen Hildegard Subtilitatum diversarum
naturarutn creaturarum libri noveni, die werthvolleste Urkunde deutscher Natur- und HcUkunde aus dem. Mittelalter. In Annalen des Vereins fUr Nassau. Alterthumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, Bd. VI, Heft i, Wiesbaden, 1859. in Jessen, C. Sitzb. Vienna, Math, naturw. Klasse, (1862)
XLV,
97-
i.
Jessen, C. Botanik in kulturhistorischer Entwickelung, Leipzig,
1862, pp. C.
Jessen,
Kunde (1875),
der p.
124-26. in Anzciger filr deutschen Vorseit,
175-
Von
der Linde, Die Handschriften der Kgl. Landesbibl. in
Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Schmelzeis,
J.
Ph.
1877.
Das Leben
und Wirken der
hi. Hildegardes, Freiburg, 1879. Battandier, A. "Sainte Hildegarde, sa vie et ses oeuvres," in Revue des questions historiques, XXXIII (1883), 395-425. Roth, F. W. E. in Zeitsch. fUr
kirchl. Wissenschaft u. kirchl. Leben, Leipzig, IX (1888), 453. Kaiser, P. Die Naturiinssen~ schaftliche Schriftcn der hi. Hildegard, Berlin. 1901. (Schulprogratnm des Konigsstddtischen
Gymnasiums
in Berlin.) phlet of 24 pages. See
A
pam-
also
his
edition,
mentioned above, of the
Causae
et
Singer,
Views
curae. Clias.
"The
Scientific
and
Visions Saint of Hildegard," in Studies in the History and Method of Science, Oxford, Dr. 1-55. 1917, pp. Singer seems unacquainted with the above work by Kaiser, writing (p. 2) "'The extensive literature that has risen around the life and works of Hildegard has come
from the hands of writers who have shown no interest in natural knowledge." Yet see also
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
126
Her
From
per-
^nTre^'^utation.
repeated statements in the prefaces to Hildegard's
works, in which she
how
on
exactly
when
— for
she wrote
them and
not only was she not
age
this point but her different statements of her
at different times is
tells
old she was at the time,
reticent
chap.
are
evident that she
From
near Sponheim. Scivias, she
had
all
consistent with one another
was born
in 1098.
Her
birthplace
—
it
was
the age of five, she tells us in the
been subject to visions which did not
to her in her sleep but in her
come
wakeful hours, yet were not
During her 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 seen or heard with the eyes and ears of sense.
lifetime she
Nahe
her eighth year in religious houses along the
river,
147 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 At any rate she befor saintliness than all her writings. came very well known, and her prayers and predictions were much sought after. Thomas Becket, who seems to have
and
in
1
been rather too inclined to pry into the future, as see later,
we
shall
wrote asking for "the visions and oracles of that
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 sainted
Pope Eugenius she predicted that not would he have peace and grace in the
until his city."
^
last
days
It is
very
doubtful whether St. Bernard visited her monastery and
Pope Eugenius III to her visions, show but her in correspondence with St. Bernard and several popes and emperors, with numerous called the attention of
her
letters
Wasmann, Bingen
E.
-
"Hildegard von
deutsche Naturforscherin," in Biologisches Zentralblatt (1913) 278-88. als alteste
XXXHI
Herwegen
the Kirchl. lexicon (1908), I, 1970. in
Hand-
* Migne, citing Baronius, 28, Ann. 1148, from Epist. S. Thomas,
I,
171.
MS
of them 'I have noted one in the British Museum, Harleian 1725.
;
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
127
archbishops and bishops, abbots and other potentates, to
whom
she did not hesitate to administer reproofs and warn-
For
ings.
this
heresy she also
There
Germany. 1
purpose and to aid
made
179 or 1180.^
is
tours
in
from Bingen
the repression of to various parts of
some disagreement whether she died
in
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
Scivias, Liber
can
Eberbach, made a compendium
in
divinorum operimi, and Letters,
own or read her works." ^ As was stated above, we can
works
with exactness.
Scivias
^
date
from her "because few
some of Hildegard's
gardes"
when
works,
she says that in the year
two years and seven months her commit her visions to
old,
1
141,
she
was
forty-
a voice from heaven bade
She adds
writing.
she
that
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 meritoriim, which she was divinely instructed to write in 1 1 58, 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 "siibtilitates diz'ersaruni
naturarimi crcaturarimi," the
of another of her works with which
On
we
title
shall be concerned.
meritorum she spent five years, so it should have been completed by 1163. In that year, the and preface to the Liber divinorum operuni informs us, the Liber vitae
the sixty-fifth year of her life
begin
its
^
it.
benonis bach,
2619, 13th century, Geprioris Cisterc. in Eber-
Speculum
futurorum
Compendium sive prophetiarum Hildegardis S. also, at Rome, Bibl. Alex. 172,
temporum
voice instructed her to
more years were required
This leaves undated only one of the
Migne, 84-85, 129-130.
'CLM
—
—a
composition, and seven
to complete
Dates of
In her preface to the one entitled
five
14th century, fols. 1-29. the Liber 'Early of are simplicis hominis Scivias Palat Lat. 311, 12th century, 204 fols. Merton 160, early 13th cen-
MSS
;
tury.
;
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
128
works by her which we
shall consider,
namely, the Causae
curae, or Liber compositae medichiae as
et
called,
chap.
it
is
sometimes
while the Suhtilitates diversarum naturarum crea-
turanim
bears
a
corresponding
alternative
Liher
title,
shnplicis medicinae.
"Some would impugn
Question of their
genuineness.
ings," says the article clopedia,
the genuineness of
on Hildegard
"but without
sufficient
edited the Causae ct curae, had
in
The
reason."
all
her writ-
Catholic Ency^
Kaiser,
no doubt that both
the Suhtilitates were genuine works.
it
who and
Recently Singer has
excluded them both from his discussion of Hildegard's
sci-
views on the ground that they are probably spurious, His objection that but his arguments are unconvincing. entific
they are
full
German
of
expressions which are absent in her
is of little consequence, since it would be natural employ vernacular proper names for homely herbs and local fish and birds and common ailments, while in works
other works to
of an astronomical and theological character like her other visions there Latin.
would be
Anyway
little
of the Liher vitae meritorum
work.
reason for departing from the
Hildegard's
own is
assertion in the preface
decisive that she wrote that
The almost contemporary biography of her
also
wrote "certain things concerning the nature
states that she
of man and the elements, and of diverse creatures," ^ which may be a blanket reference to the Causae et curae as well as The the Suhtilitates diversarum naturarum creaturarum. 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 Liher compositae medicinae as her
works and
Matthew of Westminster
;
" Preyer, Citing Gesch. d. Mystik. deutsch. Hauck, 1874; Kirchcngesch, Deutsch. IV, 308
Von Winterfeld, XXVII, 297. '
Migne,
loi,
Neue
Archiv,
quaedam de na-
elementorum, diversarumque creaturarum. Singtura
hotntnis
et
later in the
same century
ascribed both treatises to her, stattaking the words as an exact of one work, tries to deny that they apply even to the Subthe tilitatcs: hut the writer of is I 'ita obviously simply giving a general idea of the subjects treated by Hildegard. er,
title
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
129
ing 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}
Kaiser has pointed out a number of
and the Subtilitates, while its introductory cosmology seems to me very similar to that of
parallel passages in
it
Hildegard's other three works.
Indeed, as
we
consider the
contents of these five works together,
same
that the
them
peculiar views
it will become evident and personality run through
all.
In the preface to the Liber vitae meritorum Hildegard
speaks of a
man and
who gave From such
a girl
in writing out her visions.^
her some assistance
passages in her
own
works and from statements of her biographers and other writers ^ it has been inferred that she was untrained in Latin grammar and required literary assistance.^ Or sometimes it is said that she miraculously became able to speak and write Latin without having ever been instructed in that language.^ 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 for further condensation
all,
it
hardly say as
much
is
impossible.
for her other works, but a
One can new critical
them such as the Causae et curae has enjoyed might result in an improvement of the style. But our conedition of
cern
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 re^
In
known century
what
is so far the only extant copy, a thirteenth
MS
at
Copenhagen,
which Jessen discovered in 1859 and called attention to in 1862 (Act. Acad. Vindob., XLV, i. 97116), the Titulus is Causae et curae (shown in facsimile by Singer ^
(1917), Plate 5a.) "Et ego testimonio
Pitra, 7-8,
hominis illius quem ut in prioribus visionibus praef ata sum occulte quaesieram et inveneram et
testimonio cuiusdam puellae mihi assistentis
manus ad ascribendum
posui." ^
Vincent
of
Beauvais,
Specu-
historiale, XXVII, 83, other actors cited from the
liim
Sanctorum
in
Migne,
col.
and Acta
197.
may
be a further explanalion of the use of German words in some of her works and their *
This
absence in others, ° Migne, 17, 19-20, 73-74,
93, lOl.
Question ^"
Lrd's knowledge
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
130 Subject-
matter of Hildegard's
works.
chap.
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
ligious in their contents but contain considerable
Natural
Different
Simples
Creatures
or
Book
of
Medicinal
books dealing respectively with plants,
in nine
is
and In this arrangement there is no plan evident and metals. it would seem more logical to have the books on plants and In Schott's edition trees and stones and metals together. elements,
trees,
stones,
fish,
birds,
animals,
reptiles,
^
—
1533 the discussion of stones was omitted perhaps properly, since Matthew of Westminster spoke of but eight
of
books
—and
the remaining topics were grouped in four books
instead of eight as in Migne.
First
came the
elements, then
book treating of plants and
and the That a fourth book including Subtleties was a widely read and influential work is indicated by the number of manuscripts of it listed by SchmelOf the five books of the Causae et curae zeis and Kaiser. metals, then a third
all
the
first,
trees,
sorts of animals.^
beginning with the creation of the universe, Hyle,
the creation of the angels,
fall
of Lucifer, and so forth,
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.^ With book three the listing of
deals chiefly with celestial
^
however, one of the
It is,
least biittel
174, is
Of
flie
order in at
MSS, Wolfen-
3591, 14th century, fols.
i-
except that the second book called
Of
rivers
instead
of,
Hildcgardis elements: "B. Physica scu liber subtilitatum dc diversis crcaturis, scilicet f. 2 de herbis, f. 62 de Huminibiis, f. 67 de arboribus, f. 90 de lapidibus preciosis, f. io6v de piscibus, f.
120 de volatilibus, f. 141 de animalibus, f. 162 de vermibus, f. 168 de me t aliis." " It was, however, subdivided into three parts, treating respectively of fish, fowl, and other animals. ' The variety and confusing order of its contents may be best and briefly indicated by a list of De chapter heads (pp. 33-52) :
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
begins and
cures
German words appear
131
occasionally
in
the text.
So much attention to the Biblical and Eve as is shown in the
Adam
story of creation and of
two books of the
first
Relations science
Caitsae et curae might give one the impression that Hilde- ^"4
gard's natural science
is
highly colored by and entirely sub-
But
ordinated to a religious point of view.
about even her religious visions
this
A
the impression that one should take away.
is
not quite
notable thing
the essential conformity
is
of their cosmology and physiology to the then prevalent
The theory of four
theories of natural science.
elements,
the hypothesis of concentric spheres surrounding the earth, the current notions concerning veins and humors, are in-
troduced with slight variations in visions supposed to be of divine origin.
In matters of detail Hildegard
mistakes, or at least differ from the then
accepted view, and she displays no a
new turn
to
little
some of the familiar
may make
more generally
originality in giving
concepts,
as
in her
powers of fire, four of air, fifteen of water, and seven But she does not evolve any really new prinof earth. ^
five
ciples of nature.
Possibly
it is
these scientific verities that
is
the spiritual application of
regarded as the pith of the
revelation, but Hildegard certainly says that she sees the
natural facts in her visions.
contemporary natural
science,
The hypotheses of
past and
somewhat obscured or
dis-
by the figurative and mystical mode of description proper to visions, are embodied in a saint's reveries and torted
Adae ceptu,
casu, de spermate, de conquare homo hirsutus est,
de reptilibus, de volatilibus, de piscibus, de conceptus diversitate, de infirmitatibus, de contincntia, de inconti>v£ntia, de Aegmaticis, de melanchoUs, de melancholice morbo, de elcmcntorum commixtione, de rore, de pruina, de nebula, quod quatuor sunt elementa tantum, de anima et spiritibus, de Adae creatione, de capillis, de interioribus hominis, de auribus, de oculis et naribus, quod in hom,ine sunt elementa, de sanguine.
generatione , de Adae de prophetia, de anintae infusione, de Adae somno, de Evae malitia, de exilic Adae, quare Eva prius cecidit, de diluvio, quare filii Dei, de lapidum gignitione, de iri, de terrae situ, quod homo constat de dementis, de Hegmate diversitate, de humoribus, de frenesi, de contractis, de stultis, de pa-
de
came,
Adae
de
vivificatione,
ralysi.
^Causae 30.
et
curae,
pp.
20 and
in
.
them,
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
132
Science serves religion,
utilized in inspired revelation. is
chap. it
true, but religion for its part does not hesitate to accept
science.
We
Peculiar
views concerning winds and rivers.
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.^ In the Liber diz'hionim operum she speaks of winds which drive the firmament from east to west and the planets from west to east.- In the Suhtilitates 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.^
One
gets the impression that the rivers
flow up-hill toward their sources, since one reads that "the
and that Rhine is sent forth by the force of the sea" "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 sub'Migne, 403-4. 'Migne, 791-95(Migne, 'Subtilitates, II, 3 1212), Mare ftumina emittit quibus sanguine irrigatur vclut terra venarum corpus hojuinis. * Subtilitates, (Mi^'pe), II, 5 Rhenus a viari impetu emiititur. so non-plussed by this that he actually interprets mari as the lake of Constance, and asks, questioning Hildegard's authorship of the Subtilitates,
Singer
(p.
14)
is
"How
could
she possibly derive
Rhine
and Danube, and Aloselle, Nahe and Glan, from the same lake, as does the author of the Liber subtilitatumf" That all waters, fresh or salt,
all
rivers,
Meuse
came
originally from the sea is asserted in the Sccrctmn Secretprum of the Pseudo-Aristotle, as edited by Roger Bacon Steele (1920), p. 90. :
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
Perhaps a passage in the Causae
terranean passages.
curae
may
133 et
be taken as a correction or explanation of the
preceding assertions, in which case that work would seem In it too Hildegard and rivers" which "flow from the sea"
to be of later date than the Siibtilitates. states that "springs
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.^ The waters rising from the southern sea are also spoken of by her as salt.^ 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.^
On
the subject of whether waters are
drink or not Hildegard comes a
wholesome to
Suggestions con-
nearer the truth and cerning somewhat reminds us of the discussions of the same subject drinkingin Pliny
and Vitruvius.*
trifle
She says that swamp water should
always be boiled,^ that well water
and
spring-water
spring-water
better to drink than
is
than
river
which
water,
should be boiled and allowed to cool before drinking; rain-water
inferior to spring-water
is
snow-water
is
'^
dangerous to the health.^
^
that
and that drinking
The
salt
waters
of the west she regards as too turbid, while the fresh waters of the west are not
be boiled
warmed
and allowed
to
sufficiently
cool
by the sun and should
before using.^
The
salt
waters arising from the south sea are venomous from the presence in them of
worms and
small animals.
fresh waters have been purged by the heat, but ^Causae
et
curae (1903),
p. 24.
^Ibid., p. 25. 'Ibid., p. 23.
*See chapters
Vitruvius, 2-4,
on
Book VIII, "Rain-water,"
"Various Properties of Different Waters," and "Tests of Good Water." Pliny, NH, Book XXXI, chapters 21-23, on "The Wholesomeness of Waters", "The Impurities of Water," "Modes of Testing Water." * Causae et curae (1903), p. 27. Ubid., p. 28. ' Vitruvius held that rain-water
was
Southern
make
the
unusually wholesome, but Pliny disputed this notion. ^Causae et curae (1903), p. 30, "si quis earn bibit, ulcera et scabies in eo saepissime crescunt ac viscera eius livore implentur." Pliny noted the belief that icewater and snow-water were unhealthy, and both he (XXXVII, II) and Vitruvius speak of Alpine streams which cause diseases or swellings in the throat. ^Causae et curae (1903), gp. 24-25.
134
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
flesh of
men
the
author to advise the boiling of drinking-water,- but
first
fatty
and of black
Hildegard
color.^
chap. is
not
she certainly lays great stress on this point.
The
devil
ne^ative principle,
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 Her opening the Causae et curac with a dismentions. cussion of creation
—of course —soon
the medieval scientist
a usual starting-point with
leads her to speak of the fall
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.^ But after the devil was unable to of Lucifer.
create anything out of nothing and
from heaven, God show how realize what glory he
fell
created the firmament and sun, moon, and stars to great
had
He was
lost.^
the devil
and to make the devil Other creatures who willingly join themselves to lose their own characteristics and become nothing.^
Lucifer himself is not permitted to move from Tartarus or he would upset the elements and celestial bodies, but a Causae et curae (1903), p. 26. Pliny and Vitruvius Both mention the practice, and the latter calls it an invention of the emperor Nero. A note, however, in Bostock and Riley's translation of the Natural History states that Galen ascribed the practice to Hippocrates and that Aristotle ^ *
was undoubtedly acquainted with it.
When
"Indeed,
it
Pliny goes on to say, is generally admitted
that all water
when
is
more wholesome
has been boiled," another translator's note adds, "This is not at all the opinion at the present day," that is, 1856. But apparently the progress of medical
it
and
1856 has
biological
been
in
science since this respect a
retrogression to Pliny's view. ^Causae et curac (1903), p.
i.
Somewhat
similarly Moses Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, who was born thirty-seven years after Hildegard, held that evil was mere privation and that the personal devil of scripture was an allegorical representation thereof. He also denied the existence of demons, but considered belief in angels as second only in importance to a belief in God. See Finkelscherer (1894) pp. 40Mischna Commentary to 51 Aboda-zara, IV, 7; Levy (1911) 89-90. ;
*
Causae
^
Ibid., p. 5.
et
curae (1903),
p.
ll.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
135
throng of demons of varying individual strength plot with him against the universe.^ But in other passages Hildegard
seems to admit freely the influence,
if
And
ence, of the devil in nature.
not the complete pres-
he has the power of de-
ceiving by assumed appearances, as
Adam was
seduced by
the serpent.
mankind and has
Indeed, the dragon to this day hates
such a nature and such diabolical arts in
when
times
emits
it
This
disturb the air.-
itself that
some-
fiery breath, the spirits of the air
its
illustrates
a
common
feature of
pharmacy; namely, the as-
Hildegard's natural history and
sociation of natural substances with evil spirits either in
In the preface to the
friendly or hostile relationships.
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 in other herbs
;
man
consequently
is
is
more present than
stimulated by
ing to his desires, whether they be good or bad." other hand, the holm-oak
is
one who sleeps under
shade
its
it ^
accord-
On
the
hostile to the spirits of the air;
free
is
from
diabolical illu-
and fumigating a house with it drives out the evil Certain fish, too, have the property of expelling demons, whether one eats them or burns their livers or sions,
spirits.*
Finally, stones
bones. ^
evil spirits.
hold the spirits
It is
gem
and metals have
advisable for a
their relations to
woman
in childbirth to
jasper in her hand, "in order that malignant
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 the mother's steel
weaken
womb."
