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[Illustration: Philosophers on Mount Olympus.]
MEDIAEVAL LORE FROM BARTHOLOMEW ANGLICUS
BY ROBERT STEELE
WITH PREFACE BY WILLIAM MORRIS
"WHEN HOLY WERE THE HAUNTED FOREST BOUGHS,
HOLY THE AIR, THE WATER, AND THE FIRE."
KEATS.
PREFACE
It is not long since the Middle Ages, of the literature of which this
book gives us such curious examples, were supposed to be an
unaccountable phenomenon accidentally thrust in betwixt the two
periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a
period without growth or meaning--a period which began about the time
of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more or less
unaccountably, at the time of the Reformation. The society of this
period was supposed to be lawless and chaotic; its ethics a mere
conscious hypocrisy; its art gloomy and barbarous fanaticism only; its
literature the formless jargon of savages; and as to its science, that
side of human intelligence was supposed to be an invention of the time
when the Middle Ages had been dead two hundred years.
The light which the researches of modern historians, archaeologists,
bibliographers, and others, have let in on our view of the Middle Ages
has dispersed the cloud of ignorance on this subject which was one of
the natural defects of the qualities of the learned men and keen
critics of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries.
The Middle-class or Whig theory of life is failing us in all branches
of human intelligence. Ethics, Politics, Art, and Literature are more
than beginning to be regarded from a wider point of view than that
from which our fathers and grandfathers could see them.
For many years there has been a growing reaction against the dull
"grey" narrowness of the eighteenth century, which looked on Europe
during the last thousand years as but a riotous, hopeless, and stupid
prison. It is true that it was on the side of Art alone that this
enlightenment began, and that even on that side it progressed slowly
enough at first--_e.g._ Sir Walter Scott feels himself obliged,
as in the _Antiquary_, to apologize to pedantry for his
instinctive love of Gothic architecture. And no less true is it that
follies enough were mingled with the really useful and healthful birth
of romanticism in Art and Literature. But at last the study of facts
by men who were neither artistic nor sentimental came to the help of
that first glimmer of instinct, and gradually something like a true
insight into the life of the Middle Ages was gained; and we see that
the world of Europe was no more running round in a circle then than
now, but was developing, sometimes with stupendous speed, into
something as different from itself as the age which succeeds this will
be different from that wherein we live. The men of those times are no
longer puzzles to us; we can understand their aspirations, and
sympathise with their lives, while at the same time we have no wish
(not to say hope) to put back the clock, and start from the position
which they held. For, indeed, it is characteristic of the times in
which we live, that whereas in the beginning of the romantic reaction,
its supporters were for the most part mere _laudatores temporis
acti_, at the present time those who take pleasure in studying the
life of the Middle Ages are more commonly to be found in the ranks of
those who are pledged to the forward movement of modern life; while
those who are vainly striving to stem the progress of the world are as
careless of the past as they are fearful of the future. In short,
history, the new sense of modern times, the great compensation for the
losses of the centuries, is now teaching us worthily, and making us
feel that the past is not dead, but is living in us, and will be alive
in the future which we are now helping to make.
To my mind, therefore, no excuse is needful for the attempt made in
the following pages to familiarise the reading public with what was
once a famous knowledge-book of the Middle Ages. But the reader,
before he can enjoy it, must cast away the exploded theory of the
invincible and wilful ignorance of the days when it was written; the
people of that time were eagerly desirous for knowledge, and their
teachers were mostly single-hearted and intelligent men, of a
diligence and laboriousness almost past belief. The "Properties of
Things" of Bartholomew the Englishman is but one of the huge
encyclopaedias written in the early Middle Age for the instruction of
those who wished to learn, and the reputation of it and its fellows
shows how much the science of the day was appreciated by the public at
large, how many there were who wished to learn. Even apart from its
interest as showing the tendency of men's minds in days when Science
did actually tell them "fairy tales," the book is a delightful one in
its English garb; for the language is as simple as if the author were
speaking by word of mouth, and at the same time is pleasant, and not
lacking a certain quaint floweriness, which makes it all the easier to
retain the subject-matter of the book.
Altogether, this introduction to the study of the Mediaeval
Encyclopaedia, and the insight which such works give us into the
thought of the past and its desire for knowledge, make a book at once
agreeable and useful; and I repeat that it is a hopeful sign of the
times when students of science find themselves drawn towards the
historical aspect of the world of men, and show that their minds have
been enlarged, and not narrowed, by their special studies--a defect
which was too apt to mar the qualities of the seekers into natural
facts in what must now, I would hope, be called the just-passed epoch
of intelligence dominated by Whig politics, and the self-sufficiency
of empirical science.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
INTRODUCTION
THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR
MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE
MEDIAEVAL MANNERS
MEDIAEVAL MEDICINE
MEDIAEVAL GEOGRAPHY
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--TREES
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--BIRDS AND FISHES
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--ANIMALS
THE SOURCES OF THE BOOK
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION
THE BOOK AND ITS OBJECT.--The book which we offer to the public of to-
day is drawn from one of the most widely read books of mediaeval
times. Written by an English Franciscan, Bartholomew, in the middle of
the thirteenth century, probably before 1260, it speedily travelled
over Europe. It was translated into French by order of Charles V.
