medicinal properties as Pliny does, and this reduces correspondingly
the amount of space devoted to marvelous virtues. Indeed, of the
twenty books of the _Etymologies_ but one is devoted to animals other
than man, one to vegetation which is combined in the same book with
agriculture, and one to metals and minerals. The book on animals is
the longest and is subdivided under the topics of domestic animals,
wild beasts, minute animals, serpents, worms, fish, birds, and minute
flying creatures. Isidore also tends to ascribe more marvelous virtues
to animals than to plants or stones. From Pliny and Solinus are
repeated the tales of the basilisk, echeneis, and the like,[2551]
while Augustine’s _Commentary on the Psalms_ is cited for the story
of the asp resisting the incantations of its charmers by laying one
ear to the ground and stopping up the other ear with the end of its
tail.[2552] On the other hand, Isidore omits Pliny’s superstitious
assertions concerning the river tortoise and gives only his criticism
that the statement that ships move more slowly if they have the foot of
a tortoise aboard is incredible.[2553] Even in the books on minerals
and vegetation we still hear of animal marvels:[2554] how the coloring
matter, cinnabar, is composed of the blood shed by the dragon in its
death struggle with the elephant, how the fiercest bulls grow tame
under the Egyptian fig-tree, how swallows restore the sight of their
young with the swallow-wort, or of the use of fennel and rue by the
snake and weasel respectively, the former tasting fennel to enable him
to shed his old skin, and the latter eating rue to make him immune from
venom in fighting the snake. All these items, too, are from Pliny.
[Sidenote: Isidore is rather less hospitable to superstition than
Pliny.]
But on the whole I should estimate that Isidore contains less
superstitious matter even proportionally to his meager content than
Pliny does in connection with the virtues of animals, plants, and
stones. In discussing plants he says nothing of ceremonial plucking
of them and he contains practically no traces of agricultural magic.
He describes as a superstition of the Gentiles the notion that the
herb _scylla_, suspended whole at the threshold, drives away all
evils.[2555] He mentions the use of mandragora as an anaesthetic in
surgical operations, and remarks that its root is of human form, but
says nothing of its applications in magic.[2556] In his discussion
of stones he repeats after Pliny and Solinus the marvelous virtues
ascribed to a number of them, but follows Pliny’s method of making
the magicians responsible for these assertions or of inserting a word
of caution such as “if this is to be believed” with each statement.
Finally he introduces together a number of cases of marvelous powers
ascribed to stones with the introduction, “There are certain gems
employed by the Gentiles in their superstitions.”[2557]
[Sidenote: Portents.]
Isidore lists a number of mythical monsters as well as cases of
portentous births in the third chapter, _De portentis_, of his eleventh
book. He there affirms that God sometimes wishes to signify future
events by means of monstrous births as well as by dreams and oracles,
and declares that this “has been proved by numerous experiences.”[2558]
[Sidenote: Words and numbers.]
Brehaut is impressed by Isidore’s “confidence in words,” which he
thinks “really amounted to a belief, strong though perhaps somewhat
inarticulate, that words were transcendental entities.”[2559] Isidore’s
faith in the power of words does not seem, however, to have led him to
recommend the use of any incantations; he was content with etymologies
and allegorical interpretation. He was also a great believer in the
mystic significance of numbers and wrote a separate treatise upon those
numbers which occur in the sacred Scriptures. In the _Etymologies_,
too, he more than once dwells upon the perfection of certain numbers.
We have already heard how perfect most of the numbers up to twelve
are, but this is our first opportunity to hear the Pythagorean
method applied to the number twenty-two. However, Isidore is not the
first to do this; he is, indeed, simply quoting one of the fathers,
Epiphanius.[2560] “The _modius_ is so-called because it is of perfect
mode. For this measure contains forty-four pounds, that is, twenty-two
_sextarii_. And the reason for this number is that in the beginning
God performed twenty-two works. For on the first day He made seven
works, namely, unformed matter, angels, light, the upper heavens,
earth, water, and air. On the second day only one work, the firmament.
On the third day four things: the seas, seeds, grass, and trees. On
the fourth day three things: sun and moon and stars. On the fifth day
three: fish and aquatic reptiles and flying creatures. On the sixth
day four: beasts, domestic animals, land reptiles, and man. And all
twenty-two kinds were made in six days.[2561] And there are twenty-two
generations from Adam to Jacob.... And twenty-two books of the Old
Testament.... And there are twenty-two letters from which the doctrine
of the divine law is composed. Therefore in accordance with these
examples the _modius_ of twenty-two _sextarii_ was established by Moses
following the measure of sacred law. And although various peoples have
added something to or ignorantly subtracted something from its weight,
it is divinely preserved among the Hebrews for such reasons.” With such
mental magic and pious “arithmetic,” as Isidore’s friend Braulio called
it, might the Christian attempt to sate the inherited thirst within him
for the operative magic and pagan divination in which his conscience
and church no longer allowed him to indulge.
[Sidenote: History of magic.]
Isidore’s chapter on the _Magi_ or magicians, which occurs in his
eighth book on the church and divers sects, is a notable one, of whose
great future influence we shall presently speak. His own borrowing
here is only in small part from Pliny’s famous passage on the same
theme. On such a subject Isidore naturally has recourse mainly to
Christian writers: Augustine, Jerome, Lactantius, Tertullian. From the
occasional similarity of his wording to these authors it seems fairly
certain that his account is a patchwork from their works, and the
context is too Christian to have been drawn _in toto_ from some Roman
encyclopedist now lost to us. Perhaps the most noteworthy point about
Isidore’s chapter is that he has made magic and magicians the general
and inclusive head under which he presently lists various other minor
occult arts and their practitioners for separate definition. But first
we have a longer discussion, though long only by comparison, of magic
in general. Its history is sketched; Zoroaster and Democritus, as in
Pliny, are mentioned as its founders, but it is not forgotten that the
bad angels were really responsible for its dissemination. From the
first Isidore identifies magic and divination; after stating that the
magic arts abounded among the Assyrians, he quotes a passage from Lucan
which speaks of the prevalence of liver divination, augury, divination
from thunder, and astrology in Assyria. Also the magic arts are said to
have prevailed over the whole world for many centuries through their
prediction of the future and invocation of the dead. Brief allusion is
further made to Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians, to the invocation of
Samuel by the witch of Endor, to Circe and the comrades of Ulysses, and
to several other passages in classical literature anent magic.
[Sidenote: Definition of magic.]
Next comes a formal definition of the _Magi_. They are “those who are
popularly called _malefici_ or sorcerers on account of the magnitude
(a characteristic bit of derivation) of their crimes. They agitate
the elements, disturb men’s minds, and slay merely by force of
incantation without any poisoned draught. Hence Lucan writes, ‘The
mind, though polluted by no venom of poisoned draught, perishes by
enchantment.’[2562] For, summoning demons, they dare to work their
magic so that anyone may kill his enemies by evil arts. They also use
blood and victims and sometimes corpses.“ After this very unfavorable,
although sufficiently credulous, definition of magic, which is
represented as seeking the worst ends by the worst means, Isidore goes
on to list and briefly define a number of subordinate or kindred occult
arts. First come necromancers; then hydromancy, geomancy, aeromancy,
and pyromancy; next diviners, those employing incantations, _arioli_,
_aruspices_, augurs, _auspices_, _pythones_, astrologers and their
cognates, the _genethliaci_ and _mathematici_, who as Isidore notes
are spoken of in the Gospel as _Magi_, and _horoscopi_. ”_Sortilegi_
are those who profess the science of divination under the pretended
guise of religion through certain devices called _sortes sanctorum_ and
predict by inspection of certain scriptures.” _Salisatores_ are those
who predict from the jerks of their limbs. To this list of magic arts
Isidore adds in the words of Augustine all ligatures and suspensions,
incantations and characters, which the art of medicine condemns and
which are simply the work of the devil. With mention of the origin
of augury among the Phrygians, the discovery of _praestigium_ which
deceives the eye by Mercury, and the revelation of _aruspicina_ by
Tagus to the Etruscans, Isidore closes the chapter. Some of its items
will be found again in his _De differentiis verborum_,[2563] listed
under the appropriate letters of the alphabet. It may also be noted
that he briefly treats of transformations worked by magic in the fourth
chapter of the eleventh book of the _Etymologies_.
[Sidenote: Future influence of Isidore’s account of magic.]
We turn to the future influence of this account of magic which seems
to have been first patched together by Isidore. Juiceless as it is,
it seems to have become a sort of stock or stereotyped treatment of
the subject with succeeding Christian writers down into the twelfth
century. Somewhat altered by omission of poetical quotations or
the insertion of transitional sentences, it was otherwise copied
almost word for word by Rabanus Maurus (about 784 to 856), in his
_De consanguineorum nuptiis et de magorum praestigiis falsisque
divinationibus tractatus_, and by Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres
(died 1115) in their respective collections of _Decreta_, while
Hincmar of Rheims in his _De divortio Lotharii et Tetbergae_ copied it
with more omissions.[2564] It was also in substance retained in the
_Decretum_ of Gratian in the twelfth century, when, too, Hugh of St.
Victor probably made use of it and John of Salisbury made it the basis
of his fuller discussion of the subject. Isidore’s account of magic,
like his discussion of many other topics, sounds as if he had ceased
thinking on the subject, and it must have meant still less to those
who copied it. John of Salisbury is the first of them to put any life
into the subject and give us any assurance that such arts were still
practiced in his day. We have, however, other evidence that magic
continued to be practiced in the interval. And such practices as the
_sortes sanctorum_, though included in Isidore’s stock definition of
magic, were probably not generally regarded as reprehensible.[2565]
[Sidenote: Attitude to astrology.]
Isidore’s repetition of the views of the fathers concerning demons is
so brief and trite[2566] that we need not further notice it, but turn
to his attitude toward astrology. We have just heard him associate
astrologers with practitioners of the magic arts, but in his third
book in discussing the _quadrivium_ he states that astrology is only
partly superstitious and partly a natural science. The superstitious
variety is that pursued by the _mathematici_ who augur the future
from the stars, assign the parts of the soul and body to the signs of
the zodiac, and try to predict the nativities and characters of men
from the course of the stars. Such superstitions “are without doubt
contrary to our faith; Christians should so ignore them that they shall
not even appear to have been written.” _Mathesis_, or the attempt
to predict future events from the stars, is denounced, according to
Isidore, “not only by doctors of the Christian religion but also of
the Gentiles,—Plato, Aristotle, and others.” Isidore also states that
there is a distinction between astronomy and astrology, but what it
is, especially between astronomy and natural astrology, he fails to
elucidate.[2567]
[Sidenote: In the _De natura rerum_.]
In the preface to his _De natura rerum_, which deals chiefly with
astronomical and meteorological phenomena, Isidore asserts that “it is
not superstitious science to know the nature of these things, if only
they are considered from the standpoint of sane and sober doctrine.”
He also states that his treatise is a brief sketch of what has been
written by the men of old and especially in the works of Catholics.
In it some of the stock questions which gave difficulty to Christian
scientists are briefly discussed, for instance, “Concerning the waters
which are above the heavens,” and “Whether the stars have souls?”[2568]
Isidore rejects as “absurd fictions” imagined by the stupidity of the
Gentiles their naming the days of the week from the planets, “because
by the same they thought that some effect was produced in themselves,
saying that from the sun they received the spirit, from the moon the
body, from Mercury speech and wisdom, from Venus pleasure, from Mars
ardor, from Jupiter temperance, from Saturn slowness.”[2569] Yet later
in the same treatise we find him saying that everything in nature grows
and increases according to the waxing and waning of the moon.[2570]
Moreover, he calls Saturn a cold star and explains that the planets are
called _errantia_, not because they wander themselves but because they
cause men to err.[2571] He also describes man as a microcosm.[2572]
Like most ecclesiastical writers, no matter how hostile they may be
to astrologers, he is ready to assert that comets signify political
revolutions, wars, and pestilences.[2573] In the _Etymologies_ he not
only attributes racial and temperamental differences among the peoples
of different regions to “force of the star”[2574] and “diversity of the
sky,”[2575] phrases which seem to imply astrological influence rather
than the mere influence of climate in our sense. He also encourages
astrological medicine when he says that the doctor should know
astronomy, since human bodies change with the qualities of the stars
and the change of times.[2576] Isidore might as well have taken the
planets as signs in the astrological sense as have ascribed to them the
absurd allegorical significance in passages of Scripture that he did.
He states that the moon is sometimes to be taken as a symbol of this
world, sometimes as the church, which is illuminated by Christ as the
moon receives its light from the sun, and which has seven meritorious
graces corresponding to the seven forms of the moon.[2577]
[Sidenote: Bede’s scanty science.]
The scientific acquisitions of Bede have too often been referred to in
exaggerated terms. Sharon Turner said of him, “He collected and taught
more natural truths with fewer errors than any Roman book on the same
subjects had accomplished. Thus his work displays an advance, not a
retrogradation of human knowledge; and from its judicious selection
and concentration of the best natural philosophy of the Roman Empire
it does high credit to the Anglo-Saxon good sense.”[2578] Dr. R. L.
Poole more moderately says of Bede, “He shows an extent of knowledge
in classical literature and natural science entirely unrivalled in his
own day and probably not surpassed for many generations to come.”[2579]
Bede perhaps knew more natural science than anyone else of his time,
but if so, the others must have known practically nothing; his
knowledge can in no sense be called extensive. As a matter of fact,
we have evidence that his extremely brief and elementary treatises in
this field were not full enough to satisfy even his contemporaries. In
the preface to his _De temporum ratione_[2580] he says that previously
he had composed two treatises, _De natura rerum_ and _De ratione
temporum_, in brief style as he thought fitting for pupils, but that
when he began to teach them to some of the brethren, they objected that
they were reduced to a much briefer form than they wished, especially
the _De temporibus_, which Bede now proceeds to revise and amplify. It
is noteworthy that in order to fulfill the monks’ desire for a fuller
treatment of the subject he found it necessary to do some further
reading in the fathers. In addition to Bede’s own statement of his aim,
the frequency with which we find manuscripts of early date[2581] of the
_De natura rerum_ and _De temporibus_ suggests that they were employed
as text-books in the monastic schools of the early middle ages. As the
Carolingian poet expressed it,
_Beda dei famulus nostri didasculus evi
Falce pia sophie veterum sata lata peragrans._
[Sidenote: Bede’s _De natura rerum_.]
Of Bede’s _Hexaemeron_ we spoke in an earlier chapter. His chief extant
genuine scientific treatise is the aforesaid _De natura rerum_,[2582]
a very curtailed discussion of astronomy and meteorology. It is very
similar to Isidore’s treatise of the same title, but is even briefer,
omitting for the most part the mention of authorities and the Biblical
quotations and allegorical applications which make up a considerable
portion of Isidore’s brief work. One of the few authorities whom Bede
does cite is Pliny in a discussion of the circles of the planets.[2583]
Like Isidore he accepts comets as signs of war and political change, of
tempests and pestilence.[2584] He also states that the air is inhabited
by evil spirits who there await the worse torments of the day of
judgment.[2585] In his Biblical commentaries Bede briefly echoes some
of the views of the fathers concerning magic and demons, for instance,
in his treatment of the witch of Endor.[2586]
[Sidenote: Divination by thunder.]
Bede also translated into Latin a treatise on divination from thunder,
perhaps from the works of the sixth century Greek writer, John Lydus.
In the preface to Herefridus, at whose request he had undertaken the
translation, he speaks of it as a laborious and dangerous task, sure
to expose him to the attacks of the invidious and detractors who
will perhaps insinuate that he is possessed of an evil spirit or is
a practitioner of magic. The three chapters of the treatise give the
significance of thunder for the four points of the compass, the twelve
months of the year, and the seven days of the week. For instance, if
thunder arises in the east, according to the traditions of subtle
philosophers there will be in the course of that year copious effusion
of human blood. Each signification is introduced with some bombastic
phraseology concerning the agile genius or sagacious investigation of
the philosophers who discovered it.[2587] Other tracts on divination
which were attributed to Bede are probably spurious and will for the
most part be considered later in connection with other treatises of the
same sort.[2588]
[Sidenote: Riddles of Aldhelm.]
Some interest in and knowledge of natural science is displayed in the
metrical riddles[2589] of St. Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury and bishop
of Sherborne, who died in 709, “the first Englishman who cultivated
classical learning with any success and the first of whom any literary
remains are preserved.” Most of them are concerned with animals, such
as silkworms, peacock, salamander, bee, swan, lion, ostrich, dove,
fish, basilisk, camel, eagle, taxo, beaver, weasel, swallow, cat,
crow, unicorn, minotaur, Scylla, and elephant; or with herbs and
trees, such as heliotrope, pepper, nettles, hellebore, and palm; or
with minerals, such as salt, adamant, and magnet; or with terrestrial
and celestial phenomena, such as earth, wind, cloud, rainbow, moon,
Pleiades, Arcturus, Lucifer, and night. There is a close resemblance
between some of these riddles and a score of citations from an Adhelmus
made in the thirteenth century by Thomas of Cantimpré in his _De natura
rerum_.[2590] Pitra,[2591] however, suggested that the Adhelmus cited
by Thomas of Cantimpré was a brother of John the Scot of the ninth
century.
[Sidenote: Gregory’s _Dialogues_.]
The total lack of originality and the extremely abbreviated character
of the infrequent scientific writing in the west is not, however, a
fair example of the total thought and writing of early medieval Latin
Christendom. When we turn to the lives of the saints, to the miracles
recorded of contemporary monks and missionaries, we find that in the
field of its own supreme interests the pious imagination of the time
could display considerable inventiveness and was by no means satisfied
with brief compendiums from the Bible and earlier Fathers. Here too
the superstition and credulity, which had been held back by fear of
paganism in the case of natural and occult science, ran luxuriant
riot. Such literature lies rather outside the strict field of this
investigation, but it is so characteristic of the Christian thought of
the period that we may consider one prominent specimen, the _Dialogues_
of Gregory the Great,[2592] pope from 590 to 604. We shall sufficiently
illustrate the nature of this farrago of pious folk-lore by a résumé
of the contents of the opening pages of the first of its four books.
We need not dwell upon the importance of Gregory in the history of the
papacy, of monasticism, and of patristic literature, further than to
emphasize the point that so distinguished, influential, and for his
times great, a man should have been capable of writing such a book.
Similar citations which might be multiplied from other authors of the
period could not add much force to this one impressive instance of the
naïve pious credulity and superstition of the best Christian minds
of that age. Not only were the _Dialogues_ well known throughout the
medieval period in the Latin reading world, but they were translated
into Greek at an early date and in 779 from that language into Arabic,
while King Alfred made an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Latin in the
closing ninth century.
[Sidenote: Signs and wonders wrought by saints.]