^
child, as
Not only does
it
emerges from
the touch of red-hot
the force of poison in food or drink, but that
metal also signifies the divinity of God, and the devil
from and avoids
it.'^
Causae et curae, pp. 57-58, 'Subtleties, VIII, i. *
^Ibid., I, 56. *Ihid.. Ill, 25.
'Ihid.,
'Ibid., Ibid..
V, I and IV, 10. IX, 8.
4.
flees
Natural an/evil^^' spirits,
:
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
136
angels sin
and
nature
perhaps not very surprising that
It is
Stars and fallen
chap.
we should
find
in Hildegard's works notions concerning nature which we met back in the Enoch Hterature, 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 Sciznas 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
Book of Enoch, and we are told were in harmony before Lucifer's
that the four elements
the
even human, upon nature
effect of sin,
the Causae et curae, where
it
is
The
fall.^ is
disturbing
again stated in
said that normally the ele-
ments serve man quietly and perform his works. B'^t 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
In the Liber vitae meritorum, too, the elements
again. ^
complain that they are overturned and upset by human depravity and iniquity.^ Nature in Adam's time
the antediluvian period.
The
influence of the Christian religion
and that of
the Bible in particular
is
further
shown
manifested by numer-
is
:
ous allusions to history, but very
^
and the
few of them
narrative.
scriptural states
Adam
Thus
that after the fall of
the sun and
moon and
earliest period of Biblical
find
any
justification in the
Liber divinorum operum
the
Adam
and before the deluge
planets and other stars were "some-
what turbulent from excessive
heat,"
and that the men of
that time possessed great bodily strength in order that they
might endure ture
this heat.
The deluge reduced
and men since have been weaker.
the fifth book of the Subtleties
we
cure and five
eat,
would enable him
months.
Adam
to
nos.'
humanis
*II,
'Nam
57.
I, "Querela elementorum. homines pravis operibus
suis velut
man
could pro-
go without food for four
*Migne, 387-9. p.
if
used to eat them at times after he
*
(1903)
In the preface to
are told that there are
certain plants which fish eat, and which,
or
the tempera-
molendinum subvertunt
Ill,
23,
tuntur." *
"Quod
iniquitatibus
Migne, 966.
elementa subver-
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
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 the soil noxious
when
but
fall,
Abel's blood stained
humors arose from which venomous and
were generated. These perished in the deluge, but others were generated from their putrefying In the Causae et curae, too, the names of Adam carcasses. deadly
reptiles
and Eve occasionally appear in the chapter headings, for ^ instance, "Of Adam's fall and of melancholy."
common among
Hildegard also held the view,
medieval
Christian writers, that one purpose of the natural world about
us
is
to illustrate the spiritual
that invisible
....
world and
come, and
life to
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." ^ But neither Hildegard nor medieval Christians in general thought that the only purpose of
natural
phenomena and
truth and point a moral.
was
science
But
excuse which sounded well
this
to illustrate
when one of
the clergy wished
Not
to investigate or write about things of nature.
we mean
spiritual
always constituted a good that
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." tainly our abbess of
Bingen
especially the Subtleties
natural
and Causae
phenomena and medical
any mention of what
et
recipes
spiritual truth they
curae, lists
(1903). P- 143.
cer-
'
many
without making
may
illustrate. *
But
in the course of her writings,
Migne, 404-405.
or
may
not
Spiritual
from"^ natural phe-
nomena.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
138 Hildegard's attitude
toward
much with
Associating natural substances as or spirits of the air as she does,
is
it
chap.
the devil
not surprising that
reality of magic and has someMagic is regarded by Hildegard as art. She describes it in a vision of
Hildegard believes in the
magic.
thing to say about
an
evil
and
it.
diabolical
the Sciz'ias, where
God Himself
represented as speaking,
is
as the art of seeing and hearing the devil, which to
men by Satan
operum
it
is
was taught
Similarly in the Liber divinorum
himself.^
stated that Antichrist will excel "in
all
dia-
This was of course In the Liber vitae meritorum the usual Christian view. with more apparent originality Magic or Maleiicium is presented as one of the personified Vices and is allowed to
bolical arts"
speak for
and
in "the
itself.
It is
magic
^
art."
represented as having the body of
a dog, the head of a wolf, and the beast or image speaks in
its
own
tail
of a lion.
This
and defense as
praise
follows.
"Of Mercury and other
Magic Art's
defense
things, in
who by
philosophers
I
will say
many
their investigations harnessed the elements
such wise that they discovered most certainly everything
that they wished.
Those very daring and very wise men God and partly from evil
learned such things partly from spirits.
And why
shouldn't they?
And
planets after themselves, since they had
they named the made many investi-
gations and learned a great deal concerning the sun and
moon and list
stars.
in those arts,
I,
moreover, rule and reign wherever
I
forsooth in the heavenly luminaries, in
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." ^ trees
Vision III, Migne, 410. Vision X, 2S> and 32, Migne, 1028 and 1032. *
^
'
V,
Pitra (1882) 6-7.
Vitae meritorum,
HILDEGARD OF BIN GEN
XL
To
139
Magic to identify itself with True Worship's scientific investigation, the True Worship of God responds reply to with the counter question, "Whether it is more pleasing Magic. to God to adore Him or His works?" and reminds Maleficiimi 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 this bold attempt of
.
charge that maleficiimi devotees "by directing
is
.
"by diabolical
.
arts,"
and
that its
works to impurity turn their "For they name demons as their gods and worship them instead of God." ^ That magic, however diabolical it may be, does employ Magic properties natural forces and substances, is not only asserted by Magic of natuall
their
science also to the pursuit of evils."
Art
itself,
but freely admitted by Hildegard in her discus-
ral sub-
stances.
sions 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
tribute
magic
much
in the west are potent and art for other phantasms but do not con-
to the health of the
former work she
tells
human
that the tree-toad
in diabolical arts, especially
when
is
body.^
In the
much employed
the trees are beginning
to leaf and blossom, since at this time the spirits of the air are especially active.^
way The
fantastic purposes," if *
Sometimes, however, there
is
a
remove this magic virtue from a natural substance. root mandragora "is no longer efficacious for magic and to
it
is
Vitae meritorum, V, 32. et curae (1903) 31-32.
'Causae
purified in a ^
fountain for a
Subtleties, Vlll,
6.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
140
day and a night immediately after the earth. Instances of counter-magic.
also substances
Httle force in
curae Hildegard
which counteract magic.
It
any place where a
fir-tree
grows, for the
and avoid such
spots.-
In the Causae
spirits of the air hate et
has been dug from
^
There are has
it
chap.
how
tells
to
compound a powder "against
poison and against magic words."
^
It
and courage and prosperity on him who
also "confers health
carries
it
with him."
First one takes a root of geranium (storkesnabil) with
its
two mallow plants, and seven shoots of the plantagThese must be plucked at midday in the middle of
leaves, enet.
Then they
April.
are to be laid on moist earth and sprinkled
Next they are
with water to keep them green for a while.
dried in the setting sun and in the rising sun until the third
hour,
when they should once more
be laid on moist earth
Then they
and sprinkled with water until noon.
removed and placed facing with
cloth, trifle
before midnight.
towards day and to
on top
a stick
A
flee.
all
Then
the night begins to incline
little
window or
as midnight
is
little
placed above a door or
may have
the cool air
access to them.
passed, they are to be
more, pulverized with the middle pill-box with a
and night begin
before midnight, therefore, they should be
some garden where
As soon
be wrapped in a
to hold them in place, until a
the evils of darkness
transferred to a high in
the south in the full sunshine
when they should
until the ninth hour,
are to be
finger,
removed once
and put
in a
new
hisemuni to keep them from decaying
but not a sufficient quantity to overcome the scent of the herbs.
A
little
of this powder
eyes, ears, nose,
body as an antiaphrodisiac, or without touching
may
it
but so that
be applied daily to the
it
may be bound on the may be held over wine
its
odor can reach the wine,
and mouth, or
it
which should then be drunk with a
bit
of saffron as a pre-
ventive of indigestion, poison, magic, and so forth. ^Subtleties,
I,
*Ibid., Ill, 23.
56.
(1903),
p.
196.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
In the Suhtilitates
mended,
if
anyone
the following procedure
^
141 is
recom- Ceremony
bewitched by phantasms or magic
is
with a jacinth
words so that he goes mad. Take a wheaten loaf and cut and wheaten the upper crust in the form of a cross. First draw a jacinth loaf. 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 licit magic of her own which is every whit as super-
has a
magic
which she condemns. It is evident that she accepts not only marvelous and occult virtues of stitious as the
art
Hildegard's superstitious
procedure.
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
homeopathic counterpart. medicinal purposes, and
is
It is also
it
forms a sort of
employed for ordinary
a characteristic feature of Hilde-
gard's conception of nature and whole mental attitude.
we may
This
further illustrate by running through the books of
the Suhtilitates.
Except for passages connecting the devil with certain Use of we have already noted, Hildegard's discussion herbs.
herbs which
of vegetation
is
for the
most part limited *IV,
2.
to medicinal prop-
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
142
chap.
which are effective without the addition of Sometimes nevertheless the herbs are
erties of herbs,
fantastic ceremonial.
either prepared or administered in a rather bizarre fashion.
may
Insanity
we
be alleviated,
head and washing
are told, by shaving the
water in which agrimonia has been boiled, while the hot herbs themselves
patient's
are bound in a cloth
it
over his heart and then upon his
first
An
forehead and temples.^
unguent
gestive and mental disorders
wood
green
bits of the
in the hot
is
of the
fir-tree,
This mess
to half their weight.
beneficial alike for di-
made of is
the bark, leaves, and combined with saliva to be boiled in water
until it becomes thick, then butter is to be added, and the whole strained through a cloth.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
and three nights. Finally which resembles the human figure, should be pulverized, camphor added to it, and eaten. ^ 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 the thighs for three days
the left half of the root,
without grief,
I
now
never transgressed"
mandragora created" as
Thou
more
—
is
— Hildegard has already
"in order that
essential is
stated that the
my
clay
may
feel that
Adam was peace just
That the prayer or incantation is than the virtue of the mandragora in this it."
indicated by the statement that shoots of beech,
cedar, or aspen
may
be used instead of the mandragora.
Other marvelous Marvelous Hildegard attributes o'/Kems
book of the
which has
that earth
composed "of that earth of which
didst create
operation,
me
place next
effects
to
than routing the devil, which
gems
in the course of the
Suhtilitates, are to confer intellect
fourth
and science
for the day, to banish anger and dulness, bestow an equable
temper, restrain "^
'
Subtleties,
I,
Ibid.. Ill, 23.
lust,
114.
cure
all
sorts of diseases "/fciJ.. I, 56.
and
infirmi-
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
143
endow with
the gift of sound speech, prevent thefts at and enable one to fast. These marvelous results are produced either by merely having the stone in one's possesties,
night,
by holding
sion, or
taking
bed with one and warming
to
it
body, breathing on
when
in the hand, placing
it
it,
holding
suspending
fasting,
sign of the cross with
it
it.
next the skin,
by the heat of the
it
mouth
the
in
it
it
especially
about the neck, or making the In the cure of insanity by use
of the magnet the stone should be moistened with the pa-
and drawn across
tient's saliva
cantation epileptic
A
repeated.^
is
his
man may
by putting an emerald
fit
"As
say,
fill
be brought out of an
Having mouth and
mouth.^
in his
gem from
recovered, he should remove the
grace
forehead while an in-
his
Lord filled the earth, so may His body that it may never be moved." be repeated on nine successive morn-
the spirit of the the temple of
This ceremony
to
is
my
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 ings,
repeats
the
incantation.
Different
curing epilepsy by means of the
gem
is
the
procedure
achates.^
for
In this case
the stone should be soaked in water for three days at the
moon;
full
this
preserved, and
water should be slightly warmed, and then the patient's food cooked in
all
The gem should
tota crescat.
that he drinks.
it
dum
lima
also be placed in everything
This astrological procedure
is
to
be
re-
peated for ten months.
We
have already heard that certain
erty of expelling demons.
The eye of
virtues.
so that
it
it
^
a tunny
keeps one in
made of
have the prop- Remark-
a copprea,
worn
in a gold or silver ring
touches one's finger, arouses a sluggish
The lung of and
fish
Fish also have other remarkable
its
skin.^
Subtleties, IV,
^Ibid., IV, I. 'Ibid., IV, 16.
18.
intellect.*
good for a fever, good health to wear shoes and a belt Pulverized salmon bones are recom-
fish,
taken in water,
is
V,
8.
^bid., V,
I.
*
Ibid.,
ertfesof'" ^sh.
J44
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
mended
for bad teeth.^
chap.
But eating the head of a barbo Hildegard also tells some gives one a headache and fever. ^ wonderful stories concerning the modes of generation of In the Causae et curae ^ for dimdifferent varieties of fish. ness of the eyes
it is
in the sun, soften
between the eyes
it
recommended in
some walrus skin
to dry
pure wine, and apply
at night.
it
a cloth
in
should be removed at mid-
It
and applied only on alternate nights for a week. it will remove dimness of the eyes, or God does not
night
"Either
permit this to be done."
To
Use of the bfrds°
birds
render available or to enhance the occult virtues of
Hildegard suggests a great amount of complicated
The
ceremonial.
heart of a vulture, split in two, dried be-
and in the sun, and worn sewn up in a belt of doeskin, makes one tremble in the presence of This is explained by the vulture's own antipathy poison.^ fore a slow
fire
which is increased and purified by the fire, sun, and especially by the belt, for the doe is swifter and more to poison,
sensitive than other animals.
moved from
Mistiness
break, adding a single drop of to its gall,
marvelously re-
is
the eyes by catching a nightingale before day-
dew found on
clean grass
and anointing the eyebrows and lashes frequently Another eye-cure consists in cooking a
with the same.^
heron's head in water, removing
them
in the
its
sun and softening them
eyes, alternately in cold
them
successive times, pulverizing and dissolving
and tip
at night frequently
touching the eyes and
in varied
often
tells
bird in
ways
how
to
to
and
facilitate
make a
its
lids
in wine,
with the
The blood of a
of a feather dipped in this concoction."
crane, dried and preserved,
drying
water for three
employed Hildegard also
right foot are
child-birth.'^
medicinal unguent by cooking some
some prescribed manner and then pulverizing
cer-
tain portions of the carcass with various herbs or other ani-
mal substances.® '
Subtleties,
'Ibid.,
V,
y,
5.
10.
*(i903), PP- 193-4* Subtleties, VI, 7.
Even without
the
employment of
'Ibid., VI, 49'Ibid.. VI. 6. Ibid.. "Ibid., ^
VI, VI,
4. 5,
20, 40.
cere-
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL monial
remarkable powers are attributed to the
sufficiently
bodies or parts of birds. fat
and
145
Eating- the flesh of one reduces
benefits epileptics, while eating its liver
The
melancholy.^
liver of a
swan has
erty of purifying the lungs, while the lung of a
Again,
cure for the spleen.^
it
will
make him
to drink
is
bones have been stewed, and
heart,
swan
a heron's liver cures
trouble, while a cure for spleen its
good for
is
the different prop-
if
one
water
who
is
is
a
stomach in
which
sad eats
its
glad.^
Hildegard's chapters on quadrupeds are so delightfully Cures 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
quaint that
The camel, however, is peculiar humps have quite different virtues.'*
examples already given.
in
in that
its
different
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
skin cures ailments of the head whether
lion's
physical or mental.^
Deafness
may
be remedied by cutting
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 inBurying a cantation, to make a stupid person prudent.
off a lion's right ear
lion's heart in the its
house
is
regarded as
fire
insurance against
being struck by lightning, "for the lion
to roar
when he
hears thunder."
is
Digestion
accustomed aided by
is
drinking water in which the dried liver of a lion has been left for
a short time.
Placing a bit of the skin from be-
tween a bear's eyes over one's heart removes timidity and anxiety.^ If anyone suffers from paralysis or one of those changeable diseases which
him
wax and wane
with the
moon
where an ass has been has died a natural death, or has wallowed, and lunacy,
let
^Subtleties, VI,
^bid., VI, 'Ibid., VI,
5.
6.
select a spot
2.
*
Ibid.,
VII,
2.
^Ibid., VII, 3. 'Ibid., VII, 4.
like
slain, let
or
him
qu*^^ru peds.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
146
chap.
spread a cloth on the grass or ground and repose there a
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 apshort time and sleep
plied
Himself
he can.
if
to the alleviation of such complaints, prefigur-
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 ing that
next and the third days, when the patient will be cured.^
The
The weasel"'
and mouse.
liver
virtues,
and skin of the unicorn have great medicinal
but that animal can never be caught except by
means of
girls,
for
it
flees
diligently at girls, because
it
from men but
quickly captured while
its
stops to gaze
marvels that they have
"And if marvels so much
forms, yet no beards. together,
it
human
two or three girls the more and is the more Moreeyes are fixed on them. there are
employed in capturing it should be of noble, not peasant birth, and of the middle period of adolescence." ^ When one weasel is sick, another digs up a certain herb and breathes and urinates on it for an hour, and then brings But what this it to the sick weasel who is cured by it.^ over, the girls
herb
is is
unknown
do them no good is
if
to
men and other animals, and it would know it, since its unaided virtue
they did
not efficacious, nor would the action of their breath or
urine
make
placed with
it
so.
wax
But the heart of a weasel, dried and
in the ear, benefits
and the head of a weasel, worn the skin, strengthens
in
headache or deafness,
two
pieces in a belt next
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." * It should be ^Subtleties, VII, 'Ibid., VII,
5.
9.
'Ibid., VII, 38. *Ibid., VII, 39-
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
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 prod- What animals
and wear. "Sheepskins are good for human and wear, because they do not induce pride or lust or pestilence Pork is not as the skins of certain other animals do." ^ ucts to eat
to eat
wear.
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.-
On
the other hand, she
recommends as edible various birds which would strike the modern reader as disgusting.^ 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.^ Hildegard also describes a complicated cure for leprosy by use of the earth from an ant-hill.^ If a man kills a certain venomous snake just after
it
has skinned
itself in
Insects
and reptiles.
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.^ In the Causae et curae Hildegard combines the virtues Animal comof parts of a number of animals into one composite medi- pounds. cine for epilepsy.'^ Four parts of dried mole's blood are
used because the mole sometimes shows himself and sometimes hides, like the epilepsy
duck's
bill
itself.
Two
parts of
powdered
are added because the duck's strength
beak, "and because
it
is
in its
touches both pure and impure things
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
with
'
its bill, it is
repugnant to
Subtleties, VII, 16.
VII, 17. nbid., VII, 14. Ubid., VII, 42.
''Ibid.,
VII, 43Ubid., VIII, 2. '(1903), pp. 206-7.
^Ibid..