(1364-81) in 1372, into Spanish, into Dutch, and into English in 1397.
Its popularity, almost unexampled, is explained by the scope of the
work, as stated in the translator's prologue (p. 9). It was written to
explain the allusions to natural objects met with in the Scriptures or
in the Gloss. It was, in fact, an account of the properties of things
in general; an encyclopaedia of similes for the benefit of the village
preaching friar, written for men without deep--sometimes without any--
learning. Assuming no previous information, and giving a fairly clear
statement of the state of the knowledge of the time, the book was
readily welcomed by the class for which it was designed, and by the
small nucleus of an educated class which was slowly forming. Its
popularity remained in full vigour after the invention of printing, no
less than ten editions being published in the fifteenth century of the
Latin copy alone, with four French translations, a Dutch, a Spanish,
and an English one.
The first years of the modern commercial system gave its death-blow to
the popularity of this characteristically mediaeval work, and though
an effort was made in 1582 to revive it, the attempt was
unsuccessful--quite naturally so, since the book was written for men
desirous to hear of the wonders of strange lands, and did not give an
accurate account of anything. The man who bought cinnamon at
Stourbridge Fair in 1380 would have felt poorer if any one had told
him that it was not shot from the phoenix' nest with leaden arrows,
while the merchant of 1580 wished to know where it was grown, and how
much he would pay a pound for it if he bought it at first hand. Any
attempt to reconcile these frames of mind was foredoomed to failure.
THE INTEREST OF BARTHOLOMEW'S WORK.--The interest of Bartholomew's
work to modern readers is twofold: it has its value as literature pure
and simple, and it is one of the most important of the documents by
the help of which we rebuild for ourselves the fabric of mediaeval
life. The charm of its style lies in its simple forcible language, and
its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand, we cannot
forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is
from the mediaeval Latin of an Englishman into English.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place
himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards
nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the
philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author
affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and perhaps
Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and
sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in
order over the universe from God and the angels--through fire, water,
air, to earth and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct
account of the popular mediaeval theories in Astronomy, Physiology,
Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but
unattainable otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to
give sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which mediaeval
Science was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at
which it arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the
popular cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography resumes
the traditions current on foreign lands, at a time when Ireland was at
a greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.
In the chapter on Mediaeval Society we have not perhaps the daily life
of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their
pastors and masters--an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday
facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and
the child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be
obtained about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the
Natural History of Plants, which gives incidentally their food-stuffs.
It is in the History of Animals that the student of literature will
find the richest mine of allusions. The list of similes in Shakespeare
explained by our author would fill a volume like this itself. Other
writers, again, simply "lift" the book wholesale. Chester and Du
Bartas write page after page of rhyme, all but versified direct from
Bartholomew. Jonson and Spenser, Marlowe and Massinger, make ample use
of him. Lyly and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of space
forbid their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor
has collected several passages from first-class authors with a view to
illustrating the immense importance of this book to Elizabethan
literature. It was not without reason that Ireland chose justified,
when making a selection of passages from the work for modern readers,
in altering his text to this extent--and this only: he has modernised
the spelling, and in the case of entirely obsolete grammatical forms
he has substituted modern ones (_e.g._ "its" for "his"). In the
case of an utterly dead word he has followed the course of
substituting a word from the same root, when one exists; and when none
could be found, he has left it unchanged in the text. Accordingly a
short glossary has been added, which includes, too, many words which
we may hope are not dead, but sleeping. In very few cases has a word
been inserted, and in those it is marked by italics.
Perhaps we may be allowed to say a word in defence of the principle of
modernising our earliest literature. Early English poetry is, in
general (with some striking exceptions), incapable of being written in
the spelling of our days without losing all of that which makes it
verse; but there can be no reason, when dealing with the masterpieces
of our Early English prose, for maintaining obsolete forms of spelling
and grammar which hamper the passage of thought from mind to mind
across the centuries. Editors of Shakespeare and the Bible for general
use have long assumed the privilege of altering the spelling, and
except on the principle that earlier works are more important, or are
only to be read by people who have had the leisure and inclination to
familiarise their eyes with the peculiarities of Middle English, there
can be no reason for stopping there, or a century earlier. At some
point, of course, the number of obsolete words becomes so great that
the text cannot be read without a dictionary: then the limit has been
reached. But Caxton, Trevisa, and many others are well within it, and
it is good to remove all obstacles which prevent the ordinary reader
from feeling the continuity of his mother tongue.