In the _Dialogues_ Gregory narrates to Peter the Deacon some of the
virtues, signs, and marvelous works of saintly men in Italy which
he has learned either by personal experience or indirectly from the
statements of good and trustworthy witnesses. The first story is of
Honoratus, the son of a _colonus_ on a villa in Samnium. When the lad
evinced his piety by abstaining from meat at a banquet given by his
parents, they ridiculed him, declaring that he would find no fish to
eat in those mountains. But when the servant presently went out to draw
some water, he poured a fish out of the pitcher upon his return which
provided the boy with enough food for the entire day. Subsequently the
lad was given his freedom and founded a monastery on the spot. Still
later he saved this monastery from an impending avalanche by frequent
calling upon the name of Christ and use of the sign of the cross. By
these means he stopped the landslide in mid-course and the rocks may
still be seen looking as if they were sure to fall.
[Sidenote: More monkish miracles.]
A tale follows of Goths who stole a monk’s horse, but found themselves
unable to force their own horses to cross the next river to which they
came until they had restored his horse to the monk. In another case
where Franks came to plunder this same monk, he remained invisible to
them. This same monk was a disciple of the afore-mentioned Honoratus
and once raised a woman’s child from the dead by placing upon its
breast an old shoe of his master which he cherished as a souvenir. Thus
he contrived to satisfy the mother’s pleading and at the same time
preserve his own modesty and humility. Gregory does not doubt that the
woman’s faith also contributed to the miracle. Gregory adds, however,
that he thinks the virtue of patience greater than signs and miracles
and tells another story of the same monk to illustrate that virtue.
[Sidenote: A monastic snake-charmer.]
We may pass on, however, to the third chapter which contains a story of
the gardener of a monastery who set a snake to catch a thief who had
made depredations upon the garden, adjuring the snake as follows: “In
the name of Jesus I command you to guard this approach and not permit
the thief to enter here.” The serpent obediently stretched its length
across the path, and when the gardener returned later, he found the
thief hanging head first from the hedge, in which his foot had caught
as he was climbing over it and had been surprised by the sight of the
serpent. The monk of course then freely gave the thief what he had come
to steal, but also of course gave him a brief moral lecture which was
perhaps less welcome.
[Sidenote: Basilius the magician.]
After a brief account of a miraculous release from sexual passion
Gregory comes to a tale of Basilius the magician. This is the same man
concerning whose arrest and trial on the charge of practicing magic
and sinister arts we find directions given in two of the letters of
Cassiodorus.[2593] According to Gregory he took refuge with the aid of
a bishop in a monastery, although the abbot saw something diabolical
about him from the very start. Soon a virgin who was under the charge
of the monastery became so infatuated with Basilius as to call publicly
for him, declaring that she should die unless he came to her aid. The
abbot then expelled him from the monastery, on which occasion Basilius
confessed that he had often by his magic arts suspended the monastery
in mid-air but that he had never been able to injure anyone who was
in it. This is more detailed information concerning the nature of
Basilius’ magic than Cassiodorus gives us. Gregory further adds that
not long after Basilius was burned to death at Rome by the zeal of the
Christian people.
[Sidenote: A demon salad.]
A female servant of this same monastery once ate a lettuce in the
garden without making the sign of the cross first, and became possessed
of a demon straightway. When the abbot was summoned, the demon
attempted to excuse himself, exclaiming, “What have I done? what have I
done? I was just sitting on a lettuce when she came along and ate me.”
The abbot nevertheless indignantly proceeded to drive the evil spirit
out of his serf.
Such are a few specimens of the monkish magic that was considered
perfectly legitimate and rapturously admired at the same time that
men like Basilius were burned at the stake on charges of magic by the
zealous Christian populace.
[Sidenote: Incantations in Old Irish.]
We may add a word at this point concerning Old Irish literature[2594]
which, as it has reached us, is almost entirely religious in
character,[2595] produced and preserved by the Christian clergy. Yet we
find a number of traces of magic in these remains of Celtic learning
and literature during the dark ages. Indeed, the sole document in
the Irish language which is ascribed to St. Patrick is a _Hymn_ or
incantation in which he invokes the Trinity and the powers of nature
to aid him against the enchantments of women, smiths, and wizards. By
repeating this rhythmical formula Patrick and his companions are said
to have become invisible to King Loigaire and his Druids. The spell is
perhaps as old as Patrick’s time. Three other incantations for urinary
disease, sore eyes, and to extract a thorn are contained in the Stowe
Missal. An Irish manuscript of the eighth or ninth century in the
monastery of St. Gall has four spells for similar purposes and another
is found in a ninth century codex preserved in Carinthia.
[Sidenote: The _Fili_.]
The Irish had their _Fili_ corresponding somewhat to the Druids of
Gaul or Britain. They were perhaps less closely connected with heathen
rites, since the church seems to have been less opposed to them than
to the Druids. They were poets and learned men, and a large part of
their learning, at least originally, seems to have consisted of magic
and divination. There are many instances in Irish literature of their
disfiguring the faces of their enemies by raising blotches upon them by
the power of words which they uttered. St. Patrick forbade two of their
three methods of divination.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ARABIC OCCULT SCIENCE OF THE NINTH CENTURY
Plan of the chapter—Works of Alkindi—_On Stellar Rays_, or
_The Theory of the Magic Art_—Radiation of occult force from
the stars—Magic power of words—Problem of prayer—Figures,
characters, and sacrifice—Experiment and magic—Alkindi’s
medieval influence—Divination by visions and dreams—Weather
prediction—Alkindi as an astrologer—Alkindi on conjunctions—Alkindi
and alchemy—Astrological works of Albumasar—The _Experiments_ of
Albumasar—_Albumasar in Sadan_—_Book of Rains_—Costa ben Luca’s
translation of Hero’s _Mechanica_—Latin versions of his _Epistle
concerning Incantation_—Form of the epistle—Incantations directly
affect the mind alone—Men imagine themselves bewitched—How are amulets
effective?—Citations from the lapidary of the Pseudo-Aristotle—From
Galen and Dioscorides—Occult virtue—_On the Difference between
Soul and Spirit_—The nature of _spiritus_—Thought explained
physiologically—Views of other medieval writers—Thebit ben Corat—The
Sabians—Thebit’s Relations to Sabianism—Thebit as encyclopedist,
philosopher, astronomer—His occult science—Astrological and magic
images—Life of Rasis—His 232 works—Charlatans discussed—His interest
in natural science—Rasis and alchemy—Titles suggestive of astrology
and magic—Conclusion.
[Sidenote: Plan of the chapter.]
In this chapter we shall consider a number of learned men who wrote
in Arabic or other oriental languages in the ninth and early tenth
century: Alkindi, Albumasar, Costa ben Luca, Thebit ben Corat, and
Rasis—to mention for the present only the brief and convenient form
of their names by which they were commonly designated in medieval
Latin learning. Not all of these men were Mohammedans; not one was
an Arab, strictly speaking; but they lived under Mohammedan rule and
wrote in Arabic. We shall note especially those of their works which
deal with occult science and which were plainly influential upon the
later medieval Latin learning. Indeed, most of the works of which we
shall treat seem to be extant only in Latin translation. This chapter
aims at no exhaustive treatment of Arabic science and magic in the
ninth century, but merely, by presenting a few prominent examples, to
give some idea of it and of its influence upon the middle ages. In
subsequent chapters we shall have occasion to mention many other such
medieval translations from Arabic and other oriental languages.
[Sidenote: Works of Alkindi.]
One of the great names in the history of Arabic learning is that
of Alkindi (Ya‘kûb ibn Ishâk ibn Sabbâh al-Kindî), who died about
850 or 873 A. D.[2596] Comparatively few of his writings have come
to us, however, although some two hundred titles prove that he
covered the whole field of knowledge in his own day. He translated
the works of Aristotle and other Greeks into Arabic, and wrote upon
philosophy, politics, mathematics, medicine, music, astronomy, and
astrology, discriminating little between science and superstition in
his enthusiasm for extensive knowledge. The first treatise of his
to appear in print was an astrological one on weather prediction in
Latin translation.[2597] In 1875 Loth printed an Arabic text of his
treatise on the theory of conjunctions. More recently Nagy has edited
Latin versions of some of his philosophical opuscula, and Björnbo has
published an optical treatise by him entitled _De spectaculis_.
[Sidenote: _On Stellar Rays_, or _The Theory of the Magic Art_.]
In a manuscript of the closing fourteenth century are contained several
sets of errors of Aristotle and various Arabs, also others condemned at
Paris in 1348 and 1363, at Oxford in 1376, and so on. Among these are
listed the _Errors of Alkindi in the Magic Art_.[2598] The allusion
is to a treatise by Alkindi, variously styled _The Theory of the Magic
Art_ or _On Stellar Rays_, which is found in Latin version in a number
of medieval manuscripts,[2599] but which has never been published or
described at all fully.
[Sidenote: Radiation of occult force from the stars.]
Alkindi begins the treatise by asserting the astrological doctrine
of radiation of occult influence from the stars. The diversity of
objects in nature depends upon two things, the diversity of matter
and the varying influence exerted by the rays from the stars. Each
star has its own peculiar force and certain objects are especially
under its influence, while the movement of the stars to new positions
and “the collision of their rays” produce such an infinite variety of
combinations that no two things in this world are ever found alike in
all respects. The stars, however, are no the only objects which emit
rays; everything in the world of the elements radiates force, too.
Fire, color, and sound are examples of this. The science of physics
considers the action of objects upon one another by contact, but the
sages know of a more occult interaction of remote objects suggested by
the power of the magnet and the reflection of an image in a mirror.
All such emanations, however, are in the last analysis caused by the
celestial harmony, which governs by necessity all the changes in this
world. Thus the men of old, by experiments and by close scrutiny of the
secrets of both superior and inferior nature and of the disposition of
the sky, came to comprehend many hidden things in the world of nature
and were able to discover the names of those who had committed theft
and adultery.
[Sidenote: The border-line between science and magic.]
Alkindi has thus prepared the reader’s mind for the consideration of
phenomena beyond the realm of ordinary physical action. At the same
time he has approached the occult by arguing on the analogy of natural
phenomena and he has laid down as a fundamental scientific premise what
we now regard as a superstition of astrologers. In other words, he is
not unaware of a difference in method and character between physics and
astrology, between science and superstition, yet he tries to formulate
a scientific basis for what is really a belief in magic.
[Sidenote: Magic power of words.]
Although Alkindi does not, as I recall, use the word magic, he next
argues in favor of what is commonly called the magic power of words.
He affirms that the human imagination can form concepts and then
emit rays which will affect exterior objects just as would the thing
itself whose image the mind has conceived. Muscular movement and
speech are the two channels by which the mind’s conceptions can be
transformed into action. Frequent experiments have proven clearly the
potency of words when uttered in exact accordance with imagination
and intention, and when accompanied by due solemnity, firm faith, and
strong desire. The effect produced by words and voices is heightened
if they are uttered under favorable astrological conditions. Some go
best with Saturn, others with the planet Jupiter, some with one sign
of the zodiac and others with another. The four elements are variously
affected by different voices; some voices, for instance, affect fire
most powerfully. Some especially stir trees or some one kind of tree.
Thus by words motion is started, accelerated, or impeded; animal life
is generated or destroyed; images are made to appear in mirrors;
flames and lightnings are produced; and other feats and illusions are
performed which seem marvelous to the mob.
[Sidenote: Problem of prayer.]
Alkindi even ventures to touch upon the subject of prayer. He states
that the rays emitted by the human mind and voice become the more
efficacious in moving matter, if the speaker has fixed his mind upon
and names God or some powerful angel. Human ignorance of the harmony
of nature also often necessitates appeal to a higher power in order
to attain good and to avoid evil. Faith, and observance of the proper
time and place and attendant circumstances have their bearing, however,
upon the success or failure of prayer as well as of other utterances.
And there are some authorities who would exclude spiritual influence
entirely in such matters and who believe that words and images and
prayers as well as herbs and gems are completely under the universal
control exercised by the stars.
[Sidenote: Figures, characters, and sacrifice.]
The treatise concludes by discussing the virtues of figures,
characters, images, and sacrifices in much the same way as it has
treated of the power of words. We are assured that “The sages have
proved by frequent experiments that figures and characters inscribed
by the hand of man on various materials with intention and due
solemnity of place and time and other circumstances have the effect
of motion upon external objects.” Every such figure emits rays having
the peculiar virtue which has been impressed upon it by the stars and
signs. There are characters which can be employed to cure disease
or to induce it in men or animals. Images constructed in conformity
with the constellations emit rays having something of the virtue of
the celestial harmony. Alkindi also defends the practice of animal
sacrifice. Whether God or spirits are placated thereby or not, none the
less the sacrifice is efficacious, if made with human intent and due
solemnity and in accordance with the celestial harmony. The star and
sign which are dominant when any voluntary act of this sort is begun,
rule that work to its finish. The material and forms employed should
be appropriate to the constellation, or the effect produced will be
discordant and perverted.
[Sidenote: Experiment and magic.]
It will have been noted that Alkindi more than once asserts that his
conclusions have been demonstrated experimentally. Thus we have one
more example of the connection, supposititious or real, between magic
and experimental method.
[Sidenote: Alkindi’s medieval influence.]
The doctrine here set forth by Alkindi of the radiation of force and
his explanation of magic by astrology were both to be very influential
conceptions in Latin medieval learning. We shall find Roger Bacon,
for example, repeating the same views in almost the same language
concerning stellar rays and the power of words, and it is appropriate
that in two manuscripts his utterances are placed together with those
of Alkindi.[2600]
[Sidenote: Divination by visions and dreams.]
Alkindi’s treatise _De somno et visione_, as we have it in the Latin
translation by Gerard of Cremona,[2601] accepts clairvoyance and
divination by dreams as true and asks why we see some things before
they happen, why we see other things which require interpretation
before they reveal the future, and why at other times we foresee the
contrary of what is to be.[2602] His answer is that the mind or soul
has innate natural knowledge of these things, and that “it is itself
the seat of all species sensible and rational.” Vision is when the
soul dismisses the senses and employs thought, and the formative or
imaginative virtue of the mind is more active in sleep, the sensitive
faculties when one is awake.
[Sidenote: Weather prediction.]
While by some persons, at least, opinions of Alkindi in his _Theory
of the Magic Art_ were regarded as erroneous, Albertus Magnus in
his _Speculum astronomiae_ listed among works on judicial astrology
with which he thought that the church could find no fault “a book
of Alchindi” which opened with the words _Rogatus fui_.[2603] This
is a work on weather prediction which still exists in a number of
manuscripts[2604] and was printed in 1507 at Venice, and in 1540 at
Paris, together with a treatise on the same theme by Albumasar, of whom
we shall say more presently.[2605]
[Sidenote: Alkindi as an astrologer.]
A majority, indeed, of the works by Alkindi extant in Latin translation
are astrological.[2606] Several were translated by Gerard of Cremona,
and one or two by John of Spain and Robert of Chester.[2607] Geomancies
are attributed to Alkindi in manuscripts at Munich.[2608] Loth notes
concerning Alkindi’s astrology what we have already found to be the
case in his theories of radiation and magic art and of divination by
dreams; namely, that while he believes in astrology unconditionally,
he tries to pursue it as a science in a scientific way, observing
mathematical method and physical laws—as they seemed to him—while he
attacked the vulgar superstitions which were popularly regarded as
astrology.
[Sidenote: Alkindi on conjunctions.]
The astrological treatise by Alkindi, of which Loth edited the Arabic
text, is a letter on the duration of the empire of the Arabs. This bit
of political prediction was, as far as Loth knew, the first instance of
the theory of conjunctions in Arabian astrology. The theory was that
lesser conjunctions of the planets, which occur every twenty years,
middling conjunctions which come every two hundred and forty years, and
great conjunctions which occur only every nine hundred and sixty years,
exert a great influence not only upon the world of nature but upon
political and religious events, and, especially the great conjunctions,
open new periods in history. Thus, as Loth says, the conjunction is
for the macrocosmos what the horoscope is for man the microcosmos; the
one forecasts the fate of the individual; the other, that of society.
Loth knew of no Latin translation of Alkindi’s letter, and medieval
writers in Latin cite Albumasar usually as their authority on the
subject of conjunctions. But Loth held that Albumasar, who was a pupil
of Alkindi, merely developed and popularized the astrological theories
of his master, and Loth showed that Albumasar embodied our letter on
the duration of the Arabian empire in large part in his work _On Great
Conjunctions_ without mentioning Alkindi as his authority.
[Sidenote: Alkindi and alchemy.]
Although a believer in astrology to the point of magic, and not
unacquainted with metals as his work _On the Properties of Swords_
shows, Alkindi regarded the art of alchemy as a deception and the
pretended transmutation of other metals into gold as false.[2609] He
affirmed this especially in his treatise entitled, _The Deceits of the
Alchemists_, but also in his other writings.[2610]
[Sidenote: Astrological works of Albumasar.]
Something further should be said concerning the astrological treatises
of Albumasar (Abu Maؗ’shar Ja’far ben Muhammad al-Balkhî) whence also
his briefer appellations, Japhar and Dja’far. He died in 886 and
has been called the most celebrated of all the ninth century Bagdad
astrologers, although he has also been accused of plagiarism, as we
have seen. In 1489 at Augsburg Erhard Ratdolt published three of his
works, the _Greater Introduction to Astronomy_ in eight books, the
_Flowers_—which Roger Bacon cites as severely condemning physicians
who do not study astrology[2611]—and the eight books concerning great
conjunctions and revolutions of the years. Of these the _Introduction_
was translated both by John of Spain and Hermann of Dalmatia, but
the former translation, although found in many manuscripts, remains
unprinted. The _Flores_ is found in numerous manuscripts and was
reprinted in 1495. The work on conjunctions and revolutions was
printed again in 1515 and also exists in many manuscripts.[2612] A
French translation which Hagins the Jew, working for Henri Bate of
Malines, made in 1273 of “Le livre des revolutions de siècle,” of whose
six chapters he translated only four,[2613] probably applied to a part
of this work.
[Sidenote: The _Experiments_ of Albumasar.]