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
148
because the female bird
the
is
bound together
constituents are
days near a recent molecast,
some, then are put near
—
silent
of the two. These
in a cloth, placed for three
for such earth
ice to cool
Cakes are then to be
dry.
more
chap.
made with
more whole-
is
and then
sun to
in the
powder and the
this
edible animal and bird and a little meal and 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
some
livers of
cummin
by
seed,
The two
evil spirits.^
together by four
strips of skin are to be fastened
little steel ^
almighty
God
and as each is clasped most potent strength of
nails,
one repeats the formula, "In the
adjure you to safeguard me"
I
only in
;
and fourth instance instead of saying "I adjure" (adiuro), the words henedico, constituo, and conthe second, third,
One should be
iirmo are respectively substituted.
with
this belt night
and day, and magic words
girded
will not
harm
one.
We
Magic and astrology
have already encountered more than one instance
of observance of the phases of the
closely
connected.
moon
Hildegard's
in
medicinal and magical procedure, and have met in one of her formulae a hint that Christ employed astrological tion of a favorable conjunction in performing
Thus rate
as usual the influence of the stars
from other
we may
elec-
His miracles. to sepa-
is difficult
occult virtues of natural substances,
and
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
Astrology
and divination con-
demned.
referred
magic. ^
God condemned
Mathematici are
called
*
minis
(1903), pp. 194-5. p.
195,
"Nam
calibs
firmamentum et ornamentum rerum quasi est et quaedam adiunctio ad vires ho-
est
aliarum
already
"deadly instructors and
followers of the Gentiles in unbelief," and
'(1903),
we have
astrology and divination as well as
man
is
reproved
quemadmodum homo
fortis
est." ' Migne, 409-14; I alter the order somewhat in my summary.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
149
for believing that the stars allot his years of life and regulate all
human
and for cultivating
actions,
mere creatures such as the
his Creator
in the place of
and heavens,
stars
which cannot console or help him, or confer
Man
perity or happiness, to the length of his
hand nor
which he can neither know before-
life,
He
alter.
should not seek signs of the future
any other creature.
in either stars or fire or birds or
error of augury"
is
either pros-
should not consult the stars as
expressly rebuked.
Man
"The
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 star.
men
But
stars," it is
and His incarnation was revealed by a
a stupid popular error to suppose that other
each have a star of their own, and, continues God,
speaking through the
brought no aid to
My
medium of Hildegard, "That star Son other than that it faithfully an-
nounced His incarnation creatures fear
no
Me
to the people, since all stars
and simply
fulfill
signification of anything in
My
dictates
any creature."
and
and have This
last
observation receives further interpretation in a passage of the Causae et Curae times
show many
^
which explains that the
signs,
stars
some-
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
back to other
men
if
God
it
allows
which the
stars can reflect
But the sun and moon
it.
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, '(1903),
p.
IS-
Signs in
—
;
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
ISO Superiors
and inferiors effect of stars and
winds on elements
and humors.
If the stars
do not even signify
of man, they are none the causes
in
less
and future
fate
potent forces and, under God,
"God who
world of nature.
the
the
chap.
created
all
operum^ strengthens and the human form
things," writes Hildegard in the Liber divinorum
"so constituted superiors purifies things
He
that
below through
these,
also
and
in
introduces also those things allotted for the soul's salvation."
This passage has two sides over inferiors, but tion of the
mary
it
human
makes
soul.
it
;
affirms the rule of superiors
special provision for the salva-
And
thus
represented as by the will of
human body now
is
a
good brief sum-
God cooperating with
—which play an important part
the winds
cosmology and the humors in the
in Hildegard's
and fro
in driving the elements to
it
Sun, moon, and stars are
of Hildegard's position.
;
'
rage fiercely like the leopard,
now
now move
ways analogous to the wolf or deer or bear or serpent or lamb or lion animals whose heads, belching forth winds, are seen They in the vision about the rim of the heavenly spheres.^ sluggishly
like
the
crab,
proceed
other
in
—
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
how
the other hand, she gives a detailed account of
or
triplets
of
each of the twelve that the sun and
accompany
planets signs.'*
moon
the
sun
In other passages
serve
man by
^
pairs
through
she affirms
divine order, and
bring him strength or weakness according to the temper of the air. Influence of the
moon on human health and
generation.
Hildegard more especially emphasizes the influence of moon, in which respect she resembles many an astrologer. In the Causae et curae ® she states that some days of the moon are good, others bad some, useful and others, usethe
;
less;
some, strong and others, weak.
'Migne, 807. *Migne, 791 and 798. ' Migne, 732 ct seq.
*
"And
(1903). pp.
'Migne. *
since the 11-14.
778.
(1903), pp.
16-17.
moon
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
XL
has this changeability in
man
has
its
vicissitudes
151
therefore the moisture in
itself,
and mutability
in pain, in labor, in
wisdom, and in prosperity." Similarly in the Liber divinorum operum ^ 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 variSometimes one incurs epilepsy when the moon is in ously. eclipse.^
The moon
gard marvels
in the
sense enough not to
is
the
Causae
mother of et
sow crops
curae in
^
all
Hilde-
seasons.
that while
men have
mid-summer or the
coldest
part of winter, they persist in begetting offspring at any
time according to their pleasure without regard either to
proper
the
period
The
of the moon.
of
their
own
lives
or
to
the
time
natural consequence of their heedless-
the birth of defective children. Hildegard then 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
ness
is
adds
^
simply affects the the
humors of
air,
and the
air affects
man's blood and
his body.
Hildegard, however, not only believed that as the humors Relations were perturbed and the veins boiled, the health of the body humors'lo'^ would be affected and perhaps a fever set in,^ but also that human passions, such as wTath and petulance, were thereby aroused and fate, and the mind affected.^ This is suggested in a general way in the
Liher divinorum operum, but
in more 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
detail in the
Causae
is
brought out
et curae,
''
"the
man
vehement 'Migne, Migne,
will
be a good scholar, but headlong and too
in his studies, so that he scatters his
779. 793. '(1903)- pp. 17-18; and again 77-78; see also p. 97, "de conceptu in plenilunio."
"(1903), p. 19. ° Migne, 793. *(i903), p. 19. ^
(1903),
p.
54.
knowledge
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
152
chap.
blown by the wind; and 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 over too wide a
as straw
field,
is
he seeks to have dominion over others.
statement elsewhere already noted that the length of his life beforehand.
melancholy,
sanguine,
man
know
cannot
In the case of choleric,
and phlegmatic men
^
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 simiThese are not exactly astrological predictions, lar style.^ but they have much the same flavor and seem to leave little place for freedom of the will. Hildegard's varying position.
In one passage, however, Hildegard comfortingly adds that nevertheless the
nature of
Holy
Spirit can penetrate the
man and overcome
whole
mutable nature as the sun
his
and so counteract the moist influence of the 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 In another passage, on the other hand, Hildegard lord." ^ recognizes, like Aquinas later, that it is only rarely and with difficulty that the flesh can be restrained from sinning."* dispels clouds,
moon.
Nativities for the days of the moon.
Causae
Finally, the
each day of the
moon
will be conceived
day by
lot as
et
curae close with predictions for
of the type of male or female
on that day.^
who
Selecting the eighteenth
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 ^Causae
et
curae
70-76. *
Ibid., pp. 87-9.
fields
(1903),
pp.
nor vineyards, but strives to ^
Ibid., pp. 19-20. *Ibid., p. 84. ''Ibid., pp. 235-42.
HILDEGARD OF BIN GEN
XL
153
He will be healthy in take from others what is not his. 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 someHildegard then seems to feel it advisable such morals, both in men and in women, are "But to add, hateful to God." The theory of macrocosm and microcosm had a consid- Man the times insane.
erable attraction for Hildegard.
Causae
man
et ciirae she exclaims,
the beginning of the
"O man,
look at
has in himself heavens and earth
things are latent."
all
At
^
.
.
.
man! and
in
For him
Presently she compares the firma-
ment 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.^ In the Liber diznnorum 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.
spreads
The sun
rays from the brain to the heel, and the
its
moon
from the eyebrows to the ankles.^ Else"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 directs its rays
where she
says,
which it recedes after it has been burnt by the sun." ^ 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.^ An even more surprising assumption as to astronomical distances is involved in the
comparison
top of the
®
that as the three intervals between the
human head and
navel and the groin are
M1903),
p.
2.
*
(1903),
p.
10.
^
Migne, 779.
all
the end of the throat
and the
equal, so are the spaces interven*Migne, 833. °Migne, 819. * Migne, 943.
micro-
cosm
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
154
chap, xl
ing between the highest firmament and lowest clouds and
Hildegard
notes
adolescence, and old age. since
it
Corresponding to these
surface and center.
earth's
the
intervals
of
ages
three
man,
infancy,
One more passage may be
also involves a similar explanation of
As
joy to that given by Adelard of Bath.
noted,
weeping for the heart
is
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 stirred
the sea and other waters.^ Divination in dreams.
If
Hildegard resorts to a magic of her
counteract the diabolical arts, and
amount of is
astrological doctrine for
if
own
in
order to
she accepts a certain
all
her .censure of
it,
it
not surprising to find her in the Causae et curae saying
a word in favor of natural divination in dreams despite her rejection of
God
augury and such
sent sleep to
saw many things
may
Adam
arts.
She believes
that,
when
before he had yet sinned, his soul
in true prophecy,
and that the human soul
sometimes do the same, although too often
still
clouded by diabolical illusions.^
But when the body
is
it
in
is
a
and the marrow warmed in due measure, and there is no disturbance of vices or con-
temperate
trariety
dreams.^
condition
of morals,
to her in her
p-
own
visions, as
we have
waking hours.
^Migne, 829. '(1903),
then very often a sleeper
Hildegard's
82.
'(1903),
P-
83.
sees seen,
true
came
—
CHAPTER XLI JOHN OF SALISBURY
—
—
His picture of the learned world Chief events of his life General Magic, malcHcia, and tnathcmatica Use of Isidore on magic Relation of Thomas Becket to Johns discussion Inconsistent Christian attitude toward superstition Divine and natural Miracle and occult virtue Interpretation of dreams Dreams signs of Joseph and Daniel The witchcraft delusion Prevalence of astrology John's attack upon it Does astrology imply fatal necessity? John's lame conclusion Other varieties of magic Thomas Becket's consultation of diviners Witch of Endor exorcisms Divination from polished surfaces Natural science and medicine Summary. character of the Polycraticus
—
—
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
—
—
:
—
—
—
— —
59 John of Salisbury completed his two chief works, Hispicthe Metalogicus and the Polycraticus} In the former he learned
In
1 1
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
This valuable picture of educational conditions
at Paris, in the
middle of the twelfth century has already supplied
us with a
of
number of
whom we
bits of
information concerning authors
have treated.
importance in the history
Its
of the study of the classics and of scholasticism has long
been recognized, and in
its
content has often been reproduced
we need not dwell upon it Moreover, although John spent some
secondary works, so that
specifically
here.^
twelve years in his studies in France, he appears from his ^Johannis Sarisheriensis EpisCarnotensis Policratici sive de nugis curialiiim et vestigiis philosophorum libri VIII. Recog. C. C. I. Webb. 2 vols. Oxford, copi
The 1909. in Migne,
work
PL
is
also contained
vol.
199.
the Polycraticus unless otherwise stated. *
The most
recent discussion of
by R. L. Poole, "The Masters of the Schools at Paris and Chartres in John of Salisbury's Time," in EHR (1920),
it
is
XXXV
For
John's life see DNB. All references are to book and chapter of
321-42.
155
world,
— MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
156
own
chap.
statements to have passed from the study of logic and
"grammar"
to that of theology without devoting
much
at-
tention to natural science,^ although he received
some
in-
struction
in
Hardewin his
own
Quadrivium from Richard Bishop and
the
the Teuton.
He
was,
true,
is
it
according to
statement, a pupil of William of Conches for three
years, but he always alludes to
William as a grammarian, This
not as a writer on natural philosophy and astronomy.
one-sided description of William's teaching warns us not to place too implicit faith in John's account of the learned
world of
Even
his times.
if
reliable as
it
stands,
adequate picture.
however, he engages
in a rather long discussion of
not
is
it
in itself a complete or
In the Polycraticus,
astrology and other forms of divination which
it
magic,
behooves
us to note.
John tells us that he was a mere lad when in 1136 he came from England to Gaul to hear the famous Abelard
Chief his life.
fi'"^^
Like
lecture.
to be in
many medieval
students, he
was or soon came
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 Metalogkus 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
traveling about
to
and
Apulia,
England and what
is
frequently
now France (John
1159 he addressed the then absent with Henry II Becket, Polycraticus to Thomas says,
"the
Gauls"
Gallias).
In
as his chancellor at the siege of Toulouse.
Thomas was
about John's age and, before he became chancellor at the
sided with
in
Thomas Becket
retired to France, 1 1
70.
just 11
54
John first a student John the employ of Archbishop Theobald.
age of thirty-six, had been
and then
in
like
in the struggle
with Henry
and returned to England with him
II,
in
In 1176 he crowned his career by becoming bishop ^Metalog.
II,
10.
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLI
157
of Chartres where perhaps
some years of his early studies had been spent. His death was in 1180. In the Metalogiciis John tells us that he has scarcely touched a book of logic since he left the palaestra of the dialecticians so
many
ject again in that
and
tastes
years ago, but he returns to the sub-
Polycraticus.
work.
In the Polycraticus his literary
He
more manifest.
interests are
General character of the
writes a good
Latin style and shows a wide acquaintance with classical authors and ancient history as well as with patristic
The
ture.
clearly
character and content of the Polycraticus
suggested by
sub-title,
its
Philosophers' Footprints"
{De
philosophorum).
it
In part
litera-
is
more
"Courtiers' Trifles and
niigis
curialmm
is satirical,
et vestigiis
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
of these passages without being
who
are
reading. cient
more ignorant
will recognize the sources told,
while other readers
will be thereby
spurred on to wider
These quotations, moreover, are either from anor
classical
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 In the main his attitude is such as Bernard Silvester. essentially conservative; he repeats traditional views in
attractive but
somewhat
rational criticism as a study of the classics
pected to produce to
when
John begins
might be ex-
by scrupulous adherence This is especially true of and astrology.
qualified
medieval Christian dogma.
his discussion of the
an
dilettante literary form, with such
magic
to discuss
arts
magic
in the first of the eight
Magic, male£cia,
books of the Polycraticus after a few chapters have been and mathe' taken up with such other triflings of courtiers as hunting, matica.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
iS8
dicing, music,
and
harmful than the
theatrical
shows and
chap.
spectacles.
More
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 that
a
these
all
fatal
artificia,
familiarity of
or
rather
maleficia
men and demons.^
who knew
arose
from
John thus takes
as practically synonymous the three terms, magica, mathe-
He
matica and rnaleiicinm.
presently
explains
that
the
word mathcsis in one sense denotes learning in general, but that when it has a long penultima, it signifies the figments of divination,- which belong under magic, whose varieties are many and diverse. Thus magic is John's most general and Isidore
all
occult arts.
The account of magic in John's ninth, tenth, eleventh,
Use of on magic.
inclusive term for
^j^^j
twelfth chapters
is larg^ely
derived without acknowledg-
.
ment from
how
.
that of Isidore of Seville.^
We
have already
became a stock description of the subject little change by successive writers and embodied copied with seen
this
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
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 He also adds some new variesub-varieties of divination. The ties to Isidore's list of practitioners of the magic arts. cndtwoli 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 Besides ininstruct them in regard to doubtful matters. terpreters of dreams (conjectorcs) and chiromancers John further mentions specidarii who practise divination by directly
gazing into polished surfaces such as the edges of swords, '
I,
'At
'
9.
II,
distinctica
18 he
makes the same
82,
For
Isidore's account 310-14.
see
PL
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLI basins,
and mirrors.
It
was
Joseph
this art that
his brothers
described
with having made off with the cup in which he
The
to practice divination.
chapter of John's
Roman
is
when he charged
as exercising or pretending- to exercise,
was wont
159
first
book
thirteenth and closing
a long
is
of omens from
list
history and Latin literature, especially Vergil.
In the second book he resumes the same subject after a
Rela-
of and somewhat apologetic preface in which he states tion Thomas that all things are of use to the wise man. Therefore he Becket to
brief
responds with alacrity to publish his
Becket's request that he
John's discussion.
introducing interpreters of dreams and
trifles,
astrologers with
Thomas
some other
We
triflers.
shall later
meet
with some further explanation of Thomas' interest in such matters.
It
is
perhaps significant that John further ex-
presses his confidence that
those in
whom
would be too much
it
Thomas
will
faithfully protect
he has inspired boldness of utterance,^ but to
assume from
it
John
that
he merely shares the
common
fears
More
persecution because he discusses such subjects.
any
likely
medieval fear of the envious
and reviewers, or wishes to remind Thomas need of his patronage. At any rate he closes the
bite of critics
of his
prologue with the request that
Thomas
will correct
any mis-
take in either book.
In opening his second book John subscribes to the proverb that he
who
trusts in
secure and asks
—
like
dreams and auguries Cicero in his
De
will never be
divinatione
-
—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 ^ although he names neither he rejects those empty in-
—
—
Polycrat. II, prologus. "Alacitaque exeant nugae nostrae quas serenitas tua prodire iubet in publicum, ut conjectores, mathematicos, cum quibusdam aliis nugatoribus introducant; quia quibus dedisti egrediendi audaciam, securitatis quoque fiduciam prae^
res
The
following words, "Connectantur ergo inferiora sustabis."
perioribus" seem to
mean
that the
second book goes on where the first left off, but perhaps the suggestion
of
on John's 'II, ^
in
astrological
doctrine
an intentional play upon words
is
De
part.
12.
doctrina Christiana,
Migne,
PL
vol.
34.
II,
20
Inconsistent
Christian attitude
toward superstition.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
i6o
chap.
and superstitious ligatures which the entire medical art condemns, although some call them phys'tca} 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 He believes that the its efifect by what he goes on to say. 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,^ 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 precantations
Divine
and natural signs.
ceded the
fall
of Jerusalem then leads John into a digression
for several chapters concerning the horrors of the siege
and Vespasian and Titus, a passage which was very Henry H and Becket were at that in laying very time engaged siege to Toulouse. Returning to the subject of signs, John interprets the itself
likely inserted because
Miracle
and occult virtue.
yerse 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.^
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." ^ H, however, we accept Plato's definition of nature as the will of
God
there
But John would distinguish between the gradual growth of leaves and fruit on tree or will
be no unnatural events.
' Thus, Marcellus ander of
it
will
Empiricus
be
recalled,
and
Tralles labelled superstitious recipes-
Alextheir
'
"Capitula Evangelii."
*II, *II,
ir.
12.
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLi
i6i
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
John returns again to the subject of signs. For some chapters the topic of dreams and their interpretation absorbs his attention,^ and at first he discusses
virtues in nature
*^
'
an apparently credulous and approving tone "the varied significations of dreams, which both experience approves in
and the authority of our ancestors confirms." ^ He explains that now the dream concerns the dreamer himself, now
someone
else,
now common
sometimes the public
interests,
or general welfare; and he quotes Nestor to the effect that "trust ters."
put in the king's dream concerning public matAfter referring credulously to the Sibylline verses
is ^
predicting Christ's incarnation, passion, and ascension, John
continues his exposition of the interpretation of dreams.