THE AUTHOR.--The facts known of our author's life have been summarised
by Miss Toulmin Smith in her article in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. In the sixteenth century he was generally believed to
date from about 1360, and to have belonged to the Glanvilles--an
honourable Suffolk family in the Middle Ages; but there seems to be no
authority whatever for the statement. We first hear of him in a letter
from the provincial of the Franciscans of Saxony to the provincial of
France, asking that Bartholomew Anglicus and another friar should be
sent to assist him in his newly-created province. Next year (1231) a
MS. chronicle reports that two were sent, and that Bartholomew
Anglicus was appointed teacher of holy theology to the brethren in the
province. We learn from Salimbene, who wrote the Chronicles of Parma
(1283), that he had been a professor of theology in the University of
Paris, where he had lectured on the whole Bible. The subject in
treating of which he is referred to was an elephant belonging to the
Emperor; and Salimbene quotes a passage on the elephant from his _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_. What may be a quotation from the _De
Proprietatibus_ can be found in Roger Bacon's _Opus Tertium_
(1267).
THE DATE OF THE WORK.--The date of the work seems fairly easy to fix.
It cannot, as we have above seen, be later than 1267, and Amable
Jourdain fixes it before 1260 by the fact that the particular
translations of Aristotle from which Bartholomew quotes (Latin through
the Arabic), went almost universally out of use by 1260. On the other
hand, quotations are made from Albertus Magnus, who was in Paris in
1248. And that it was written near this year is evident from the fact
that no quotations are made from Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas,
Roger Bacon, or Egidius Colonna, all of whom were in Paris during the
second half of the thirteenth century. The earliest known MS. is in
the Ashmole Collection, and was written in 1296. Two French MSS. are
dated 1297 and 1329 respectively.
As we said in the beginning of this chapter, the work had an immediate
and lasting success. Bartholomew Anglicus became known as "Magister de
Proprietatibus Rerum," and his book was on the list of those which
students could borrow from the University chest. It is probable that
much of this popularity was due to the fact that he was a teacher for
many years of the Grey Friars, and that these, the most popular and
the most human preachers of the day, carried his book and his stories
with them wherever they went.
SOURCES.--The chief sources of our author's inspiration are notable.
He relies on St. Dionysius the Areopagite for heaven and the angels,
Aristotle for Physics and Natural History, Pliny's Natural History,
Isidore of Seville's Etymology, Albumazar, Al Faragus, and other Arab
writers for Astronomy, Constantinus Afer's Pantegna for Medical
Science, and Physiologus, the Bestiarium, and the Lapidarium for the
properties of gems, animals, etc. Besides these he quotes many other
writers (a list of whom is given in an appendix) little known to
modern readers.
THE TRANSLATION AND PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION.--The translation from
which we quote was made for Sir Thomas lord of Berkeley in 1397 by
John Trevisa, his chaplain. We owe this good Englishman something for
the works in English prose he called into existence--some not yet
printed; may we not see in him another proof of what we owe to
Chaucer--a language stamped with the seal of a great poet, henceforth
sufficient for the people who speak it, ample for the expression of
their thoughts or needs?
In selecting from such a book, the principles which have guided the
editor are these: To the general reader he desires to offer a fair
representation of the work of Bartholomew Anglicus, preserving the
language and style. To be fair, the work must be sometimes dull--in
the whole book there are many very dull passages. He has desired to
select passages of interest for their quaint language, and their views
of things, often for their very misrepresentations of matters of
common knowledge to-day, and for their bearing upon the literature of
the country. The student of literature and science will find in it the
materials in which the history of their growth is read. In conclusion,
the editor ventures to hope that the work will not be unwelcome to the
numerous and growing class who love English for its own sake as the
noblest tongue on earth, and who desire not to forget the rock from
which it was hewn, and the pit from which it was digged.
Our first selection will naturally be the translator's prologue in the
very shortened form of Berthelet. The present editor's work is, to
avoid confusion, printed in small type throughout.
THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR
True it is that after the noble and expert doctrine of wise and well-
learned Philosophers, left and remaining with us in writing, we know
that the properties of things follow and ensue their substance.
Herefore it is that after the order and the distinction of substances,
the order and the distinction of the properties of things shall be and
ensue. Of the which things this work of all the books ensuing, by the
grace, help, and assistance of all mighty God is compiled and made.
