LII. WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE…

LII. WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE

The man and his writings--His respect for science--And for experimentation--Influenced by Christian doctrine--Importance of his account of magic--Its main points summarized--Demons and magic--Magic and idolatry--Magic illusions--Natural magic--Is not concerned with demons--Some instances of natural magic--“The sense of nature”--Magic’s too extreme pretensions--Wax images--Factitious gods--Characters and figures--Power of words denied--Use of divine names--Christian magic--Magic of sex and generation--William’s contribution to the bibliography of magic--Plan of the rest of this chapter--Theory of spiritual substances--Spirits in the heavens--Will hell be big enough?--Astrological necromancy--False accounts of fallen angels--Different kinds of spirits--Limited demon control of nature--Can demons be imprisoned or enter bodies?--Susceptibility of demons to the four elements and to natural objects--Stock examples of natural marvels--The hazel rod story--Occult virtues of herbs and animals--Virtues of gems--A medley of marvelous virtues--Divination not an art but revelation--Divination by inspection of lucid surfaces--Other instances of divination, ancient and modern--His treatment of astrology--The philosophers on the nature of the heavens and stars--William’s own opinion and attitude--Objection to stars as cause of evil--Virtues of the stars--Extent of their influence upon nature and man--Against nativities, interrogations, and images--Astrology and religion and history--Comets and the star of Bethlehem.

[Sidenote: The man and his writings.]

We now come upon a Christian theologian whose works present an unexpectedly detailed picture of the magic and superstition of the time.[1102] He is well acquainted with both the occult literature and the natural philosophy of the day, and has much to say of magic, demons, occult virtue, divination and astrology. Finally, he also gives considerable information concerning what we may call the school of natural magic and of experiment. This theologian is William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, and previously a canon of that city and a master of theology in its university. Judging from his age when he received this degree Valois estimates that he was born about 1180. He was made a bishop at Rome by the pope, where he had come as a simple deacon to pursue his appeal in the recent disputed election.[1103] He granted the Dominicans their first chair of theology at Paris during a quarrel of the university in 1228 with Queen Blanche of Castile and the dispersion of the faculties to Angers and Rheims.[1104] He took a prominent part in the Parisian attack upon the Talmud and was perhaps the first Christian doctor of the Latin west to display an intimate acquaintance with the works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.[1105] These facts suggest the extent of his reading in occult lore. We shall consider his views as expressed in his various writings, “On Sins and Vices,” “Of Laws” (or Religions), in the frequent medieval use of the word, lex, “Of Morals,” “Of Faith,” but especially in his voluminous work on “The Universe” which deals more with the world of nature than do his other theological treatises. Indeed, in the sixteenth century edition of his works he is called “a most perfect mathematician” and “a distinguished philosopher” as well as “a most eminent theologian.”

[Sidenote: His respect for science.]

William at any rate has respect for natural philosophy and favors scientific investigation of nature. Like his namesake of Conches in the preceding century he has no sympathy with those who, when they are ignorant of the causes of natural phenomena and have no idea how to investigate them, have recourse to the Creator’s omnipotent virtue and call everything of this sort a miracle, or evade the necessity of any natural explanation by affirming that God’s will is the sole cause of it. This seems to William an intolerable error, in the first place because they have thus only one answer for all questions, and secondly because they are satisfied with the most remote cause instead of the most immediate one. There is no excuse for thus neglecting so many varied and noble sciences.[1106]

In another passage William apologizes to the person to whom the De universo is addressed for the summary and inadequate discussion of the stars in which he has just been indulging.[1107] He knows that certitude in this subject calls for a most thorough investigation and requires a separate treatise. Moreover, his remarks have been in the nature of a digression and have little direct bearing on the question under discussion. But he has introduced them in order that his reader might see something of the depth and truth of philosophical discussion and not think that it can be despised as some fools do, who will accept nothing unless it is armed with proofs and adorned with flowers of rhetoric and who still more insanely regard as erroneous whatever they do not understand.

[Sidenote: And for experimentation.]