He
when one dreams, the 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 explains that the season of year
place
But then he checks himself with the words
to like.
while lest
we pursue these traditions of the interpreters,
we
deservedly seem not so
which is dream ourselves."
no
interpretation,
either
as to
He adds
his
credulity
the
to
^
II, II,
firmat 'II,
fear
of
an
idle one,
"Whoever
fastens
dreams evidently
as from the path of
*
14-17.
_
_
14,
auctoritas. 15.
suum cuiusque est, nunc alienum, modo commune, interdum publice aut generale est. Ut enim ait Nestor, de statu publico regis credatur somnio. * II, 17. Sed dum has coniecnunc
_
Quis nescit somniorum varias esse significationes, quas et usus approbat et maiorum con*
art at all or
faith
I
to trace the art of
further,
significations
wanders as far from sincere reason."
much
"But
:
Somnium
.
.
.
gerit
imagines, in quibus coniectorum praecipue disciplina versatur, et
torum
traditiones
vereor
ne
merito
ex(s)equimur, non tarn con-
Interpret^tio"oi dreams.
:
1
chap.
John then attacks the Dream-Book of Daniel, which he
Dreams of Darnel.^"
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
62
says "circulates impudently
among
ous" and gives a
interpretation
specific
He
imagined by the dreamer.
the hands of the curi-
each thing"
for
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.
the
and crude. quoting
In the
first place,
book The remainder of John's argument
method of
interpretation set forth in this
is
faulty
is
worth
in part
"Daniel indeed had the grace to interpret visions and
dreams, which the Lord inspired in him, but able that a holy
man
it is
should reduce this vanity to an
inconceivart,
when
he knew that the Mosaic law prohibited any of the faithful
aware how Satan's satellite for the transformed into an angel of light and
to heed dreams, being
subversion of
men
is
made by bad angels. Joseph, too, won Egypt by his ability to predict. But if this from any science of human wisdom, I could have come should think that some one of his ancestors before him would
how
suggestions are
the rule of
have merited
.
or
it,
I
serving science and the art as a legacy,
.
.
should think that the saint, desirous of full
of pious impulses, would have left
not to the
if
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
learned the studies and saint,
people.
wisdom of
Furthermore,
he would not have done, had he thought
be instructed in their lore. education
law and iectoriam nulla aut
whom
And
St.
Daniel
the Chaldeans, which, as a it
sinful to
he had companions in his
he rejoiced to have as comrades in divine
For
justice.
at the
ex(s)equi,
quae
inania
quam Verum suam sig-
ars
dormitare videamur quisquis credulitatem
.
est,
.
.
aut
same time Ananias, Axarias, alligat somniorum, est quia tarn a sinceritate
nificationibus
planum fidei
quam
orbitat.
a tramite rationis ex-
JOHN OF SALISBURY
xLi
163
But which man could not confer was bring to light the riddles of dreams
Misael learned whatever a Chaldean would learn. notice that the privilege
given to Daniel alone, to
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
dream, John then concludes sarcastically:
the
"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."
^
John concludes that many dreams are the work of The demons.^
Especially as of this sort he classifies the
sions of those
who
illu-
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.^
And
such dreams come mainly to women,
feeble-minded men, and those weak in the Christian faith.
Too much apparent
stress
must
opposition
to
not,
however, be
the
witchcraft
admits that the demons send dreams, and verity,
laid
upon
delusion."* if
this
John
he denies their
he merely repeats a hesitation as to the extent and
power of demons over the body of men and the world of nature which we have frequently met in reality of the
* Polycrat. Gratian apII, 17. pears to refer to the same book on oneiromancy in his Deere-
titsn,
Secunda pars, Causa
XXVI,
cap. 16, "somnialia scripta et falso in Danielis nomine intitulata." ^11, 17 (Webb I, 100). Quis huius f acti explicet rationem nisi quod boni spiritus vel maligni
Quaest.
vii,
exigentibus hominum meritis eos erudiunt vel illuduiit? Quod .
si
materiam
vitiis
.
afferat,
.
libidi-
nem
forte accendens aut avaritiam aut dominandi ingerens appetitum aut quidquid huiusmodi est ad subversionem animae, procul dubio aut caro aut spiritus ma-
Hgnus immittit. ^11, 17 (Migne,
col.
436),
Webb
loo-i.
I,
John is perhaps influenced by similar passage in the Canon, Ut episcopi (Burchard, Deer eta. *
a
X,
l).
delusion,
1
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
64
chap.
and which is due to a natural reluctance magic is as real as God's miracles. From divination by dreams and demons John passes to
patristic literature
to admit that their Prevaastrology,
To
astrology.
start
men
the art has for
with he admits the attraction which
of intellect in his
own
time.
"Would,"
he exclaims, "that the error of the mathematici could be as
removed from enlightened minds as the works of 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." ^ Beginning with mathematical and astronomical truths based on nature, reason and experience, they gradually slip into error, subreadily
the
human
mitting
destiny
to
the
stars
knowledge which belongs to God
John ridicules the astrologers for attributing sex to the and stating the exact characteristics and influences of
John's
upon
it.
and pretending to
alone.
stars
when they cannot agree among themselves
each planet,
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.^
He
grants that the sun's heat and the moon's control of
humors
as
it
waxes and wanes are potent
forces,
the other heavenly bodies are the causes of
and
that
and that utilities,
and signs the weather may be But he complains that the astrologers magnify
from
predicted.
many
their position
the influence of the stars at the expense of God's control of
nature and of
human
"They
free will.
to their constellations."
ascribe everything
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
receive the spirit of life at the
nod of
the stars
it
will
and
will
praestantioribus
Verumtamen eo periculosius errant quo in soliditate naturae et vigore rationis suum fundare vi-
quam
dentur crrorem.
*
II,
facile
utinam tarn Possit i8. mathematicorum error a
animis amoveri conspectu verae fidei et sanae conscientiae istarum illusionum demonia conquiescunt. leviter
in
'
II,
19.
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLi
reveal the secrets of hidden truth."
^
165
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 Does that their science detracts in any way from divine preroga- jm^Jiy fftai tive
and power, and
"appear to themselves to excuse
will
their error quite readily"
by asserting with Plotinus that
God foreknew and consequently that
to occur,
is
foredisposed everything
much under his But John will have none "These hypotheses of theirs are
and that the
stars are as
control as any part of nature.^
of this sort of argument.
indeed plausible but nevertheless
venom
under the honey.
lies
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."
^
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
one subjected
all
true,
John argues,
hurl
it
it
*II,
to chance, the other to necessity.
that
skywards, but
might
Webb,
he censures as equally in error, since the
19 I,
fall
or not."
I it
know a
recipiet spiritum lentibus occultae
.
col. 442). stellarum nutu vitae et consu-
veritatis
fall to
It
earth
is
if I
does not act under necessity, for
But that
(Migne, 112. ..
stone will
mani-
it
does
fall,
festabit arcana. *II, 19. '
II, 20.
"though not
necessity?
— 1
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
66
chap.
John presently recognizes that he has 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 necessary,
given
true."
is
away
his previous
be otherwise, provided
John's lame conclusion.
I
am
not doubtful that
it
be (as
will
think.)'"!
I
John accordingly
resorts
other
to
arguments and to
Then he
facetious sarcasm to cover his confusion. sufficiently to reiterate his belief that
by
feres in the operation of nature asserts that
God
has been
known
God
recovers
frequently inter-
special providences
to
;
and
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 that every astrologer
whom
he has
art,
known
and by affirming has come to some
bad end,^ in which assertion he probably simply echoes Tertullian.
Resuming
Other varieties
of magic.
his discussion of the varieties of
briefly dismisses necromancers with the hon
deserve death
A
who
try to acquire
number of other terms
magic John
mot
that those
knowledge from the dead.^
in Isidore's list
salissatorcs, arioli, pythonici, aruspices
auspices, augurs,
—he says
it
is
need-
no longer pracTurning to more
less to discuss further since these arts are
ticed in his day, or at least not openly.
living
superstitions
of
the
present,
he
explains
chiromancy professes to discern truths which
lie
the wrinkles of the hands, but that since there Cap. 24, nee mea, inquit astrosecretarius, interest an aliter esse possit, dum id de quo agitur ita futurum esse non dubitem. 'John's argument against as^
rum
that
hidden is
in
no ap-
trology extends from the i8th to the 26th chapter of the second book of the Polycraticus. 'II, 27.
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLI
parent reason for this belief vert
it
167
not necessary to contra-
is
it.
John wishes to ask Thomas one thing, however, and Thomas Becket's that is what triflers of this sort say when they are inter- consultarogated concerning uncertain future matters. that Becket
famihar with such
is
men
He knows
tion of diviners.
because on the occa-
sion 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
by
that such rhen
more.
their vanity deserve to be consulted
This gentle rebuke did not
no
however, to wean
avail,
Thomas entirely from his practice of consulting diviners, which he continued to do even after he became Archbishop of Canterbury.
and
saint in
In a letter written to the future martyr
11 70
John again chides Thomas for having
delayed certain important letters because he had been "de-
luded by soothsayings which were not of the Spirit" and
exhorts future."
him "So
let
us
renounce
soothsayings
in
the
1
Despite his previous declaration that he need not discuss the pythonici, John
now
proceeds to do
so, listing in-
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 exstances of
:
pressed in the
name of God
or in the faith of the Trinity or
power of the incarnation or passion and they transmit same to men and obey men who use these, until they finally involve them with themselves in the crime of sacrilege in the
;
the
^Epistola 297 (Migne, cols. 345-46).
Witch of Endor: exorcisms.
1
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
68
Sometimes they even transform
and penalty of damnation. themselves into angels of
repute, forbid unlawful things, strive to imitate purity,
make
provision for needs, so that, as
kindly, are loved the
They
obeyed.
"
sons.
surfaces.
.
.
.
"The
Divination polished
they teach only things of
light,
good
they are received the more
from
chap.
that
more
good and favoring,
are the
closely,
put on
also
if
more
familiarly, are heard the
the guise
of
more
readily
venerable
per-
1 ^
John continues, "flatter themselves they immolate no victims, harm no one, often do good speciilarii,"
when they detect thefts, purge the world of sorceries, and seek only useful or necessary truth." ^ 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 inas
Psalms
struction in the
to a priest
who turned out to be a who after performing
practitioner of this variety of magic,
various adjurations and sorceries tried to have John and
another boy look into polished basins or finger-nails smeared
with holy
or chrism and report what they saw.
oil
other boy saw some ghostly shapes but John thanks that he could see nothing and so
forth in this manner. specularii
He
was not employed hence-
adds that he has known
and that they have
all
The God
many
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 Natural science and scientists and medical men, for he seems to apply the term medicine. 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 tific
training
spirit of
prophecy or
knows by natural
the bodies of animals, or
who
signs
who from
what
will
scien-
happen
in
"has learned experimentally
the nature of the time impending," provided only that these latter
men
'II, 27;
say and do nothing prejudicial to the Christian
Webb,
I,
iss-56.
MI.
28.
JOHN OF SALISBURY
XLi
169
But sometimes the physici attribute too much to 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 faith.
nature/ and John has heard
earth-born giants assailed the
stars.' "
John recognizes,
^
however, their knowledge of animals and medicine, al
though he
finds their theories
sometimes
in conflict.
practicing physicians, he dares not speak
he too often
falls into their
more necessary or
ill
As
of them,
fot fob'
hands, and he grants that no
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 one
is
and adds the testimony of the Physiogno-
their glances,
mists.^
may
It
be well to review and further emphasize some
of the chief features of John's rather rambling discussion.
Despite
its
moralists,
it
is
theological in
perhaps greater than
from classic poets and tone and content to a degree
quotations
frequent
I
have succeeded
in suggesting, for to
would be tedious. There and suspicion of natural theological jealousy is even some 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 repeat
all
its
scriptural passages
being irrational or injurious, but these charges are in a but corollaries of his main *
II,
29 (Migne,
col.
475).
thesis.
Licet
The
arts
way
must be harmful
tamen
his posterioribus nequaquis ita aurem accommodet ut fidei aut religioni praejudicet.
tamen ut de futuris aliquis consulatur, ita quidem si aut spiritu
quam
aut ex natuquid in corporibus animalium eveniat physica docente cognovit, aut si qualitatem temporis imminentis experimen-
dum naturae ... At physici, nimium auctoritatis attribuunt, in auctorem naturae adversando fidei plerumque impingunt. ^ Webb, I. xxxiii and xxxv. 'V, 15 (Webb, I, 345).
polleat ralibus
torum
prophetiae, signis
indiciis
colligit.
Dum
gummary.
170
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
since
demons are concerned with them, while
chap, xli
the influence
of demons seems the only rational explanation for their existence.
John repeats the old Isidorian
defiwition 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 Sometimes John's own condemnation of them seems arts. a bit perfunctory; he takes more relish, it seems at times,
—
—
in describing them.
Again, as
in the case of astrology,
evidently feels that his opposition will be of
little avail.
he
—
:
CHAPTER
XLII
DANIEL OF MORLEY AND ROGER OF HEREFORD OR ASTROLOGY IN ENGLAND IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWELFTH :
CENTURY education — (Bibliographical note^ — Defense of Arabian —A moderate treatment of moot points between science and essence — Superiors and inreligion— The four elements and feriors — Daniel's astronomy— Astrological argument — Astrology and other sciences — Daniel and Greek a misinterpretation— Daniel and the church a misinterpretation— Daniel's future influence— Roger of Herefour parts —Another astrology in four parts ford — An astrology Book of Three General Judgments— Summary. Daniel's
learning
fifth
:
:
in
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 In the following bibliographical note the MSS will be listed first and then the printed works by or concerning Daniel of Morley
Arundel Z77y I3th century, wellwritten small quarto, fols. 88-103, "Philosophia magistri danielis de merlai ad iohannem Norwicensem episcopum. Explicit liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum." Until very recently this was supposed to be the only of Daniel's sole extant work. No other treatise has as yet been identified as his, but several other may be noted of the whole or parts of the aforesaid "Philosophia" or "Liber de naturis in-
.../...
MS
MSS
feriorum
et
where, in
the
95,
according to publication
13th century,
K. Sudhof? noted below, three books
the first two or ascribed to William of Conches are really the work of Daniel of
Latin Quarto 387,
fols.
Attention was
by Birkenmajer in the publication noted below. It has many slips of copyists and is regarded by him as neither the original nor a direct copy thereit
MS
For the to be written in the twelfth century this would require a very rapid multiplication and dissemination of Daniel's treatise which was at the earliest not composed until after 1175. of.
The remaining
MSS
have not
hitherto been noted by writers
on
Daniel
CUL
1935 (Kk. Li), 13th censmall folio, fols. 98r-io5r (and not to iisr, as stated in the catalogue, which gives Daniel Morley as the author, but De creatione mundi as the title). From rotographs of fols. 98r-v, loor, and I05r, I judge that this tury,
copy is almost identical with Arundel 277 but somewhat less legible and accurate.
Morley. Berlin
51
MSS
superiorum."
Corpus Christi
century, called to
12th
Oriel 171
7,
14th century folio, fols.
Daniel's ^^"^^^^°"-
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
172
Latin and defend the fatal influence of the
Mozarab,
the
ippus,
teach
"the tongue of Toledo,"
—
concerning
stars,
the
had long absented himself land in the pursuit of learning, and had first time at Paris, apparently engaged in the study He became disgusted, however, with the law. 194V-196V (191-193, according to Coxe), extracts from De philoso-
brary,"
and Gal-
universe
presumably Spanish.
lard of Bath, Daniel
chap.
in
Like Ade-
from Engsome
spent
of
Roman
instruction
somehow became Arundel
377.
They are immedimistice." ately preceded by extracts from
BN 6415 does not contain De philosophia Danielis, as stated by C. Jourdain (1838) p. loi Jour-
"Adelardi Bathoniensis
dain,
phia Danielis, opening, "Nos qui .
.
.
.
.
.
de
decisionibus naturalibus." Corpus Christi 263, early 17th century, fols. i66v-67r, "Ex Daniele de Merlai (or, "Merlac," ac-
cording in
lib.
to
"alias Morley et inferiori-
Coxe)
de superioribus
bus primo De creationis Mundi." This MS is one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne, the Elizabethan antiquary,
written
his
in
own
hand.
Twyne perhaps made
his
ex-
from Arundel Z77< for immediately after them he gives extracts "from William of Conches who is together with Daniel Merlai in our library," and in Arundel T,y7 Daniel's work is immeditracts
by that of William Moreover, of the of Conches. Selden MSS which are now in the Bodleian, Supra 72 was once owned by Lord "William Howately followed
arde"
who
Supra 77
died is
in
marked
while "Arundel,"
1640,
referring presumably to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who died in 1646, and Supra 79 consists of astronomical and astrological treatises copied by Brian Twyne. If which once belonged to the Arundel collection and to Twyne have thus passed somehow into the Selden collection and are found listed there in close proximity to one another, it is at least tempting to conjecture that the containing Daniel's treatise, followed by that of William of Conches, which Twyne says was once "in our li-
MSS
MS
;
however, regarded Adelard
of Bath as the author of De philosophia Danielis, and 6415 does contain Adelard's Questiones naturales. Balliol 96, 15th century, a commentary upon Aristotle's eight books of Physics in the form of questions and preceded by a prologue, "Expliciunt questiones super 8 libros phisicorum compilate a domino Mario magistro in artibus Tholose ac canonico de Timsey." This does not seem to be a work by Daniel of Morley a cursory examination revealed no reason for thinking that domino
BN
;
Mario should read Daniele Meror that Tholose should be Thole to. I have not examined two MSS at Queen's College, Oxford, Reg. lai,
Ixxi; grees
Ixxiv,
4)
containing
pedi-
Morlay or Morley family which may possibly throw some light upon Daniel's identity. All
done
of
the of
the
printing that has been Daniel's treatise has
been based upon Arundel 377. J. O. Halliwell, Kara Matheviatica, 1839, and Thomas Wright, Biographia Literaria, London, 1846, n, 227-2,0, printed the preface and other brief extracts for the first time.
Valentin Rose reprinted the preface and also published the conclusion in his article, "Ptolemaeus und die Schule von Toledo," Hermes VIII (1874) 327Rose also gave a list of the 49. authorities cited by Daniel which
DANIEL OF MORLEY
XLII
there and in his preface (bestiales)
who
speaks sarcastically of "the brutes"
^
occupied professorial chairs "with grave au-
thority" and read
from codices too heavy
which reproduced
tahiles)
Holding lead
Ulpian.
173
in
golden
to carry {impor-
letters the traditions
pencils in their hands, they
and
these volumes reverently with obeli
asterisks.
of
marked They
wished to conceal their ignorance by maintaining a digni-
and statuesque silence, "but when they tried to say 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 Engfied
something,
makes
large number of for example, f ol. Sgr, trismegisto repperitur"
very
a
omissions
:
"sicut in "isidori"
and
;
"philosophus," "Platonitus";
f ol.
gov, Aristotle,
"Adultimus" (?), "Esiodus fol. giv,
autem naturalis scientie professor omnia dixit esse ex terra," and so on for "tales milesius," Democritus, and other Greek philosofol. 91V, "sicut ab inexphers sententia magni herpugnabili metis" fol. 92r, "audiat ysidori ;
;
in libro
diff erentiarum"
;
92V,
fol.