Marvel not, ye witty and eloquent readers, that I, thin of wit and
void of cunning, have translated this book from Latin into our vulgar
language, as a thing profitable to me, and peradventure to many other,
which understand not Latin, nor have not the knowledge of the
properties of things, which things be approved by the books of great
and cunning clerks, and by the experience of most witty and noble
Philosophers. All these properties of things be full necessary and of
great value to them that will be desirous to understand the
obscurities, or darkness of holy scriptures: which be given unto us
under figures, under parables and semblance, or likelihoods of things
natural and artificial. Saint Denys, that great Philosopher and solemn
clerk, in his book named the heavenly hierarchies of angels,
testifieth and witnesseth the same, saying in this manner:--What so
ever any man will conject, feign, imagine, suppose, or say: it is a
thing impossible that the light of the heavenly divine clearness,
covered and closed in the deity, or in the godhead, should shine upon
us, if it were not by the diversities of holy covertures. Also it is
not possible, that our wit or intendment might ascend unto the
contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies immaterial, if our wit be
not led by some material thing, as a man is led by the hand: so by
these forms visible, our wit may be led to the consideration of the
greatness or magnitude of the most excellent beauteous clarity, divine
and invisible. Reciteth this also the blessed apostle Paul in his
epistles, saying that by these things visible, which be made and be
visible, man may see and know by his inward sight intellectual, the
divine celestial and godly things, which be invisible to this our
natural sight. Devout doctors of Theology or divinity, for this
consideration prudently and wisely read and use natural philosophy and
moral, and poets in their fictions and feigned informations, unto this
fine and end, so that by the likelihood or similitude of things
visible our wit or our understanding spiritually, by clear and crafty
utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these
things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these
things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by
these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian
faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is
incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with
great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear.
Loth to offend, I purpose to say somewhat under the correction of
excellent learned doctors and wise men: what every creature reasonable
ought to believe in this our blessed Christian faith.
ENDETH THE PROLOGUE
I
MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE
The following selections will give an idea of the natural science of
the Middle Ages. In introducing them, the Editor will attempt to give
some connected account of them to show that though their study seems
to involve a few difficulties, their explanation is simple, and will
not make too great a demand on the reader's patience.
From the earliest times men have asked themselves two questions about
nature: "Why?" and "How?" Mediaeval science concerned itself with the
former; modern science thinks it has learnt that no answer to that
question can be given it, and concerns itself with the latter. It thus
happens that the more one becomes in sympathy with the thought of our
time, the less one can interest one's self in the work of the past,
distinguished as it is by its disregard of all we think important, and
by its striving for an unattainable goal.
It is, however, necessary, if we would enjoy Chaucer, Dante, and
Shakespeare, to obtain some notion of that system of the universe from
which they drew so many of their analogies. The symbolism of Dante
appears to us unnaturally strained until we know that the science of
his day saw everything as symbolic.
And how could we appreciate the strength of Chaucer's metaphor:
"O firste moving cruel firmament,
With thy diurnal swegh that croudest ay,
And hurtlest all from Est til Occident,
That naturally wold hold another way,"
without some knowledge of the astronomy of his day?
Our first extracts explain themselves. They deal with the mystery of
the constitution of substances, as fascinating to us as to the early
Greeks, and begin with definitions of matter and form.
The principal design of early philosophers in physics was to explain
how everything was generated, and to trace the different states
through which things pass until they become perfect. They observed
that as a thing is not generated out of any other indifferently--for
example, that marble is not capable of making flesh, all bodies cannot
be compounded of principles alone, connected in a simple way, but
imagined they could be made up of a few simple compounds. These
ultimate compounds, if we may so express it, were their elements. The
number of elements was variously estimated, but was generally taken as
four--a number arrived at rather from the consideration of the
sensations bodies awaken in us, than from the study of bodies
themselves. Aristotle gives us the train of thought by which the
number is reached. He considers the qualities observed by the senses,
classifying them as Heat, Cold, Dryness or Hardness, and Moistness or
Capability of becoming liquid. These may partially co-exist, two at a
time, in the same substance. There are thus four possible
combinations, Cold and dry, Cold and moist, Hot and dry, Hot and
moist. He then names these from their prototypes Earth, Water, Fire,
and Air, distinguishing these elements from the actual Earth, etc., of
everyday life.
The habit of extending analogies beyond their legitimate application
was a source of confusion in the early ages of science. Most of the
superstitions of primitive religion, of astrology, and of alchemy,
arose from this source. A good example is the extension of the
metaphor in the words _generation_ and _corruption_: words
in constant use in scientific works until the nineteenth century
began. Generation is the production of a substance that before was
not, and corruption is the destruction of a substance, by its ceasing
to be what it was before. Thus, fire is generated, and wood is
corrupted, when the latter is burnt. But the implicit metaphor in the
use of the terms likens substances to the human body, their production
and destruction implies liability to disease, and thus prepares the
way for the notion of the elixir, which is first a potion giving long
life, and curing bodily ailments, and only after some time a remedy
for diseased metals--the philosopher's stone.
