was the great patron of art and of letters during these centuries.
Without the inspiration of her teachings there would have been no
sublime subjects for artists; without the lives of her saints there
would have been much less opportunity for artistic expression; without
the patronage of the cathedral builders, the high ecclesiastics, and
above all the monastic orders, on whom, with so little reason, so much
contempt has been heaped, there would have been none of that great art
which developed during the centuries before what is called the
Renaissance. In literature, everyone of the great national poems that
lie at the basis of modern literature is shot through and through with
sublime thoughts that owe {22} their origin to the Church. We need
only mention the Cid in Spain, the Arthur Legends in England, such
works of the Meistersingers as Perceval and Arme Heinrich, the Golden
Legend, the Romance of the Rose, and Dante,--all written during the
thirteenth century alone, to illustrate Church influence in
literature. This is, as we have said, admitted by all. It is supposed,
however, that while the Church encouraged this side of human
development, it effectually prevented the evolution of man's
scientific interests.
As a matter of fact, however, the Church did quite as much for science
as for literature and art and charity, There has never been any
question that under her fostering care philosophy developed in a very
marvelous way. The scholastic philosophers are no longer held in the
disrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last century. It is
recognized that scholastic philosophy represents a supremely great
development of human thinking with regard to the relations of man to
his Creator, to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who do
not accept its conclusions now, if themselves educated men, no longer
make little of those wonderful thinkers, but sympathize with their
magnificent work. Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy
entirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics whose
opinions were founded on second-hand authorities and who confessedly
had been unable to make anything out of the scholastics themselves.
This field of philosophy was the real danger point for faith and the
Church, yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the
philosophers kept within the bounds of their subject.
Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science.
Strange as it may seem to those {23} who have allowed themselves to be
led into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have
men made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have
the conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena
been of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made
great achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of
which unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which
remained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge
has been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all
that is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars
of the early history of the universities, and see how much that is
considered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must
be read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced
readers, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything
good in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation
to replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this
period of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may
learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much
old-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars--nay,
even of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in
history.
To most people it will be utterly uncomprehensible, however, that
after all that they have heard about Church opposition to science and
Papal discouragement of education as dangerous to faith, there should
now be an absolute denial of the supposed grounds for the assertions
in this matter. Most readers, even among educated people, will be very
prone to think that their impressions in these matters cannot be
entirely wrong, and {24} that previous writers on the subject cannot
have been either deceiving or deceived. In all that relates to the
Roman Catholic Church, however, before the date of the so-called
reformation, it is important to remember that there came into
existence a definite body of Protestant tradition, the creation of the
reformers who wished to blacken the memory of the Old Church as much
as possible to justify their own apostasy, and who therefore spared no
means to pervert the facts of history or to exaggerate the
significance of historical details so as to produce this false
impression. Subsequent generations were oftener deceived themselves
than deceiving. They were sure that the Church was opposed to
education and to science, and consequently it was not hard for them to
read in certain incidents and documents a meaning quite other than
their actual significance, because this added meaning agreed with
their prejudices on these subjects.
Every advance in modern history, every modification of view that has
been brought about by the critical historical method of recent times,
has emphasized this point of view almost without exception. The
distinguished philosophic and historical writer, the Comte de Maistre,
in his Soirees of St. Petersburg about a century ago, declared that
"History for the last three centuries (1500-1800) has been a
conspiracy against the truth." Just about a century later the editors
of the Cambridge Modern History, in the preface to the first volume of
their monumental work, re-echoed the words of the Comte de Maistre
almost literally in a pregnant paragraph which deserves to be in the
note-book of everyone who is trying to get at the real truth of
history. They said:
{25}
"Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of the
past; _the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has
gradually given way,_ and competing historians all over the
civilized world have been zealous to take advantage of the change.
The printing of archives has kept pace with the admission of
enquirers; and the total mass of new matter, which the last
half-century has accumulated, amounts to many thousands of volumes.
In view of changes and of gains such as these, it has become
impossible for the historical writer of the present age to trust
without reserve even to the most respected secondary authorities.
The honest student finds himself continually deserted, retarded,
_misled by the classics of historical literature_, and has to hew
his own way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals and
official publications in order to reach the truth.
"Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this generation; _but, so
far as documentary evidence is at command, conventional history can
be discarded, and the point can be shown that has been reached on
the road from one to the other._"
The italics in this passage are ours, but the ideas they emphasize
will serve to show how necessary it is for most of us to give up the
supposed historical truth of the preceding generations and have an
open mind for the newer ideas that are coming in as the result of the
renewed consultation of original documents and primal sources of
information. The present volume is written entirely with the idea of
bringing out the facts of the relations of the Popes and the Church
and the ecclesiastics, especially of the centuries before the
reformation, to science and to scientific education. My own position
as a professor of the history of medicine has necessarily made medical
science very prominent in the book. This, however, far from being a
disadvantage, is really an {26} advantage, since the physical sciences
of the medieval times gathered mainly around medicine, and it was
chiefly physicians and medical students who devoted most time to them.
After a detailed study of the history of medical science in the Middle
Ages as well of its allied sciences, it becomes very clear that there
was no trace of Papal or Church opposition to science as science, and,
on the contrary, liberal patronage, abundant encouragement, and even
pecuniary aid for the development of scientific education in every
way.
What we have tried to give in this book, then, is the authoritative
refutation of the supposed prohibition of the cultivation of certain
departments of medical and allied sciences by the Popes, and
sufficient information to enable students and teachers of science to
realize that the ordinarily accepted notions with regard to opposition
to science in the Middle Ages are founded on nothing more substantial
than sublime ignorance of the facts of the history of science at that
time. There was no bull against anatomy or dissection; no bull against
chemistry; the Popes were the patrons of the great medical scientists
and surgeons; the Papal Medical School was one of the best in the
world and was sedulously fostered; the great scientists of the Middle
Ages were clergymen, and many of them when they died were declared
saints by the Church. The opposite impression is entirely a deduction
from false premises with regard to the supposed attitude of the Church
and churchmen. We shall furnish abundant authorities of the first rank
and of value as absolute as there can be in present day history as to
these questions. The consultation of these will furnish further
material for those who desire to have real knowledge of {27} the
history of science in a magnificently original and greatly fruitful
period.
{28}
THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION.
There is a very general impression that the Roman Catholic Church was,
during the Middle Ages, opposed to the practice of dissection, and
that various ecclesiastical regulations and even Papal decrees were
issued which prohibited, or at least limited to a very great degree,
this necessary adjunct of medical teaching. These ecclesiastical
censures are supposed to be in force, to some extent at least, even at
the present time. The persuasion as to the minatory attitude of the
Church in regard to dissection is so widespread among even supposedly
well-educated professional men, that, as we have said in the
introductory chapter, when there was question some time ago of opening
a medical school in New York City under Catholic auspices as a
department of Fordham University, a number of more than ordinarily
intelligent physicians asked: What would be done about the study of
anatomy, since in the circumstances suggested dissection would not be
allowed? This false impression has been produced by writers in the
history of science who have emphasized very strenuously the supposed
opposition of the Church to science, and as these writers had a
certain prestige as scholars their works have been widely read and
their assertions have been unquestioned, because it would naturally be
presumed that they would not make them without thorough investigation
of such important questions. Professional men are not to blame if they
have taken such statements {29} seriously, even though they are
absolutely without foundation. That statements of this kind should
have been made by men of distinction in educational circles and should
have passed current so long, is only additional evidence of an
intolerant spirit in those who least suspect it in themselves and are
most ready to deprecate intolerance in others.
Take a single example. Most of what is said as to the opposition of
the Church to medicine during the Middle Ages in A History of the
Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, by Andrew D. White
(Appleton's, New York), is founded on a supposed Papal prohibition of
anatomy and on a subsequent equally supposed Papal prohibition of
chemistry. These two documents are emphasized so much, that most
readers cannot but conclude that, even without further evidence, these
are quite enough to prove the contention with regard to the
unfortunate opposition of the Church to medical science. Without these
two presumably solid pillars of actual Papal documents, what is said
with regard to the Church and its relations to medical science in the
Middle Ages amounts to very little. Much is made of the existence of
superstitions in medicine as characteristic of the Middle Ages and as
encouraged by clergymen, but medical superstitions of many kinds
continue to have their hold on even the intelligent classes down to
the present day in spite of the progress of education, and in
countries where the Church has very little influence over the people.
Dr. White quotes with great confidence and absolute assurance a Papal
decree issued in the year 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII., which forbade
the mutilation of the human body and consequently hampered all
possibility of progress in anatomy for {30} several important
centuries in the history of modern science. Indeed, this supposed
Papal prohibition of dissection is definitely stated to have precluded
all opportunity for the proper acquisition of anatomical knowledge
until the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Golden Age of
modern anatomy set in. This date being coincident with the spread of
the movement known as the Protestant Reformation, many people at once
conclude that somehow the liberality of spirit that then came into the
world, and is supposed at least to have put an end to all intolerance,
must have been the active factor in this development of anatomy, and
that, as Dr. White has indeed declared, it was only because the Church
was forced from her position of opposition that anatomical
investigation was allowed.