"unde
astrologus ille poeta de creatione mundi ait," and "magnus mercurius" and "trismegistus "trismegistus mercurius" and mercurius praedicti mercurii nepos" fol. 97r, "Aristotelis in libro de sensu et sensato," "Albu;
maxar,"
"Aristotelis
in
libro
de
Here is printed for the time the full text of Daniel's treatise as contained in Arundel 377, but from photographs taken years before and apparently without further reference to the itself. Also according to the following article by Birkenmajer, Sudhoff sometimes renders the contractions and abbreviatione incorrectly. As Sudhoff's text comes late to my hand, I leave my references to the folios of Arundel 2)77 as they are. These folios (with the exception of 88v) are marked in Sudhoff's 1921).
first
MS
text.
Alexander Birkenmajer, Bine neue Handschrift des Liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum des Daniel von Merlai, in the same Archiv, December, 1920, pp.
auditu naturali" fol. 98V, "in libro de celi et mundo" fol. 99V, Almagest, and "Ypocrati et galiloov, "liber veneris eno" fol. quem ed'dit thoz grecus,"
45-51. gives some variant ings from Berlin 387.
and
Isls.
;
;
;
.
.
.
"aristoteles
speculo
Karl
...
adurenti." Sudhoff,
in
libro
de
Dr.
von
Morley Liber de naturis inferioei superiorum nach der HandCod. Arundel 277 des schrift
rum
Britischen Museums zum Abdruck gebracht, in Archiv fiir die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, Band 8, 1917 (but not received at the New York Public Library until July 8,
Singer
has
pub-
lished a brief account of Daniel of Morley in a recent issue of
The
Daniels
Charles
read-
DNB
on Daniel in (1894) by A. F. Pollard is criticized by Sudhoff for failing to mention "Roses wichtigste Vorarbeit ;" but I observe that Sudhoff himself similarly fails to mention the publications by Halliwell and Thomas Wright which preceded both Rose's and article
XXXIX
his '
own. Fol. 88r.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
174
chap.
land and he returned "with an abundant supply of precious
volumes."
On
man law had
his arrival he
found that the
interest in
Ro-
almost completely eclipsed that in Greek phi-
losophy, and that Aristotle and Plato were assigned to ob-
remain the sole Greek among Rowithdraw again where the studies in mans, he prepared to which he was interested flourished. But on the way he met John, bishop of Norwich ( 1 175-1200) who asked him many questions concerning his studies at Toledo and the marvels of that city, and concerning astronomy and the rule of the livion.
Not wishing
to
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
Defense P.^^r^bian learning.
simple language and lucid style in which the doctrines of ^
-iiti-
.,
Arabs are set forth, or to mistake the laborious circumlocutions and ambiguous obscurities of contemporary Latins Nor should anyone be for signs of profound learning. the
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
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
where
their opinions
of a triple universe from an Arabic work. verse exists only in the divine
nor corporeal, but
is
eternal.
The
first
uni-
mind and is neither visible The second universe is in
work and is visible, corporeal, and in that state not eternal. The third universe It was created simultaneously with time. It is the microcosm and was formed in time is imitative. and later
is
and corporeal, but
visible
passage
thorities,
-
is
in part eternal.^
In a
Daniel again defends his use of Arabian au-
contending that
it
is
only just that one
who
is al-
ready informed concerning the opinions about things supercelestial of the philosophers in use among the Latins should »
Fols. 88v-89r.
*
Fol. 95v.
DANIEL OF MORLEY
XLii
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
order to be able to refute and avoid the errors
in
which they
to
lead.
In general plan, tone, and content, as well as in the title,
Philosophia, Daniel's treatise roughly resembles that
of William of Conches. n
As Daniel
says in his preface, the
11-11-rwith mierior portion of •
first
part deals
r
the
the second part with the superior part.
^
i
some rather
ment^oT '"oot PointS
the universe, and
between
The work proper
science
opens with a discussion of the creation, in which Daniel expresses
Amoder-
ligion.
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. is
Later he argues against those
eternal, but
he
is
who
hold that the world
not quite ready to accept the Mosaic ac-
count 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." ^ ;
The four elements are explained that on.^
To
fire
fire is
discussed a good deal and
hot and dry, air
is
it
is
hot and wet, and so
correspond cholera, the light of the eyes, and
and loquacity; to water, phlegm, abundance of natural humors, and lust; to earth, melancholy, corpulence, and cruelty.^ 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 curiosity; to air,
^
Fol. 96.
"Fol. 94V.
blood, words,
»
Fol. 89V.
The four ^'^i"f^f".tf
essence,
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
176
are perceptible only to the
are
made merely out
He
declares that the
Daniel differs from
intellect.
Adelard and William, however,
in
chap.
denying that the stars
of the purer parts of the four elements.
Arabs
will not agree to this, but that
the higher authorities in astrology assert that the stars are
composed of a fifth essence.^ 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.^ three
Superiors
and inferiors.
This faintly reminds one of the
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.^
"The
sages of this world have divided the world into two parts,
of which the superior one which extends from the circle of
The to the immovable heaven is the agent. * from the lunar globe downwards, is the patient." Much depends, however, not only upon the force emitted by the agent but upon the readiness of the patient to receive
the
moon even
other,
the celestial influence. Daniel's astron-
omy.
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
regards as superior to what he Capella and almost
all
calls the
way which he
errors of Martianus
Latins, and to the obscure traditions
which the Arabs have handed down but scarcely understood themselves.^ *Fol. 9SV. *Fol. 93V. *Fols. 95r-96.
He
affirms that there are not ten heavens or
*FoI. 92r. "Fol. loiv.
DANIEL OF MORLEY
xLii
spheres, as
some have
177
said, but only eight, as
Alphraganus
truly teaches.^
There are some men who deny any part
condemn
most
replies that
in
much
the usual manner.
qualities of the seven planets
^
whom
He
details the
Arabs
the
call
"lords
Also he takes up the properties and
^
and how the Arabs human body among them.^
tributes of the signs of the zodiac
the parts of the
at-
divide
Daniel interprets the scope of astrology very broadly. ,
assertmg that or what
.
,
it
has eight parts
{de praestigiis)
;
,
.
we should
mancy according
call judicial
.
1
:
r
the science of judgments,
is
the science of images,
set forth in the great
and universal book
of Venus; and the science of mirrors, which scope and aim than the
rest,
on the burning glass."
^
replaced navigation, this
same
as that
magic
the science of the trans;
is
of broader
as Aristotle shows in the treatise
Except that magic list
have
illusions
of eight branches of learning
which Gundissalinus repeated from Al-
Farabi, but which they called branches of natural science rather than of astrology.
At any
association of natural science
rate
we
and useful
see again the close arts with astrology
and magic, and necromancy and alchemy, and with pseudowritings of Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus. In other passages Daniel cites genuine Aristotelian treatises
speaks of "the great Mercury" and of the other *
;
*Fol. 99V. *
Fol.
I02V.
m
"Fol. I02r. "Fol. lOOv. ''
De
sensu
"^
and
"Mercury
97r and 98V De coelo et mundo, ibid.; De auditu naturali, fol. gyr. I do not know if Al-Farabl's De ortu scientiariim is meant by (fol. 96r) "Aristotiles libro de assignanda ratione unde orte sunt
Fol. loov.
'Idem.
et
sensato
at
fols.
scientie."
Astrology
and other
1
to physics; agriculture; illusions or
alchemy, "which
which Thoz Grecus
the
•
astrology; medicine; nigro-
mutation of metals into other species
is
argument,
knowing anything about hatred from its name alone." ^
useful to foreknow the future and de-
is
it
fends astrology in
of nativities."
Astro-
the science without
"and hold astronomy
it,
He
mo-
efficacy to the
tions of the stars, but Daniel charges that they for the
sciences.
178
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
Trismegistus, the nephew of the aforesaid."
^
chap.
Despite his
subordination of alchemy to astrology in the above passage, it in mind when he remarks "some who assign diverse colors of metals
Daniel does not seem to have that there are
to the planets," as lead to Saturn, silver to Jupiter, white to
Venus, and black
to
He
Mercury.^
goes on to deny that
more than the sky is. Some modern scholars have drawn inferences from Daniel's treatise w-ith which I am unable to agree. Mr. S. A, Hirsch in his edition of Roger Bacon's Greek Grammar
the stars are really colored any Daniel and Greek: a misinterpretation.
follows Cardinal Gasquet
^
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
that there
England."
was and had been
little
grammar and
the Greek language in
land, but that
is
not what Daniel
may
It
be granted
knowledge of Greek twelfth century Engtalking about
is
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.^ When he calls himself "the
only Greek
among Romans,"
he means the only
one interested in Greek philosophy and astronomy and
same made
in
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. translations of the
Therefore ^ '
all
that Daniel's remarks seems to indicate
Fols. 92V, 91V, Fol. 99r.
and
Spr.
Edmund
Nolan and S. A. Hirsch, The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon, Cambridge, 1902, p. ^
Gasquet, "English Scholarship in the Thirteenth Century," and "English Biblical Criticism in the Thirteenth Century," in The Dublin Review (1898), vol. 123, pp. 7 and ^62. xlvii.
largely
*
Fol.
minus nem, often
provide dixit.
been
.
is
"Calcidius,
89V, .
."
that
forte Plato-
exponens We have
assured
Middle Ages knew Chalcidius' through
that
Plato
so the
only
translation of the Timaeus that I think it advisable to note this bit of evidence that the medievals did not swallow their Chalcidius whole.
DANIEL OF MORLEY
XLII
179
Greek philosophy in England after his return than before he went away, owing to the tempoBut he knew rary popularity of the study of Roman law. there
was
less interest in
where the studies
A his
more
age
is
in
which he was interested
still
flourished.
serious misinterpretation of Daniel's relation to Daniel
Valentin Rose's assertion that, because of Daniel's
church a :
addiction to Arabian and astrological doctrines, "his book
^j_s^^"^^5''"
pretation.
found no favor like poison.
in the eyes of the
church and was shunned
has left no traces in subsequent literature;
It
and no one cites it." ^ Rose spoke on the assumption that only one copy of Daniel's treatise had reached us, whereas now we know of several manuscripts of If it did not become so widely known as some works, it.
no one has read
the
it
more probable reason
for this
may
well be that his brief
resume 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
Brief pioneer treatises, like those of
Latin translations.
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
It is
into Christian western Europe.-
sonable to conjecture that Daniel's book, which
is
unrearather
its astrological doctrine, and which was by the favoring questions of a bishop, was then
mild anyway in called forth
crushed by bitter ecclesiastical opposition;
'Rose (1874), (1917),
p.
4,
p.
Sudhpff
331.
himself second a
although
attention to of Daniel's treatise, continues to hold that it "scheint calling
manuscript
wenig
Verbreitung
gefunden
zu
haben." *
Sudhoflf (1917), p.
4,
when we know
which actually encountered an
that William's book,
expresses
ecclesi-
a similar opinion. He still, however, repeats with respect Rose's assertion that the treatise "wie ein Gift beseitigt worden," but would explain this as less due to Daniel's astrological doctrine than his employing Arabian authorities instead of the church fathers.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
i8o
which we have no evidence
in Daniel's
nevertheless continued in circulation and
was much
astical opposition of
case,
chap.
and when we know that both Arabic and astrological doctrines and books were widespread in Christian western Europe both in the twelfth and cited in the next century;
Treatises with
thirteenth centuries.
them than
more poison of
astrol-
were read and cited and seem to have weathered successfully, if not to have escaped unscathed,
ogy
in
whatever
ecclesiastical
against them.
a wide
his
may have been directed own composition did not secure
censure
If Daniel's
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
who had
taught him astrology at Toledo, became
throughout western Europe. influence
may
little
Gerard of Cremona,
cited, the translations of the master,
known
Thus, while Daniel's personal
not have been vast, he reflects for us the prog-
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 fourress of a great
Daniel's future influence.
teenth century at Oriel College, Oxford,^ in the fitting com-
pany 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
journey from the
and other
^
sea,
water although remote six days
Oriel 7, fols. 194V-96V: see bibliographical note at beginning of this chapter for a fuller dcscrip-
bits of his astrological doc-
tion of
it
of Brian
and the following Twyne.
MS
DANIEL OF MORLEY
xLii trine.
A
i8i
similar, although not identical, selection of pearls
from Daniel's philosophy is found in one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne,^ 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 quality,
His
marvelous beauty. His unbounded good
will.
universe reveals the power of
wisdom and ;
Twyne
its
its
Maker;
its
also notes Daniel's phrase, "court of the world," for
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 Both also notice his resist evil, or perverted to evil courses. contention that the chaos preceding creation was not hyle the universe.
or matter but a certain contrariety present in matter. In the same manuscript with Daniel's treatise
by another Englishman, Roger of Hereford,-
is
a
who was
work con-
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 temporary with him,
whether he was ever in Spain, but some of them sound as if they might be at least adaptations from the Arabic. At any
England dedicated to Roger the tranblation which he made from the Arabic of the pseudo-Aristotelian De vegetabilihus. Astronomical tables which Roger calculated for the meridian of Hereford in 1178 are based upon rate Alfred of
and Toledo, and the manuscript of one said by the copyist of 1476 to have been
tables for Marseilles
of his works ^
is
Corpus Christi
263, fols. 166-7.
Professor Haskins' account of Roger's life and works in his "Introduction of Arabic Science into England," (191 5). XXX, 65'
EHR
8,
supplements and supersedes the
DNB.
Where I do not article in cite authorities for statements that follow in the text, they may be found in Haskins' article.
Roger of Hereford,
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
l82
chap.
taken by him from an ancient codex written in Toledo in the year 1247.^ Other astronomical treatises attributed to
Roger are a Theory of the Planets, a Treatise concerning the rising and setting of the Signs, and a Compotiis which dates itself in 1176 and is addressed to a Gilbert^ who seems to be no other than Foliot, bishop of Hereford until 1 163 and thereafter bishop of London. The signature of Roger of Hereford attests one of his documents in 1173II 74. In 1 1 76 in the preface to the Compotits^ Roger speaks of himself as iuvenis, and the heading in the manuscript even calls him "Child Roger" or "Roger Child," ^
many years to learning, we need not regard him as especially youthful at that The definite dates in his career seem to fall in the
but he also says that he has devoted so that time.
decade from 11 70 to 1180, although his association with Alfred of England
may
well have been later.
Professor Haskins ascribes one or more astrological
An astrology in four
works
parts.
scripts with three diiTerent Incipits}
Roger of Hereford and
to
number of manuSome of these manu-
lists
a
One
at Paris has the Titiilus, "In and merciful, here opens the book of the division of astronomy and its four parts composed by the famous astrologer Roger of Hereford." ®
scripts I
the
have examined.
name
of
God
the pious
^ BN 10271, fol. 203V, quoted by Haskins (1915), p. 67. It seems to me, however, from an examination of the MS that Roger's
at fol. 20iv, "Explicit liber," and that this extract, "Ad habendam noticiam quis est
work concludes
vel erit dominus anni," at fol. 203V, may be another matter. ' The initial letters of the table of contents form the acrostic, salutes "Gilleberto Rogerus
H. D." '
Printed in part by T. Wright, Bio graph, Lit., p. 90 ei seq. *
Digby
40,
fol.
"Pref atio
65,
magistri Rogeri Infantis in compotum" Haskins conjectures that Infantis may be a corruption for Hereford, or an equivalent for the iuvenis of the text but Leland took it as Roger's surname ;
;
and called him Roger Yonge. " Haskins is not quite accurate in saying (p. 67), "Royal MS 12 the British Museum, 'Herefordensis as indicia' is really the treatise of Haly, Dc iudiciis," for while the Egidius de does contain Tebaldis' translation of Haly de iudiciis in a fourteenth century hand, on its fly-leaves are inserted in fifteenth a century F,
17
of
catalogued
MS
hand both "indicia Herfordensis" and a treatise on conjunctions of Moreover, all John Eschenden. these items are listed both in the old and the new catalogue of the Roval MSS. '
BN
A. D.,
10271. written in T476. 1481 etc.,
fol.
179-,
"In nomine
dei pii misericordis Incipit et liber de divisione astronomic atque
ROGER OF HEREFORD
XLii
Roger explains
that the first part
is
183
general and concerned
with such matters as "peoples, events, and
states,
The second individual from birth
weather, famine, and mortality." deals with the fate of the
The
The
first
chapter of the
the properties of the signs
it
part
first
and planets
opens with the statement that
changes of special
and
to life's close.
and the fourth with
third deals with interrogations
elections.
is
in
is
entitled,
"Of
any country," and
has been proved by experi-
ence 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
Virgo and the
Moon
in Spain.
to be left without a country.^
what sign dominates
in
any
The
Sun
in Babylonia,
other five signs seem
Chapter two villa; three,
how
tells
to find
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 nine, the twenty-eight
mansions of the moon.
any
villa;
^
After the
tenth chapter distinguishing these mansions as dry and wet
and temperate, the second part on retrospective statement,
"Now we
part of this art, omitting
arti
with the
have treated of the
first
what many astrologers have said
de eius quatuor partibus compositus per clarum Rogerium Herfort The text proper Astrologum."
"Quoniam principium huic dignum duximus de quatuor
opens
nativities opens
:
agamus." This chapter is almost exactly like the first chapter of the first book of the printed edition of John of Seville's Epitome totius astrologiae, and the general plan of the two treatises and their emphasis upon experience are very similar, although there also seem to be considerable divergences. For instance, the next chapter in
eius partibus ^
the printed text is different, "De coniunctionibus planetarum, quae
sunt nately
numero I
compare
c.xx." Unfortuhave not been able to edition and manuscript
in detail. Both texts of late date
may
represent
which have rearranged or added variously to the original, whether it be by John or Roger. Or both John and Roger may have taken similar liberties with a common Arabic source. John's authorship appears to be supported by more than Roger's. " Caps. 7 and 8, at fol. i82r-v, are, "De proprietate signorum in qualibet terra" and "De cognitione de bono anno vel male."
MSS
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
i84
without experience and without reason."
chap.