It will be seen that the theory of the mediaeval alchemist was that
matter is an entity filling all space, on which in different places
different forms were impressed. The elements were a preliminary
grouping of these, and might be present--two, three, or four at a
time--in any substance. No attempt was ever made to separate these
elements by scientific men, just as no attempt is ever made to isolate
the ether of the physical speculations of to-day. The theory of modern
physicists, with its ether and vortices, answers almost exactly to the
matter and form of the ancients, the nature of the vortices
conditioning matter.
The extracts from Book XI. bring us to another class of substances.
All compound bodies are classified as imperfect or perfect. Imperfect
compounds, or meteors, to some extent resemble elements. They are
fiery, as the rainbow, or watery, as dew. Our extract on the rainbow
is somewhat typical of the faults of ancient science. A note is taken
of a rare occurrence--a lunar rainbow; but in describing the common
one, an error of the most palpable kind is made. The placing of blue
as the middle and green as the lowest colour is obviously wrong, and
is inexplicable if we did not know how facts were cut square with
theories in old days.
In the next extract Bartholomew's account of the spirits animating man
is quoted at length. It gives us the mediaeval theory as to the means
by which life, motion, and knowledge were shown in the body. Every
reader of Shakespeare or Chaucer becomes familiar with the vital,
animal, and natural spirits. They were supposed to communicate with
all parts of the body by means of the arteries or wosen, "the nimble
spirits in their arteries," and the sinews or nerves. The word sinew,
by the way, is exactly equal to our word nerve, and ayenward, as our
author would say. Hamlet, when he bursts from his friends, explains
his vigour by the rush of the spirit into the arteries, which makes
"Each petty artery of this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve."
The natural spirit is generated in the liver, the seat of digestion,
"there where our nourishment is administered"; it then passes to the
heart, and manifests itself as the spirit of life; from thence it
passes to the brain, where it is the animal spirit--"spirit animate"
Rossetti calls it--dwelling in the brain.
In the brain there are three ventricles or chambers, the
_foremost_ being the "cell fantastike" of the "Knight's Tale,"
the second the logistic, and the third the chamber of memory, where
"memory, the warder of the brain," keeps watch over the passage of the
spirit into the "sinews" of moving. Into the foremost cell come all
the perceptions of sight, hearing, etc., and thus we have the
opportunity for
"Fantasy,
That plays upon our eyesight,"
to freak it on us. The pedant, Holofernes, in _Love's Labour's
Lost,_ characteristically puts the origin of his good things in the
ventricle of memory.
As a specimen of the physical science of the time the Editor gives
extracts from the chapter on light.
The introduction of extracts enough to give some idea of the mediaeval
astronomy would have made such large demands on the patience of the
reader that the Editor has decided with some regret to omit them
altogether. The universe is considered to be a sphere, whose centre is
the earth and whose circumference revolved about two fixed points. Our
author does not decide the nice point in dispute between the
philosophers and the theologians, the former holding that there is
only one, the latter insisting on seven heavens-the fairy, ethereal,
olympian, fiery, firmament, watery, and empyrean.
The firmament, that
"Majestical roof, fretted with golden fire,"
is the part of heaven in which the planets move. It carries them round
with it; it governs the tides; it stood with men for the type of
irresistible regularity. Each of the planets naturally has a motion of
its own, contrary in direction to that of the firmament, which was
from east to west. All the fixed stars move in circles whose centre is
the centre of the universe, but the courses of the planets (among
which the moon is reckoned) depend on other circles, called eccentric,
since their centre is elsewhere. Either the centre or the
circumference of the circle in which the planet really moves is
applied to the circumference of the eccentric circle, and in this way
all the movements of the planets are fully explained. Our author is
sorely puzzled to account for the existence of the watery heavens
above the fiery, they being cold and moist, but is sure from
scriptural reasons that they are there, and ventures the hypothesis
that their presence may account for the sluggish and evil properties
of Saturn, the planet whose circle is nearest them.
Having considered the simpler substances, those composed of pure
elemental forms, and those resembling them--the meteors--we turn to
the perfect compounds, those which have assumed substantial forms, as
metals, stones, etc. Our author retains the Aristotelian
classification--earthy, and those of other origin, as beasts, roots,
and trees. Earths may be metals or fossils; metals being defined as
hard bodies, generated in the earth or in its veins, which can be
beaten out by a hammer, and softened or liquefied by heat; while
fossils include all other inanimate objects.
A large number of extracts have been made from this part of the
subject, because the book gives the position of positive, as
distinguished from speculative, Alchemy at the time. It is the
Editor's desire to show that at this period there was a system of
theory based on the practical knowledge of the day.