Thus we see the scientific standards of William of Conches in the twelfth century still influential and probably more universally prevalent in the thirteenth. Like his namesake of Conches again, William of Auvergne states that our common fire is not the pure element, since it is largely made up of burning coal or wood or other consumed objects.[1108] He also states that “innumerable experiences” have proven that moles do not live on earth but hunt worms in it.[1109] William is aware that many sailors and navigators have found by experience that certain seas open into others, and as another indication that all seas are really only one connected sea, he adduces hidden subterranean channels, and mentions the report that Sicily is supported on four or five mountains as if by so many columns. Such are some illustrations of the bits of scientific information and the trust in natural experiment to be found in William’s work. It is indeed surprising the number of times he alludes to “experimenters” and to “books of experiments.”

[Sidenote: Influenced by Christian doctrine.]

On the other hand William, of course, maintains such doctrines as that of creation against the Peripatetic theory of the eternity of the universe. He also does not confuse the world soul with the Holy Spirit as William of Conches and Theodoric of Chartres had done.[1110] More important than these particular points is the general hypothesis running through and underlying much of William’s thought that the Creator can interfere again in the course of nature at any time and in any way He wills.[1111] The atmosphere of the miraculous and the spiritual is almost constantly felt in William’s account of the universe. To a certain extent, however, he evades the difficulties between science and religion by holding that one thing is true in philosophy and quite another in theology. Thus he affirms that one who says that the stars and lights of the sky do not receive addition or improvement, speaks the truth if the matter is regarded from the standpoint of natural science, for nature cannot add anything to their natural perfection. “Yet you ought to know that learned Christian doctors teach ... and the prophets seem to say expressly that they will undergo improvement.”[1112] It is, then, as we said to begin with, the account of magic, demons, occult virtue, divination, astrology and experimental science, of a theologian not ignorant of nor unsympathetic with science that we have now to consider.

[Sidenote: Importance of his account of magic.]

William’s account of magic is a remarkable and illuminating one. Most of it occurs in the closing chapters of the De universo. William himself there states that nothing has come down from previous writers on the things of which he has just been speaking.[1113] He admits that his remarks are incomplete but he has at least made a beginning which will prove welcome to the reader. Probably, however, he is indebted to previous Christian writers; at any rate we recognize some of his statements as familiar. But he also has a wide acquaintance with the literature of magic itself--in his youth he examined the books of judicial astronomy and the books of the magicians and sorcerers[1114]--and he combines the results of his reading in a sane manner. We feel that his view is both comprehensive, including all the essential factors, and marked by insight into the heart of the situation. For his time at least he sees remarkably clearly what magic is, what it cannot do, and how it is related to the science of that age.

[Sidenote: Its main points summarized.]

The chief characteristics of magic as it is depicted by William may first be briefly summarized, and then illustrated in more detail. He constantly assumes that its great aim is to work marvels. He holds that often the ends are sought by the help of demons and methods which are idolatrous. Evil ends are often sought by magicians. On the other hand the apparent marvels are often worked by mere human sleight-of-hand or other tricks and deceptions of the magicians themselves. But the marvel may be neither human deceit nor the work of an evil spirit. It may be produced by the wonderful occult virtues resident in certain objects of nature. To marvels wrought in this manner William applies the name “natural magic,” and has no doubt of its truth. But he denies the validity of many methods and devices in which magicians trust, and contends that marvels cannot be so worked unless demons are responsible. William furthermore constantly cites books of experiments and narrates the feats of “experimenters” in discussing magic, and he often implies a close connection of it with astronomy or astrology. Here again as in the case of natural magic we see an intimate connection between the development of magic and of natural science. Finally, these various characteristics and varieties of magic are not always kept distinct by William, but often overlap or join. The demons avail themselves of the forces of nature in working their marvels and their marvels too are often only passing illusions and empty shams. The experimenters and operators of natural magic also deal in momentary effects and deceptive appearances as well as in more solid results.

[Sidenote: Demons and magic.]

