more than cite certain of them that should have it very prominently,
if Dr. White's assertion is to be taken at its face value. Here are
some standard historians whom I have searched in vain for the
declaration that all of them should have.
Kopp, who is the German historian of chemistry, mentions the fact that
there was much less cultivation of chemistry during the fourteenth
century than during the thirteenth, but makes no mention of the bull
of Pope John as being responsible for it. There are curious cycles of
interest in particular departments of science, with intervals of
comparative lack of interest that can only be explained by the
diversion of human mind to other departments of study. This seems to
have happened with regard to chemistry in the fourteenth century.
{132}
Hoefer, the French historian of chemistry, mentions the fact that Pope
John XXII. took severe measures against the alchemists who then
wandered throughout the country, seeking to enrich themselves at the
expense of the credulity of the people. He evidently knew of this
decree then, but he says nothing of its forbidding or being
misinterpreted, so as to seem to forbid chemical investigation.
Thomson, the English historian of chemistry, has no mention of any
break in the development of chemical science, caused by any action of
the Popes, though, to the surprise doubtless of most readers, he
devotes considerable space to the history of chemical investigation
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Ernst von Meyer
mentions the fact that alchemy was abused by charlatans, in order to
make pretended gold and silver, and notes that there was not so much
interest in chemistry in the fourteenth as in the thirteenth century,
but does not ascribe this fact to the bull of Pope John.
I expected at least that I should find something with regard to the
question of the possible influence of the bull in Berthelot's "History
of Chemistry in the Middle Ages." [Footnote 17] But though there are
various historical topics treated that would seem to imply the
necessity for saying something about the bull, if it had any such
effect as described, yet there is no mention of it. He mentions the
Franciscan alchemists of northern Italy, who lived about this time,
and discusses the "Rosarium," written very probably after the date of
the bull by a Franciscan monk, but there is no suggestion as to any
hampering of alchemy by Papal or other ecclesiastical restrictions.
[Footnote 17: Berthelot's Histoire de la Chimie au Moyen Age. Paris,
1893.]
{133}
The French Grande Encyclopedie does not mention it, nor does a German
encyclopaedia, also consulted. Even the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in
its article on alchemy, makes no mention of the prohibition of alchemy
by Pope John XXII., and when the Encyclopaedia Britannica does not
mention any scandal with regard to the Popes, then the scandal in
question must have an extremely slight or no foundation.
Of course this is what might be expected. Anyone who reads the Papal
decree can see at once that it has nothing to do with, or say about,
chemistry or chemical investigation. Since, however, an aspersion has
been cast upon the progress of chemistry during the Middle Ages, and
since it will surely be thought by many people that, if chemistry did
not happen to interest mankind at that time, it must have been because
the Pope was opposed to it (for such seems to be the curious chain of
reasoning of certain scholars), it has seemed well to review briefly
the story of chemistry during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. More will be said about it in the chapter on Science at the
Medieval Universities, and here the only idea is to bring out the fact
that men were interested in what we now call chemical problems; that
whatever interest they had was absolutely unhampered by ecclesiastical
opposition; that indeed the very men who did the best work in this
line, and their work is by no means without significance in the
history of science, were all clergymen; and that most of them were in
high favor with the Popes, and some of them have since received the
honor of being canonized as saints.
Take for a moment the example of the great English medieval scientist
who wrote near the end of the {134} thirteenth century a work on
science, which was undertaken at the command of the Pope of his time,
to show him the character of the teaching of science at the University
of Oxford. Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
the Latins acquainted with these things."