Chemistry took its rise as a science about four hundred years before
our era. In the fragments of two of the four books of Democritus we
have probably the earliest treatise on chemical matters we are ever
likely to get hold of. Whether it is the work of Democritus or of a
much later writer is uncertain. But merely taking it as a
representative work of the early stage of chemistry, we remark that
the receipts are practicable, and some of them, little modified, are
in use to-day in goldsmith's shops. The fragments remaining to us are
on the manufacture of gold and silver, and one receipt for dyeing
purple. In this state of the science the collection of facts is the
chief point, and no purely chemical theory seems to have been formed.
Tradition, confirmed by the latest researches, associates this stage
with Egypt.
The second stage in the history of Chemistry--the birth of Alchemy in
the Western World--occurred when the Egyptian practical receipts, the
neo-Greek philosophies, and the Chinese dreams of an "elixir vitae"
were fused into one by the Arab and Syriac writers. Its period of
activity ranges from the seventh to the tenth centuries. Little is
really known about it, or can be, until the Arabic texts, which are
abundant in Europe, are translated and classified both from the
scholar's and the chemist's standpoint. Many works were translated
into Latin about the end of the tenth century, such as the spurious
fourth book of the _Meteorics of Aristotle_, the treatises of the
_Turta Philosophorum_, _Artis Auriferae_, etc., which formed
the starting-point of European speculation. The theoretical chemistry
of our author is derived from them.
The third stage of chemistry begins with the fourteenth and ends with
the sixteenth century. It is characterized by an immense growth of
theory, a fertile imagination, and untiring industry. It reached its
height in England about 1440, and is represented by the reputed works
of Lully (vixit circ. 1300), which first appeared about this date. In
this period practical alchemy is on its trial.
The fourth stage begins with Boyle, and closes with the eighteenth
century. Still under the dominion of theoretical alchemy, practical
alchemy was rejected by it, and its interest was concentrated on the
collection of facts. It led up to modern chemistry, which begins with
Lavoisier, and the introduction of the balance in the study of
chemical change.
Chemical theory, then, in our author's time stood somewhat thus.
Metals as regarded their elemental composition were considered to
partake of the nature of earth, water, and air, in various
proportions. Fossils, or those things generated in the earth which
were not metals, were again subdivided into two classes--those which
liquefy on being heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do
not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury.
These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in
the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible
aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury
was that to which their weight and powers of becoming fluid were due.
This theory was due to two main facts. Most ores of metals, especially
of copper and lead, contain much sulphur, which can be either obtained
pure from them, or be recognised by its smell when burning. This gave
rise to the sulphur theory, while the presence of mercury was inferred
doubtless from the resemblance of the more commonly molten metals,
silver, tin, and lead, to quicksilver. The properties of each metal
were then put down to the presence of these substances. The list of
seven metals is that of the most ancient times--gold, electrum,
silver, copper, tin, lead, iron; but it is clearly recognised that
electrum is an alloy of gold and silver.
Most of the facts in this book are derived from Pliny through Isidore,
but, that the theory is Arab in origin, one fact alone would convince
us. A consideration of the composition of the metals shows us that tin
is nearest in properties of all metals to the precious ones, but tin
is precisely the metal chosen by Arab alchemists as a starting-point
in the Chrysopoeia.
Beside their scientific interest these passages have supplied many
analogies. When Troilus is piling up his lover's oaths to Cressida,
his final words are:
"As iron to adamant, as earth to centre;"
our chapter on the adamant supplies the origin of this allusion in
part, astronomy gives the other. Diamonds are still, unfortunately,
the precious stones of reconciliation and of love our author bespeaks
them. The editor has not lengthened the chapter by extracts giving the
occult properties of gems, and has contented himself by quoting from
the chapter on glass a new simile and an old story.
Matter and form are principles of all bodily things; and privation of
matter and form is naught else but destruction of all things. And the
more subtle and high matter is in kind, the more able it is to receive
form and shape. And the more thick and earthly it is, the more feeble
is it to receive impression, printing of forms and of shapes. And
matter is principle and beginning of distinction, and of diversity,
and of multiplying, and of things that are gendered. For the thing
that gendereth and the thing that is gendered are not diverse but
touching matter. And therefore where a thing is gendered without
matter, the thing that gendereth, and the thing that is gendered, are
all one in substance and in kind: as it fareth of the persons in the
Trinity. Of form is diversity, by the which one thing is diverse from
another, and some form is essential, and some accidental. Essential
form is that which cometh into matter, and maketh it perfect; and
accordeth therewith to the perfection of some thing. And when form is
had, then the thing hath its being, and when form is destroyed nothing
of the substance of the thing is found. And form accidental is not the
perfection of things, nor giveth them being. But each form accidental
needeth a form substantial. And each form is more simple and more
actual and noble than matter. And so the form asketh that shall be
printed in the matter, the matter ought to be disposed and also
arrayed. For if fire shall be made of matter of earth, it needeth that
the matter of earth be made subtle and pured and more simple. Form
maketh matter known. Matter is cause that we see things that are made,
and so nothing is more common and general than matter. And natheless
nothing is more unknown than is matter; for matter is never seen
without form, nor form may not be seen in deed, but joined to matter.