William holds then that much of magic is performed by the aid of demons and involves the worship of them or other forms of idolatry.[1115] One reason why magic feats are so seldom performed in Christian lands and William’s own time is that the power of the evil spirits has been so repressed by Christianity. But the books of the magicians and of the sorcerers assume the existence of armies of spirits in the sky.[1116] In the necromantic operation called “The Major Circle” four kings of demons from the four quarters of the earth appear with numerous attendants according to the statements of those who are skilled in works of this sort.[1117] William has also read in the books of experiments that water can be made to appear where there really is none by use of a bow of a particular kind of wood, an arrow of another kind of wood, and a bow-string made of a particular sort of cord.[1118] As far as an arrow is shot from this bow so far one is supposed to behold an expanse of water. But William does not believe that the bow and arrow possess any such virtues, and hence concludes that the mirage is an illusion produced by the demons and that the ceremony performed by the magician is a service to the evil spirits. Another writer in his book of necromancy bids one to take as an oblation such and such a wood or stone or liquor on such a day at such an hour. Here too, perhaps because of what he regards as superstitious observance of times and seasons, William holds that the word “oblation” covers some diabolical servitude or cult, which has been concealed by the writers of such experiments. He also states that sorcerers and idolaters often go off into deserts to have dealings with the demons who dwell there.[1119] He cites “a certain magician in his book on magic arts” who says that in order to philosophize he went to places destitute of any inhabitant and there lived for thirty years with those who dwelt in light and learned from them what he has written in his book.

[Sidenote: Magic and idolatry.]

In his treatise De legibus William, like Maimonides, endeavors to explain some of the questionable provisions and prohibitions in the Mosaic law as measures to guard against idolatry and magic.[1120] Under the head of idolatry he groups not only the worship of idols proper and of demons, but also superstitious observance of the stars, the elements, images, figures, words and names, times and seasons, beginnings of actions and finding objects.[1121] In another passage he adds the observance of dreams, auguries, constellations, sneezes, meetings, days and hours, figures, marks, characters and images.[1122] Also incantation is not without idolatry. Thus many features of the magic arts are condemned by him.

[Sidenote: Magic illusions.]

We come next to those magic works which are “mockeries of men or of demons.”[1123] First there are those transpositions which are accomplished by agility and hability of the hands and are popularly called tractationes or traiectationes. They are a source of great wonderment until men learn how they are done. A second variety are mere apparitions which have no truth. Under this head fall certain magic candles. One made of wax and sulphurated snakeskin, burned in a dark place filled with sticks or rushes makes the house seem full of writhing serpents. William’s explanation of this is that the powdered snakeskin as it burns makes the rushes appear similar in color to serpents, while the flickering of the flame gives the illusion that they are moving. Possibly, however, this may be a defective recipe for some firework like the modern “snake’s nest.” William is more sceptical whether in the light of a candle made of wax and the tears or semen of an ass men would look like donkeys. He doubts whether wet tears would mix with wax or burn if they did, and whether these internal fluids possess any of the substance, figure, and color of an ass’s external appearance. He concedes nevertheless that the semen has great virtue and that the sight is of all senses the most easily deceived. At any rate “experimenters” (experimentatores) have said things of this sort, and you may read in the books of experiments a trick by which anyone’s hand is made to appear an ass’s foot, so that he blushes to draw it from his bosom.[1124]

The work of necromancy called “The Major Circle” is also in the nature of a delusive appearance. The four demon kings from the four quarters of the earth seem to be accompanied by vast hosts of phantom horsemen, jugglers, and musicians, but no prints of horses’ hoofs are visible afterwards. Moreover, if real horsemen appeared, they would be seen by everyone, not merely by those within the magic circle. Another common apparition, produced by “these sorcerers and deceivers” by means of sacrifices and other evil observances which William will not reveal, is a wonderful castle with gates, towers, walls, and citadel all complete. But it is seen only during the magic operation and when it vanishes leaves no trace behind. William compares such illusions to some fantastic dream which leaves behind nothing but horror on the faces of the participants. He argues that if corporeal things outside us make the strong impression on our senses that they do, it is no wonder if spiritual substances like demons who are full of forms can impress our minds potently. It will, of course, occur to the modern reader that such illusions, like certain marvels of India, were perhaps produced by hypnotic or other suggestion. William notes that illusions of this sort are shown only to the gullible and “those ignorant of natural science,” and that necromancers dare not produce or suggest such phantasms in the presence of learned and rational men.

[Sidenote: Natural magic.]