After a dozen
^
chapters on the significance of the twelve houses in nativities,
the author again asserts that in his discussion of
what learned men
that subject he has said nothing except
agree upon and experience has tested.^
After devoting three
chapters to the familiar astrological theme of the revolution
of years, he takes up
and fourth books
in the third
^
inter-
rogations according to the twelve houses and elections, which
made
are
known.
in two ways according The invocation of God
ate in the Tittdiis first
and the
chapter have a
list
as the nativity
is
or
not
is
the pious and compassion-
of countries and peoples in the
Mohammedan and
oriental flavor
and
work is a translation. Different from the foregoing is another work dealing
suggest that the Another
m7our^
with four parts of judicial astrology which the manuscripts
parts.
and the 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 ascribe to
Roger of Hereford.
subjects of
its
four parts
foregoing treatise,
deal
Cogitatio, and elections.^ this second
work
is
to be
all
Its
opening words
differ
now
with interrogations, I
*
know
called
of no manuscript where
found complete
;
in fact, I
am
in-
clined to surmise that usually the manuscripts give only the first
of
its
four parts. ^
It
* Fol. egimus de 183V, "lam prima parte huius arte omissis que astrologi multi sine experimento
ratione dixerunt." Fol. 190V (cap. 14, de revolutione annorum nativitatis),
et
*
"lam radicem nativitatis sermone complevimus nee diximus nisi in quibus
sapientes
convenerunt
et
experimentum ex ipsis habetur." same sentence occurs in John of Spain, Epitome totius as-
The
trologiae, 1548, II, xx, fol. 62v. 'Book 3, fols. I92v-i99r, has 16
chapters;
has
ten.
Book 4, fols. The division
199V-201V, into chap-
is different in the printed text ascribed to John of Spain.
ters
professes at the start to be a *
Berlin
15th
century, fol. regulas artis astronomie iudicandi non nisi per diversa opera dispersas invenimus universali astrologorum desiderio ." satisfacere cupientes. Other
87-,
964,
"Quoniam
.
MSS *
.
similar.
Selden
supra
76,
fol.
3v,
de
simplici iudicio, de cogitatione, de electione, de ratione iudicii. * Digby 149, 13th century, fols. 189-95, ''Liber de quatuor partibus astronomic iudiciorum editus a magistro Rogero de Herefordia.
Quoniam
regulas astronomie artis Explicit prima pars." CUL 1693, 14th century, fols. 40-51, "Liber Magistri Rogeri de
.../...
:
ROGER OF HEREFORD
XLii
185
brief collection of rules of judicial astrology hitherto only
Astrology is an art of incomparable excellence without which
found scattered through various works.
to be
extolled as
"They appear
other branches of learning are fruitless.
a few through experiments periments."
The
^
;
book
first
...
gives most certain ex-
it
treats of the properties of the
signs and planets, of the twelve houses, list
to
and
defines a long
of astrological terms such as respectus, applicatio, sepa-
ratio, periclitus, solitudo, cdlevatio, translatio, collatio, redditto, contradictio, impeditio, evasio, interruptio ,
renuntiatio,
and
Some which we
connection with one of
hour
compassio,
tables are also given, in
receptio.^
are told that the longest
Hereford excedes the shortest by eleven degrees and
at
forty minutes.^
To Roger
is
Book of Three General Book of
also ascribed a
Judgments of Astronomy, from which sometimes
is
others flow, which
all
g/neral
manuscripts and appar- Judg-
listed separately in the
found alone as a distinct work,^ but in other manuseems to be an integral part of the work of four scripts parts which we have just described. Its three general judgments are: gaining honors and escaping evils; intentio vet meditacio, which, like the cogitacio mentioned above, refers ently
is
^
Herfordia de iudiciis Astronomic. Quoniam Regulas artis Astronomice .../... oportet inspicere Liber completur diligenter et primus." shall presently show reason I for thinking that Selden supra 76 E Musaeo 181 also give and only the first part.
MS
astronomica .
sed
.
.
cetera
Musaeo
nis
*
BN
76,
fol.
Sr.
7434, 14th century,
ft
5,
de
asgeneralibus iudiciis tronomie ex quibus certa (cetera?) defluunt. Dijon 1045 (the same, I judge, as that numbered 270 by Haskins), 15th century, fol. 172V-, .
"Quoniam
circa
.
.
tria
fit
omnia
astronomic ex quibus
iudiciis
omnia defiuunt editus a Magistro Rogero de Herfordia.
Quoniam
circa tria
sit
(fit?)
om-
astronomica consideratio minimus vero septem hora/ rum et 20 minutorum etc." This last is not the same ending as in Dijon 1045, but would seem to .
tribus
Ex-
CUL
bus
Selden supra
/
.
.
MS
Selden supra 76, fol. 3r. Selden supra 76, fol. 6, has only those terms from redditio on; the E others will be found in '
.
In the following it follows the first book of the work in four parts but is listed as distinct therefrom in the catalogue 1693, 14th century, fols. 5i-59> "Liber de tribus generali-
^
MS
consideratio respiciens 3.
plicit."
^
181.
non
.
.
.
.
.
refer to the length of the shortest day. "
Selden
Musaeo
supra
181.
76 and
MS E
;
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
i86
chap.
and comparatio vel electio which of course 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,
to interrogations; is
Thus
elections.
which makes
distinguish them.
difficult to
it
to think that in those manuscripts
I
am
inclined
where the Book of Three
General Judgments seems an integral part of the work in four parts,
we
have simply the
really
followed by the
first
of the four parts,
Book of Three General Judgments}
At any
seems clear that most of Roger's astrological composition is on the theme of interrogations and elections. Indicia Herefordensis,^ found in more than one manuscript, may rate
it
come from a fourth work of
his or be portions of the fore-
going works. In this chapter
Summary.
we have
They were
known.^
not,
CUL
"Quoniam
The
.
circa
astronomica
tria
fit
omnis
consideracio.
.
question then arises, do
14V, "Incipit cogitatione.
liber
Sed
secundus
.
."
fol.
dum
.
.
."
et
;
10-18, but
book
the
first
of the
76,
is
fols.
Laud. Misc. 594, fols. I36-I37r, beginning mutilated, opens "illius signi et duodenarie ostendentis" and ends "secunda si vero respiciens tertia. Explicit liber de quatuor partibus iudiciorum asmagistro tronomiae editus a Rogero de Hereford." But the closing words, "respiciens tertia," are those connected with the In-
Book
of Three GenDijon 1045, a good illustration of the complexities of the problem. ' Besides the fly-leaf of Royal 12-F-17, mentioned above in a note, Ashmole 192, $2, pp. 1-17, "Expliciunt iudicia Herfordensis
of the
parently the former, since there is no fourth part given; at fol. 20 seems to open another treatise, Liber de niotibiis planetarum. E Musaeo 181 has the same arrangement as Selden supra 76,
supra
For it
3-9.
Judgments
i8r,
cogitacione. four parts
fuller than Selden
eral
fol.
we
ends with the sec-
De
cipit
operatione per quod fiat electio" have reference to the last two books of Three General Judgments or to the two middle books of the work in four parts? Ap-
MS
fols.
ond
de
cogitatione
and
are not generally
quum iam de
tractan"Incipit liber tercius de electione vel
intentione
who
however, without influence, as
* As we have already seen to be the case in 1693, fols. 40-51In Selden supra 76, the work 59. in four parts begins at fol. 3r, "Liber magistri Rogeri Hereford de iudiciis astronomicis. Quoniam ." At fol. loy, regulas artis. Liber de tribus generalibus iudiciis astronomie ex quibus cetera omnia defluunt, editus a magisIn three tro Rogero Hereford. books and a prologue, opening, .
two Englishmen of
treated of
the latter half of the twelfth century
multum bona
et
in
utilia."
It
will
be noted that in Selden supra 76 the title Dc iudiciis is applied to to the work in four parts. ^ Neither name, for example, despite the devotion of both to astrology, appears in the index of T. O. Wedel's, The Mediaeval
ROGER OF HEREFORD
XLii
187
have already shown in the case of Daniel of Morley and as number of manuscripts of the works of Roger of Here-
the
Daniel and Roger show 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, ford sufficiently attests for him.
that the
same
interest in astrology
and Adelard of Bath.
Daniel, like Adelard, illustrates the
relation of science to Christian thought; Roger, like
an astronomer
cher, is
who makes and
Wal-
carefully records ob-
servations of his own,^ while he trusts in astrology as based
upon experience.
As
Alfred of England dedicated his transDe vegetabilibus to Roger,
lation of the pseudo-Aristotelian
De
{On
Motion of the Heart) to a third Englishman, Alexander Neckam, to whom and his work On the Natures of Things {De naturis rerum) so he dedicated his
we
motii cordis
the
turn in the next chapter for a picture of the state of sci-
ence in his time. toward Astrology parEngland, Yale Uni-
Attitude
in
ticularly
versity Press, 1920. ^
For example,
with
Arundel
Solis etc.
fordiam;
in the
same
MS
Alorley's work, 377, fol. 86v, de altitudine
Daniel
of
apud Toletum et Here"Anni collecti cm-
Ibid.,
nium
compositi a planetarum magistro Rogero super annos domini ad mediam noctem Herefor die anno ab incarnatione domimclxxviii post eclipsim que ni contigit Hereford eodem anno" (13 September),
:
CHAPTER
—
XLIII
ALEXANDER NECKAM ON THE NATURES OF THINGS
— —
—
Birth and childhood Education The state of learning in his timePopular science and mechanical arts His works De naturis rerutn Neckam's citations His knowledge of Aristotle Use of recent authors Contemporary opinion of Neckam His attitude toward natural science Science and the Bible His own knowledge of science Incredible stories of animals A chapter on the cock Effect of sin upon nature Neckam on occult virtues Fascination His limited belief in
—
—
— —
astrology
Birth and childhood.
—
— Neckam's
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
farewell.
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, Cceur 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 Provengal
liter-
This was Alexander Neckam. Of his happy childature. hood at St. Albans he tells us himself in Latin verse somewhat suggestive of Gray's lines on Eton
Hie locus aetatis nostrae primordia novit Annos felices laetitiaeque dies Hie locus 'ingenuis pueriles imbuit annos Artibus Education.
A
et
nostrae laudis origo fuit,
number of years of
his life
were spent as teacher monastery
at Dunstable in a school under the control of the
ALEXANDER NECKAM
CHAP. xLiii
of St. Albans.
It
was
his higher education
at Paris,
and
189
however, that he received
also taught for a while.
Scarcely
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 any place, he wrote
Law
distasteful."
late in life,
This passage not only
broad education in the
illustrates his
two
liberal arts, the
own
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 ^ we may infer that he had been in Rouen and Meaux. In 12 13 Neckam was elected abbot of Cirencester, and died in 12 17. 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
made a bad pun upon
his good name, saying, nequam, nequaqiiani (If you are a good man you may come; if Neckam, by no means), he
the abbot
Si bonus
es,
venias;
si
joined the Augustinians instead.^
Neckam
gives us a glimpse of the learned world of his
time as well as of his happy,
when he
own
education.
He
thinks past times
recalls that "the greatest princes
were
dili-
gent and industrious in aiding investigation of nature," and it was then commonly said, "An illiterate king is a crowned ass." ^ But he is not ashamed of the schools of
that
his
own
Egypt
day.
After speaking of the learning of Greece and
in antiquity
and stating that schools no longer
ish in those lands, he exclaims,
"But what
shall I
flour-
say of
*I, 37
Aevi Scriptores,
'
All references in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be to this volume, and to the book and chapter of the De naturis
and II, 158. For references to the sources for the above facts of Neckam's life see the first few pages of the preface to tion of the the in
Thomas Wright's ediDe naturis rerum, and
De laudibus divinae sapientiae, Rerum Britannicarutn Medii
1863.
rerum. '
II, 21.
vol.
34,
London,
The state fng.^^*^""
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
190
Salerno and Montpellier where the diligent
chap.
of medical
skill
students, serving the public welfare, provides remedies to
the whole world against bodily
Italy arrogates to
ills?
it-
self proficiency in the civil law,
but celestial scripture and
the liberal arts prefer Paris to
other cities as their home.
And
all
accord with Merlin's prophecy the wisdom
in
now
Oxford which in his time was in process of Neckam's assertion that there were transfer to Ireland." ^ no schools in the Greece and Egypt of his day is interesting flourishes at
as implying the insignificance of Byzantine and
dan learning
Mohamme-
second half of the twelfth century.
in the
perhaps does not think of Constantinople as
in
He
"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."
At any
rate
is
it
premacy has now passed
many
Neckam
is
a
little
too inclined,
other Latin writers, to speak slightingly of the
^ndm*-
^^^^
chanical
vulgus or
common
eral arts
were the monopoly of
arts.
the intellectual su-
to western Europe.
In his praises of learning
Popular
mind
clear that to his
^
crowd.
In antiquity, he affirms, the
lib-
men; mechanical or
free
This does not mean,
adulterine arts were for the ignoble.^
however, that his eyes are closed to the value of practical inventions, since both in
we
The Natures of Things and
his
De
what are perhaps the earliest references * and to glass mirrors.' Indeed, he often entertains us with popular gossip and superstition, utensilibus
find
to the mariner's compass
mentioning for the
moon,^ and lonely sailor
first
time the belief in a
man
in the
telling such stories of daily life as that of the
whose dog helped him
age the ropes of the boat
reef the sails
in crossing the Channel,'^
and manor of the
sea-fowl whose daily cry announced to the sheep in the ^
11, 174.
*
S.
thority
Lane-Poole,
The Story of
Cairo. London, 1902,
p.
124.
*II, 21.
*II,
98.
Wright,
Vocabularies, '11, p.
1,
154,
note.
p.
Volume of
96.
and Wright, Preface, Wright cives no au-
for
his
further observa-
"The employment of glass for mirrors was known to the
tion,
ancients, but appears to have been entirely superseded by metal." *
L
MI,
14.
20.
ALEXANDER NECKAM
XLIII tidal
meadow
that
it
was time
191
to seek higher pasture, until
beak was caught by the shell of an oyster it tried to devour and the sheep were drowned for lack of warning.^ Neckam's writings were numerous, and, as might have His been expected from his wide studies, in varied fields. They works. include grammatical treatises,- works on Ovid and classical
one day
its
mythology, commentaries upon the books of the Bible such
and Song of Songs, and the writings of Arisand other works of a literary, scientific, or theological character.^ Most of them, however, if extant, are still in manuscript. Only a few have been printed; * among them is as the Psalms totle,
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 ^ 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 *
Such
as
Promethei"
his
"Corrogationes
found at Oxford
MSS
in
the following Laud. Misc. 112, 13th century, fols. 9-42; Merton College 254, 14th century; Bodleian (Bernard 4094) and 550 (Bernard 2300), middle of 13th century. •HL Xyill (1835), 521 was mistaken in saying that the De naturis rerutn is the only one of :
Neckam's works found
in contifor see Evreux 13th century. Alexandri 72, Neckam opuscula, fol. 2. "Correctiones Promethei," fol. 26v, "super expositione quarundem
nental
libraries,
dictionum
singulorum
librorum
Bibliothece scilicit de significatione eorum et accentu." And there is a copy of his De utensili-
bus in
BN
15171, fol. 176. The De utensilibus was also edited by Thomas Wright in 1857 in Volume of Vocabularies. *
A
Professor Haskins has printed "A List of Text-books from the Close of the Twelfth Century" in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology,
is from a work by (Gonville and Caius College In 1520 385, pp. 7-61). there was printed under the name of Albericus a work which is really by Neckam, as a at Oxford bears witness, Digby 221, "Mithologie 14th century, fol. i.
he argues
'11,36.
XX
(1909), 90-94, which
Neckam
MS
MS
Alexandri Neckam Sintillarium
et alio
appellatur"
;
nomine Incipit,
Egipto ditissimus nomine Syrophanes." In the same MS, fols. 34V -85, follows another work, "Alexander Nequam super Marcianum de nuptiis Mercurii et the Philologie." also in See Bodleian (Bernard 2019, It 3, and Scintillarium Poiseos 2581, Jt6) in quo de diis gentium et nominibus deorum et philosophorum de eis opiniones ubi et de origine "Fuit
vir
in
idolatriae. ° See M. Esposito, "On Some Unpublished Poems Attributed to Alexander Neckam," in English
XXX
Historical Reviczv, (1915), He prints several poems 450-71. on wine, etc., and gives a bibliography of Neckam's works, five printed and eleven in MSS.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
192
Wright/
especially addicted, according to
was
chap.
to those in-
genious but philologically absurd derivations of words in
which the Etymologies of Isidore of plaining, for example, the Latin
Seville
word
had
dealt, ex-
for corpse {cadaver)
words for Yet in flesh {caro), given (data), to worms (vermibus). 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
as
compounded from the
three roots seen in the
jurist or physician or philosopher without all this linguistic
and verbal display." Wright, moreover, was also by Neckam's interest in natural science, calling tainly one of the most remarkable English men in the twelfth century," ^ and noting that "he quently displays a taste for experimental science."
De iiaturis
rerum.
The Natures of Things, however,
is
impressed
him
"cer-
of science not infre^
not primarily a
scientific or philosophical dissertation, as Alexander
is
care-
a vehicle for moral Natural phenomena are described, but following each
ful to explain in the preface, but tion.
instruc-
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 obscurNeckam adds that they are ity of portions of the moon. even the heavenly bodies showing how instruction, for our 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
and both the material moon and holy church will be Lamb.^ 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 Eu-
stable,
spotless before the
'P.
xiii.
*II, 174.
*P.
xii.
"I, 14.
ALEXANDER NECKAM
XLiii
193
rope and especially in England during the latter half of the
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. ^ 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 sapientwelfth century,"
^
tiae.
The citations much interest.
of authorities in the
De
naturis
A
number of references of Justinian show NecKam's knowledge of
of
we should
and, as
rerum are Neckam's
to the law books
Roman
the
law,^
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 Juve-
Neckam believed much that was useful
nal.
that the diligent investigator could find in the inventions of the poets
and that
beneath their fables moral instruction sometimes lay hid.*
Neckam
quotes Plato, perhaps indirectly, and repeats in
different
words the
*
fable of the
Ixxvii) used four of the 13th or very early 14th century. At Corpus Christi College, Oxford, there is a beauwritten twelfth century tifully copy which he did not use, 45, folio, 186 fols., double col(p.
MSS
MS
umns.
Comment,
in
Genesim et rerum
Ecclesiasten, sive de naturis quinque; "Explicit libri
mag.
Alex. Ecclesiasten de
fox, as given in
MS
Pp. xiv-xv.
'Wright
crow and
Neckham naturis
tract.
super rerum."
Although Wright used two MSS from the Royal Library, he fails
to note a third, Z72)7 in the Harleian collection of the British Museum. It is of the 13th century according to the catalogue and contains this interesting 'mscription, "Hie est liber S. Albani quam qui abstulerit aut titulum deleverit anathema sit. Amen." (This book belongs to St. Albans. May he who steals it
or destroys the
ema.
title
be anath-
Amen.)
*I, 75, II, 155, 173. *II, 11; II, 107; II 12;
II,
126.
^'^^^'o"*-
— MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
194
The church
Apuleius.^
chap.
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. ers
who may
Of
writ-
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
Macer and Dioscorides on the properties and efof herbs,^ while works in the domain of astronomy or
great deal, fects
astrology are attributed to Julius (perhaps really Firmicus)
His ofTr'is^^^ totle.
and Augustus Caesar as well as to Ptolemy.^ 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 * and the Liber Coeli et Mundi, while allusion also
is
tion,
made
to Aristotle's opinions concerning vision,
mo-
melancholy, waters, and various astronomical matters.^
Such passages
—as
well as the fact that commentaries on
Aristotle are ascribed to
Neckam
—suggest
that
Roger Ba-
con 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
In H. E. Butler's translation, Oxford, 1909, given as Florida, cap. 26; in the MSS and in Hildebrand's text, pars II, Lipsiae, 1842, included in the prologus to the De Deo Socratis, with which we may therefore infer that Neckam was acquainted. Indeed there is a twelfth century manuscript of the De Deo Socratis in British Museum Harleian the *
—
3969. *II, 166. *II, 12. *
tae
Narcos piscis est tan44. virtutis, ut dicit Aristoteles.