Albertus Magnus in the _Speculum astronomiae_, in listing
irreproachable works of astronomy and astrology, mentions a “Book of
Experiments” by Albumasar instead of the Conjunctions and Revolutions
along with his _Flowers_ and _Introduction_.[2614] This book of
experiments by Albumasar is often met with in the manuscripts. It is a
different and shorter work than that in eight parts on Conjunctions,
but itself deals with the subject of revolutions. It is not, however,
to be confused with still another work by Albumasar on revolutions as
connected with nativities.[2615]
[Sidenote: _Albumasar in Sadan._]
Another work on astrology with which the name of Albumasar is connected
is cited by medieval writers, notably Peter of Abano,[2616] as
_Albumasar in Sadan_ (or Sadam), and is also found in Latin manuscripts
where it is also called “Excerpts from the Secrets of Albumasar.”[2617]
Steinschneider regarded the Latin translation as a shortened or
incomplete version of an Arabic original entitled _al-Mudsakaret_, or
_Memorabilia_ by Abu Sa’id Schâdsân, who wrote down the answers of his
teacher to his questions.[2618] There is also a Greek text, entitled
_Mysteries_, which differs considerably from the Latin and of which
Sadan perhaps made use.[2619] The Latin version might be described as
a miscellaneous collection of astrological teachings, anecdotes, and
actual cases of Albumasar gathered up by his disciples and somewhat
resembling Luther’s _Table-Talk_ in form.
[Sidenote: _Book of rains._]
We have already alluded to the treatise on weather prediction by
Albumasar which was printed with a similar work by Alkindi in 1507
and 1540, and also often accompanies it in the manuscripts. In this
“book of rains according to the Indians”[2620] Albumasar is variously
disguised under the names of Gaphar, Jafar, and Iafar and is called
an Indian, Egyptian, or Babylonian.[2621] In his Latin translation of
it Hugo Sanctellensis tells his patron, the “antistes Michael” that
the treatise was written by Gaphar, an ancient astrologer of India,
and has since been abbreviated by a Tillemus or Cilenius or Cylenius
Mercurius.[2622] To Japhar is also attributed a _Minor Isagoga_ to
astronomy in seven lectures or _sermones_, which Adelard of Bath is
said to have translated from the Arabic.[2623]
[Sidenote: Costa ben Luca’s translation of Hero’s _Mechanica_.]
We turn next to Costa ben Luca, or Qustá ibn Lūqá, of Baalbek, and
especially to his treatise _On Physical Ligatures_, or more fully, _The
Epistle concerning Incantations, Adjurations, and Suspensions from the
Neck_. The scientific importance of Costa ben Luca may be seen from the
circumstance that the _Mechanica_ of Hero of Alexandria, of which the
Greek text is for the most part lost, has been preserved in the Arabic
translation which Costa prepared in 862-866 for the caliph al-Musta.
Several manuscripts of this Arabic text are still extant at Cairo,
Constantinople, Leyden, and London, and it has been twice printed.[2624]
[Sidenote: Latin versions of his _Epistle concerning Incantation, etc._]
The work in which we are more especially interested has also been
printed in editions of the works of Galen, of Constantinus Africanus,
of Arnald of Villanova, and of Henry Cornelius Agrippa.[2625]
The treatise is also attributed to Rasis in the library at
Montpellier.[2626] Its inclusion among Galen’s works is a manifest
error; in the edition of Agrippa it is appended as _The Letter of
an Unknown Author_ (_Epistola incerti authoris_); while Arnald is
represented as translating the work from Greek—a language of which he
was ignorant—into Latin. He could read Arabic, however, and perhaps
rendered the treatise from that language.[2627] But it had certainly
been translated before his time, the end of the thirteenth century, and
presumably by Constantinus Africanus, c1015-1087, since it not merely
appears in his printed works but is found together with an imperfect
copy of his _Pantegni_ in a manuscript of the twelfth century.[2628]
In a fifteenth century manuscript Unayn or Honein ben Ishak is named
as the author of our treatise, but this seems to be a mistake.[2629]
Albertus Magnus in the middle of the thirteenth century cites our
treatise both in his _Vegetables and Plants_,[2630] where he alludes to
“the books of incantations of Hermes the philosopher and of Costa ben
Luca the philosopher, and the books of physical ligatures,” and in his
_Minerals_,[2631] where the _Liber de ligaturis physicis_, as he calls
it, is the source whence he has borrowed statements concerning gems
ascribed to Aristotle and Dioscorides.
[Sidenote: Form of the epistle.]
Our treatise is in the form of a reply by Costa ben Luca to someone
whom he addresses as “dearest son” and who has asked him what validity
there is in incantations, adjurations, and suspensions from one’s
neck, and what the books of the Greeks and Indians have to say upon
these matters. The wording of Costa’s epistle varies considerably in
the printed editions owing probably to careless interpretation of the
manuscripts or careless copying by the earlier scribes, but its general
tenor is the same.
[Sidenote: Incantations directly affect the mind alone.]
Costa first affirms that all the ancients have agreed that the virtue
of the mind affects the state of the body. Galen in particular is
cited as to the effect of passions upon health and the advisability
of the physician’s cheering the minds of gloomy patients even by
resort to deception to a limited extent, if it seems necessary. A
perfect mind generally goes with a perfect body and an imperfect mind
with an imperfect body, as is seen in the case of children, old men,
and women, or in the inhabitants of the intemperate zones, either
torrid Ethiopia or the frozen north. Here one text specifies Scotland
(_Scotie_); another, _Schytie_, which is perhaps intended for Scythia.
Costa therefore argues that if anyone believes that an incantation
will help him, he will at least be benefited by his own confidence.
And if a person is constantly afraid that incantations may be directed
against him, he may easily fret himself into a fever. This, Costa
thinks, was what Socrates had in mind when he described incantations
as “words deceiving rational souls by their interpretation or by the
fear they produce or by despair.” According to Albertus Magnus, who
embodies a good deal of Costa’s _Epistle_ in his _Minerals_, Socrates
said more fully that incantations, or perhaps better, enchantments,
were made in four ways, namely, by suspending or binding on objects,
by imprecations or adjurations, by characters, and by images; and that
they dement rational souls so that they fall into fear and despair or
rise to joy and confidence; and that through these accidents of the
mind bodies are altered either in the direction of health or of chronic
infirmity.[2632] Costa states that the medical men of India believe
that incantations and adjurations are beneficial. But he says nothing
to indicate that they, much less the Greeks or himself, have faith in
the efficacy of incantations or words to work changes in matter _per
se_ or directly, nor does he say anything to indicate that demons may
be summoned and given orders by this method. Perhaps his discussion of
incantations is a trifle constrained and not sufficiently outspoken,
but it is moderate and scientific and shows a fair degree of scepticism
for that period, especially when we compare it with Alkindi’s attitude
towards the power of words.
[Sidenote: Men imagine themselves bewitched.]
Costa ben Luca’s attitude towards sorcery seems the same as towards
incantations. He concludes his discussion of this point by a story
of “a certain great noble of our country” who had convinced himself
that he had been bewitched and consequently became impotent. After
vainly endeavoring to convince him that this was simply due to his
imagination, Costa decided that there was nothing to do but humor
him in his delusion. He therefore showed him a passage in _The Book
of Cleopatra_ which prescribed as an aphrodisiac the anointing of
the entire body with the gall of a crow mixed with sesame.[2633] The
noble followed the prescription and had so much faith in it that his
imaginary complaint disappeared.
[Sidenote: How are amulets effective?]
Finally Costa considers the question of the validity of amulets, or
ligatures and suspensions, which we have heard Socrates class with
incantations, adjurations, characters, and images. Costa says that he
has read in many works by the ancients that objects suspended from the
neck are potent not through their natural, but their occult properties.
He will not deny that this may be so, but is inclined as before
to attribute the result rather to the comforting effect which such
things have upon one’s mind. He proceeds, however, to list a number of
suspensions recommended by ancient writers.
[Sidenote: Citations from the lapidary of the Pseudo-Aristotle.]
First he cites from “Aristotle in the Book of Stones,” a spurious
treatise of which we shall have more to say in the chapter on Aristotle
in the middle ages, a number of examples of the marvelous powers of
gems worn suspended from the neck or set in a ring upon the finger.
One augments the flow of saliva, another checks the flow of blood. The
stone hyacinth enables its bearer to pass safely through a pestilent
region, and makes him honored in men’s thoughts and procures the
granting of his petitions by rulers. The emerald wards off epilepsy,
“wherefore we often prescribe to nobles that their children should wear
this stone hung about the neck lest they incur this infirmity.”
[Sidenote: From Galen and Dioscorides.]
Costa also cites some recommendations of ligatures and suspensions
from Galen, such as curing stomach-ache by suspending coral about the
neck or abdomen, or the dung of wolves who have eaten bones, which
should preferably be bound on with a thread made from the wool of a
sheep eaten by that wolf. To Dioscorides are attributed such amulets
as the teeth of a mad dog who has bit a man, which will safeguard
their wearer from ever being so bitten—and it would be somewhat of a
coincidence, if he were—and the seed of wild saffron which, held in the
hand or worn about the neck, is good for the stings of scorpions. The
Indians are cited for what is a recipe rather than an amulet: _stercum
elephantinum cum melle mixtum et in vulva mulieris positum numquam
permittit concipere_. And some say that a woman who spits thrice in a
frog’s mouth will not conceive for a year. A number of other examples
are given without mention of any particular authority. Some of them,
indeed, are very familiar and could be found in many authors, and we
shall meet them in other contexts.
[Sidenote: Occult virtue.]
Costa concludes by saying that he himself has not tested these
statements extracted from the works of the ancients, but that
neither will he deny them, since there exist in nature many strange
phenomena and inexplicable forces. We would not believe that the
magnet attracts iron, if we had not seen it. Similarly lead breaks
adamant which iron cannot break. There is a stone which no furnace can
consume and a fish which paralyzes the hand of the person catching
it. These strange properties act in some subtle and mighty fashion
which is not perceptible to our senses and which we cannot account
for by reasoning.[2634] But it is noteworthy that as in discussing
incantations Costa said nothing of demons, so he fails to ascribe
occult virtue to the influence of the stars.
[Sidenote: _On the Difference between Soul and Spirit._]
Another treatise by Costa ben Luca, _On the Difference between Soul
and Spirit_,[2635] has little to do with occult science, but gives
too good a glimpse of medieval notions in the field of physiological
psychology to pass it by. It was translated into Latin by John of
Spain for Archbishop Raymond of Toledo in the twelfth century,[2636]
and is found in many manuscripts, often together with the works of
Aristotle.[2637] Probably by a confusion of the names Costa ben Luca
and Constantinus[2638] it was printed among the latter’s works,[2639]
and indeed we find very similar views in his _Pantegni_[2640] and
in his treatise _On Melancholy_. The work has also been ascribed
to Augustine,[2641] Isaac,[2642] Avicenna,[2643] Alexander Neckam,
Thomas of Cantimpré, and Albertus Magnus.[2644] A different work with
a similar title and somewhat similar contents is the _De spiritu
et anima_, which is printed with the works of Augustine[2645] but
which cites such later authors as Boethius, Isidore, Bede, Alcuin,
St. Bernard, and Hugh of St. Victor, to whom also it has been
attributed.[2646] Thomas Aquinas called it the work of an anonymous
Cistercian.[2647] But to return to our treatise.
[Sidenote: The nature of _spiritus_.]
Costa ben Luca has, as we have hinted, some diverting passages in the
fields of physiological psychology. He believes in the existence of
_spiritus_, which is not spirit in one of our senses of that word, but
“a subtle body,” unlike the soul which is incorporeal. This subtle
_spiritus_ perishes when separated from the body and it operates most
of the vital processes of the body such as breathing and the pulse,
sensation and movement. The two former processes are operated by
_spiritus_ “arising from the heart and borne in the pulsating veins to
vivify the body.” The two latter processes are caused by _spiritus_
which arises from the brain and operates through the nerves. Thus
_spiritus_ is the cause of life in the body and it leaves this mortal
frame with our dying gasp. The clearer and more subtle this _spiritus_
is, the more readily it lends itself to mental processes, while the
more perfect the human body, the more perfect the _spiritus_ and the
human mind. Hence the intellectual powers of children and women are
inferior, and the same is true of races subjected to excessive heat
or cold like the Ethiopians or Slavs. Here we have the same views
repeated as in the _Epistle concerning Incantation_. Some physicians
and philosophers think that there are two vessels in the heart and that
there is more _spiritus_ than blood in the left hand vessel and more
blood than _spiritus_ in the right hand vessel. The _spiritus_ in the
brain becomes more subtle and apt to receive the virtues of the soul by
its passage from one cavity of the brain to another. The less subtle
_spiritus_ the brain uses for the five senses; Costa speaks of “hollow
nerves” from the brain to the eye through which the _spiritus_ passes
for the purpose of vision. The most subtle _spiritus_ is employed in
the higher mental processes such as imagination, memory, and reason.
[Sidenote: Thought explained physiologically.]
Costa ben Luca gives an amusing explanation of how these processes take
place in the brain. The opening between the anterior and posterior
ventricles of the brain is closed by a sort of valve which he describes
as “a particle of the body of the brain similar to a worm.” When a
man is in the act of recalling something to memory, this valve opens
and the _spiritus_ passes from the anterior to the posterior cavity.
Moreover, the speed with which this valve works or responds differs
in different brains, and this fact explains why some men are of slow
memory and why others answer a question so much sooner. The habit of
inclining the head when deep in cogitation is also to be explained
as tending to open this valve. However, the relative subtlety of the
_spiritus_ is another important factor in intellectual ability.
[Sidenote: Views of other medieval writers.]
Other medieval writers differed somewhat from these views of Costa ben
Luca as to the nature of _spiritus_ and the cavities of the brain. For
instance, Constantinus Africanus in his treatise _On Melancholy_ states
that the _spiritus_ of the brain is called the rational soul, which
is inconsistent with the distinction drawn between soul and spirit in
the other treatise. In the eleventh century both Constantinus in his
_Pantegni_ and _Anatomy_ or _De humana natura_,[2648] and Petrocellus
the Salernitan in his _Practica_;[2649] in the twelfth century both
Hildegard of Bingen[2650] and the Pseudo-Augustinian _Liber de spiritu
et anima_;[2651] in the thirteenth century both Bartholomew of England,
who seems to cite Johannitius (Hunain ibn Ishak) on this point,[2652]
and Vincent of Beauvais agree that the brain has three main cavities.
The first is phantastic, from which the senses are controlled, where
the sensations are registered, and where the process of imagination
goes on. The middle cell is logical or rational, and there the forms
received from the senses and imagination are examined and judged. The
third cell retains such forms as pass this examination and so is the
seat of memory.[2653] The Pseudo-Augustine, however, represents it
further as the source of motor activity. Constantinus and Vincent of
Beauvais, who quotes him in the thirteenth century, further distinguish
the phantastic cavity as hot and dry, the logical cell as cold and
moist, and the seat of memory as cold and dry. Moreover, the phantastic
cell which multiplies forms contains a great deal of _spiritus_ and
very little medulla, while the cell of memory which retains the smaller
number of forms selected by reason contains much medulla and little
_spiritus_. Thus the general point of view of these other authors
resembles that of Costa ben Luca despite the divergence from him in
details. They perhaps also owe something to Augustine, who in his
genuine works speaks of the three cells of the brain but makes the
hind-brain the center of motor activity, and the mid-brain the seat of
memory.[2654]
[Sidenote: Thebit ben Corat.]
Thabit ibn Kurrah ibn Marwan ibn Karaya ibn Ibrahim ibn Marinos ibn
Salamanos (Abu Al Hasan) Al Harrani or Thabit ben Corrah ben Zahrun el
Harrani, or Tabit ibn Qorra ibn Merwan, Abu’l-Hasan, el-Harrani, or
Thabit ben Qorrah or Thabit ibn Qurra, or Tabit ibn Korrah, or Thabit
ben Korra, as he is variously designated by modern scholars;[2655] or
Thebit ben Corat, or Thebith ben Corath, or Thebit filius Core, or
Thebites filius Chori, also Tabith, Tebith, Thabit, Thebeth, Thebyth,
and Benchorac, ben corach, etc., as we find it in the medieval Latin
versions—Thebit ben Corat seems the prevalent medieval spelling and
so will be adopted here—was born at Harran in Mesopotamia about 836,
spent much of his life at Bagdad, and lived until about 901.[2656] He
wrote in Arabic as well as Syriac, but was not a Mohammedan, and Roger
Bacon alludes to him as “the supreme philosopher among all Christians,
who has added in many respects, speculative as well as practical, to
the work of Ptolemy.”[2657] As a matter of fact, he was a heathen or
pagan, a member of the sect of Sabians, whose chief seat was at his
birthplace, Harran.
[Sidenote: The Sabians.]
The Sabians appear to have continued the paganism and astrology of
Babylonia, but also to have accepted the Agathodaemon and Hermes
of Egypt,[2658] and to have had relations with Gnosticism and
Neo-Platonism. They seem to have laid especial stress upon the spirits
of the planets,[2659] to whom they made prayers, sacrifices, and
suffumigations,[2660] while days on which the planets reached their
culminating-points were celebrated as festivals.[2661] They observed
the houses and stations of the planets, their risings and settings,
conjunctions and oppositions, and rule over certain hours of the
day and night.[2662] Some planets were masculine, others feminine;
some lucky, others unlucky;[2663] they were related to different
metals;[2664] the different members of the human body were placed under
different signs of the zodiac;[2665] and in general each planet had its
own appropriate figures and forms, and ruled over certain climates,
regions, and things[2666] in nature. Most of this, however, is
astrological commonplace whether of pagans, Mohammedans, or Christians.
Nor were the Sabians peculiar in associating intellectual substances
or spirits with the planets.[2667] It was only in worshiping these and
denying the existence of one God and in their practice of sacrificial
divination that they could be distinguished as heathen or pagan.
However, they seem to have devoted a rather unusual amount of attention
to astrology and other forms of magic such as oracular heads,[2668]
magic knots and figures,[2669] and seal-rings carved with peculiar
animal figures. These last they often buried with the dead for a time
in order to increase their virtue.[2670]
[Sidenote: Thebit’s relations to Sabianism.]
Thebit, at any rate, seems to have prided himself upon being a
descendant of pagan antiquity. In a passage praising his native town
he said, “We are the heirs and posterity of heathenism,”[2671] and he
described with veneration a ruined Greek temple at Antioch.[2672] He
had, however, some religious disagreement with the Sabians of Harran
and was finally forced to leave.[2673] He met a philosopher who took
him to Bagdad where he became one of the Caliph’s astronomers[2674]
and founded there a Sabian community to his own taste. His numerous
religious writings show the value which he attached to various Sabian
usages and rites: ceremonials at burials, hours of prayer, rules of
purity and impurity and concerning the animals to be sacrificed,
readings in honor of the different planets.[2675]
[Sidenote: Thebit as encyclopedist, philosopher, astronomer.]
Thebit was a writer of encyclopedic range and translated from the
Greek[2676] into Arabic or Syriac such authors as Apollonius,
Archimedes, Aristotle, Euclid, Hippocrates, and Galen. He “was famed
above all as a philosopher,”[2677] but most of his philosophical
works are lost, but some geometrical treatises by him are extant,
and a work on weights appears in Latin translation.[2678] A group of
four astronomical treatises by him also occurs with fair frequency in
medieval manuscripts.[2679] On the basis of these specimens of his
astronomy Delambre was not moved to assign him any great place in
the history of the science;[2680] Chwolson objects that they are too
brief to do him justice,[2681] but they are probably the cream of his
own contributions to the subject or the middle ages would not have
translated and preserved them so sedulously.