Since so serious an accusation is founded on a definite Papal
document, it cannot but be a matter of surprise that those who have
cited it so confidently as forbidding anatomy, and especially
dissection, have never given the full text of the document. It is
practically impossible for the ordinary reader, or even for the
serious student of the history of medicine, to obtain a copy of this
decree unless he has special library facilities at his command and the
help of those who are familiar with this class of documents. Many
references have been made to this prohibition by Pope Boniface VIII.,
but no one has thought it worth while to give, even in a footnote, the
text of it. The reason for this is easy to understand as soon as one
reads the actual text. It has nothing to say at all with regard to
dissection. It has absolutely no reference to the cutting up of the
human body for teaching purposes. Its purpose is very plain, and is
stated so that there can be no possible {31} misapprehension of its
meaning. Here we have an excellent illustration of what the editors of
the Cambridge Modern History declared to be the breaking up of the
long conspiracy against the truth by the consultation of original
documents.
Through the kindness of the Rev. D. A. Corbett, of the Seminary of St.
Charles Borromeo, Overbrook, Pa., I have been able to secure a copy of
Pope Boniface's decree, and this at once disposes of the assertion
that dissection was forbidden or anatomy in any way hampered by it.
Father Corbett writes:
"The Bull De Sepulturis of Boniface VIII. is not found in the
Collectio Bullarum of Coquelines, nor is it incorporated in the
Liber Sextus Decretalium Divi Bonifacii Papae VIII., though it is
from here that it is quoted in the Histoire Litteraire de la France
(as referred to by President White). It appears in an appendix to
this sixth book among the Extravagantes, a term that is used to
signify that the documents contained under it were issued at a time
somewhat apart from the period this special book of decretals was
supposed to cover. The Liber Sextus was published in 1298. This
'Bull De Sepulturis' was not issued until 1300. It is to be found in
the third book of the Extravagantes, Chapter I."
Even a glance at the title would seem to be sufficient to show that
this document did not refer even distantly to dissection, and this
makes it all the harder to understand the misapprehension that ensued
in the matter, if the document was quoted in good faith, for usually
the compression necessary in the title is the source of such errors.
The full text of the bull only confirms the absolute absence of any
suggestion of forbidding dissection or discouraging the study of
anatomy.
{32}
"Title--Concerning Burials.[Footnote 2] Boniface VIII. Persons
cutting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously boiling them, in
order that the bones, being separated from the flesh, may be carried
for burial into their own countries, are by the very act
excommunicated.
[Footnote 2: See Latin text in full in appendix.]
"As there exists a certain abuse, which is characterized by the most
abominable savagery, but which nevertheless some of the faithful
have stupidly adopted. We, prompted by motives of humanity, have
decreed that all further mangling of the human body, the very
mention of which fills the soul with horror, should be henceforth
abolished.
"The custom referred to is observed with regard to those who happen
to be in any way distinguished by birth or position, who, when dying
in foreign lands, have expressed a desire to be buried in their own
country. The custom consists of disemboweling and dismembering the
corpse, or chopping it into pieces and then boiling it so as to
remove the flesh before sending the bones home to be buried--all
from a distorted respect for the dead. Now, this is not only
abominable in the sight of God, but extremely revolting under every
human aspect. Wishing, therefore, as the duty of our office demands,
to provide a remedy for this abuse, by which the custom, which is
such an abomination, so inhuman and so impious, may be eradicated
and no longer be practiced by anyone, We, by our apostolic
authority, decree and ordain that no matter of what position or
family or dignity they may be, no matter in what cities or lands or
places in which the worship of the Catholic faith flourishes, the
practice of this or any similar abuse with regard to the bodies of
the dead should cease {33} forever, no longer be observed, and that
the hands of the faithful should not be stained by such barbarities.