The thirteenth century saw the rise of a number of great physical
scientists, who made observations that anticipated much more of our
modern views on scientific problems than is usually thought. One of
the greatest of the chemists of the thirteenth century was Albert the
Great, or Albertus Magnus, as he is more familiarly called, who taught
for many years at the University of Paris. He was a theologian as well
as a physician and a scientist. His works have been published in
twenty-one folio volumes, which will give some idea of the immense
industry of the man. Those relating to chemistry are as follows:
Concerning Metals and Minerals; Concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
Secrets of Chemistry; A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A
Concordance, that is, a Collection, of Observations from Many Sources,
with Regard to the Philosopher's {135} Stone; A Treatise on Compounds;
a book of eight chapters on the Philosopher's Stone. Most of these are
to be found in his works under the general heading "Theatrum
Chemicum." Thomson, in his "History of Chemistry," says, that they
are, in general, plain and intelligible. Albertus Magnus's most famous
pupil was the celebrated Thomas Aquinas. Three of his works are on
chemistry: The Intimate Secrets of Alchemy; on the Essence and
Substance of Minerals; and finally, later in life, the Wonders of
Alchemy. It is in this last work, it is said, that the word _amalgam_
occurs for the first time. While Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus
were working in France and Germany, Roger Bacon was doing work of
similar nature at Oxford in England. Altogether, he has eighteen
treatises on chemical problems. Some of these contain wonderful
anticipations of modern chemistry. After Roger Bacon came Raymond
Lully, who wrote, in all, sixteen treatises on chemical subjects. At
about the same time, Arnold of Villanova was teaching medicine at
Paris and paying special attention to chemistry. From him there are
twenty-one treatises on chemical subjects still extant. Arnold of
Villanova died on the way to visit Pope Clement V., the immediate
predecessor of John, who lay sick unto death at Avignon.
It is evident, then, that there was no spirit of opposition to
chemistry gradually forming itself in ecclesiastical circles, and
about to be expressed in a decree by John. The chemists of the
thirteenth century had been among the most distinguished churchmen of
the period. One of them at least, Thomas Aquinas, had been declared a
saint. Another, Albertus Magnus, has been given the title of Blessed,
signifying that his life and {136} works are worthy of all veneration.
Pope John XXII. had as a young man been a student of these men at the
University of Paris, and would surely have imbibed the tradition of
their interest in the physical sciences. That he should have unlearned
all their lessons seems out of the question.
It remains, then, to see whether there was any diminution of the
interest in chemistry after the issue of this decree by John. In the
fourteenth century we find the two Hollanduses, probably father and
son, whose lives run during most of the century, doing excellent work
in science. They frequently refer to the writings of Arnold of
Villanova, so that they certainly post-date him. From them altogether,
we have some eleven treatises on various chemical subjects. Some of
these, especially with regard to minerals, have very clear
descriptions of processes of treatment which serve to show that their
knowledge was by no means merely theoretical or acquired only from
books.
Probably before the end of the fourteenth century there was born a man
who must be considered the father of modern pharmaceutical chemistry.
This was Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk, whose best
known work is the "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony." Its influence
can be best appreciated from the fact that it introduced the use of
antimony into medicine definitely, and that substance continued to be
used for centuries, so that it was not until practically our own
generation that the true limitations of its usefulness were found.
Valentine described the process of making muriatic acid, which he
called the spirit of salt, and taught how to obtain alcohol in
concentrated form. Altogether, this monk-alchemist, who was really the
{137} first of the chemists, left twenty-three treatises, some of them
good-sized books, on various subjects in chemistry. [Footnote 18] It
does not look, then, as though chemistry was much neglected during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
[Footnote 18: For a brief sketch of his career see my Catholic
Churchmen in Science. Dolphin Press, Philadelphia. 1906.]
One step more in the history remains to be taken, which brings us down
to a man who is more familiar to modern physicians--Paracelsus.
Paracelsus received his education just at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, before the Reformation began. He was not a man, as
those who know his character will thoroughly appreciate, to confess
that he had received much assistance from others. He does mention,
however, that he was helped in his chemical studies by the Abbot
Trithemius, of Spanheim; by Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach; by Bishop
Erhardt, of Lavanthol; by Bishop Nicholas, of Hippon; and by Bishop
Matthew Schacht.
We have been able to follow, then, the development of chemistry during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries down to the time of the
Reformation, and find nowhere any lessening of the ardor for chemical
studies, though most of the great names in the science continue to be,
as they were before the decree was issued, those of distinguished
ecclesiastics. John's decree, then, was neither intended to hamper the
development of chemistry, nor did it accidentally prevent those who
were most closely in touch with the ecclesiastical authorities from
pursuing their studies. Those, of course, who knew anything of the
character of the author, would not expect it to interfere with the
true progress of science. As we shall see in the next chapter, Pope
John XXII. was really one of the most liberal patrons of education and
of science in history.
{138}
A PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE.
The question of the Papal bull supposed to forbid chemistry, or at
least its mother science, alchemy, has necessarily brought into
prominence in this volume the name of Pope John XXII. Few Popes in
history have been the subject of more bitter denunciation than John.