[Sidenote: His occult science.]
Whatever Thebit’s contributions to positive knowledge may or may not
have been, there is no dispute as to the fact that he was given to
occult science and even superstition. His attitude towards alchemy,
indeed, is doubtful, as a work of alchemy is ascribed to him in one
manuscript of the fourteenth century and some notes against the
art in another[2682]. But of his adhesion to astrology there is no
doubt[2683], and Chwolson notes his interest in the mystic power of
letters and magic combinations of them[2684]. But the one outstanding
example of his occult science is his treatise on images, which seems to
have been a favorite with the Latin middle ages, since it appears to
have been translated into Latin twice, by Adelard of Bath[2685] and by
John of Seville[2686], since the manuscripts of it are numerous,[2687]
and it also was printed,[2688] and since Thebit is cited as an
authority on the subject of images by such medieval writers as Roger
Bacon, Albertus Magnus,[2689] the author of _Picatrix_,[2690] Peter of
Abano,[2691] and Cecco d’Ascoli.[2692]
[Sidenote: Astrological and magic images.]
The work begins by emphasizing the need of a knowledge of astronomy in
order to perform feats of magic (_praestigia_). The images described
are astronomical or astrological and must be constructed under
prescribed constellations in order to fulfill the end sought. Often,
however, they are human forms rather than astronomical figures. It is
not necessary to engrave them upon gems; Thebit expressly states that
the material of which they are made or upon which they are engraved
is unimportant, and that lead or tin or bronze or gold or silver or
wax or mud or anything you please will do. The essential thing and
“the perfection of mastery” is careful conformity to astrological
conditions. This science of images is indeed, as Aristotle and Ptolemy
have testified, the acme of astrology. Nevertheless, after the image
has been properly constructed, there is usually some non-astrological
ceremony to be executed in connection with it which savors of magic.
Often the image is to be buried, not however in a grave as in the case
of the ancient curses upon lead tablets, but in the house of someone
concerned. Once two images are to be placed facing each other and
wrapped in a clean cloth before burying them. Instructions are also
given as to the direction in which the person burying the image should
face. Also forms of words are prescribed which are to be repeated as
the image is buried. Once the name of the person whom it is desired
to injure is to be written with “names of hate on the back of the
image.” Among the objects supposed to be achieved by such images are
driving off scorpions, destroying a given region, causing misfortunes
to happen to others, recovery of stolen objects, success in business
or politics, protection from possible injury at the hands of the king,
or the causing of an enemy’s death by bringing him into disfavor with
the monarch. The treatise closes, at least in the printed text, with an
admission of its essentially magic character by saying, “And this is
what God the highest wished to reveal to his servants concerning magic,
that His name may be honored and praised and ever exalted through the
ages.” But no mention is made of demons, unless an instruction to name
one image “by a famous name” alludes to some spirit.
We shall now conclude the present survey with some account of Rasis and
his writings, with the exception of a number of books of experiments
ascribed to him, but which it is impossible to separate from those
ascribed to Galen and other authors, and of which we shall treat later
under the head of such experimental literature.
[Sidenote: Life of Rasis.]
The full name of Rasis or Rhazes was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya
ar-Razi,[2693] the last word indicating his birthplace in Persia. The
date of his birth is uncertain, perhaps about 850. He died in 923 or
924.[2694] For the facts of his life we are dependent upon two Arabic
writers of the thirteenth century[2695] who do little except tell one
“good” story after another about him, or quote his famous sayings, most
of which sound as if culled from the works of Galen. When about thirty
years of age Rasis came to Bagdad and is said to have been attracted to
the study of medicine by hearing how an inflamed and swollen forearm
which gave great pain was marvelously cured by the application of an
herb, which came to be called “the vivifier of the world.” In the early
years of the tenth century Rasis served as physician in the hospital at
Bagdad. According to Withington he has been called “the first and most
original of the great Moslem physicians.” He also was interested in
philosophy and alchemy, as his writings will show.
[Sidenote: His 232 works.]
There has come down to us a list of some 232 works ascribed to
Rasis.[2696] Some of them are probably merely different wordings of the
same title, others are very likely chapters repeated from his longer
works, but at any rate they serve to give us some idea of his interests
and the ground he covered, although of course some may be incorrectly
attributed to him. Editions of the Latin translations of some of his
chief medical works were printed before the end of the fifteenth
century at Milan in 1481 and Bergamo in 1497.[2697] These contain the
famous _Liber Almansoris_ or _Liber El-Mansuri dictus_ with its ten
subordinate treatises: (1) introduction to medicine and discussion
of human anatomy, (2) the doctrine of temperaments and humors and a
discussion of the art of physiognomy,[2698] with a chapter on how to
select slaves, (3) diet and drugs, (4) hygiene, (5) cosmetics, (6)
rules of health and medicines for travelers, (7) surgery or “the art of
binding up broken bones and concerning wounds and ulcers,” (8) poisons,
(9) treatment of diseases from head to foot, (10) fevers. Following
this in both editions come his works on Divisions, on diseases of the
joints, on the diseases of children, and his Aphorisms or six books
of medicinal secrets. Other writings by Rasis found in one or both of
the printed editions are a brief treatise on Surgery, Cautery, and
Leeches,[2699] the book of Synonyms, the table of antidotes, and some
others which we shall have occasion to mention later. His treatise on
the pestilence or on smallpox and measles was printed many times from
the fifteenth to sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: Charlatans discussed.]
In the list of 232 titles are three works which all seem to bear on the
same point and are perhaps different descriptions of one treatise, or
else show that this was a favorite theme with Rasis. The idea in all
three seems to be that no physician is perfect or can cure all diseases
of all patients, that this is why many persons go to charlatans,
and why sometimes quacks, old-wives, and popular practice succeed in
certain cases where the most learned doctors have failed.[2700]
[Sidenote: His interest in natural science.]
Other titles show that Rasis was interested in natural science and not
merely in the practice of medicine. Besides what would appear to have
been a general treatise entitled, _Opinions concerning Natural Things_,
he wrote on optics, holding that vision was not by rays sent forth
from the eye, and discussing some of the figures in the work on optics
ascribed to Euclid. In a letter he inquired into the reason for the
creation of wild beasts and venomous reptiles; and in a third treatise
wrote of the magnet’s attraction for iron and of vacuums.[2701]
His interest in natural philosophy of a rather theoretical sort is
indicated by an _Explanation of the book of Plutarch or commentary
on the book of Timaeus_.[2702] Other titles attest his experimental
tendency.[2703]
[Sidenote: Rasis and alchemy.]
Eight titles deal with alchemy[2704] and show that Rasis regarded
transmutation as possible. One is a reply to Alkindi who held the
opposite opinion.[2705] None of these writings seem to be extant in
Arabic, however, and the Latin works of alchemy ascribed to Rasis are
generally regarded as spurious. The thirteenth century encyclopedist,
Vincent of Beauvais, made a number of citations from the treatise
_De salibus et aluminibus_ attributed to Rasis, but Berthelot[2706]
regarded this work as later than Rasis and it is not found among our
eight titles. The _Lumen luminis_, which is ascribed to Rasis[2707]
and seems to have been translated by Michael Scot[2708] in the early
thirteenth century, is also mainly devoted to these two substances,
salts and alums. A _Book of Seventy_ is ascribed to Rasis as well as to
Geber. Berthelot was inclined to think that a _Book of Secrets_ perhaps
went back to Rasis. At least some good stories are told by Arabic
chroniclers of Rasis’ connection with alchemy. One is to the effect
that he abandoned the art as a result of a sound beating to which the
caliph subjected him when he failed to transmute metals at order.
Another states that in preparing the elixir he injured his eyes with
its vapors and was cured by a physician who charged him a fee of five
hundred _dinars_. Rasis paid the doctor’s bill, but, remarking that
at last he had discovered the true alchemy and the best art of making
gold, devoted the remainder of his life to the study and practice of
medicine.[2709]
[Sidenote: Titles suggestive of astrology and magic.]
Rasis also wrote treatises on mathematics and the stars but it is not
always easy to infer their contents from the titles which have alone
reached us or to tell when _mathematica_ means astrology. In one work
he seems to have shown the excellence and utility of _mathematica_,
but to have confuted those who extolled it beyond measure.[2710] In
a letter he denied that the rising and setting of the sun and other
planets was because of the earth’s motion and held that it was due to
the movement of the celestial orb.[2711] In another letter he discussed
the opinion of natural philosophers concerning the sciences of the
stars and whether or not the stars were living beings.[2712] Rasis
also discussed the difference between dreams from which the future
can be forecast and other dreams.[2713] The title, _Of exorcisms,
fascinations, and incantations_, under which, according to Negri’s
Latin translation Rasis discussed the causes and cures of diseases by
these methods and magic arts, should, in Ranking’s opinion, be more
accurately translated as _The Book of Divisions and Branches_.[2714] A
work _On the Necessity of Prayer_ is also included in the list of 232
works ascribed to Rasis,[2715] while a Lapidary produced for Wenzel
II of Bohemia (1278-1305) cites Rasis _On the virtues of words and
characters_.[2716]
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
Herewith we conclude our present survey of Arabian occult science
especially in the ninth century, although in the following chapters
we shall frequently encounter its influence. We have found the occult
science closely associated with natural science and difficult to
sever from it. In the authors and works reviewed we have found both
scepticism and superstition, both rationalism and empiricism. But
perhaps the most impressive point is that even superstition pretends to
be or attempts to be scientific.
CHAPTER XXIX
LATIN ASTROLOGY AND DIVINATION: ESPECIALLY IN THE NINTH, TENTH, AND
ELEVENTH CENTURIES
Astrology in Gaul before the twelfth century—Figures of astrological
medicine—The divine quaternities of Raoul Glaber—Celestial portents
and other marvels—An eleventh century calendar—Astrology and
divination in ecclesiastical _compoti_—Notker on the mystic date of
Easter—Prediction from the Kalends of January—Other divination by
the day of the week—Divination by the day of the moon—Authorship
of moon-books—Spheres of life and death: in Greek—Medieval
Latin versions—Survival of such methods in medical practice of
about 1400—Egyptian days—Their history—Medieval attempts to
explain them—Other perilous days—Firmicus read by an archbishop
of York—Relation of Latin astrology to Arabic—Appendix I. Some
manuscripts of the Sphere of Pythagoras or Apuleius—Appendix II.
Egyptian days in early medieval manuscripts.
[Sidenote: Astrology in Gaul before the twelfth century.]
Astrology had continued to flourish in Gaul in the last declining days
of the Roman Empire, despite the strictures of Christian writers and
clergy,[2717] and it was one of the first subjects to revive after
the darkness of the Merovingian period. Two centuries ago Goujet in
a treatise on the state of the sciences in France from the death
of Charlemagne to that of King Robert noted that from the reign of
Charlemagne astronomy continued to be increasingly studied. “The
councils in their decrees, the bishops in their statutes, the kings
in their capitularies, expressly recommended the study of it to the
clergy.”[2718] With the study of astronomy naturally developed a
belief in astrology. According to the _Histoire Littéraire de la
France_ it became quite the fashion during the reign of Louis the
Pious, Charlemagne’s successor, when we are told that there was no
great lord but had his own astrologer. Adalmus, before he became abbot
of Castres, wasted much time upon this pseudo-science, and Rabanus
Maurus showed tendencies in that direction. In the tenth century such
celestial phenomena as comets and eclipses were feared as sinister
portents, and men resorted to enchantments, auguries, and other forms
of divination.[2719] A brief treatise in a manuscript of the ninth
century in the Vatican library also develops the thesis that comets
signify disasters.[2720] In the eleventh century Engelbert, a monk of
Liège, and Odo, teacher at Tournai, were devoted to the study of the
stars; and Gilbert Maminot, bishop of Lisieux, and for a time chaplain
and physician to William the Conqueror, would rather spend his nights
in star-gazing than in sleep. “But what was the outcome of all this
toil and study?” inquires the _Histoire Littéraire_ and replies to its
own question, “The making of some wretched astrologers and not a single
true astronomer!”[2721]
[Sidenote: Figures of astrological medicine.]
These words were written nearly two hundred years ago, but such a
recent investigation of manuscripts in French libraries as that of
Wickersheimer on figures illustrative of astrological medicine from
the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries has on the whole confirmed
the importance of astrology in the meager learning of that time.[2722]
The manuscripts in English libraries, I have found, tell a similar
story. Of the human figures marked with the twelve signs of the zodiac,
which become so common in the manuscripts by the fourteenth century,
and in which the head rests upon the Ram, the feet on Pisces, while
the intervening members of the body are marked by their respective
signs,—of these Wickersheimer found none before the twelfth century.
But in a medical manuscript of the eleventh century the twelve signs
with their names and the names of the parts of the human body to which
they apply are grouped about a half figure of Christ, who has His right
hand raised to bless, while about His head is a halo or sun-disk with
twelve rays.[2723] Less favorable to astrology is the accompanying
legend, “According to the ravings of the philosophers the twelve signs
are thus denoted.” On the page following the text describes the twelve
signs “according to the Gentiles.” Schemes in which the world, the
year, and man were associated, and where are shown the four elements,
four seasons, four humors, four temperaments, four ages, four cardinal
points, and four winds, are frequently found in extant manuscripts of
the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.[2724]
[Sidenote: The divine quaternities of Raoul Glaber.]
Such association reminds one of the opening of the chronicle of Raoul
Glaber, written in the eleventh century, “Since we are to treat of
events in the four quarters of the earth, it will be well to touch
first upon the power of divine and abstract quaternity.” There are
four elements, he gives us to understand, four virtues and four
senses. There are four Gospels and they have their relation to the
four elements. Matthew, dealing with Christ’s incarnation, corresponds
to earth; Mark to water, since it emphasizes baptism; Luke to air,
because it is the longest Gospel; and John to fire or ether as the
most spiritual. In like manner can be associated with the four cardinal
virtues those four famous rivers which had their sources in Paradise:
Phison and prudence, Geon and temperance, the Tigris and fortitude,
the Euphrates and justice. Finally the ages of the world are found to
be four by Raoul, instead of the six eras corresponding to the days of
creation which we find in Isidore, Bede, and other medieval historians;
and these four ages also relate to the four virtues. The days of Abel,
Enoch, and Noah were days of prudence; but on leaving Noah we have
temperance marking the age of Abraham and the patriarchs; fortitude
is the feature of the time of Moses and the prophets; while justice
characterizes the period since the incarnation of the Word.
[Sidenote: Celestial portents and other marvels.]
The faith of Raoul and his contemporaries in the mystic significance
of numbers, if not also in astrology, and the fact that they were
constantly on the lookout for portents and prodigies, are further
attested by the stress laid in his chronicle upon the thousandth
anniversaries of Christ’s birth and of His passion. Says Raoul, “After
the multiplicity of prodigies which, although some came a little
before and some a trifle afterwards, happened in the world around the
thousandth year of Christ the Lord, there were many industrious men of
sagacious mind who prophesied that there would be others not inferior
to these in the thousandth year of our Lord’s passion.” That they were
not mistaken in this premonition he shows later by several chapters,
including an account of the eclipse of the sun in that year. Like many
another medieval historian, Raoul is careful to note the appearance
of comets—in the Bayeux tapestry of the same century one marks the
death of Edward the Confessor; Raoul also believes that if a living
person is visited by spirits, either good or evil, it is a sign of his
approaching death; he holds the usual view that demons may sometimes
work marvels by divine permission, and tells of a magician-impostor
whom he saw work miracles upon pseudo-relics. But from the
superstition of medieval chroniclers we must turn back to astrological
manuscripts proper.
[Sidenote: An eleventh century calendar.]
An eleventh century calendar at Amiens[2725] reveals both a simple form
of astrological medicine and a belief in some peculiar significance of
the number seven, whether as a sacred or an astrological number. At
the head of each month are brief instructions as to what herbs to use
during that month, as to bleeding and bathing, and what disease may
most easily be cured then.[2726] In the same manuscript one miniature
shows someone striking seven bells with a hammer, perhaps as notes in a
scale, and another miniature represents a seven-branched candlestick,
of which the branches are respectively labeled, “Spirit of piety,
Spirit of fortitude, Spirit of intellect, Spirit of wisdom, Spirit of
prudence, Spirit of science, Spirit of the fear of God.”[2727]
[Sidenote: Astrology and divination in ecclesiastical _Compoti_.]
Indeed works of astrology and divination are especially likely to
be found in the same manuscripts with ecclesiastical calendars and
_computi_. _Computus_ or _compotus_, as one manuscript states, was “the
science considering times.”[2728] For example, in a brief _compotus_ of
the ninth century[2729] a divining sphere of Pythagoras occurs twice,
and we have also a moon book, an account of the Egyptian days, and a
method of divination from winds. In a twelfth century manuscript,[2730]
sandwiched in between calendars and reckonings of Easter and eclipses
and Bede’s work _On the Natures of Things_, are a sphere of divination,
an account of Egyptian days, a method of divination from thunder, and
a portion of a work on judicial astrology beginning with the eleventh
chapter which tells how to determine whether anyone will be poor or
rich by inspection of the planet in his nativity.[2731]
[Sidenote: Notker on the mystic date of Easter.]
The very dating of Easter itself might be the occasion for indulging in
mystic speculation of a semi-astrological nature. Thus Notker Labeo, c
950-1022, the well-known monk of St. Gall,[2732] in a treatise to his
disciple Erkenhard on four questions of _compotus_,[2733] states that
the principal problem, with which all others are connected, is that of
the date of Easter. He gives the time as in the first full moon after
the vernal equinox, but adds that this is because of a certain mystery.
For if there were no mystery connected with the date of Easter, and it
merely celebrated like other festivals the memory of an event which
once happened, there is no doubt but that it would occur every year
without variation upon the twenty-seventh of March, which was the
day of the Lord’s resurrection. But as after the vernal equinox the
days grow longer than the nights, and as at the full of the moon its
splendor is revolved on high, so we should overcome the darkness of
sin by the light of piety and faith and turn our minds from earthly to
celestial things, if we wish to celebrate Easter worthily.
[Sidenote: Prediction from the Kalends of January.]