There are, nevertheless, occult forces and powers in nature and those men who are acquainted with them work many marvels and would work much more wonderful ones, if they had an abundant supply of the necessary materials.[1125] This is “that part of natural science which is called natural magic.”[1126] “Philosophers call it necromancy or philosophica, perhaps quite improperly, and it is the eleventh part of all natural science.” This rather strange association of necromancy with natural science for which William seems to apologize, we shall meet again in Albertus Magnus and we have already met with it in Gundissalinus, Daniel of Morley, and Al-Farabi. With them, however, necromancy was one of only eight parts of natural science or astrology. In a third passage William omits mention of necromancy, but again asserts that certain marvels are natural operations and that knowledge of them is one of the eleven parts of natural science.[1127] It is with it that the books of experiments are especially concerned.[1128] From them and from “the books of natural narrations” you can learn “the causes and reasons of certain magic works, especially those which are by the art of natural magic.” The materials possessed of the marvelous virtues essential for this art are very rare in Europe, but in India and lands near it they abound, and hence natural magic flourishes vigorously there, and there are many experimenters there who work marvels by their skill.[1129]

[Sidenote: Natural magic is not concerned with demons.]

Between this natural magic and that due to demons William makes a decided distinction.[1130] In natural magic nothing is done by the aid of demons. The workers of the one are called magi because they do great things (magna agentes) although some may have evilly interpreted the word as meaning evil-doers (male agentes).[1131] And these others who perform such works by the aid of demons are to be regarded as evil-doers. William indeed perhaps uses the word malefici (sorcerers) more often than magi for workers of evil magic, but he cannot be said to observe any such distinction uniformly. He does, however, express his intention of setting forth “the causes and ways and methods” by which even the phantasies and illusions of magic are produced naturally, but of “perditious methods such as nefarious sacrifices and oblations and sacrilegious observances” he intends to reveal nothing.[1132] In natural magic William seems to see no harm whatever, unless it is employed for evil ends. He grants, however, that some of its works are so marvelous that they seem to the ignorant to be the works of gods or demons, and that this has been one cause of idolatry in times past.[1133] So in order that Christianity might prevail, it was ordered that anyone performing such works should be considered evil and a sorcerer (malus et maleficus), and that works of this sort should be regarded as performed not by the virtue of any natural object but rather by the aid and power of demons. But specialists in such matters are not “surprised at these feats but glorify the Creator alone in them, knowing that nature alone in accordance with His omnipotent will operates both in the customary manner known to men and contrary to custom not only in new ways but new things.” In another context William again affirms that natural magic involves no offense or injury to the Creator unless one works evil or too curiously by that art.[1134]

[Sidenote: Some instances of natural magic.]

One example of the marvels worked by means of natural magic is the sudden generation of such animals as frogs and worms. Here the natural processes of generation are hastened by applying certain aids, and William does not doubt the assertion of Emuth that by mixing seeds new animals can be bred.[1135] Other phenomena belonging under natural magic are the marvels worked outside its own body by the soul of the basilisk and certain other animals and certain human souls--a hint that the power of fascination is natural magic.[1136] In short, all use of occult virtue in nature may be classed as natural magic.

[Sidenote: “The sense of nature.”]

Of William’s statements concerning occult virtue we shall hear more under that head. But we may note here what he says of “the sense of nature,”[1137] which he calls “one of the roots of natural magic,” which he often mentions, and which in his opinion accounts for a number of wonderful things.[1138] It is “a sublimer sense than any human apprehension and nobler and more akin to prophecy.” By it one senses the presence in the house of a burglar or harlot who is otherwise unperceived by any of the ordinary senses. By it some dogs can detect a thief in a crowd.[1139] It is the mysterious power by which vultures foresee the coming battle, sheep detect the approach of the wolf, and the spider that of the fly. William tells of a woman who could feel the presence of the man she loved when he was two miles distant[1140] and of another woman who so abhorred her husband that she fell into an epileptic fit whenever he entered the house.[1141] In the main, this sense of nature seems about the same as what other writers call the power of natural divination. William, however, in several cases accounts for it by the strong sympathy or antipathy existing between the two persons or animals concerned.

[Sidenote: Magic’s too extreme pretensions.]