II,
... II, 159. Ut docet Aristoteles, omnia mula sterilis est. While the substance of these two passages is found in Pliny's Natural History, he does not mention Aristotle in these connections nor
the Greek word "narcos." Moreover, Neckam seems to give credit as a rule to his immediate sources and not to copy their citations as we have seen, he credited the fable of the fox and crow to Apuleius and not to Aesop to whom Apuleius credits it. "11, 153. Sed Aristoteli magis
use
;
credendum esse reor quam vulgo. Dicit tamen Aristoteles I, 39. quod nihil habet duos motus contrarios.
I,
Aristoteles
7.
qui
"Solos melancholicos ingeniosos esse." II, i. Secundum veritatem doctrinae Aristotelicae omnes aquae sunt indiflferentes sedicit,
cundum
Placuit speciem. I, 9. itaque acutissimo Aristoteli plane-
tantum cum firmamento moSed quid? Aristoteli audent etc. sese opponere?
tas
veri.
.
•
.
ALEXANDER NECKAM
XLiii
in Latin translations
perhaps
little
:
views on nature make
of Aristotelian" doctrine century.
And
is
evident that
it
already
known
"the truth
in the twelfth
he already regards "the most acute Aristotle"
as the pre-eminent authority
among
move
After
philosophers.
all
stating that "all philosophers generally
the planets
Neckam
by Michael Scot about 1230.
History of Animals indirectly at any rate use of it; but his numerous mentions of Aris-
cites the
he makes totle's
195
seem
to teach" that
in a contrary direction to the
firmament
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 like flies w^alking
moved only with the firmament." He then expresses his amazement that the other philosophers should have dared to oppose Aristotle, should have presumed to against so great a philosopher. its
spotted
tail in
set their opinions
It is as if a peacock spread
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.^ That Neckam had some acquaintance with Arabic and Use of Jewish writers is indicated by his citing Alfraganus and authors Isaac. Of Christian writers of the century before him Neckam quotes from Hildebert, and four times from Bernard * It would therefore seem that Professor Haskins (EHR, 30, 68) is scarcely justified in saying that "the natural philosophy and meta-
tabilibus and of an appendix to the Meteorologica consisting of three chapters De congelatis, also Arabic, translated from the
physics of Aristotle" are "cited in part but not utilized by Alexander
Alfred was no isolated figure in English learning, since he dedi-
Neckam,"
cated
states
especially that
presently
since
he
"Neckam
himself seems to have been acquainted with the Metaphysics, De Anima, and De gcneratione et corruptione" (Ibid., 69, and "A List of Textbooks," Harvard
XX
(igo9), 7S-94). ProStudies, fessor Haskins, however, believes that the new Aristotle was by this England, but time penetrating gives the main credit for this to Alfredus Anglicus or Alfred of Sareshel, the author of the De motu cordis, and the translator of the Pseudo-Aristotelian De vege-
the
De
vegetabilibus
to
Roger of Hereford and the De motu cordis to Neckam: ed. Baruch, Innsbruck, 1878; and see Baeumker, Die Stellung des Alfred von Sareshel in der Wissenbeginnenden XIII des schaft .
.
.
Jahrts., Miinchen, Sitzber.
(1913), the whole it is probably safe to assume that his knowledge of Aristotle was soon at least, if not from the start, shared with others. Grabmann (1916), pp. 22-2S, adds nothing new on the subject of Neckam's knowledge of Aristotle.
No.
9.
On
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
196
He
Silvester.
cites the
chap.
Pantegni or Tegni of Constantinus He does not mention Adelard
Africanus more than once.^ of Bath by
name but
in discussing
experiments with vacuums
repeats the experiment of the water jar.
he states
ter
weight of lead would
on
ter
fects"
"Why is
in the
same earth
grow of contrary
plants
"Why
and his chapter on
tions of Adelard,
ef-
have sometimes been accepted
Neckam some
certain animals
Adelard's seventh in the same work.^
is like
Roger Bacon, whose estimates of
Contem-
Neckam.
fall
similar to the third chapter of the Natural Ques-
ruminate" porary opinion of
In another chap-
were perforated, an enormous only to the center. Neckam's chap-
that, if the earth
fifty
his
contemporaries
high a value, wrote of
at too
"This
years after Alexander's death:
Alexander wrote true and useful books on many subjects, but he cannot with justice be named as an authority." '
Bacon himself, however, seems on
at least one occasion to have used Neckam as an authority without naming him.'*
On
His attitude
toward natural
Englishman of note in science, Alfred of Sarchel or Sareshel, dedicated his book on The Movement of the Heart {De niotu 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 apthe other hand, another
science.
preciation of the scientific spirit.
pages of the
De
This fact shines out
amid
naturis reruni
its
spiritual illustrations, its erroneous etymologies lar anecdotes.
"Science
and popu-
acquired," he says in one pas-
is
by frequent
sage, "at great expense,
in the
moral lessons and
vigils,
by great expen-
diture of time, by sedulous diligence of labor, by vehement application of mind." tifies itself
even in practical
craftiness of the foe cise
But
^
is
life
acquisition abundantly jus-
and destructive war.
"What
there that does not yield to the pre-
knowledge of those who have tracked down the elusive
*I, 39; II, 11; I, 49; 140, 157; II, 157 and 161.
II,
129,
M, *
its
19; I, 16; II, 57; 11. 162. Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera Ine-
dita, ed. vol. 15.
Brewer,
p.
457
in
RS,
*As come
I
shall
point out
when
I
Roger Bacon, there are one or two rather striking resemblances between his interests and method and those of Neckam. '11,
to
155.
ALEXANDER NECKAM
xmi
subtleties of things
He
hidden
197
very bosom of nature?"
in the
whom
often cites these experts in natural science,
ways seems
he believes that they have solved forsooth are so hidden that
"This
is
my
there are
many
daily use and
seems as secret !"
if
Nature
On
^
al-
that
things saying,
is
the other hand,
phenomena too familiar through
experience to
who do
those
natural
it
my
secret, this is
Some
problems.
all
he
Not
to regard with respect as authorities.^
^
need mention in books, since even
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 perience
little
difficulty
of Aristotle; or,
if
in
adopting the
theories
scientific
there are Aristotelian doctrines
him with which he disagrees, he usually gards them.^ But he does raise the question
to
to ex-
known
quietly disreseveral times
of the correctness of Biblical statements concerning nature.
He
Adam's body was composed of all four made merely from earth, as the account of creation in the Book of Genesis might seem to imply.^ 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 explains that
elements and not
moon
is
entitled,
In a third chapter
not one of the largest planets.®
"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.'^ Wright quite unreasonably interprets this chapter as showing "to what a degree science had become the slave of scriptural phraseology." ^ What it really shows is just the contrary, for even the Biblical expositors,
Neckam
^11, 174"Qui *For instance, II, 148. autem in naturis rerum instruct! sunt." •
II, 99.
a citation from Aristotle gives him a little trouble. *
I,
16,
tells us,
say that the passage
'11, 152. *!, 13.
"Sed visus iudicium et vulgarem opinionem sequitur historialis narratio." '
n,
*
Preface,
49. p.
xxx.
Science ^ g"^j^^
!
is
AND
M.'ICIC
198
liXPfiRIMENTAL SCIENCE
chap.
to be taken in the sense tiiat 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 whatMoreover, the terresever from the waters of the deluge. trial 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
On
"the slave of scriptural phraseology."
makes it
the contrary
it
scriptural phraseology the slave of mysticism, while
somewhat material limitasome of the apocry-
subjects Enoch's translation to
may
Possibly there
tions.
be used here
phal books current under Enoch's name.^
Neckam
On
one occasion
does accept a statement of the Bible which seems
in-
consistent with the views of philosophers concerning the four
This
elements.
ment there
is
the assertion that after the day of judg-
will be neither fire
earth will be
nor water but only
air
and
To an imaginary philosopher who seems Neckam says, "If you don't
left.
unwilling to accept this assertion
believe me, at least believe Peter, the chief of the apostles,
who
Says what?
says the same in his canonical epistle.
Says that fire and water will not exist after the judgment But if Neckam prefers to believe his Bible as to day." ^
what
will
occur in the world of nature after the day of
judgment, he prefers
also, as
we have
phenomena.
science in regard to present natural
credits
His
the Epistles of Peter as
I
any
find
Neckam
here
with, unless after the elements have melted with
new heavens and a new made respectively of air and
fervent heat, the
earth are to be
interpreted as
earth
We may
own
of science^
him
in
Moreover,
nor apocr}'phal books can
in neither the canonical
such statement
seen, to follow natural
tific
agree at least with Wright that Neckam's scien-
attainments are considerable for his time.
and astronomy he shows himself *Sce
I
therefore upon the
Htrmas.
why
iii,
the tower
water
:
"Hear
42.
is
because
built
your
life
fairly well versed.
I,
and
is
water. '
In physics
.
16.
.
."
shall
be
saved
He by
ALEXANDER NECK AM
XLiii
199
knows something of vacuums and syphoning he argues ;
water tends naturally to take a spherical shape
;
that
he twice
^
points out that the walls of buildings should not be exsince they
actly parallel,
should ultimately meet,
longed far enough, at the center of the earth
we
He
are under theirs.^
^
pro-
if
and he as-
no more under our
serts that the so-called "antipodes" are feet than
;
gives us what
is
per-
haps our earliest information of some medieval inventions, such as the mariner's compass and mirrors of
he does not attempt to explain differences
convex and" concave mirrors.^
He
is
glass."*
in the
modest
in
his biological attainments, saying that he "is not to.
But
images in regard to
ashamed
confess" that there are species of which he does not even
know the names, to say nothing of their natures.^ 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," he is basing his conclusion simply on the fact that marginal notes in the medieval manuscripts themselves ascribe a number of pas'''
This ascription
sages to these authors. are
many
is
correct.
But there
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.
sometimes
criticizes
or
discriminates
the beaver castrates itself to escape *
II,
14.
Vitruvius, VIII, v. S, doctrine to Archi-
this
medes. 'II, 172;
and
p.
109 of
De
uten-
silibus.
'11,49.
Wright points out (p. 1, note) that in Beckman's History of In*
he
After quoting Bernard Silvester's statement that
writers.
ascribes
And
between the earlier
its
hunters, he adds, "But
no instances are given allusions mirrors glass to earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century.
ventions of
"11,
154.
'11,99. ' P. xxxix.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
200
who
those
more
are
chap.
informed as to the natures of
reliably
things assert that Bernard has followed the ridiculous popular notion and not reached the true fact."
Neckam
^
also
questions the belief that a lynx has such keen sight that
can see through nine walls.
This
is
it
supposed to have been
demonstrated experimentally by observing a lynx with nine walls between
and a person carrying some raw meat. The its side of the walls whenever the meat
it
lynx will move along
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 re-
marks
some natural
that
scientists attribute
animal's sense of smell than to Incredible stories of animals.
But
more credulous than in the salt it
is
sceptical.
He
vision.^
He
far
is
believes that the bar-
generated from fir-wood which has been soaked
water for a long time,^ and that the wren, after
has been killed and
spit.^
power of
a rule Neckam's treatment of animals
as
nacle bird
its
rather to the
it
tells
a
being roasted, turns
is
number of
on the
itself
delightful but incredible stories
which animals display remarkable sagacity and manifest emotions and motives similar to those of human beings. in
Some
of these tales concern particular pets or wild beasts;
others are of the habits of a species.
ample, keeps bird in
its
isfies its
morning
shares
also
returns
the
it
The hawk,
for ex-
wintry nights by seizing some other
claws and holding
when day
but
warm on
it
tight against its
own body;
gratefully releases this bird and sat-
appetite
upon some other
common
belief
that
Neckam
victim.^
animals
quainted with the medicinal virtues of herbs.
were
ac-
When
the
wounded by a venomous animal, it hastens to seek salubrious plants. For "educated by nature, it knows the
weasel
is
virtues of herbs, although
it
has neither studied medicine at
Salerno nor been drilled in the schools at Montpellier."
*
»II, 140.
the account of the tunny fish by
MI,
Plutarch which we noted in our chapter on Plutarch, where he says that the tunny fish needs no
138.
• I,
48.
* I,
78.
•I,
•II,
astrological canons
25. 123.
This reminds one of
with arithmetic
;
and
"Yes,
is
familiar
by Zeus,
ALEXANDER NECKAM
XLIII
201
Neckam's chapter on the barnyard cock perhaps will illus- A chapter on the between medieval and modern science cock. 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 trate the divergences
Now
excites one to song.
nature sets certain periods to the
movements of humors and therefore
the cock crows at 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.^ Neckam harbored the notion, which we met long before in the pagan Philostratus, in the Hebraic Enoch litera-
certam hours.
ture, in the Christian
Effect of sin
upon
nature.
Pseudo-Clementines and Basil's Hex-
aemeron, and more recently in the writings of Hildegard, that man's sin has
Adam's
fall
its
upon nature.
physical effects
he attributes not only the spots on the
To moon
but the wildness of most animals, and the existence of insects to plague,
and venomous animals to poison, and diseases But for the fall of man, moreover,
to injure mankind,^ all
creatures
living
would be subsisting upon a vege-
tarian diet.
Magic
is
hardly mentioned in the
a passage, however, telling his subtlest
works
how
De
naturis rerum.
Aristotle ordered
to be buried with him,
In
some of
Neckam adds
that
he so guarded the neighborhood of his sepulcher "by some mysterious force of nature or power of of the magic
art, that
and with
optics,
likely that
Neckam was
too."
It is unacquainted
with Plutarch's Essays. * I, 75 the reasoning ;
what similar
to
no one
is
some-
Adelard of Bath's
in those
art,
not to say feat
days could enter
explanation for joy. 'II, 156. 'II, 189.
why
his
it."
^
nephew wept
Neckam on occult virtues.
^
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
202
But Neckam
is
chap.
a believer in occult virtues and to a certain
extent in astrology. force of incantations
He would also seem to believe in the from his assertion that "in words and
herbs and stones diligent investigators of nature have dis-
Most certain experience, moreover, makes our statement trustworthy." ^ 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 A tooth virtue when set in silver than when set in gold. separated from the jaw of a wild boar remains sharp only
covered great virtue.
as long as the animal remains alive, an interesting bit of
The
sympathetic magic.^ bulls possessed
by the
noted by various authors
A
moonbeam
of a stable
occult property of
fig-tree is
taming wild
which we have already seen also remarked by Neckam.^
shining through a narrow aperture in the wall
fell
directly
the death of a
on a sore on a horse's back and caused Out-of-doors the
groom standing nearby.
efiFect 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.
After
Fascination.
Neckam
telling of the fatal glances of the basilisk
says that fascination
from someone who looks the face of a child
Neckam
His limited belief in
astrology.
mals.®
He
who
and wolf,
explained as due to evil rays
is
He
at you.
has been
adds that nurses
will not believe that the seven planets are ani-
does believe, however, that they not merely adorn
the heavens but exert upon inferiors those effects which
has assigned to them.'^
of the day.
As
Each planet
which ruled the
there are twenty-four hours in
'
11.
first three.
85. 139. 80.
*II, 153; this item is also found the 1 De Natura rerum of
Hence
the
Thomas "II. 7.
all,
the last
same planet
names of
of Cantimprc.
153-
•1.9.
M,
God
rules in turn three hours
three hours of each day are governed by the
MI, MI,
lick
fascinated."'^
the days
ALEXANDER NECKAM
XLiii
203
when Monday
in the planetary
week, Sunday being the day
governs the
three
when
the
first
moon
human
will
last three hours,
the sun the day
controls the opening and closing hours of
But the
day, and so on.^
the
and
stars
which remains
do not impose necessity upon 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
wont to
Neckam
flourish.
whom
science
is
also associates each of the seven
which illuminate the universe with one of the seven He alludes liberal arts which shed light on all knowledge.^ after when philosophers tell, which the to the great year of 36,000 years the stars complete their courses,^ and to the music of the spheres when, to secure the perfect consonance planets
of an octave, the eighth sphere of the fixed stars completes the
harmony of
one
may
the seven planets.
think he
is
raving
But he fears that some-
when he speaks with
the philoso-
phers of this harmony of the eight spheres.*
At Jesus
College, Oxford, in a manuscript of the early
which is writings by Neckam,^ 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 exclusively devoted to religious
thirteenth century,
he
is
spoken of
in the
manuscript as abbot of Cirencester,
perhaps these are also actually the
may therefore appropriately Neckam by quoting them. "Perchance,
worms body
You
is
O
account
of
book, you will survive Alexander, and
are the mirror of
my
soul, the interpreter of
my
10.
*
II, 173. *I, 6. '
our
me before the book-worm gnaws you; for my due the worms and book-worms will demolish you.
See p. 670 for Bacon's different account of this point.
*I,
We
words he wrote.
will eat
tations, the surest index of * I,
last
terminate
15-
Jesus 94.
.
The
MS
includes a
my
medi-
meaning, the faithful mes-
gloss on the psalter, a commentary on the proverbs of Solomon, two sermons, and, three books on "Who can find a virtuous woman?"
by Bede.
Neckam's ^
^
204
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
senger of
my
chap, xliii
my my conscience. To you as faithful confided my heart's secrets; you restore
mind's emotions, the sweet comforter of
grief, the true witness of
depositary
I
have
faithfully to
me
those things which
I
have committed to
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 your
trust
;
in
cycles of ages.
Amen."
—
CHAPTER XLIV MOSES MAIM.ONIDES (mUSA IBN MAIMUN) II35-I204
— His works the west— His works nn Latin—Attitude to religion —Attitude to magic— Towards empiricism — Abuse his work on of divine names — Occult virtue and empirical remedies poisons —Attitude to astrology— Divination and prophecy— Marvels in His
in
life
science and
in
the Aphorisms.
In
this chapter
representative of
Maimonides as he
is
^
or
we turn to consider perhaps the leading Hebrew learning in the middle ages, Moses Musa ibn Maimum or Moses ben Maimon,
variously briefly styled, not to entangle ourselves in
the intricacies of his full Arabic name.
works he
Cordova
is
^
^
or
is
des
In English, besides the article
on Maimonides in the Jewish Encyclopedia, there is a rather good essay by Rabbi Gottheil in Warner's Library of the World's Best in Recent works Literature. French and German are L. G. Levy, Maintonide, 191 1; Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben, seine Werke, und sein EinAuss, zur Erinnerung an den siebenhundertsten Todestag des Maimonides,
Forderung d. Judenthums durch W. M. Brann, D. Simonsen, I. Guttmann, 2 vols., containing twenty essays by various contribuL. tors, Leipzig, 1908 and 1914.