But let us consider in more detail the methods of divination found
in such manuscripts. Simplest of all perhaps are predictions as to
the character of the ensuing year according to the day of the week
upon which the first of January falls. For example, “If the kalends
of January shall be on the Lord’s day, the winter will be good and
mild and warm, the spring windy, and the summer dry. Good vintage,
increasing flocks; honey will be abundant; the old men will die; and
peace will be made.”[2734] In some manuscripts these predictions
concerning the weather, crops, wars, and king for the ensuing year are
called _Supputatio Esdrae_ or signs which God revealed to the prophet
Esdras.[2735] In another manuscript[2736] the weather for winter
and summer is predicted according to the day of the week upon which
Christmas falls and Lent begins. Christmas of course was sometimes
regarded as the first day of the new year and in any case it falls on
the same day of the week as the following first of January. In a ninth
century manuscript[2737] predictions for the ensuing year are made
according as there is wind in the night on Christmas eve and the eleven
nights following. For instance, “If there is wind in the night on the
night of the natal day of our Lord Jesus Christ, in that year kings
and pontiffs will perish,” and “If on twelfth night there shall be
wind, kings will perish in war.”
[Sidenote: Other divination by the day of the week]
Divination from thunder is another form of judicial astrology, if
it may so be called, found in these early manuscripts. Perhaps the
simplest variety of it is according to the day of the week on which
thunder is heard.[2738] Predictions were also made according to the
month in which thunder was heard,[2739] or the direction from which
it was heard.[2740] It may be recalled that the three chapters of
Bede’s translation of some work on divination from thunder had been
respectively devoted to these three methods by the direction from which
the thunder is heard, the month, and the day of the week. Nativities of
infants are also given according to the day of the week on which they
are born, and further taking into account whether the hour of birth
is diurnal or nocturnal.[2741] It is also regarded as important to
note upon which day of the week the new moon occurs,[2742] and we are
further informed of the various hours of the days of the week when it
is advisable to perform blood-letting.[2743] In a method of divination
according to the day of the week and the letters in the boy’s or girl’s
name the Lord’s day is assigned the number thirteen, the day “of the
moon” eighteen, and that “of Mars” fifteen.[2744] Since the days of
the week bore the names of the planets, it was not strange that they
should have been credited with something of the virtues of the stars.
[Sidenote: Divination by the day of the moon.]
A commoner method of divination and one more nearly approaching
approved astrological doctrine was that by the day of the month or
moon. Briefest of such moon-books is that which merely designates each
of the thirty days as favorable or unfavorable.[2745] We also find a
_Lunarium_ for the sick, stating the patient’s prospects from the day
of the moon on which he contracted his illness;[2746] a work ascribed
to “Saint Daniel” on nativities by the day of the moon;[2747] and an
equally brief interpretation of dreams upon the same basis.[2748] Or
all these matters may be considered in the same treatise and each of
them somewhat more fully, and we may be told whether the day is a
good one on which to buy and sell, to board a ship, to enter a city,
to operate upon a patient, to send children off to school, to breed
animals, to build an aqueduct or mill, or whether it is best to
abstain on it from most business. Also such predictions as that the boy
born on that day will be illustrious, astute, wise, and lettered; that
he will encounter danger on the water, but will live to old age if he
escapes; while the girl born on the same day will be “chaste, benign,
good-looking, and pleasing to men.” That anyone who takes to his bed on
that day will suffer a long sickness, but that it is a favorable day
for blood-letting, and that one should not worry about dreams he has
then, since they possess no significance either for good or evil. Also
what chance there is of recovering articles stolen on that day.[2749]
In later manuscripts at least it is further stated that certain
Biblical characters were born on this day or that day of the moon: Adam
on the first, Eve on the second, Cain on the third, Abel on the fourth,
and so on.[2750]
[Sidenote: Authorship of moon-books.]
In the early manuscripts moon-books are anonymous or ascribed to
Daniel, but in later medieval manuscripts other authors are named.
The name of Adam is coupled with that of Daniel in both of two rather
elaborate moon-books in a fourteenth century manuscript,[2751] where
Adam is said to have worked out these “lunations” “by true experience.”
A fifteenth century one is attributed to a philosopher, astrologer,
and physician named Edris,[2752] perhaps the Esdras of the method of
divination by the kalends of January rather than the Arab Edrisi. It
briefly predicts from the relation of the moon to the twelve signs
whether patients will recover and captives escape. In a sixteenth
century manuscript at Paris are “Significations of the days of the moon
which the most excellent astronomer Bezogar revealed to his disciples
and transmitted to them as a very great secret and most precious
gift.”[2753] But such an ascription is rather obviously a late fiction.
[Sidenote: Spheres of life and death: in Greek.]
Determining the fate of the patient from the day of the moon upon
which his illness was incurred enters also into certain spheres of
life and death which were much employed in the early middle ages. But
in these the number of the day of the moon is combined with a second
number obtained by a numerical evaluation of the letters forming the
patient’s name. This method came down from the ancient Greek-speaking
world, as in a “Sphere of Democritus, prognostic of life and death”
found in a Leyden papyrus,[2754] while the very similar _Sphere of
Petosiris_, the mythical Egyptian astrologer, is variously dated by
W. Kroll from the second century before Christ, by E. Riess from the
first century before Christ, and by F. Boll in the first century of our
era.[2755] The so-called “Sphere” is really only a wheel of fortune,
circle, or other plane figure divided into compartments where different
numbers are grouped under such headings as “Life” and “Death.” Having
calculated the value of a person’s name by adding together the Greek
numerals represented by its component letters, and having further added
in the day of the moon, one divides the sum by some given divisor and
looks for the quotient in the compartments. This method of divination
was also employed in regard to fugitive slaves and the outcome of
gladiatorial combats.[2756]
[Sidenote: Medieval Latin versions.]
In the medieval Latin versions of these Spheres of life and death the
numerical value of the Greek letters was naturally usually lost and
arbitrary numerical equivalents were assigned to the Roman letters
or some other method of calculation was substituted. The _Sphere of
Petosiris_ was perpetuated in the form of a letter by him to Nechepso,
king of Egypt.[2757] But more common than this in manuscripts of
the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries was the Sphere of life and
death of Apuleius or Pythagoras or both[2758] which replaced that of
Democritus. Like it, it consisted of the numbers from one to thirty
arranged in six compartments, three above a line each containing six
numbers, and three below the line having four each. John of Salisbury,
in the twelfth century, presumably refers to it when he speaks of
divination or lot-casting “by inspection of the so-called Pythagorean
table”;[2759] and it continues to be found with great frequency in the
manuscripts of subsequent centuries.[2760] It is not to be confused,
however, with the _Prenostica Pitagorice_, a more elaborate, although
somewhat similar, method of divination by means of geomantic tables,
of which we shall treat later in the chapter on Bernard Silvester. A
Sphere ascribed to St. Donatus in a twelfth century manuscript includes
instructions how to determine the sign of the zodiac under which a
person was born by computing the difference between his name and his
mother’s name. If this amounts to four letters, he was born under the
fourth sign, and so on.[2761]
[Sidenote: Survival of such methods in medical practice of about 1400.]
The survival of such superstitious methods of divination into the later
middle ages is attested not only by the frequent recurrence of the
_Sphere of Apuleius_ and the divinations from the kalends of January
in manuscripts of the later centuries, but by the medical notebook,
written in middle English, of John Crophill, who practiced medicine
in Suffolk under Henry IV.[2762] Besides a record of his patients and
the sums of money due from them, rules of dieting and blood-letting
for the twelve months of the year, and his “more regular and masterly
observations upon Urin,” his notes include a treatise on astrological
medicine which, in the sarcastic language of the old catalogue of the
Harleian Manuscripts, concludes “with a masterpiece of art, namely,
a tretys or chapter of ‘Calculation to know what thou wilt,’ and
this by observation of persons’ names.” The notebook also contains
“Oracular Answers prepared beforehand by this great Doctor for those
of both Sexes who shall come to consult him in the momentous affair of
Matrimony; according to the several Months of the year wherein they
should apply themselves.” Further contents are an incantation in Latin
for women in child-birth, and “The names of the 12 signs with such
marks as shew that this John Crophill was a dabbler in Geomancy.”
[Sidenote: Egyptian days.]
Brief lists of “Egyptian Days” are of rather common occurrence in both
Latin and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the ninth, tenth, and succeeding
centuries.[2763] Often it is merely stated what days of the year they
are; sometimes it is simply added that the doctor should not bleed
the patient upon them. As early as a ninth century manuscript,[2764]
however, we are further warned not to take a walk or plant or carry on
a lawsuit or do any work upon these days. And under no circumstances,
no matter what the seeming necessity, is it permitted to bleed man or
beast on these days. Two Egyptian days are then listed for each month,
one reckoned as so many days from the beginning and the other as so
many days before the close of the month. Eleven days is the farthest
removed that any Egyptian day is from the first of the month and twelve
the most from the close, so that they never fall in the middle of a
month nor on the very first or last day. Our ninth century manuscript
then mentions three of these days in April, August, and December as
especially dangerous. Whoever falls ill or receives a potion on them
is sure to die soon. Whoever, male or female, is born on one of them
will die an evil and painful death. “And if one drinks water on those
three days, he will die within forty days.” The account then closes
with the statement that on the Egyptian days the people of Egypt were
cursed with Pharaoh. In another ninth century manuscript a bare list
of the Egyptian days is followed by a somewhat similar account of the
three which must be observed with especial care.[2765] In a calendar
of saints’ days in this same manuscript only the third of March and
the third of July are marked _dies egiptiagus_.[2766] Egyptian days
are also marked in the calendar of Marianus Scotus, the well-known
chronicler and chronologist.[2767] A somewhat different account in a
twelfth century manuscript states that “these are the days which God
sent without mercy.” It also, however, lists two of them for each
month and distinguishes the three in April, August, and December as
especially dangerous.[2768]
[Sidenote: Their history.]
There seems to be no doubt that these Egyptian days were a relic of the
unlucky days in the ancient Egyptian calendar,[2769] of which we learn
from several papyri, although of course the ancient Egyptians were also
accustomed to distinguish further the three divisions of each day as
lucky or unlucky. The Egyptian days are noted in official calendars
of the Roman Empire about 354 A. D., and in the _Fasti Philocaliani_
there are twenty-five in all, of which three fall in January. In the
middle ages, as has already been illustrated, there were usually but
twenty-four, two to each month.[2770] They were mentioned in the _Life
of Proclus_ by Marinus, and both Ambrose and Augustine testified that
many Christians still had faith in them.[2771] Indeed, they passed into
the ecclesiastical calendar, as the Franciscan, Bartholomew of England,
states in the thirteenth century.[2772]
[Sidenote: Medieval attempts to explain them.]
By that time the notion had become prevalent that they were
anniversaries of the days upon which God afflicted Egypt with plagues,
as our citations from the manuscripts have shown. Bartholomew, indeed,
is at pains to explain that the days are placed in the church calendar,
“not because one should omit anything upon them more than upon other
days, but in order that God’s miracles may be recalled to memory.”
The circumstance that there are twenty-four days does not embarrass
him; he simply explains that this proves that God sent more plagues
upon Egypt than the ten which are especially famed. Our citations from
earlier manuscripts have shown that most people would not agree with
Bartholomew that nothing should be omitted on these days. Moreover,
other explanations of their origin had been already given in the middle
ages than that from the plagues of Egypt. Honorius of Autun stated in
the twelfth century that they were called Egyptian days because they
had been discovered by the Egyptians, and since Egypt means dark,[2773]
they are called _tenebrosi_, because they are declared to bring the
incautious to the shadows of death.[2774] The Dominican, Vincent of
Beauvais,[2775] who probably wrote his encyclopedia soon after that
of Bartholomew, did not find the discrepancy between ten plagues and
twenty-four days so easy to explain away. He states that of the two
Egyptian days in each month one comes near the beginning and the other
near the close, as we have already learned. He adds that some call them
lucky days, while others say that the astrologers of Egypt discovered
that they were unlucky. Yet another explanation of their origin is that
on these days the Egyptians were accustomed to sacrifice to demons
with their own blood, a circumstance which would not seem to recommend
them for inclusion in the ecclesiastical calendar. Bernard Gordon, a
medical writer at the end of the thirteenth century, reverts to the
position that the Egyptian days were in memory of the plagues in Egypt.
He declares that there is no sense in the prohibition of blood-letting
upon these days, since they have no astrological significance, but
are the anniversaries of miracles worked by special providence.[2776]
Gilbert of England, earlier in the thirteenth century, had advised
against bleeding on Egyptian days, if the moon was then influenced by
any evil planet.[2777]
[Sidenote: Other perilous days.]
On the other hand, not only did the twenty-four Egyptian days and the
three in April, August, and December which were considered especially
dangerous, continue to be listed in the fourteenth and fifteenth
century manuscripts, but imitations of them appeared. Thus in a
fourteenth century manuscript we read of forty perilous days which
should be observed with the utmost care and which Greek masters have
tested by experience;[2778] while in a second manuscript of the closing
medieval period appear fifty-eight dangerous days “according to the
Arabs.”[2779] Of the Greek days only twenty-nine are actually listed,
seven in January, three in February, and so on, omitting the months
of July and August entirely, which perhaps should contain the missing
eleven days.[2780] The Arabic days vary in number per month from seven
in March, which is the first month listed, to three in February. “And
there are four other days and nights according to Bede on which no one
is ever born or conceived, and if by chance a male is conceived or
born, its body will never be freed from putridity.”[2781]
[Sidenote: Firmicus read by an archbishop of York.]
That astrological knowledge in England, at least soon after the
Norman conquest, was not limited to such meager and simple treatises
as the moon-books described above from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, is
seen from the closing incident in the career of Gerard, a learned and
eloquent man, bishop of Hereford under William Rufus and archbishop
of York under Henry I, whom he supported in the investiture struggle
with Anselm and the pope. The story goes that Gerard, who had been
feeling slightly indisposed, lay down to rest and enjoy the fresh air
and fragrance of the flowers in a garden near his palace, asking his
chaplains to leave him for a while. On their return after dinner they
found him dead, and beneath the cushion upon which his head rested was
a copy of the astrological work of Julius Firmicus Maternus. Gerard
had not been popular with the inhabitants of York, and when his corpse
was brought back to town, boys stoned the bier and the canons refused
it burial within the cathedral, which, however, his successor granted.
“His enemies,” we are told, “interpreted his death, without the rites
of the church, as a divine judgment for his addiction to magical and
forbidden arts.” At any rate the story shows that the work of Firmicus
was well known by this time; it is from the eleventh century that
the oldest manuscripts of it date; and we suspect that some of his
enemies were rather hypocritical in the horror which they expressed
at a bishop’s reading such a book. “Too independent a thinker for his
contemporaries,” writes Miss Bateson, “his opponents held up their
hands in horror that an astrological work by Julius Firmicus Maternus
should be found under his pillow when he died.”[2782] The style of
Firmicus is much imitated by the anonymous author of _The Laws of Henry
I_ and another legal work entitled _Quadripartitus_ written in 1114.
F. Liebermann states that the author was in the service of archbishop
Gerard aforesaid.[2783]
[Sidenote: Relation of Latin astrology to Arabic.]
Charles Jourdain once made the generalization that before the
translation of the _Quadripartite_ of Ptolemy and the works of the
Arabian astrologers into Latin in the twelfth century, astrology had
little hold among men of learning in western Europe.[2784] An even
more erroneous assertion was that in Burckhardt’s _Die Kultur der
Renaissance in Italien_ that “at the beginning of the thirteenth
century” the superstition of astrology “suddenly appeared in the
foreground of Italian life.”[2785] Even Jourdain’s assertion the entire
present chapter tends to disprove, but since it has been quoted with
approval by a subsequent writer on the thirteenth century,[2786] we
may deal with it a little farther. The reason which Jourdain added in
support of his generalization was that before the translations from
the Arabic “those who cultivated astrology had no other guides than
Censorinus, Manilius, and Julius Firmicus, who might indeed seduce
a few isolated dreamers but did not have enough weight to convince
philosophers. Ptolemy and the Arabs, on the contrary, appeared as
masters of a regular science having its own principles and method.”
This sounds as if Jourdain had not read Firmicus who gives a more
elaborate presentation of the art of astrology than the elementary
_Quadripartite_ of Ptolemy. It is true that Ptolemy had a great
scientific reputation from his other writings, but Manilius is a poet
of no small merit, and there would be no reason why an age which
accepted Ovid and Vergil as authorities concerning nature and regarded
such works as _De vetula_ and the _Secret of Secrets_ as genuine works
of Ovid and Aristotle, should draw delicate distinctions between
Firmicus and Albumasar or Manilius and Alkindi. It was because reading
Firmicus and even practicing the cruder modes of divination which we
have described had already aroused an interest in astrology that other
works in the field were sought out and translated. Moreover, there is
an even more cogent objection to Jourdain’s generalization which will
be developed in the following chapter, and it is that the taking over
of Arabic astrology had already begun long before the twelfth century.
We have, indeed, in the present chapter told only half the story of
astrology in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and must now turn back
to Gerbert and the introduction of Arabic astrology.
APPENDIX I
SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF THE SPHERE OF PYTHAGORAS OR APULEIUS
Besides the copies noted by Wickersheimer (1913) in French manuscripts
from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, such as Laon 407, Orléans
276, and BN nouv. acq. 1616, where in fact it occurs twice: at fol. 7v,
“Ratio spere phytagor philosophi quem epulegus descripsit,” and at fol.
14r, “Ratio pitagere de infirmis,”—the following may be listed.
BN 5239, 10th century, # 12.
Harleian 3017, 10th century, fol. 58r, “Ratio spherae Pythagorae
philosophi quam Apuleius descripsit.”
Cotton Tiberius C, VI, 11th century, fol. 6v, Imagines vitae et
mortis quarum utraque rotulum tenet longum literis et numeris quae
ad sphaeram Apuleii ad latera adscriptis, cum versibus pagina
circumscriptis. The figures are of _Vita_ with halo, robes, and
angelic face, and of _Mors_, who wears only a pair of drawers, whose
ribs show through his flesh, and who has wings like a demon. One has
to turn the page upside down in order to read some of it.
CU Trinity 1369, 11th century, fol. 1r, just before the Calendar of
Marianus Scotus, “Racio spere pytagorice quam apuleius descripsit.”
Chartres 113, 9th century, fol. 99, following works by Alcuin, “Spera
Apuleii Platonis.”
Ivrea 19, 10th century, # 5, De spera Putagorae.
CLM 22307, 10-11th century, fol. 194, Ratio sphaerae Phitagoreae
philosophi quam Apulegius descripsit, “Petosiris philosophus Micipso
regi salutem ...”, where it would seem to be confused with the letter
of Petosiris to Nechepso.
Vatican Palat. Lat. 176, 10th century, fol. 162v, “Eulogii ratio
sperae Pitagorae philosophi,” in a MS containing works of Jerome,
Augustine, and Ambrose.
Vatican Urb. Lat. 290, 11-13th century, fol. 2v, Ratio spere Pitagoras
quam Apuleius descripsit; fol. 3, Petosiris Micipso regi salutem.