While William accepts such marvels and strange forces, there are many claims of magic which he refuses to grant.[1142] As we shall see later he sets limits even to the powers of demons. Much less will he allow the extreme powers asserted of human magicians. In the books of the magicians appear subversions of nature of every sort. They would bind fire so that it cannot burn, robbers that they may not steal in a certain region, a well or spring so that no water may be drawn from it, and so with merchants and ships. They would even stop water from flowing down hill. William contends that such works are possible only by divine miracle, and that if the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Arabs could really accomplish the lies in their books, they would have conquered the world long ago. Nay, the world would be at the mercy of any single magician or sorcerer (magi seu malefici). William then raises the objection that if two magicians tried to gain the same object at once, the magic of one or the other would prove a failure or they would both share an imperfect and half-way success, and in either case the promises of their art would prove a failure. The same logic might be applied to the advice how to succeed given to young men by some of our “self-made” millionaires (are they magi or malefici?) who have exploited natural resources. William, however, goes on to explain that the books of magic say that not all artificers are equally skilful or born under a lucky star. He points out the limitations of Pharaoh’s magicians in much the usual manner.[1143]

[Sidenote: Wax images.]

William not only denies that magic can attain some extreme results, but also denies that some of the methods employed in magic are suited or adequate to the ends aimed at. He especially attacks the employment of images and characters, words, names, and incantations. The use of wax images in magic to harm the person or thing of whom the image is made seems to him a futile proceeding. He will not believe that Nectanebo--the magician of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, it will be remembered--could sink the ships of the enemy by submerging wax images of them.[1144] Such magic images possess neither intelligence nor will, nor can they act by bodily virtue, since that requires contact either direct or indirect to be effective.[1145] If someone suggests that they act by sense of nature, he should know that inanimate objects are incapable of this.[1146] The only way in which the occasional seemingly successful employment of such images can be accounted for is that when the magician does anything to the image, demons inflict the same sufferings upon the person against whom the image is used, and thus deceive men into thinking that the virtue of the image accomplishes this result.[1147]

[Sidenote: Factitious gods.]

Hermes Trismegistus speaks to Asclepius in the Liber de hellera or De deo deorum of terrestrial gods, associated each with some material substance, such as stones and aromatics which have the natural force of divinity in them.[1148] Hermes, however, distinguished from natural gods “factitious gods,” or statues, idols, and images made by man, into which “the splendor of deity and virtue of divinity” is poured or impressed by celestial spirits or the heavens and stars, “and this with observation of the hours and constellations when the image is cast or engraved or fabricated.” William regrets to say that traces of this error still prevail “among many old women, and Christians at that.” And they say that sixty years after their manufacture these images lose their virtue. William does not believe that there is divinity in stones or herbs or aromatics, or that men can make gods of any sort.[1149] Minds and souls cannot be put into statues,[1150] and William concludes that Trismegistus “erred shamefully” and “was marvelously deceived by the evil spirits themselves.”[1151] He also calls impossible “what is so celebrated among the astrologers (astronomos), and written in so many of the books, namely, that a statue will speak like a man if one casts it of bronze in the rising of Saturn.”[1152]

[Sidenote: Characters and figures.]

William likewise holds that characters or figures or impressions or astrological images have no force unless they are tokens by which the evil spirits may recognize their worshipers.[1153] There is no divinity in the angles of Solomon’s pentagon. William states that some are led into this error from their theories concerning the stars, and that the idolatrous cult of the stars distinguishes four kinds of figures: seals, rings, characters, and images.[1154] Such are the rings and seal of Solomon with their “execrable consecrations and detestable invocations.” Even more unspeakable is that image called idea Salomonis et entocta, and the figure known as mandel or amandel. So excessive are the virtues attributed to such images that they belong only to God, so that it is evident that God has been shorn of His glory which has been transferred to such figures. Artesius in his book on the virtue of words and characters asserts that by a certain magic figure he bound a mill so that the wheels could not turn.[1155] But William is incredulous as to such powers in characters. He thinks that one might as well say that virtue of the figure would run the mill without water or mill-wheels. If the mill did stop, it must have been the work of demons. Nor can William see any sense in writing the day and hour when thunder was heard in that locality on the walls of houses in order to protect them from lightning.[1156] It seems to him an attribution of the strongest force to the weakest sort of an incidental occurrence.

[Sidenote: Power of words denied.]