Elements are simple, and the least particles of a body that is
compound. And it is called least touching us, for it is not perceived
by wits of feeling. For it is the least part and last in undoing of
the body, as it is first in composition. And is called simple, not for
an element is simple without any composition, but for it hath no parts
that compound it, that be diverse in kind and in number as some
medlied bodies have: as it fareth in metals of the which some parts be
diverse; for some part is air, and some is earth. But each part of
fire is fire, and so of others. Elements are four, and so there are
four qualities of elements, of the which every body is composed and
made as of matter. The four elements are Earth, Water, Fire, and Air,
of the which each hath his proper qualities. Four be called the first
and principal qualities, that is, hot, cold, dry, and moist: they are
called the first qualities because they slide first from the elements
into the things that be made of elements. Two of these qualities are
called Active--heat and coldness. The others are dry and wetness and
are called Passive.
The Rainbow is impression gendered in an hollow cloud and dewy,
disposed to rain in endless many gutters, as it were shining in a
mirror, and is shapen as a bow, and sheweth divers colours, and is
gendered by the beams of the sun or of the moon. And is but seldom
gendered by beams of the moon, no more but twice in fifty years, as
Aristotle saith. In the rainbow by cause of its clearness be seen
divers forms, kinds, and shapes that be contrary. Therefore the bow
seemeth coloured, for, as Bede saith, it taketh colour of the four
elements. For therein, as it were in any mirror, shineth figures and
shapes and kinds of elements. For of fire he taketh red colour in the
overmost part, and of earth green in the nethermost, and of the air a
manner of brown colour, and of water somedeal blue in the middle. And
first is red colour, that cometh out of a light beam, that touches the
outer part of the roundness of the cloud: then is a middle colour
somedeal blue, as the quality asketh, that hath mastery in the vapour,
that is in the middle of the cloud. Then the nethermost seemeth a
green colour in the nether part of a cloud; there the vapour is more
earthly. And these colours are more principal than others.
As Beda saith, and the master of stories, forty years tofore the doom,
the rainbow shall not be seen, and that shall be token of drying, and
of default of elements.
And though dew be a manner of airy substance, and most subtle outward,
natheless in a wonder manner it is strong in working and virtue. For
it besprinkleth the earth, and maketh it plenteous, and maketh flour,
pith, and marrow increase in corn and grains: and fatteth and bringeth
forth broad oysters and other shell fish in the sea, and namely dew of
spring time. For by night in spring time oysters open themselves
against dew, and receive dew that cometh in between the two shells,
and hold and keep it; and that dew so holden and kept feedeth the
flesh, and maketh it fat; and by its incorporation with the inner
parts of the fish breedeth a full precious gem, a stone that is called
Margarita. Also the birds of ravens, while they are whitish in
feathers, ere they are black, dew feedeth and sustaineth them, as
Gregory saith.
Fumosities that are drawn out of the waters and off the earth by
strength of heat of heaven are drawn to the nethermost part of the
middle space of the air, and there by coldness of the place they are
made thick, and then by heat dissolving and departing the moisture
thereof and not wasting all, these fumosities are resolved and fall
and turn into rain and showers.
If rain be temperate in quality and quantity, and agreeable to the
time, it is profitable to infinite things. For rain maketh the land to
bear fruit, and joineth it together, if there be many chines therein,
and assuageth and tempereth strength of heat, and cleareth the air,
and ceaseth and stinteth winds, and fatteth fish, and helpeth and
comforteth dry complexion. And if rain be evil and distemperate in its
qualities, and discording to place and time, it is grievous and noyful
to many things. For it maketh deepness and uncleanness and
slipperiness in ways and in paths, and bringeth forth much
unprofitable herbs and grass, and corrupteth and destroyeth fruit and
seeds, and quencheth in seeds the natural heat, and maketh darkness
and thickness in the air, and taketh from us the sun beams, and
gathereth mist and clouds, and letteth the work of labouring men, and
tarrieth and letteth ripening of corn and of fruits, and exciteth
rheum and running flux, and increaseth and strengtheneth all moist
ills, and is cause of hunger and of famine, and of corruption and
murrain of beasts and sheep; for corrupt showers do corrupt the grass
and herbs of pasture, whereof cometh needful corruption of beasts.