I suspect that the following would also prove upon examination to be
one of these Spheres of life and death.
CLM 18629, 10th century, fol. 95, Characteres literarum secretarum,
item incantationes. Alphabetum Graecorum et numeri per tabulam
dispositi; fol. 106, Tractatus de literis alphabeti (mysticus).
Vatican Palat. Lat. 485, 9th century, fol. 14, Litterae graecae cum
interpretatione alphabetica et numerica.
Vatican 644, 10-11th century, fol. 16v.
Of the numerous occurrences of the _Sphere of Pythagoras_ or of
Apuleius in MSS later than the eleventh century I have noted only a few
examples.
Vienna 2532, 12th century, fols. 1-2, Tractatus astrologicus de
divinando exitu morborum e positionibus lune et de sphere Pythagore.
Vatican 642, 12th century, fol. 82, a somewhat different mode of
divination, by which one tells what another is thinking or is holding
in his hand, is attributed to Bede.
Madrid 10016, early 13th century, fol. 3, “spera de morte vel vita”;
fol. 85v, the letter of Petosiris to Nechepso. It is interesting to
note that this MS originally belonged to an English Cluniac monastery:
Haskins, EHR (1915), p. 65.
BN 7486, 14th century, fol. 66v, “Canon supra rotam Pictagore,”
opens, “Pictagoras is said to have written thus to Nasurius, king
of the Chaldees;” then at fol. 67r comes “The Sphere of Pictagoras
the philosopher which Epuleus Platonicus briefly described;” which
is followed at fol. 68r by a long treatise ascribed to Ptolemy,
_Exortatio ad artem prescientie ptholomei regis egypti_, in which
various questions are answered by numerical and alphabetical
calculations and one is also by the same method referred to nativities
arranged under the 28 mansions of the moon.
CU Trinity 1109, 14th century, fol. 15, Spera apulei et platonici;
fol. 20, “Ratio spere pictagis philosophe quod apollonius scripsit;”
fol. 392, S(p)era Fortune.
Digby, 58, 14th century, fol. 1v, “Spera philosophorum.”
Bodleian 26 (Bernard 1871), 13-14th century, fols. 207 and 216v.
Bodleian 177 (Bernard 2072), late 14th century, # 1, Pythagorae
sphaera quam Apuleius exaravit ut scias an aeger convalescat; # 14,
fol. 22r, Apuleii Platonici Sphaera de vita et morte et de omnibus
negotiis quae inquirere volueris.
Amplon. Quarto 380, 14th century, at the close of a Geomancy by
Abdallah, “Spera Apuley de vita et morte vel de omnibus negociis de
quibus scire volueris; sic facias....”
Additional 15236, 13-14th century, fol. 108, “Spera (Pictagore) de
vita et morte sive de re alia quacunque secundum Apuleium.”
Harleian 5311, 15th century, folder i, “Spera Apullei.”
S. Marco XI, 111, 16th century, ascribes a wheel of life and death to
“Bede the presbyter,” and another to Apollonius and Pythagoras.
APPENDIX II
EGYPTIAN DAYS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS
The following citations could probably be greatly multiplied.
BN nouv. acq. 1616, 9th century, fol. 12r.
Digby 63, end of 9th century, Anglo-Saxon minuscule, fol. 36, “Dies
Egiptiachi.”
Berlin 131 (Phillips 1869, Trier), 9th century, fol. 12r.
Lucca 236, about 900 A. D., on its last 3 leaves are Egyptian days and
a dream-book; described by Giacosa (1901), p. 349.
Harleian 3017, 10th century, fol. 59r, De diebus Egiptiacis qui mali
sunt in anno circulo. The catalogue dates this MS as 920 A. D. but
at fol. 66r the date is given as DCCClxii or DCCCClxii (962 A. D.)—a
letter seems to have been erased which probably was the fourth C.
Harleian 3271, 10th century (?), fol. 121, Versus ad dies Egyptiacas
inveniendas. See also Baehrens, _Poet. lat. min._ V, 354-6; Mommsen
CIL I, 411.
Sloane 475, this portion of the MS 10-11th century, fol. 216v, Versus
de significatione dierum mensis, opening, “Tenebrae Aegyptus Grecos
sermone vocantur....”
Additional 22398, 10th century, fol. 104.
Cotton Caligula A, XV, written mostly in Gaul before 1000 A. D.,
fol. 126, a list of lucky and unlucky days for medical purposes, in
Anglo-Saxon.
Cotton Titus D, XXVI, 10th century, fol. 3v.
Cotton Vitellius A, XII, fol. 39v.
Cotton Vitellius C, VIII, in Anglo-Saxon, fol. 23, de tribus anni
diebus Aegyptiacis.
CU Trinity 945, early 11th century, fol. 37.
CU Trinity 1369, 11th century (perhaps 1086 A. D.), fol. 1v.
Vatican 644, 10-11th century, fol. 77r, versus duodecim de diebus
aegyptiis, and a fragment “de tribus diebus aegyptiis.”
Dijon 448, 10-12th century, fol. 88, Calendrier, avec jours
égyptiaques ajoutés; fol. 191, “De Egyptiacis diebus.” Bede’s _De
temporibus_ and _De natura rerum_ occur twice in this MS and at fol.
181 is an incantation for use in fevers.
Harleian 1585 and Sloane 1975, where the Egyptian days are found with
the _Herbarium_ of Apuleius, are both 12th century but probably copied
from earlier MSS.
So in Chalons-sur-Marne 7, 13th century, fol. 41, verses on the
Egyptian days occur with the _Ars calculatoria_ of Helpericus of
Auxerre who wrote in the ninth century.
I have usually not noted the occurrence of the Egyptian days in later
manuscripts. A few exceptions are:
BN 7299A, 12th century, fol. 37r.
CLM 23390, 12-13th century, the last item is, “Verses concerning the
twelve signs and the Egyptian days.” The previous contents were mainly
religious.
Cambrai 195, fol. 208; 229, fol. 56; 829, fol. 54; all three MSS of
the 12th century.
Cambrai 861, early 13th century, fol. 56.
Sloane 2461, end of 13th century, fols. 62r-64v.
The verses concerning the ten plagues of Egypt contained in CLM 18629,
10th century, fol. 93, and ascribed by the catalogue to Eugenius
Toletanus have, I presume, no connection with the Egyptian days.
Such proved to be the case with BN 16216, 13th century, fol. 251v,
de decem plagis Egyptiorum et de vii diebus, although from the fact
that it follows “Precepta Pithagore” I suspected before examining it
that it might have something to do with divination. But not even the
Pythagorean precepts have in this case.
CHAPTER XXX
GERBERT AND THE INTRODUCTION OF ARABIC ASTROLOGY
Arabic influence in early manuscripts—A preface and twenty-one
chapters on the astrolabe—Are they parts of one work?—Their relation
to Gerbert and the Arabic—Hermann’s _De mensura astrolabii_—Attitude
towards astrology in the preface—Question of Gerbert’s attitude
towards astrology—His posthumous reputation as a magician—An anonymous
astronomical treatise; its possible relation to Gerbert—Contents of its
first two books—Attitude towards astrology—The fourth book—Citations:
Arabic names—_Mathematica_ of Alchandrus or Alhandreus—An
account of its contents—Astrological doctrine—Nativities and
name-calculations—Interrogations and more name-calculations—Alchandrus
or Alhandreus not the same as Alexander—Alkandrinus or Alchandrinus on
nativities according to the mansions of the moon—Albandinus—Geomancy of
Alkardianus or Alchandianus—An anonymous treatise or fragment of the
tenth century.
[Sidenote: Arabic influence in early manuscripts.]
The usual view has been that western Latin learning was not affected
by Arabic science until the twelfth or even the thirteenth century. We
shall see in other chapters that the translations of the Aristotelian
books of natural philosophy were current rather earlier than has been
recognized, that in medicine a period of Neo-Latin Salernitan tradition
can scarcely be distinguished from one of Arabic influence, and that
in chemistry owing to the misinterpretation of the date of Robert of
Chester’s translation of the book of Morienus Romanus—in which Robert
says that the Latin world does not yet know what alchemy is—Berthelot
in his history of medieval alchemy placed the introduction of Arabic
influence half a century too late. In the present chapter we shall see
that the voluminous work of translation of Arabic astrologers which
went on in the twelfth century—and to which another chapter will later
be devoted—was preceded in the eleventh and even tenth centuries by
numerous signs of Arabic influence in works of astronomy and astrology
and also by translations of Arabic authors. I was somewhat startled
when I first found works by Arabic authors and use of astronomical
terminology drawn from the Arabic in a manuscript of the eleventh
century in the British Museum[2787] and Wickersheimer was similarly
surprised at the traces of Arabic influence in a similar but still
earlier manuscript of the tenth century at Paris.[2788] Bubnov,
however, had already noted this Paris manuscript as a proof that Arabic
books were being translated into Latin in Gerbert’s time,[2789] and one
of Gerbert’s letters, written in 984 to a Lupitus of Barcelona (_Lupito
Barchinonensi_), asking him to send Gerbert a book on “astrology” which
he had translated, points in the same direction. In the present chapter
we shall discuss the contents of the early manuscripts just mentioned
and of some others which seem to have some connection either with
Gerbert or the introduction of Arabic astrology into Latin learning.
[Sidenote: A preface and twenty-one chapters on the astrolabe.]
In an eleventh century manuscript at Munich[2790] the astrological
work of Firmicus is preceded by writings in a different hand upon the
astrolabe. One of these, in its present state an anonymous fragment, is
a stilted and florid introduction to a translation from the Arabic of
a work on the astrolabe.[2791] Another is a treatise on the astrolabe
in twenty-one chapters and containing many Arabic names.[2792] Bubnov
lists three other copies of the introductory fragment, and they are
all in manuscripts where the second treatise is also included;[2793]
it, however, is often found in other manuscripts where the anonymous
fragment does not appear, and it must be admitted that its omission is
no great loss.
[Sidenote: Are they parts of one work?]
Although the fragment precedes the other treatise in only one
manuscript mentioned by Bubnov, there is reason to think that they
belong together, since both are concerned with the _Wazzalcora_ or
planisphere or _astrolapsus_ of Ptolemy, and since the plan outlined
by the writer of the introduction is followed in the treatise of
twenty-one chapters except that it ends incompletely. Bubnov recognized
this, yet did not unite them as a single work.[2794] In 984 Gerbert
wrote to a _Lupito Barchinonensi_ asking Lupitus to send him a work
on “astrology” which Lupitus had translated.[2795] If Lupitus was
of Barcelona, his translation was probably from the Arabic, and as
such translations were presumably not common in the tenth century, it
is natural to wonder if he may not be the above-mentioned anonymous
translator. This Bubnov suggested in the case of the introductory
fragment,[2796] but the treatise in twenty-one chapters he placed among
the doubtful works of Gerbert,[2797] because a monastic catalogue
composed before 1084 speaks of a work of Gerbert on the astrolabe,
while six manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
although none earlier to his knowledge, ascribe this very treatise
of twenty-one chapters to Gerbert. Bubnov believed that whoever the
author of the treatise in twenty-one chapters was, he had utilized
the full work of the anonymous translator. But this seems a rather
unnecessary refinement. For what has become of that translation? Why
is only its wordy and rhetorical preface extant? If the writer of the
twenty-one chapters destroyed its text after plagiarizing it, why did
he not also make away with the preface? It seems more plausible that
the twenty-one chapters are the original translation from the Arabic,
and that many makers of manuscripts have copied it alone and omitted
the wordy and rather worthless preface of the translator. If, as Bubnov
suggested, the treatise in twenty-one chapters is Gerbert’s revision
and polishing up of Lupitus’ translation,[2798] why did he not prefix a
new introduction of his own? And why should anyone try to polish up the
style of so rhetorical a writer as he who penned the extant anonymous
introduction?
[Sidenote: Their relation to Gerbert and the Arabic.]
If we accept this anonymous introduction as the preface to the
twenty-one chapters, Gerbert would be the most likely person to ascribe
both to, unless we argue that he could not make a translation from
the Arabic and that his letter asking to see a translation from the
Arabic by Lupitus is a proof of this. If Gerbert is not the author,
Lupitus would perhaps be the next most likely person, but the hint
contained in Gerbert’s letter is all that points to Lupitus, and indeed
the only mention that we have of him. If the translator is some third
unknown person, at least he is not later than the eleventh century.
If, on the other hand, we regard the introduction of the translator
and the twenty-one chapters as by different persons, who perhaps had
no connection with each other, and Gerbert’s letter of 984 as having
nothing to do with either, we have the more evidence of an early and
widespread interest in astronomy and knowledge of Arabic in the
western Latin learned world.
[Sidenote: Hermann’s _De mensura astrolabii_.]
One reason why the treatise on the astrolabe in twenty-one chapters
is so seldom found in the manuscripts preceded by the introduction of
the translator may be that it is more often found with and preceded
by another treatise on the astrolabe, sometimes entitled _De mensura
astrolabii_, and attributed to a Hermann who modestly calls himself
“the offscouring of Christ’s poor and the butt of mere tyros in
philosophy.”[2799] This treatise tells how to construct an astrolabe,
thus filling in the deficiency left by the incomplete ending of the
treatise in twenty-one chapters, which fails to carry out fully this
last item in the plan of the introductory fragment. A note in one
manuscript, reproduced in part by Macray in his catalogue of the Digby
Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, states that the treatise in
twenty-one chapters is by Gerbert and that when a certain Berengarius
read it, he found it told how to exercise the art but not to make the
instrument and asked Hermann to tell him how to make one. Hermann
therefore composed the work in question, dedicated it to Berengarius,
and prefixed it to Gerbert’s treatise.[2800] Of late there has been
a tendency to identify this Hermann with Hermann of Dalmatia, the
twelfth century translator from the Arabic,[2801] rather than with
Hermann the Lame, the chronicler, who died in 1054, but if Bubnov is
correct in dating two manuscripts[2802] containing Hermann’s treatise
on the astrolabe in the eleventh century, they could not be the work
of Hermann the translator of the next century.[2803] Moreover, in the
thirteenth century the treatise seems to have been regarded as the work
of Hermann the Lame.[2804] The author’s self-depreciatory description
of himself is also a mark of Hermann the Lame, who in another treatise
addressed to his friend Herrandus and discussing the length of a moon
calls himself “of Christ’s poor a vile abortion.”[2805]
[Sidenote: Attitude towards astrology in the preface.]
In the treatise of twenty-one chapters, which simply tells how to use
the astrolabe, there is naturally no reference to judicial astrology.
But in the introduction of the anonymous writer to his translation from
the Arabic of a work on the astrolabe there is mention of the influence
of the stars. Their “concord with all mundane creatures in all things”
is regarded as established by “secret institution of divinity and by
natural law” and testified to by scientists.[2806] Not only is the
effect of the moon on tides adduced as usual as an example, but God is
believed to have set the seal of His approval upon “this discipline,”
when He made miraculous use of the stars and heavens to mark the
birth and passion of His Son. The writer, however, stigmatizes as a
“frivolous superstition” the doctrine of the Chaldean _genethlialogi_,
“who account for the entire life of man by astrological reasons” and
“try to explain conceptions and nativities, character, prosperity and
adversity from the courses of the stars.” Something nevertheless is
to be conceded to them, provided all things are recognized as under
divine disposition. But their doctrine is an egg which is not to be
sucked unless rid of the bad odors of error.[2807] The translator urges
the importance of a knowledge of astronomy in determining the date of
church festivals and canonical hours. He cites Josephus concerning
Abraham’s instruction of the Egyptians in arithmetic and astronomy,
but regards Ptolemy as the most illustrious of all astronomers and the
astrolabe as the invention of his “divine mind.” The translator wishes
his readers to understand that he is offering them nothing new but only
reviving the discoveries of the past, and that he is simply presenting
what he finds in the Arabic.
[Sidenote: Question of Gerbert’s attitude toward astrology.]
If Gerbert could be shown to be the translator who wrote this
introduction, it would be a more valuable bit of evidence as to his
attitude toward astrology than anything that we have at present. His
surely genuine mathematical works, as edited by Bubnov, consist solely
of a short geometry and a few of his letters in which mathematical
topics, mainly the abacus, are touched upon. His contemporary and
disciple, the historian Richer, tells in the well-known passage[2808]
how Borellus, “the duke of Hither Spain,” took Gerbert as a youth
from the monastery at Aurillac in Auvergne back with him across the
Pyrenees and entrusted his education to Hatto, bishop of Vich, in
the north-eastern part of the peninsula. Whether Gerbert studied
Arabic or not Richer does not state. Since he is still described as
_adolescens_ when the duke and bishop take him with them to Italy and
leave him there with the pope, one would infer that he probably had
not engaged in the work of translation from the Arabic. Another almost
contemporary writer, alluding very briefly to Gerbert, makes him visit
Cordova, but is perhaps mistaken.[2809] Richer does, however, state
that Berbert especially studied _mathesis_, a word which, as various
medieval writers inform us, may mean either mathematics or divination.
Apparently Richer uses it in the former sense, for later he mentions
only Gerbert’s achievements in arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy.[2810] But Robert, king of France, 987-1031, whose teacher
Gerbert had been, seems to refer to him as “that master Neptanebus” in
some verses,[2811] a name which certainly suggests an astrologer, as
well as an instructor of royalty, if not also a magician.
[Sidenote: His posthumous reputation as a magician.]
But Gerbert’s reputation for magic seems to start with William of
Malmesbury in the first half of the twelfth century, who makes him flee
by night from his monastery to Spain to study “astrology” and other
arts with the Saracens, until he came to surpass Julius Firmicus in
his knowledge of fate. There too, according to William of Malmesbury,
“he learned what the song and flight of birds portend, to summon
ghostly figures from the lower world, and whatever human curiosity
has encompassed whether harmful or salutary.” William then adds some
more sober facts concerning Gerbert’s mathematical achievements and
associates.[2812] Michael Scot in his _Introduction to Astrology_ in
the early thirteenth century speaks of a master _Gilbertus_ who was
the best nigromancer in France and whom the demons obeyed in all that
he required of them day and night because of the great sacrifices
which he offered and his prayers and fastings and magic books and
great diversity of rings and candles. Having succeeded in borrowing
an astrolabe for a short time he made the demons explain its purpose,
how to operate it, and how to make another one. Later he reformed and
became bishop of Ravenna and pope.[2813] In a manuscript early in the
thirteenth century is a statement that Gerbert became archbishop and
pope by demon aid and had a spirit enclosed in a golden head whom
he consulted as to knotty problems in composing his commentary on
arithmetic. When the demon expounded a certain very difficult place
badly, Gerbert skipped it, and hence that unexplained passage is called
the _Saltus Gilberti_.[2814]
[Sidenote: An anonymous astronomical treatise; its possible relation to
Gerbert.]