Writers on the history of the Papacy who were themselves not members
of the Catholic Church, have been almost a unit in condemning him for
many abuses of Papal power, especially such as were associated with
the employment of Church privileges for the accumulation of money.
Certain Catholic historians even have not found themselves able to rid
their appreciation of the character of Pope John from similar
objections. It is acknowledged that he was one of the most learned men
of his time. It is confessed that he was one of the most abstemious of
men. Indeed, in this respect he has been very appropriately compared
with Pope Leo XIII. He did succeed in setting the Papacy on a firm
foundation in Avignon, and did arrange the financial economy of the
Church in such a way that large amounts of money were bound to
accumulate in the Papal treasury.
This has been the main element of the accusations against him. A
prominent American encyclopaedia summed up his character very
trenchantly as follows: "He was learned in Canon Law and was
remarkable for avarice." Many have not hesitated to say that even his
condemnation of alchemy had for its main purpose {139} the idea of
added revenues for the Papal See, by the fines inflicted, and by the
confiscation of the goods of those condemned as well as by the Court
fees in the matter, though there is nothing in the decree to justify
such an opinion, and we have pointed out that the fines collected
were, according to the document itself, to be given to the poor.
With the ecclesiastical aspects of Pope John's character we have
nothing to do here. It would require a large volume by itself properly
to tell the story of his life, for he was one of the most influential
men of an important time, and though he ascended the Papal throne when
he was past seventy, he lived to be ninety, and his pontificate is
filled with evidence of his strenuous activity till the end of his
life. There is no doubt that the regulations for which he is
responsible with regard to the Papal finances eventually led to very
serious abuses in the Church. It is easy to understand, however, how
special arrangements had to be made for the support of the Holy See at
Avignon. Pope John XXII.'s predecessor, Clement, was the first Pope
who, because of the unsettled state of affairs in Italy and the
influence of the French King, resolved to live at Avignon instead of
Rome. Under these circumstances, the ordinary sources of revenue for
the support of the Papal Court, which required comparatively as
expensive an establishment then as now, were more or less cut off.
During the first pontificate at Avignon, this proved a serious
drawback to ecclesiastical efficiency. In Pope John's time the
necessity for providing revenues became acute. Besides, he wished to
make the new Papal City as worthy of the Holy See as the old one had
been. To him is largely due the development of Avignon, which {140}
occurred during the fourteenth century. The abuses which his
regulations in this matter led to did not culminate in his time, but
came later. The revenues obtained by him were, as we shall see, used
to excellent purpose, and were applied to such educational and
missionary uses as would eminently meet the approval of the most
demanding of critics in modern times.
John was a liberal and discriminating patron of learning and of
education in his time. He helped colleges in various parts of the
world, established a college in the East, and sent out many
missionaries at his own expense. These missionaries proved as
efficient as modern travelers in adding to the knowledge of the East
at that time, and practically laid the foundations of the science of
geography. [Footnote 19]
[Footnote 19: Those who are interested in the wonderful things
accomplished for geography by these missionary travelers of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will find a brief account of them
in the chapter on Geography and Exploration in my book on The
Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.]
What is of special interest to us here, however, in this volume, is
the fact that Pope John gave all the weight of the Papal authority,
the most important influence of the time in Europe, to the
encouragement of medical schools, the maintenance of a high standard
in them, and the development of scientific medicine. At this time
medicine included many of the physical sciences as we know them at the
present time. Botany, mineralogy, climatology, even astrology, as
astronomy was then called, were the subjects of study by physicians,
the last named because of the supposed influence of the stars on the
human constitution. Because of his encouragement of medical schools
and his emphatic insistence on their maintaining high standards, Pope
John must be commended as a patron of science and as {141} probably
having exerted the most beneficial influence in his time on education.
This is of course very different from what is usually said of this
Pope, Prof. White can scarcely find words harsh enough to apply to
him, because of his supposed superstition and the influence which he
had upon his time in leading men's minds away from science and into
the foolish absurdities of superstitious practices. Pope John XXII. is
one of the special betes noires of the sometime President of Cornell.
Yet, I am sure that when the formal documents which Pope John has left
relating to education and science are read by modern educators, they
cannot help but consider him as one of their most enterprising
colleagues in the realm of education. Indeed, a number of his bulls
read very much like the documents that issue occasionally from college
presidents with regard to the maintenance of standards in education,
and his encouragement of the giving of the best possible opportunities
for scientific and literary studies, and especially that the smaller
colleges shall be equal as far as possible to the greater institutions
of learning, will arouse the sympathetic interest of every educator of
the modern day.