Maimonides'
attitude towards magic, astrology, and superstition comparatively. See also D. Joel, Der Aberglaube und die Stellung
zu demselben, Other older works on
Maimonides are listed in the bibliography in the Jewish EncycloThe Guide of the Perpedia. plexed
(Moreh
translated
by
Nebukim) was M. Friedlander,
second edition, 1904, and
I
have
also used the Latin translation of 1629.
The Yad-Hachazakah was The Book of
published in 1863 Precepts, in 1849;
;
on the Other works tary
v. d. Gesell. s.
Finkelscherer, Mose Maimunis Stellung zum Aberglauben und zur Mystik, Breslau, a 1894; Jena doctoral dissertation, full of somewhat juvenile generalizations, and which fails appraise to
Judenthums
1881-1883.
:
herausg. d. Wiss. Bacher,
In the Latin ver-
spoken of as Rabbi Moyses of made to call himself an Israelite of Cordova,^
sions of his
the
Co^nmen-
Mishnah,
in 1655. will be listed in the
four following foot-notes. ' "Rabymoyses Cordubensis," ir and 13V of the Latin fols. translation of his work on Poisons by Ermengard Blasius of Montpellier in an Oxford MS, Corpus Christi College 125. * "Moysi israhelitici," on the first page of a Latin translation numbered printed in 1477 (?) IA.27063 in the British Museum
—
from
"Yad Hachazakah," "De regimine saniomnium hominum sub brehis
under the tatis
205
title,
His
life,
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
206
but
chap.
seems to have been not much more than the scene of
it
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 his birth
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. His works in the
west.
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 of the
Marseilles.^
Law
In
it
he
tells
them
that his Repetition
(Iteratio legis) has already spread through the
But he apparently was still in Cairo, where on Poisons for the Cadi Fadhil.^ 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 island of Sicily. in July,
1
he wrote his treatise 1 98,
His Guide for the Perplexed, first published Arabic in 1190, had been translated into Hebrew
to be burned. in
Egypt
in
Lunel in southern France before the close of the twelfth century, and then again by a Spanish poet.^ But the rabbis
at
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 viloquio compilatus." Latin version of the printed in 1489 I A. 28878 in the British
In
Museum),
filius servuH "ait Moj^ses cordubensis," israeliticus
"Incipiunt tissimi
aphorismi
Raby
doctrinam principis."
the
Aphorisms (numbered dei
and
excellen-
Moyses secundum medicorum GaUeni
' Moses ben Maimon, De asHeepistola, trologia 1555, brew text and Latin translation. * See the preface as given in the French translation by L M. Rabbinowicz, Paris, 1865. There is a German translation by M. Steinschneider, Gifte und Ihre Heilungen, Berlin, 1873. .
.
.
'Levy (1911),
237.
^
;
MAIMONIDES
XLiv to the Inquisition.
207
The Maimonist party then accused them
of delation and several of them were punished by having
tongues cut out.^
their
If certain Christian authorities really did thus
burn the His works
books of Maimonides, their action was unavailing to check the spread of his writings even in Christian lands, and cer-
was not
tainly
characteristic of the attitude of Christian
The Guide of
Latin learning in general.
the Perplexed
had already been translated into Latin before 1234," and find Moses of Cordova cited by such staunch churchmen as Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus,^ Thomas Aquinas, and Vincent of Beauvais. It was for Pope Clement V him-
we
self that
Ermengard
Blasius of Montpellier translated at
Barcelona Maimonides' work on Poisons at the beginning of
from Arabic
the fourteenth century
was not surprising
It
cite
Maimonides,
they attempted
that Albert
he did
for
for
into Latin.
Christian,
and Aquinas should
for
Jewish thought what and
namely,
reconciliation
the
of Aristotle and the Bible, philosophy and written reveIf he anteceded them in this and perhaps to some showed them the way, we must remember that William of Conches, who was earlier than he, had already lation.
extent
faced this difficulty of the relations between science and religion, the scriptures
and the writings of the philosophers,
although he of course did not
As
totle. ^
Levy
"pour
for
(1911),
1856;
Kobeg
Taam
III
Konigsberg, zeqanim, Frankfurt, 18,
Levy
avait
all
the books of Aris-
diJ
(1911), 261, "Le Guide etre traduit en latin au
du XII le siecle, attendu que, des ce moment, on releve des traces de son influence dans la scolastique. Moise de Salerno declare qu'il a lu le Guide en latin debut
.
.
.
avec Nicolo Paglia di Giovenazzo, qui fonda en 1224 un convent dominicain a Trani."
According to Gottheil, it was this Latin translation of the Guide
allegorical
opponents of Maimonides' teaching induced the church to consign to the flames.
The Latin (Qi. L 1
171
1854. ^
know
Maimonides, continuing the which the Jewish 233, who cites
detail"
le
'Henda ghenonza,
Attitude to science
translation in 19),
fols.
CUL
1-183,
is
ascribed in the catalogue to Augustinus Justinianus, Nebiensium Episcopus, and is said to have been printed in Paris, 1520. ' M. Joel, Verhdltnis Albert des
Moses Maimonides, Rohner, Das Schbpfungsproblem bei Moses Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, und Thomas von Aquin. 1913. * See his preface in Corpus Grossen 1863.
Christi
cu
A.
125,
fol.
ir.
religion,
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
2o8
chap.
Old Testament Aristotelian philosophy, and was convinced that the prophets of old had received further revelations of a philosophical character, which had been trans-
method of Philo, he and Talmud all the
tried to discover in the
mitted orally for a time but then lost during the periods
He defended Moses from the slurs of Galen who had charged the lawgiver with an unscientific attitude.^ He denied the eternity of matter^ and of the heavens,* but held that the celestial bodies were living animated beings and that the heavenly spheres were conscious and free.^ 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.® Yet he believed that God does nothing without the mediation of an angel and that belief in the existof Jewish wandering and persecution.^
ence of angels
Thus
God.'^
only second in importance to a belief in
is
the rationalism and scepticism which
modern
Jewish admirers have ascribed to Maimonides had their decided limitations.
An
Attitude '° .
interesting discussion of
for the Perplexed
^
Mosaic law against
magic occurs
in the
Guide
in connection with the precepts of the
idolatry.
Maimonides holds
that
ma-
gicians 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 deter-
mining the times when these works should be performed; ^Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 74. Aphorismi (1489), partic. 25. "Et ostendam hac demonstratione '
quod Moysi
attribuit insipientia quam ipsi erat attribuenda
Galieno
meum
vere
sapientes alio.
.
et
inter eos .
."
unum
ponam
dictum duos compilatiorem
sicut
inter
'JE,
p.
77.
'Levy (1911), 'Levy (1911), °
Finkelscherer
p. p.
86.
84.
(1894),
PP-
40-
51. '
Levy, pp. 89-90.
^
More Nevochim
37.
(1629),
III,
MAIMONWES
XLIV
209
a third employing gesticulations, actions, and cries of the
human
Thus he recognizes
operator himself.
the three ele-
ments of materials, times, and rites in magic. He sees that they may be combined in one operation, as when an herb is
when
plucked that
the
moon
is
He
in a specified degree.
notes
is largely performed by women, towards whom more merciful than towards their own sex. He notes that magicians claim to do good or at least to
magic
men
are
also
ward from
such as snakes and wild beasts or the blight
off evils
plants.
But the lawgiver forbade
which contrary
"all
to natural science are said to
by special and occult virtues and properties,
those practices
produce .
.
.
utility
such for-
sooth 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."
^
But then Maimonides goes on to say that "everything Towards empinin which any natural cause appears." And he goes cism
is licit
He says that the reader need not feel uneasy because the rabbis have allowed the use in suspenfarther than that.
from the yoke worn by criminals or the "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 forsions of a nail
tooth of a fox.
bidden. *
".
.
contra
.
interdixit
omnia ea quae
speculationem
naturalem
specialibus et occultis viribus ac proprietatibus utilitatem afferre asserunt talia videlicet quae non ex ratione natural! sed ex .
.
.
opere magico sequuntur
rum
et stella-
dispositionibus ac rationibus innituntur, unde necessario ad colendas et venerandas illas devenitur."
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
210
In another passage of the Guide Maimonides cautions,
Abuse of divine
names.
chap.
however, against the abuse of divine names, and, while he holds to the Tetragrammaton "which
pronounced as
it
is spelled,"
is
written but
deplores the
many
is
not
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."
Maimonides again approves of empirical remedies and
Occult virtue and
empirical
remedies in his
^
of occult virtues in his treatise on poisons.
He
holds that
counter-poisons do not act by any physical or chemical
work on
quality but by their entire substance or by a special prop-
poisons.
erty.^ 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.^ 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.'* As for the stone
moderns are
hezoar, the writings of the tales
concerning
Maimonides has
it,
full
of marvelous
and it, which he could obwithout the least success. But
but Galen does not mention
tried all the varieties
tain against scorpion bites
experience confirms the virtue of
the
hezoar of animal
Maimonides' observations con-
origin, as has been stated.
mad dogs are interesting. He mad dog does not feel any dog who is not mad. He also
cerning cures for the bites of
states that at first the bite of a
different
warns ^
from
that of a
his readers not to trust to
More Ncvochim
(1629),
I,
61-
62.
'French translation
(1865),
p.
books to distinguish between 26. ^Ibid., pp. 27-28, 53-4. *Ibid., p. 38.
MAIMONIDES
XLIV
211
dog was not mad, by taking the remedies against the
the two, but unless they are sure that the
on the safe
to keep
side
He
bite of a
mad
remedies
listed for the cure of the bite of a
dog.^
also states that all of the various
be employed before hydrophobia manifests the appearance of that symptom,
I
mad dog must
itself,
"for after
have never seen a patient
In speaking of sucking the venom from a survive." ^ 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.^
That Maimonides was well acquainted with the art of astrology may be inferred from his assertion that he has Maimonides read every book in Arabic on the subject.'* not only believed that the stars were living, animated beings and that there were as many pure intelligences as there were spheres,^ but he states twice in the Guide for the Perplexed that all philosophers agree that this inferior world of generation and corruption is ruled by the virtues and influ'^
ences of the celestial diffused through
all
While
spheres.
particular species especially under
Levy
to
'^
their
influence
is
things, each star or planet also has its
influence.
According
he further held not only that the movement of
the celestial sphere starts every motion in the universe, but that every soul has sphere.
In his
he repeats that
origin in the soul of the celestial
on astrology
Jews of Marseilles the philosophers have held, and that He-
letter all
its
to the
brew 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 All this is true and in no way derogates from the science. But Maimonides regards as folly and not Jewish faith. *
Poisons (1865),
*
Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 21.
* '
So he
states
p. 43.
of his
De
•Levy
astrologia (i5S5)(191 1), PP- 84-5.
5 and ID. 'Levy (191 1 ),
*II, at
the beginning
p. 87.
Attitude trology.
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
212
chap.
the doctrine found in Arabic works of astrology that nativity compels everything to happen to him just man's a He regards this doctrine as it does and in no otherwise. as derived from the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Canaanites
wisdom
and makes the rather rash assertion pher ever wrote a book of this
that
sort.
no Greek philoso-
This doctrine would
man whom a lion meets and 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
make no
distinction between a
tears limb
from limb and
the
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.^ Maimonides holds that God planned all human affairs beforehand, and
that just as
He
planned the course of nature so as to allow
He
for the occurrence of miracles, so in such
a
way
that
punished for their
men
sins.
planned
could be held
human
affairs
responsible
Maimonides regards the
and
rule of
chance and the doctrine of nativities as incompatible with this.
Yet Maimonides believed
Divination
and prophecy.
in
a
human
faculty of natural
divination, stating that the ability to conjecture
found
is
in all
men
to
some
degree, and that in
and divine
some imagi-
nation and divination are so strong and sure that they correctly forecast all future events or the greater part of them.^
The
difference between true prophets
and the diviners and
observers of times "is that the observers of times, diviners,
*And
the
following
passage
seems quite confused and
illogi-
but perhaps the fault is with Latin translator "Ad haec omnes illae tres sectae philosophorum qui asseverant omnia per cal
the
;
:
sphaeras et stellas fieri etiam dicunt quicquid mortalibus contingit id casu temere et fortuito fieri et nullam de supernis causam habere, nee ea in re quicquam." *
More Nevochitn
^^1629), II, 38.
MAIMONIDES
XLiv
213
and such men, some of their words may be fulfilled and some of them may not be fulfilled." ^ 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.- 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 authenHe does not accept as ticity of works ascribed to Galen. his a treatise forbidding the burial of a
man
until twenty-
four hours after his supposed death, although the patriarch
who
it from Greek into Arabic regarded it as 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.
translated
Galen's.
^
Yad-Hachazakah, (1863),
I,
i,
X, pp. 63-4.
'These occur in the 24th section which is devoted to medical marvels
:
"Incipit
particula
xxiiii
continens aphorismos dependentes
a
miraculis
medicorum." Maimonides'
repertis
in
libris
rather to credit that he segregated these marvels in a separate chapter, It
is
Marvels ^2phorisn
—
— —
CHAPTER XLV HERMETIC BOOKS IN THE MIDDLE AGES The Book of Morienus— Robert of —The story of Morienus and Calid—The secret of the philosopher's stone — Later medieval works of alchemy ascribed to Hermes — Medieval citations of Hermes otherwise than as an alchemist —Astrological treatises Of the Six Principles of Things—Liber lune— Images of the seven planets Book of Venus of Toz Graecus — Further mentions of Toz Graecus — Toz the same as Thoth or Trismegistus Prince Khalid ibn Jazid and
Chester's preface
Magic experiments. Prince
Al-Mas'udi, who
Klialid ibn Jazid
preserved
^id The Morienus.
lived
.
a
single
from about 885 to 956 A. D., has r for making gold from the .
.
recipe
.
1
1
1
The Paradise of Wisdom, originally consome 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.^ 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 alchemical poem, sisting of
books. * For detailed references for Lippmann (1919), PP- 357-9-
this
214
and the preceding statements see
HERMETIC BOOKS
CHAP. XLV
215
One of the earliest treatises of alchemy translated from Robert of Arabic into Latin would appear to be this which Morienus preface/ Romanus, a hermit of Jerusalem, edited for "Calid, king of the Egyptians," and which Robert of Chester turned into
Latin
on the eleventh day of February
^
of the Spanish era or 1144 A. D.
we have spoken
lations
Of
elsewhere.^
in the
year 1182
Robert's other trans-
He
opens his preface
an account of three Hermeses
to the present treatise with
— Enoch, Noah, and the king, philosopher, and prophet who reigned in Egypt after the flood and was called
This account
Triplex,
is
Hermes
very similar to one which
we
an astrological treatise byHermes 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 Composishall presently find prefixed to
Alchemy. "And since," says Robert, "what alchemy and what is its composition, your Latin world does not yet know truly,^ I will elucidate the same in the present Alchemy is that substance which joins the more treatise."
tion of is
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 ^ I have used the edition of Paris, 1564, Liber de compositione alchemiae quern edidit Morienus
Romanus Quern
Calid Regi Aegyptiorum Robertus Castreiisis de
Arabico in Latinutn
number of
transtulit.
A
MSS
of the work will be found listed in the index of Black's Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS, and elsewhere, as in Sloane 3697 and Digby 162, 13th century, fols. 2iv and 23r. Other editions are Basel, 1559; Basel, in Artis Auriferae qiiam 1503, Chemiam vacant, II, 1-54; and
Geneva,
1702.
Bibliotheca
in
J.
Chemica
J.
Manget,
Curiosa,
I,
509-19.
See above, chapter 38. p. 8^ ^Berthelot (1893) 1, 234, toe.k ^
the date to be 1182 A. D. and so, on the basis of this remark, placed the introduction of Arabic alchemy into Latin learning 38 years too late. It is rather amusing that Lippmann, who elsewhere avails himself of petty pretexts to belittle the work of Berthelot, should have overlooked this error. He still (1919), pp. 358 and 482, states the date as 1182 A. D., although he is puzzled how to reconcile it with that of 1143 A. D. for Robertus Castrensis or Robert de Retines. He also is at a loss as to the identity of this Robert or the meaning of "Castrensis," and has no knowledge of the publications of Karpinski (1915) and Haskins, (J915).
EHR
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
2i6
chap.
may be transmuted. Although Robyoung man and his Latinity perhaps not
stone by which metals ert is a relatively
of the best, he essays the task of translating this so great
and important a work and reveals his own name preface
lest
some other person
and the praise which
the
Lippmann dismisses the work for
his due.
is
in
steal the fruits of his labor
translation rather testily as "surpassed by no later
emptiness, confusion, and sheer drivel,"*^ but
we
shall at-
tempt some further description. The
Momnus andCalid.
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
Ad far it
Long
else.
after Christ's passion an
of Alexandria found the book of Hermes, mastered
after long study, and himself gave
forth innumerable
precepts which were spread abroad and finally reached the
young man
ears of Morienus, then a
at
Rome.
This reminds
us of the opening of the Recognitions of Clement. Morienus
home, parents, and native land, and hastened to When Adfar learned to the house of Adfar. that Morienus was a Christian, he promised to divulge to him "the secrets of all divinity," which he had hitherto kept left his
Alexandria
from
concealed
nearly
When Adfar
everyone.
died,
Alexandria and became a hermit at JerusaNot many years thereafter a king arose in Egypt lem. named Macoya, He begat a son named Gezid who reigned
Morienus
left
after his father's death
Calid
who
and
patron of science and searched
still
living,
all
Hermes
lands for someone
who
Morienus was and when a traveler brought him news of Calid
could reveal this book of
and his
a son named This Calid was a great
in his turn begat
reigned after his death.
came
desire, he
to him.
to his court, not for the sake of
the gifts of gold which the king had offered, but in order
him with spiritual gifts. Saluting Calid with the words, "O good king, may God convert you to a better," to instruct
he asked for a house or laboratory in which to prepare his *
Lippmann (1919),
p.
358.
HERMETIC BOOKS
XLV
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 oflf 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 an-
was despatched with a laree The king and the hermit at
other hermit of Jerusalem and retinue to bring
engaged
first
in
him
back.
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 ques-
such as whether there is one fundamental substance, and concerning the nature and color of the philosopher's tions,
stone, also
its
natural composition, weight and taste, cheap-
ness or expensiveness, rarity or abundance, and whether there
This
any other stone like unto it or which has its effect. query Morienus answered in the negative, since in
is
last
the philosopher's stone are contained the four elements it
and
unto the universe and the composition of the uniIn the process of obtaining it decay must come first,
is like
verse.
then purification.
As
in
human
generation, there
must
first
be coitus, then conception, then pregnancy, then birth, then nutrition.
To
such
general
observations
which are commonplaces of alchemy, are eral
and analogies, added sev-
finally
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,^ which I have not done very ;
* Berthelot is a poor guide in any such matter since his pretentious volumes on medieval alchemy are based on the study of
no use of the Sloane collection in the British Aluseum which is very
a comparatively small number of at Paris. He made little or
apparently
MSS
rich in alchemical MSS, a subject in which Sir Hans Sloane was
the
much
Ashmolean
interested, or of collection at Ox-
The secret of the philosopher's ston
View more...
Comments