In a manuscript in the Bodleian library which seems to have been
written early in the twelfth century[2815] is an astronomical treatise
in four books which Macray suggested might be the _Liber de planetis
et mundi climatibus_ which Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester from 963
to 984, is said to have composed.[2816] The present treatise indeed
embodies a _Letter of Ethelwold to Pope Gerbert_ on squaring the
circle.[2817] It seems, however, that this letter on squaring the
circle was really written by Adelbold, bishop of Utrecht from 1010
to 1027.[2818] Adelbold speaks of himself in the letter as a young
man[2819] and of course wrote it before Gerbert’s death in 1003, and
very probably before Gerbert became Pope Silvester II in 999. But he
could scarcely have written the letter early enough to have it included
in a work written by Ethelwold who died in 984. Our astronomical
treatise in four books is therefore not by Ethelwold, unless the
letter be a later interpolation, but it is possibly by Adelbold or by
Gerbert.[2820] Its opening words, “Quicumque mundane spere rationem et
astrorum legem ...,” are similar to those of the treatise on the uses
of the astrolabe which has often been ascribed to Gerbert, “Quicumque
astronomice peritiam discipline....”[2821]
[Sidenote: Contents of its first two books.]
Our treatise then may be by Gerbert or it may be a specimen of the
astronomy of the eleventh or early twelfth century. As it appears to be
little known and never to have been published, it may be well to give
a brief summary of its contents. An introductory paragraph outlines
some of the chief points with which the treatise will be concerned,
such as the twelve signs of the zodiac, their positions, “most varied
qualities,” the reasons for their names, and the diverse opinions of
gentile philosophers and Catholics as to their significations; the
four elements; and the seven planets. In the text which follows, these
topics are considered in rather the reverse order to that in which they
were named in the preface. After some discussion of “the founders of
astronomy and the doctors of astrology,” the first book is occupied
with a description of the sphere or heavens. The second book is largely
geographical, beginning with the question of the size of the earth, the
zones, the ocean, and how to draw a T map. This geographical digression
the author justifies in the prologue to his third book by the statement
that often the position of the stars can be determined from the
location of countries, and that if the habitat of peoples is known one
can more easily arrive at the effect of the stars.[2822]
[Sidenote: Attitude towards astrology.]
This suggests that the author believes in astrological influence,
and in the two following books he states a number of astrological
doctrines, not, however, as his own convictions but as the opinions
of the _genethliaci_ or astrologers, or “those who will have it that
prosperity and adversity in human life are due to these stars.”[2823]
On the other hand, he seldom subjects the astrologers to any adverse
criticism. Indeed, early in the third book, he states that the
belief of the _genethliaci_ that human wealth and honors, poverty
and obscurity, depend upon the stars, pertains to another subject
than that which he is at present discussing; namely, prognostication,
concerning which he will treat fully in later chapters. But I cannot
see that he fulfills this promise in the present manuscript, which
seems to end rather abruptly,[2824] so that possibly there is something
missing. In the previous passage, however, he immediately proceeded
to admit that the sun and moon greatly affect our life and to tell
further how it is connected with the other five planets. In the star of
Saturn the soul is said to busy itself especially with reasoning and
intelligence, logic and theory. Jupiter is practical and represents
the power of action. Mars signifies animosity; Venus, desire; Mercury,
interpretation. Men have proved the moon’s moist influence by sleeping
out-of-doors and finding that more humor collected in their heads
when they slept in the moonlight than when they did not.[2825] After
mentioning the twelve signs, “through which the aforesaid planets
revolving exert varied influences, and even, according to the
_genethliaci_, make a good man in some nativities and a bad man in
others,”[2826] the author goes on to tell which signs are masculine
and which are feminine, to relate them to the four cardinal points and
to the four elements, to define the twenty-eight mansions and their
distribution among the twelve signs and seven planets,[2827] and to
tell how the planets differ in quality.[2828] All this is providing at
least the basis for astrological prediction.
[Sidenote: The fourth book.]
The fourth book of the treatise is mainly taken up with descriptions
and figures of the constellations, concerning which the author often
repeats the fables of antiquity. After discussing the six ages of the
world, the author intended to insert a figure on what is the next to
last page of the present text to show “the harmony of the elements,
climates of the sky, times of the year, and humors of the human
body,” for, as he goes on to say, man is called a microcosm by the
philosophers. This missing figure or figures would have been analogous
to those which Wickersheimer investigated in the early medieval
manuscripts in the libraries of France.
[Sidenote: Citations: Arabic names.]
Our author does not make many citations, but among them are
Eratosthenes,[2829] Aratus, Ptolemy, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella.
Some of these authors are perhaps known to him only indirectly, and
he seems to make use of Isidore and Pliny without mentioning them. He
shows, however, an acquaintance with foreign languages, listing the
seven heavens as “oleth, lothen, ethat, edim, eliyd, hachim, atarpha,”
and giving Greek, Hebrew, and “Saracen” names for the seven planets, as
well as a “Similitudo,” or corresponding metal, and “Interpretatio,”
or quality such as “Obscurus, Clarus, Igneus.”[2830] He also gives the
Arabic names for the twenty-eight mansions into which the circle of
the zodiac subdivides.[2831] We now turn to another treatise, found in
tenth and eleventh century manuscripts, in which Arabian influence is
apparent.
[Sidenote: The _Mathematica_ of Alchandrus or Alhandreus.]
William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of the twelfth century
concerning Gerbert’s studies in Spain, says, probably with a great
deal of exaggeration, that Gerbert surpassed Ptolemy in his knowledge
of the astrolabe, Alandraeus in his knowledge of the distances between
the stars, and Julius Firmicus in his knowledge of fate.[2832] It is
rather remarkable that a work ascribed to Alhandreus or Alcandrus,
“supreme astrologer,” should be found in two manuscripts of the
eleventh century[2833] in both of which occurs also the work on the
astrolabe which is perhaps by Gerbert, while in one is found also the
_Mathesis_ of Julius Firmicus Maternus. Alchadrinus or Archandrinus is
cited in Michael Scot’s long _Introduction to Astrology_ as the author
of a “book of fortune making mention of the three _facies_ of the
signs and the planets ruling in them,” and Michael adds that a similar
method of divination is employed in general among the Arabs and Indians
as can be seen in the streets and alleys of Messina where “learned
women” answer the questions of merchants.[2834] Peter of Abano in his
_Lucidator astronomiae_,[2835] written in 1310, mentions Alchandrus as
a successor of Hermes Trismegistus in the science of astronomy but as
flourishing before the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Alchandrus was probably
scarcely as ancient as that, but the treatise ascribed to him also
exists in Latin in a manuscript of the tenth century,[2836] and seems
to be a translation from the Arabic. In any case it is full of Arabic
and Hebrew words, and professes to cite the opinions of Egyptians,
Ishmaelites, and Chaldeans in general as well as those of Ascalu the
Ishmaelite and Arfarfan or Argafalan or Argafalaus[2837] the Chaldean
in particular. Since the name Alchandrus or Alhandreus is found so
far as I know in no historian or bibliographer of Arabian literature
or learning,[2838] we shall treat somewhat fully of the work and its
author here.
[Sidenote: An account of its contents.]
The “Mathematic of Alhandreus, supreme astrologer,” as it is entitled
in one manuscript, opens somewhat abruptly with a terse statement of
the qualities of the planets. Two estimates of the number of years
between creation and the birth of Christ are then given, one “according
to the Hebrews,” the other “according to others.”[2839] There follow
letters of the Greek alphabet with Roman numerals expressing their
respective numerical values, perhaps for future reference in connection
with some sphere of life or death. Next is considered the division of
the zodiac into twelve signs for which Hebrew as well as Latin names
are given. The movements of the planets through the signs are then
discussed, and it is explained in the usual astrological style that
Leo is the house of the sun, Cancer of the moon, while two signs are
assigned to each of the other five planets. Every planet is erect in
some one sign and falls in its opposite, and any planet is friendly
to another in whose house it is erect and hostile to another in
whose house it declines. Presently the author treats of “the order
of the planets according to nature and their names according to the
Hebrews,”[2840] and then of their sex and courses, which last leads to
considerable digressions anent the solar and lunar calendars.[2841]
Then the twelve signs are related to the four “climates” and elements.
[Sidenote: Astrological doctrine.]
All this implies a favorable attitude to astrology, and the author has
already expressed his conviction more than once that human affairs are
disposed by the seven planets according to the will of God.[2842] Since
man like the world is composed of the four elements it is no false
opinion which persuades us that under God’s government human affairs
are principally regulated by the celestial bodies.[2843] To make this
plainer the author proposes to insert an astrological figure “which
Alexander of Macedon composed most diligently,” and which presumably
would have been of the microcosmus or Melothesia type, but the space
for it remains blank in the manuscript. Next comes a paragraph on the
sex of the signs and their rising and setting, and then lists of the
hours of the day and night governed by the signs and by each planet for
all the days of the week.[2844]
[Sidenote: Nativities and name-calculations.]
Then we read, “These are the twenty-eight principal parts or stars
(i.e. constellations) through which the fates of all are disposed and
pronounced indubitably, future as well as present. Anyone may with
diligence forecast goings and returnings, origins and endings, by the
most agreeable aid of these horoscopes.”[2845] These twenty-eight parts
are of course the sub-divisions of the zodiac into mansions of the sun
or moon which we have already encountered, and Arabic names are given
for them beginning with _Alnait_, the first part of the sign Aries.
First, however, we are instructed how to determine under which one of
them anyone was born by a numerical calculation of the value of his
name and that of his natural mother similar to that of the spheres of
life and death except that it is based upon Hebrew instead of Greek
letters.[2846] Then follow statements of the sort of men who are born
under each of the twenty-eight mansions, their physical, mental, and
moral characteristics, and any especial marks upon the body,—either
birth-marks or inflicted subsequently by such means as hot irons
and dog-bite,—their health or sickness, term of life, and manner of
death,—which in the case of Alnait, the first mansion, will be “by the
machinations or imaginations of the magic arts.”[2847] Also the number
of their children is roughly predicted.
[Sidenote: Interrogations and more name-calculations.]
Next is discussed the course of the planets through the signs,
the houses of the planets, and their positions in the signs at
creation.[2848] The author then turns to the influence of the planets
upon men and gives another method of numerical calculation of a man’s
name in order to determine which planet he is under.[2849] Under
the heading “Excerpts from the books of Alexander, the astrologer
king,”[2850] directions are given for the recovery of lost or stolen
articles and descriptions of the thief are provided for the hour of
each planet. The letter of Argafalaus to Alexander instructs how to
read men’s secret thoughts as Plato the Philosopher used to do, and
how to tell what is hidden in a person’s hand by means of the hours
of the planets.[2851] After some further discussion of astrological
interrogations the manuscript at the British Museum closes with the
Breviary of Alhandreus, supreme astrologer[2852], for learning anything
unknown by a method of computation from Hebrew and Arabic letters.
[Sidenote: Alchandrus or Alhandreus not the same as Alexander.]
Someone may wonder if the names Alhandreus and Alchandrus may not be
mere corruptions of Alexander who is cited and quoted even more than
has yet been indicated[2853], and if some careless head-line writer has
not inserted the name _Alchandri_ or _Alhandrei_ instead of _Alexandri_
in the _Titulus_. But this would leave the statements of William of
Malmesbury and of Peter of Abano to be explained away. Or, if it is
argued that the name of Alhandreus should be attached only to the
Breviary, it must be remembered that in the earliest manuscript, which
does not contain the Breviary, the treatise is none the less called the
Book of Alchandreus. As a matter of fact there is found also in the
manuscripts a “Mathematica Alexandri summi astrologi,”[2854] but while
the title is the same, the contents are different from the “Mathematica
Alhandrei summi astrologi.”
However, the treatise itself is found together with the _Mathematica
Alhandrei_ in a tenth century manuscript.[2855] But no author is
mentioned, and instead of _Mathematica_ the title reads “Incipiunt
proportiones cppfcfntfs knkstrprx indxstrkb,” which may be deciphered
as “Incipiunt proportiones competentes in astrorum industria.”[2856]
Possibly therefore this treatise is a part of the work of Alchander,
and the title _Mathematica Alexandri_ is an error for _Mathematica
Alhandrei_.
[Sidenote: Alkandrinus or Alchandrinus on nativities according to the
mansions of the moon.]
Moreover, in later manuscripts we encounter authors with names very
similar to Alchandrus and works by them of the same sort as that we
have just considered. In a fifteenth century manuscript at Oxford we
find ascribed to Alkandrinus an account of the types of men born in
each of the twenty-eight mansions of the moon[2857] such as we have
seen formed a part of the _Mathematica Alhandrei_. And in a fifteenth
century manuscript at Paris occurs under the name of Alchandrinus what
seems to be a Christian revision of that same part of the _Mathematica
Alhandrei_.[2858] What appears to be another revision and working over
of this same discussion of nativities according to the twenty-eight
mansions of the moon[2859] appeared in print a number of times in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in French and English
translations as well as Latin. The author’s name in these printed
editions is usually given as Arcandam, but the English edition of 1626
adds “or Alchandrin.”[2860]
[Sidenote: Albandinus.]
Two other manuscripts at Paris[2861] contain under the name of
Albandinus a “book of similitudes of the sons of Adam, fortunate and
unfortunate, of life or death, according to nations, that is, their
nativities according to the twelve signs.” The treatise opens with
a method of calculating a person’s nativity from the letters in his
own and his mother’s name similar to that which occurs in the course
of the _Mathematica Alhandrei_, but then applies it directly to the
twelve signs rather than to the twenty-eight mansions of the moon.
It also does not bother with the Hebrew alphabet but gives numerical
equivalents directly for the Latin letters. Some treatise by Albandinus
on sickness and the signs in a manuscript at Munich[2862] is perhaps
identical with the foregoing.
[Sidenote: Geomancy of Alkardianus or Alchandiandus.]
To an Alkardianus or Alchandiandus is ascribed a geomancy,[2863] and
since it also is arranged according to the twenty-eight divisions of
the zodiac with 28 judges and 28 chapters each consisting of 28 lines
in answer to as many questions, it would seem almost certain that it is
by the same author who treated of the influences of the 28 houses or
_facies_ of the twelve signs upon those born under them. Moreover, this
Alkardianus or Alchandiandus states in his preface that he has composed
certain books on the dispositions of the signs and the courses of the
planets and on prediction of the future from them. “But since moderns
always rejoice in brevity,” he has added this handy and rapid geomantic
means of answering questions and ascertaining the decrees of the stars.
The 28 tables of 28 lines each of this Alkardianus or Alchandiandus are
identical with one of the two such sets[2864] commonly included in the
_Experimentarius_[2865] of Bernard Silvester, a work of geomancy which
he is said to have translated from the Arabic.[2866] He lived in the
twelfth century and will be the subject of one of our later chapters.
[Sidenote: An anonymous treatise or fragment of the tenth century.]
It still remains to speak of a portion of our tenth century
manuscript at Paris which begins, after the book of Alchandrus seems
to have concluded, with the words, “Quicunque nosse desiderat legem
astrorum....”[2867] This _Incipit_ is so similar to that of the
twenty-one chapters on the astrolabe, “Quicumque astronomiam peritiam
disciplinae ...” and to that of the four books of astronomy, “Quicumque
mundane spere rationem et astrorum,” that one is tempted to imply some
relation between them, and, in view of the tenth century date of the
one at present in question, to connect it like the others with the name
of Gerbert. Our present treatise or fragment of a treatise is largely
astrological in character, “following for the present the wisdom of
the _mathematici_ who think that mundane affairs are carried on under
the rule of the constellations.” This refusal to accept personal
responsibility for astrological doctrine is similar to the attitude of
the author of the four books of astronomy, so that perhaps the present
text is the missing fragment required to fulfil his promise to treat of
the subject of prognostication in later chapters. If so it indulges in
some repetition, as it goes into the relations existing between signs,
planets, and elements, and gives the “Saracen” names[2868] for the
twenty-eight mansions of the moon. It includes a way to detect theft
for each planet and a method of determining if a patient will recover
by computation of the numerical value of the letters in his name. These
features are suggestive of the _Mathematical_ of Alchandrus.
CHAPTER XXXI
ANGLO-SAXON, SALERNITAN, AND OTHER LATIN MEDICINE IN MANUSCRIPTS FROM
THE NINTH TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Plan of this chapter—Instances of early medieval additions to
ancient medicine—_Leech-Book of Bald and Cild_—Magical procedure and
incantations—A superstitious compound—Summary—Cauterization—Treatment
of demoniacs—Incantations and characters—In a twelfth century
manuscript—Magic with a split hazel rod—More incantations and the
virtues of a vulture—_Lots of the saints_—Superstitious veterinary
and medical practice—Two Paris manuscripts—Blood-letting—Resemblances
to Egerton 821—Virtues of blood—Pious incantations and magical
procedure—More superstitious veterinary practice—The School of
Salerno—Was Salernitan medicine free from superstition?—The _Practica_
of Petrocellus—Its sources—Fourfold origin of medicine—Therapeutics of
Petrocellus—The _Regimen Salernitanum_—Its superstition—The _Practica_
of Archimatthaeus—A Salernitan treatise of about 1200—The wives of
Salerno.
[Sidenote: Plan of this chapter.]
In this chapter our purpose is to treat of early medieval medicine
as distinct on the one hand from post-classical medicine, to which
we have already devoted a chapter, and on the other hand from later
medieval medicine as affected by translations from the Arabic and other
oriental influence. Perhaps one of the outcomes of our discussion will
be to suggest that any such distinctions cannot be at all sharply or
chronologically drawn. However, the writings which we shall discuss
now are contained mainly in manuscripts dating from the ninth to the
twelfth century, although some of them may have been first composed
at an earlier date than that of the manuscript in which they chance
to be preserved. Some are in Anglo-Saxon; more, in Latin. Some it has
been customary to classify under the caption of Salernitan. We shall
postpone until the next chapter our consideration of Constantinus
Africanus, although the dates of his life fall within the eleventh
century, because he already at that early date represents the
introduction of Arabic medicine to the western world.
[Sidenote: Instances of early medieval additions to ancient medicine.]
A good instance of the working over by men of the early medieval
period of the medical writings of the late Roman period is provided
by a manuscript of the ninth or tenth century at Berlin.[2869] It
now consists of a number of fragments whose original order can no
longer be determined. These are made up of extracts from different
sources or from other collections, but the collection also bears the
mark of its last compiler who has introduced new remedies of his own
and words derived from the vernacular of his day. Even extracts on
fevers taken from the old Latin adaptation of Galen[2870] are added to
by some Christian physician, who introduces among other things some
incantations, such as, “I adjure you, spots, that you go away and
recede from and be destroyed from the eye of the servant of God.”[2871]
The manuscript also comprises more than one tract on how dreams or the
fate of the patient or child born can be foretold from the day of the
moon.[2872] Another tract[2873] tells how God made the first man out of
eight parts, of which the first was the mud of the earth and the last
the light of the world. This would seem to be rather a novel departure
from the usual four element theory but perhaps involves ancient Gnostic
error. The author further argues that individual divergences of
character depend upon the preponderance of one or another of the eight
constituents of the body.