The documents that I shall quote in translations (the originals may be
found in the appendix) will show that the Pope wanted the doctorates
in philosophy and in medicine to be given only after seven years of
study, at least four of which were to be devoted to the post-graduate
work in the special branch selected. He wished, moreover, to insist on
the necessity for preliminary education. He wanted the permission to
teach these branches, which in that day was equivalent to our term of
doctorate, to be given in all institutions for {142} the same amount
of work and after similar tests. These are just the matters that have
occupied the thoughts of university presidents for the last quarter of
a century, and have been the subjects of discussion in the meetings of
various college and university associations. Pope John's bulls would
be interesting documents to have read before such associations even at
the present time, and would form excellent suggestive material on
which the discussion of the necessity for maintaining college
standards might well be founded. This is so different from what is
usually thought in the matter, that personally I have found it even
rather amusing. It is not amusing, however, to think that this great
progressive, yet conservative educator should have been so
misrepresented by modern educators and historians, simply because they
did not study the man in his own writings, but knew him only at second
hand from those who judged his character from another standpoint.
All this will show John as really one of the greatest Popes not only
in the century in which he lived, but as distinguished as only a
comparatively small number have been among the successors of Peter.
Though he ascended the Papal throne at the age of seventy, the next
twenty years were full of work of all kinds, and John's wonderful
capacity for work stamps him as one of the great men of all time. It
is a well-known rule, constantly kept in mind by Catholic students of
history, that the Popes against whom the most objections are urged by
non-Catholic historians are practically always found, on close and
sympathetic study, to be striking examples of men who at least labored
to accomplish much. As a rule, they strove to correct abuses, and as a
consequence made bitter enemies, who left behind them {143} many
contemporary expressions of disapproval. Any contemporary authority is
somehow supposed to be infallible. We forget, when a man tries to do
good he is likely to meet with bitter opposition from many. If their
expressions are taken seriously by historians who write with the
purpose of finding just as little good and just as much evil as
possible in a particular character, the resulting appreciation is
likely to be rather far from the truth. If some of the criticisms of
our present President are only preserved long enough, how easy it will
be for a future historian who may have the purpose of showing how much
of evil began as the result of his policy, to find material on which
to build up his thesis. Men who do nothing make no enemies and also
make no mistakes. Fortunately, however, doing things is its own
justification.
John XXII. had had eminent opportunities for the acquisition of an
education as thorough, and a culture as broad, as any that might be
afforded even by our educational opportunities at the present time. He
had been many years at the University of Paris; he had traveled in
England, a rare occurrence in those days, and had spent most of his
time while there at Oxford; he had also passed several years in Italy
and was familiar with educational conditions down there. He certainly
did more for education than any man of his generation. He had the
greatest of opportunities, but it cannot but be said that he took
them, very wonderfully. There are very few in all the history of
education who have insisted as he on the important principles of the
necessity for careful training, for the maintenance of high standards
in examination and degree-giving, and for the endeavor to bring the
large universities in intimate contact with the {144} small ones, to
the benefit especially of the latter, though, as we know now, always
also to the reactionary advantage of the important institutions. All
this is to be found in the documentary history of a man who has been
set up as an object of scorn and derision by modern educators, who
surely, if they knew the actual facts, would be sympathetic, and not
antipathetic as they have been.
It seems too bad that it was just this man that should have been
picked out for the slander that he had prevented the development of
chemistry by a Papal decree, which proves on examination to be only an
added evidence of his beneficent care for his people. But this is not
the only charge that has been brought against Pope John XXII.
President White has painted his character in the worst possible
colors. Even after his attention was called to the fact that the
document supposed to prohibit chemistry did not have any of the
meaning which he attributed to it in his History of the Warfare of
Science With Theology in Christendom, he still could find terms
scarcely black enough in which to paint Pope John, and recurs to other
documents issued by that Pope to prove his assertions. Strangely
enough, especially after the warning of having had to acknowledge that
one quotation from him was entirely wrong, he proceeds to quote
another bull by the same Pope, that he has evidently never read, and
his remarks with regard to it show that he never took the trouble to
learn anything about this Pope by reading any of the original
documents that he issued, but depends entirely on second-hand
authorities. He says:--