"And in order that the bodies of the dead should not be thus
impiously and barbarously treated and then transported to the places
in which, while alive, they had selected to be buried, let them be
given sepulture for the time either in the city or the camp or in
the place where they have died, or in some neighboring place, so
that, when finally their bodies have been reduced to ashes or
otherwise, they may be brought to the place where they wish to be
buried and there be interred. And, if the executor or executrix of
the aforesaid defunct, or those of his household, or anyone else of
whatever order, condition, state or grade he may be, even if he
should be clothed with episcopal dignity, should presume to attempt
anything against the tenor of this our statute and ordination, by
inhumanly and barbarously treating the bodies of the dead, as we
have described, let him know that by the very fact he incurs the
sentence of excommunication, from which he cannot obtain absolution
(unless at the moment of death), except from the Holy See. And
besides, the body that has been thus barbarously treated shall be
left without Christian burial. Let no one, therefore, etc. (Here
follows the usual formula of condemnation for the violation of the
prescriptions of a decree.) Given at the Lateran Palace, on the
twelfth of the calends of March, in the sixth year of our
pontificate."
The reason for the bull is very well known. During the crusades,
numbers of the nobility who died at a distance from their homes in
infidel countries were prepared for transportation and burial in their
own lands by dismemberment and boiling. The remains of {34} Louis IX.,
of France, and a number of his relatives who perished on the ill-fated
crusade in Egypt in 1270, are said to have been brought back to France
in this fashion. The body of the famous German Emperor, Frederick
Barbarossa, who was drowned in the river Saleph near Jerusalem, was
also treated thus in order that the remains might be transported to
Germany without serious decomposition being allowed to disturb the
ceremonials of subsequent obsequies. Such examples were very likely to
be imitated by many. The custom, as can be appreciated from these
instances from different nations, was becoming so widespread as to
constitute a serious source of danger to health, and might easily have
furnished occasion for the conveyance of disease. It is almost
needless to say to our generation that it was eminently unhygienic.
Any modern authority in sanitation would at once declare against it,
and the custom would be put an end to without more ado. There can be
no doubt at all then that Pope Boniface VIII. accomplished good, not
evil, by the publication of this bull. So anyone with modern views as
to the danger of disease from the foolish custom which it abolished
would at once have declared, and yet, by a perversion of its
signification, it came to be connected with a supposed prohibition of
dissection. For this misunderstanding Pope Boniface VIII. has had to
suffer all sorts of reproaches and the Church has been branded as
opposed to anatomy by historians(!)
Is it possible, however, that this bull was misinterpreted so as to
forbid dissection, or at least certain forms of anatomical preparation
which were useful for the study and teaching of anatomy? That is what
Dr. White asserts. He shows, moreover, in his History of {35} the
Warfare of Science with Theology, that he knew that the document in
question was perfectly inoffensive as regards any prohibition of
dissection in itself, but insists that by a misinterpretation, easy to
understand as he considers, because of the supposed opposition of
ecclesiastics to medical science, it did actually prevent anatomical
development. President White says: "As to the decretal of Pope
Boniface VIII., the usual statement is that it forbade all
dissections. While it was undoubtedly construed universally to
prohibit dissection for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was
as stated in the text; that it was constantly construed against
anatomical investigations cannot for a moment be denied."
If a misinterpretation were subsequently made, surely Pope Boniface
VIII. must not be held responsible for it; yet in spite of the fact
that Dr. White shows that he knew very well that this bull did not
forbid the practice of dissection, he does not hesitate to use over
and over again expressions which would imply that some formal decision
against dissection itself had been made, though this is the only Papal
document he refers to. He even goes so far as to say that "anatomical
investigation was made a sin against the Holy Ghost." He frequently
repeats that for three centuries after the issuance of this bull the
development of anatomy was delayed and hampered, and insists that only
that Vesalius at great personal risk broke through this Church
opposition, modern anatomy would never have developed. He proceeds
constantly on the theory that it was always this bull that was in
fault, though he confesses that if so, it was by a misunderstanding;
and the only fault he can find to attribute to the Pope is a lack of
infallibility, as he {36} calls it, because he was not able to foresee
that his bull would be so misunderstood.
I suppose we are to understand from this that Dr. White considers that
he knows the meaning of the word infallibility. It is not a hard word
to understand if one wishes to understand it. The meaning that he
gives it in this passage is so entirely different from its accepted
meaning among Catholics, that any schoolboy in any of our parochial
schools would tell him that the word was never used by Catholics in
the sense in which he here employs it. It is so misunderstood
popularly outside of the Church, and this Dr. White doubtless knew
very well. When a man uses a term in medicine in a different sense to
that which is ordinarily accepted, we consider him ignorant; but when
he deliberately uses it in another sense for his own purposes because
of a false significance attached to it in the popular mind, we have a
special name for him.