[Sidenote: _Leech-Book of Bald and Cild._]
The Anglo-Saxon _Leech-Book of Bald and Cild_[2874] has been called
“the first medical treatise written in western Europe which can be
said to belong to modern history.”[2875] It was produced in the tenth
century. However, it extracts a good deal from late Greek medical
writers, such as Paul of Aegina and Alexander of Tralles, and cites
Pliny, “the mickle leech,” for the cure of baldness by application of
dead bees burnt to ashes,[2876] a remedy also found in the _Euporista_
ascribed to Galen. On the whole, however, it uses parts of animals
somewhat less than Pliny, although sometimes a powdered earthworm is
recommended, or a man stung by an adder is to drink holy water in which
a black snail has been washed, or the bite of a viper is to be smeared
with ear-wax while thrice repeating “the prayer of Saint John.”[2877]
And a man about to engage in combat is advised to eat swallow nestlings
boiled in wine.[2878] Herbs are as useful against a woman’s tongue as
birds against a foeman’s steel, for we are told: “Against a woman’s
chatter; taste at night fasting a root of radish; that day the chatter
cannot harm thee.”[2879] There are directions for plucking herbs
similar to those in Pliny,[2880] and the significance which he ascribed
to cart ruts is paralleled by the injunction, after one has treated
a venomous bite by striking five scarifications, one on the bite and
four around it, to “throw the blood with a spoon silently over a wagon
way.”[2881] Eight virtues of the stone agate are enumerated.[2882]
[Sidenote: Magical procedure and incantations.]
Not only such occult virtues of animals, vegetables, and minerals,
but also magical procedure and incantations abound in the work. In a
prescription “for flying venom and every venomous swelling” butter is
to be churned on a Friday from the milk of a “neat or hind all of one
color,” and a litany, paternoster, and incantation of strange words are
to be repeated nine times each.[2883] A great deal of superstitious
use is made of such Christian symbols, names, and forms of prayer
as the sign of the cross, the names of the four evangelists, and
masses, psalms, and exorcisms. Fear of witchcraft and enchantment
is manifested, and the ills both of man and beast are frequently
attributed to evil spirits. “A drink for a fiend-sick man” is on one
occasion “to be drunk out of a church bell,” with the accompaniment
of much additional ecclesiastical hocus-pocus.[2884] “If a horse is
elf-shot, then take the knife of which the haft is horn of a fallow
ox, and on which are three brass nails. Then write upon the horse’s
forehead Christ’s mark, and on each of the limbs which thou may feel
at. Then take the left ear; prick a hole in it in silence. This thou
shalt do; then take a yerd, strike the horse on the back, then it will
be whole. And write upon the horn of the knife these words, _Benedicite
omnia opera domini dominum_. Be the elf what it may, this is mighty for
him to amends.”[2885]
[Sidenote: A superstitious compound.]
Neither Bald and Cild nor their continuator shared Pliny’s prejudice
against compound medicines. In the third book by the continuator is
described “a salve against the elfin race and nocturnal visitors, and
for women with whom the devil hath carnal commerce.” One takes the ewe
hop plant, wormwood, bishopwort, lupin, ashthroat, henbane, harewort,
viper’s bugloss, heatherberry plants, cropleek, garlic, grains of
hedgerife, githrife, and fennel. These herbs are put in a vessel and
placed beneath the altar where nine masses are sung over them. They
are then boiled in butter and mutton fat; much holy salt is added; the
salve is strained through a cloth; and what remains of the worts is
thrown into running water. The patient’s forehead and eyes are to be
smeared with this ointment and he is further to be censed with incense
and signed often with the sign of the cross.[2886]
[Sidenote: Summary.]
The “modern” character of Bald’s and Cild’s book cannot be said to
have produced any diminution of superstition as against the writings
of antiquity. But we do find native herbs introduced, also popular
medicine, and probably a considerable amount of Teutonic and perhaps
also Celtic folk-lore, which, however, has been more or less
Christianized. Indeed the connection between medicine and religion is
remarkably close.
[Sidenote: Cauterization.]
The medicine of this period may be further illustrated by two Latin
manuscripts of the eleventh century in the Sloane collection of the
British Museum.[2887] One contains a brief treatise which illustrates
the common tendency at that time to employ cauterization not only for
surgical purposes in connection with wounds, but as a medical means of
giving relief to internal diseases and trivial complaints with which
cauterization could have no connection. That the practice was very
largely a superstition is further evident from the fact that one part
of the body often was cauterized for a complaint in another or opposite
portion or member. In the present example, under the alluring names of
Apollonius and Galen as professed authors,[2888] are presented a series
of human figures showing where the cautery should be applied. These
pictures of naked patients marked all over their anatomy with spots
where the red-hot iron should be applied, or submitting with smiling or
wry faces to its actual administration in the most tender places, are
both amusing and, when we reflect that this useless pain was actually
repeatedly inflicted through long centuries, pathetic.[2889]
[Sidenote: Treatment of demoniacs.]
In a general and much longer work on diseases and their remedies which
follows in the same manuscript and which is professedly compiled from
Hippocrates, Galen, and Apollonius, the treatment prescribed for
demoniacs,[2890] who, it states, are in Greek called _epilemptici_
(epileptics), includes among other things vaporization between the
shoulder blades with various mixtures, scarification and bleeding,
application of leeches to the “stomach where you ought not to operate
with iron,”[2891] shaving and “imbrocating”[2892] the scalp, and
anointing the hands and feet with oil. Both our manuscripts contain
recipes for expelling or routing demons.[2893] For this purpose such
substances are employed as the stone _gagates_ and holy water, and
elsewhere the usual confidence is reposed in the virtues of herbs and
such parts of animals as the liver of a vulture.
[Sidenote: Incantations and characters.]
In one of the manuscripts is a treatise in which much use is made of
incantations and characters. There are prayers to “Lord Jesus and Holy
Mary” to heal the sick, while characters, sometimes engraved upon lead
plates, are employed not only for medical purposes, but to prevent
women from conceiving, to make fruit trees bear well, and against
enemies.[2894] Later on in the manuscript instructions for plucking a
medicinal herb include facing east and reciting a paternoster.[2895]
[Sidenote: In a twelfth century manuscript.]
The twelfth century portion of this same manuscript consists mainly of
a long medical medley with no definitely marked beginning or ending but
apparently originally in five books.[2896] Towards its close occur a
number of incantations and characters quite in the style of Marcellus
Empiricus.[2897] Indeed, “a marvelous charm” for toothache is an exact
copy of his instructions to repeat seven times in a waning moon on
Tuesday or Thursday an incantation beginning, “Aridam, margidam,
sturgidam.”[2898] To make all his enemies fear him a man should gather
the herb verbena on a Thursday, repeating seven times a formula in
which the plant is personally addressed and the desire expressed to
triumph over all foes as the verbena conquers winds and rains, hail and
storms.[2899] If here the influence of pagan religion is still present,
many of the incantations are in Christian form and expressed in the
name of God or the Father. To find a thief characters are employed
together with the incantation, “Abraham bound, Isaac held, Jacob
brought back to the house.”[2900] A charm against fever opens, “Christ
was born and suffered; Christ Jesus rose from the dead and ascended
unto heaven; Christ will come at the day of judgment. Christ says,
According to your faith it shall be done.” Then the sign of the cross
is employed and “sacred words,” which seem, however, to include not
only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but Maximianus, Dionysius, John,
Serapion, and Constantinus. As we have to do with a twelfth century
manuscript the last two names might be presumed to have reference to
the medical writers of the eleventh century, but another manuscript
which contains a similar incantation states that they are the names
of the seven sleepers.[2901] Our charm then continues “In the name
of Christ” and with a prayer to God to free from sickness anyone who
“bears this writing in Thy name.”[2902]
[Sidenote: Magic with a split hazel rod.]
In the same work occurs the earliest instance of which I am aware
of the magical “experiment” with a split rod and an incantation, to
which we shall hear William of Auvergne, Albertus Magnus, John of St.
Amand, and Roger Bacon refer in the thirteenth century. A rod of four
cubits length is to be cut with repetition of the Lord’s Prayer. It
is to be split, and the two halves are to be held apart at the ends
by two men. Then, making the sign of the cross, one should repeat the
following incantation, “Ellum sat upon ella and held a green rod in his
hand and said, Rod of green reunite again,”[2903] together with the
Lord’s Prayer until the two split halves bend together in the middle.
One then seizes them in one’s fist at the junction point, cuts off the
rest of the rods, and makes magic use of the section remaining in one’s
grasp.[2904]
[Sidenote: More incantations and the virtues of a vulture.]
Another manuscript of the twelfth century[2905] contains many similar
charms, incantations, prayers, and characters for healing purposes.
One formula employed is, “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ
commands.” In cases of miscarriage a drink of verbena is recommended
and repetition of the following incantation with three Paternosters,
“Saisa, laisa, relaisa, because so Saint Mary did when she bore the
Son of God.” Presently a paragraph opens with the assertion that the
human race does not know how great virtue the vulture[2906] possesses
and how much it improves health. But certain ceremonial directions
must be observed in making use of it. The bird should be killed in the
very hour in which it is caught and with a sharp reed rather than a
sword. Before beheading it, one should utter an incantation containing
such names as Adonai and Abraam. Various healing virtues appertain
to the different parts of its carcass, although here again there are
instructions to be observed. The bones of its head should be bound in
hyena skin; its eyes should be suspended from the neck in wolf’s skin.
Binding its wings on the left foot of a woman struggling in child-birth
produces a quick delivery. One who wears its tongue will receive the
adoration of all his enemies; if one has its heart bound in the skin of
a lion or wolf, all demons will avoid one and robbers will only worship
one. Its gall taken in quite a mixture cures epileptics and lunatics;
its lung in another compound cures fevers; and so on.
[Sidenote: _Lots of the saints._]
There follow _Sortes sanctorum_, introduced by a page and a half of
prayers of this tenor, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask
Father and Son and Holy Ghost, Three and One; we ask Saint Mary, the
mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; we ask the nine orders of angels;
we ask the whole chorus of patriarchs; we ask the whole chorus of
apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, and the whole chorus of
God’s faithful that they deign to reveal to us these lots which we
seek, and that no seduction of the devil may deceive us.” The treatise
closes, “These are the lots of the saints which never fail; so ask God
and obtain what you desire.”
[Sidenote: Superstitious veterinary and medical practice.]
The next items in the manuscript are some cases of superstitious
veterinary practice, with such pious incantations as “May God who saved
the thief on the cross save this beast!”[2907] and with instructions
concerning the religious invocations and written characters to be
employed in blessing the food and salt to be given to domestic animals
in order to keep them in good health. Characters are also mentioned
which will prevent the blood of a pig from flowing when it is
slaughtered, provided they are bound upon the breast or are written on
the knife with which the pig is to be stuck.[2908] Holy water and bread
that has been blessed are used for medical purposes and instructions
are given on what days medicinal herbs should be gathered. The prayers
employed are usually put in Christian form, but one for the cure of
toothache has slipped by at least partially uncensored. It opens with
the words “O lady Moon, free me....”[2909]
[Sidenote: Two Paris manuscripts.]
If we turn from medical manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries in the British Museum to those of the Bibliothèque Nationale,
we find the same occurrence of superstitious passages. In an eleventh
century codex which contains parts of the medical work of Celsus and
the _De dinamidis_ of Galen are also found prayers to God for the
medicinal aid of the angel Raphael against the treacherous attacks of
the demons, a work on the virtues of stones which has much to say of
their marvelous properties, and figures and text concerning the twelve
signs of the zodiac and twelve winds.[2910] Much more superstitious,
however, is an anonymous treatise occupying the first ten leaves of a
twelfth century manuscript[2911] which is apparently of German origin
from the number of German words and phrases introduced near its close.
This treatise is followed in the manuscript by the works of Notker,
Hermann the Lame, and others on _computus_ and the astrolabe.
[Sidenote: Blood-letting.]
After discussing the effect of food upon health, listing potions of
herbs to be drunk in each month of the year,[2912] treating of the
veins and of the four winds, four seasons, and four humors, and the
relations existing between the two last-named, the author enumerates
the many advantages of blood-letting in a long passage which is worth
quoting in part. “It contains the beginning of health, it makes the
mind sincere, it aids the memory, it purges the brain, it reforms the
bladder, it warms the marrow, it opens the hearing, it checks tears,
it removes nausea, it benefits the stomach, it invites digestion, it
evokes the voice, it builds up the sense, it moves the bowels, it
enriches sleep, it removes anxiety, it nourishes good health ...”:
and so on. The operation of bleeding should not be performed on the
tenth, fifteenth, twenty-fifth, or thirtieth day of the moon, nor
should a potion be taken then. The Egyptian days and dog-days are to be
similarly observed. The hours of the day when each humor predominates
are then given.
[Sidenote: Resemblances to Egerton 821.]
There then is introduced rather abruptly an account of the medicinal
virtues of the vulture almost identical with that in the British Museum
manuscript. Once again, too, herbs are to be plucked with repetition of
the Lord’s Prayer.[2913] The use of characters to prevent a slaughtered
pig from bleeding is introduced somewhat otherwise than in the other
manuscript. Having first recommended as a cure for human sufferers from
flux of blood the binding about the abdomen of a parchment inscribed
with the characters in question, the author adds, “And if you don’t
believe it, write them on a knife and kill a pig with it, and you will
see no blood flow from the wound.”[2914]
[Sidenote: Virtues of blood.]
Considerable medicinal use is made of blood in this treatise. For
cataract is recommended instilling in the eye the blood which flows
from a certain worm (_oudehsam?_) when “you cut it in two near the
tail.”[2915] To break the stone one employs goat’s blood caught in
a glass vessel in a waning moon and dried eight days in the sun
together with the pulverized skin of a rabbit caught in a waning moon
and roasted over marble. These are to be mixed in wine and given
in the name of the Lord to the patient to drink while he is in the
bath.[2916] Another remedy consists of three drops of the milk of a
woman nursing a male child given in a raw egg to the patient without
his knowledge.[2917]
[Sidenote: Pious incantations and magical procedure.]
The work abounds in characters and in incantations which consist either
of seemingly meaningless words or of Biblical phrases and allusions.
These are very much like those in the manuscripts already considered
and are often accompanied by elaborate procedure. For example, the
prayer, “O Lord, spare your servant N., so that chastised with deserved
stripes he may rest in your mercy,” is to be written on five holy
wafers which are then to be placed on the five wounds of a figure of
Christ on a crucifix. The patient is to approach barefoot, eat the
wafers, and say: “Almighty God, who saved all the human race, save
me and free me from these fevers and from all my languors. By God
Christ was announced, and Christ was born, and Christ was wrapped
in swaddling clothes, and Christ was placed in a manger, and Christ
was circumcised, and Christ was adored by the Magi, and Christ was
baptized, and Christ was tempted, and Christ was betrayed, and Christ
was flogged, and Christ was spat upon, and Christ was given gall and
vinegar to drink, and Christ was pierced with a lance, and Christ was
crucified, and Christ died, and Christ was buried, and Christ rose
again, and Christ ascended unto heaven. In the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Jesus, rising from the synagogue,
entered the house of Simon. Moreover, Simon’s daughter was sick with
a high fever. And they entreated Him on her behalf. And standing over
her He commanded the fever and it departed.”[2918] To cure epilepsy an
interesting combination of scriptural incantation and rather unusual
magic procedure is recommended. Before the attack comes on, the words
of the Gospel of Matthew, “Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert;
and angels came and ministered unto Him,” are to be written on a wooden
tablet with some black substance which will wash off readily. Then,
when the fit comes on, this writing is to be washed off into a vessel
with still water and given to the patient to drink in the name of
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. “If you do this three times, God helping
the patient will be cured.”[2919]
[Sidenote: More superstitious veterinary practice.]
Our manuscript further resembles Egerton 821 of the British Museum in
containing remedies for beast as well as man. If a horse suffers from
over-eating, one should learn his name and procure some hazel rods.
Then one is to whisper in his right ear an incantation consisting of
outlandish words accompanied by the Lord’s Prayer, and is to bind his
thighs and feet with the rods. This ceremony, too, is to be repeated
thrice.[2920]
[Sidenote: The School of Salerno.]
We now come to the consideration of treatises supposed to have been
produced by the school of medicine at Salerno. But not only are the
origins of the so-called School of Salerno “veiled in impenetrable
obscurity,”[2921] much of its later history is scarcely less uncertain,
and it is no easy matter to say what men and what writings may be
properly called Salernitan, or when they lived or were composed.
The manuscripts of Salernitan writings seem to have been found more
frequently north of the Alps than in Italian libraries. It would
perhaps be carrying scepticism too far to doubt if medicine developed
much earlier or more rapidly at Salerno than elsewhere, since it seems
certain that the town was famous for its physicians at an early date,
and that we have medical writings of Salernitans produced in the early
eleventh century. But one is inclined to view with some scepticism the
assumption of historians of medicine[2922] that the word Salernitan
represents a separate body of doctrine, or of method in practice,
which may be sharply distinguished from Arabic medicine or from later
medieval medicine as affected by Arabic influence. Rather the medical
literature and practice of Salerno is an integral and scarcely
distinguishable part of medieval medicine as a whole. Many Salernitan
treatises themselves belong to the later medieval period, and very
few of them can be shown to antedate Constantinus Africanus, whose
translations seem to mark the beginning of Arabic influence. And on the
other hand there are equally early medieval medical treatises, such as
those we have hitherto been considering, which are not Salernitan and
yet show no sign of Arabic influence. Thus the word Salernitan cannot
accurately be identified with a first period of medieval Latin medicine
based upon early or Neo-Latin translations of Greek medical authors
and upon independent medical practice. Such activity was not confined
to Salerno. But if we so employ the word Salernitan for a moment,
there seems no reason for thinking that such a development would be
very different from the Arabic and Byzantine continuations of Greek
medicine. A place so open to Saracen and Byzantine influence as the
coast of southern Italy is hardly the spot where we should look for a
totally distinct medical development, and the influence of Celtic and
Teutonic folk-lore upon medical practice would presumably be more felt
north of the Alps. And it is to Salerno that Constantinus Africanus,
the earliest known importer of Arabic medicine, comes.
[Sidenote: Was Salernitan medicine free from superstition?]