Of impressions that are gendered in the air of double vapour, the
first is thunder, the which impression is gendered in watery substance
of a cloud. For moving and shaking hither and thither of hot vapour
and dry, that fleeth its contrary, is beset and constrained in every
side, and smit into itself, and is thereby set on fire and on flame,
and quencheth itself at last in the cloud, as Aristotle saith. When a
storm of full strong winds cometh in to the clouds, and the whirling
wind and the storm increaseth, and seeketh out passage: it cleaveth
and breaketh the cloud, and falleth out with a great rese and strong,
and all to breaketh the parts of the cloud, and so it cometh to the
ears of men and of beasts with horrible and dreadful breaking and
noise. And that is no wonder: for though a bladder be light, yet it
maketh great noise and sound, if it be strongly blown, and afterward
violently broken. And with the thunder cometh lightning, but lightning
is sooner seen, for it is clear and bright; and thunder cometh later
to our ears, for the wit of sight is more subtle than the wit of
hearing. As a man seeth sooner the stroke of a man that heweth a tree,
than he heareth the noise of the stroke.
The lightning which is called Clarum is of a wonderful kind, for it
catcheth and draweth up wine out of the tuns, and toucheth not the
vessel, and melteth gold and silver in purses, and melteth not the
purse.
As wits and virtues are needed to the ruling of kind, so to the
perfection thereof needeth needly some spirits, by whose benefit and
continual moving, both wits and virtues in beasts are ruled to work
and do their deeds. As we speak here of a spirit, a spirit is called a
certain substance, subtle and airy, that stirreth and exciteth the
virtues of the body to their doings and works. A spirit is a subtle
body, by the strength of heat gendered, and in man's body giving life
by the veins of the body, and by the veins and pulses giveth to
beasts, breath, life, and pulses, and working, wilful moving, and wit
by means of sinews and muscles in bodies that have souls. Physicians
say that this spirit is gendered in this manner wise. Whiles by heat
working in the blood, in the liver is caused strong boiling and
seething, and thereof cometh a smoke, the which is pured, and made
subtle of the veins of the liver. And turneth into a subtle spiritual
substance and airly kind, and that is called the natural spirit. For
kindly by the might thereof it maketh the blood subtle. And by
lightness thereof it moveth the blood and sendeth it about into all
the limbs. And this same spirit turneth to heartward by certain veins.
And there by moving and smiting together of the parts of the heart,
the spirit is more pured, and turned into a more subtle kind. And then
it is called of physicians the vital spirit: because that from the
heart, by the wosen, and veins, and small ways, it spreadeth itself
into all the limbs of the body, and increaseth the virtues spiritual,
and ruleth and keepeth the works thereof. For out of a den of the left
side of the heart cometh an artery vein, and in his moving is departed
into two branches: the one thereof goeth downward, and spreadeth in
many boughs, and sprays, by means of which the vital spirit is brought
to give the life to all the nether limbs of the body. The other bough
goeth upward, and is again departed in three branches. The right bough
thereof goeth to the right arm, and the left bough to the left arm
equally, and spreadeth in divers sprays. And so the vital spirit is
spread into all the body and worketh in the artery veins the pulses of
life. The middle bough extendeth itself to the brain, and other higher
parts and giveth life, and spreadeth the vital spirit in all the parts
about. The same spirit piercing and passing forth to the dens of the
brain, is there more directed and made subtle, and is changed into the
animal spirit, which is more subtle than the other. And so this animal
spirit is gendered in the foremost den of the brain, and is somewhat
spread into the limbs of feeling. But yet nevertheless some part
thereof abideth in the aforesaid dens, that common sense, the common
wit, and the virtue imaginative may be made perfect. Then he passeth
forth into the middle den that is called Logistic, to make the
intellect and understanding perfect. And when he hath enformed the
intellect, then he passeth forth to the den of memory, and bearing
with him the prints of likeness, which are made in those other dens,
he layeth them up in the chamber of memory. From the hindermost parts
of the brain he pierceth and passeth by the marrow of the ridge bone,
and cometh to the sinews of moving, that so wilful moving may be
engendered, in all the parts of the nether body. Then one and the same
spirit is named by divers names. For by working in the liver it is
called the natural spirit, in the heart the vital spirit, and in the
head, the animal spirit. We may not believe that this spirit is man's
reasonable soul, but more soothly, as saith Austin, the car therof and
proper instrument. For by means of such a spirit the soul is joined to
the body: and without the service of such a spirit, no act the soul
may perfectly exercise in the body. And therefore if these spirits be
impaired, or let of their working in any work, the accord of the body
and soul is resolved, the reasonable spirit is let of all its works in
the body. As it is seen in them that be amazed, and mad men and
frantic, and in others that oft lose use of reason.