William indeed denies that there is magic power in mere words or incantations. Mere words cannot kill men or animals as sorcerers claim.[1157] William argues scholastically that if spoken words possessed any such virtue they must derive it either from the material of which they are composed, air, or from their form, sound; or from what they signify. Air cannot kill unless it is poisoned by a plague, dragon, or toad. Sound to kill must be deafening. If what is signified by the word is the cause, then images, which are more exact likenesses, would be more powerful than words. William’s opinion is that when sorcerers employ magic words and incantations they are simply calling upon the demons for aid, just as the worshipers of God sometimes induce Him to work wonders by calling upon His name.

[Sidenote: Use of divine names.]

This brings William to the delicate question of divine names. He censures the use of the name of God by “magicians and astronomers” in “working their diabolical marvels.”[1158] He also notes that they employ a barbaric name and not one of the four Hebrew names of God. They forbid anyone who is not pure and clad in pure vestments to presume to touch the book in which this name is written, but they try to gain evil ends by it and so blaspheme against their Creator. William, however, seems to feel that the names of God have a virtue not found in ordinary words and he states that not only servants of God but even wicked men sometimes cast out demons by making use of holy exorcisms.

[Sidenote: Christian magic.]

In short, incantations possess no efficacy, but exorcisms do. This is an indication, not merely of William’s logical inconsistency, but also of the existence of a Christian or ecclesiastical variety of magic in his day. He will not believe in Nectanebo’s wax images, but he believes that the forms of wax which have the likeness of lambs receive through the benediction of the pope the virtue of warding off thunderbolts.[1159] He denied that magic words had efficacy through their sound but he affirms that consecrated bells prevent storms within the sound of their ringing, and that salt and water which have been blessed obtain the power of expelling demons. William, however, takes refuge in God’s omnipotent virtue to explain the efficacy of these Christian charms.

[Sidenote: Magic of sex and generation.]

Magic appears to have always devoted considerable attention to matters of sex and generation, and William’s works give one or two instances of this. He states that sorcerers investigate the cohabiting of certain animals, thinking that if they kill them at that hour they will obtain from their carcasses potent love-charms and aids to fecundity.[1160] We are also told that men have tried to produce, and thought that they succeeded in producing human life in other ways than by the usual generative process.[1161] “And in the books of experiments may be found mockeries of women similar to those which the demons called incubi work and which certain sorcerers have attempted and left in writing for posterity.” They have recorded a delusive experiment by which women who have been known only once or twice think that this has occurred fifty or sixty times.

[Sidenote: William’s contribution to the bibliography of magic.]

As has been already incidentally suggested, William offers considerable information as to the bibliography of magic in his day. Besides his many general allusions to works of magic, writings of sorcerers and prestidigitateurs and astrologers and books of experiments, he mentions several particular works ascribed to Aristotle and Avicenbros, to Hermes Trismegistus and Solomon, the “cursed book” of Cocogrecus on “Stations to the cult of Venus” and, what is perhaps the same, of Thot grecus on “The cult of Venus.”[1162] An Artesius or Arthesius, whom in one passage he calls a magician and cites concerning divination by water and whom in another passage he calls both a magician and a philosopher who had written a book on the virtue of words and characters,[1163] is probably the same Artesius who is cited concerning divination by the rays of the sun or moon in liquids or mirrors in a work of alchemy in a twelfth century manuscript,[1164] and further identical with the Artephius who Roger Bacon says lived for one thousand and twenty-five years,[1165] to whom a treatise is ascribed in the Theatrum Chymicum[1166] and a Sloane manuscript,[1167] and who seems to have been the same as Altughra’i, a poet and alchemist who died in 1128.[1168] There also are a number of magic books of which William does not give the author’s name or the title, but of which he gives descriptions or from which he makes citations which would be sufficiently definite to identify the works should one meet with them elsewhere. In our chapters on pseudo-literature and experimental literature we treat of many of these works.

[Sidenote: Plan of the rest of this chapter.]

From our survey of magic proper as delineated in William’s works we now turn to what he represents as the two chief forces in magic, namely, the demons and the occult virtues in nature, and to two subjects which he closely connects with magic, namely, divination and astrology. These four topics will be taken up separately in the order stated.

[Sidenote: The theory of spiritual substances.]

Since William attributes so much of magic to demons, it is important to note what he has to say concerning these “spiritual substances.” He proposes to follow as his sources on the subject “authentic accounts” (sermones authentici): first of all the statements of the divinely inspired prophets, and after that the opinions of the philosophers and also of the magicians. He observes elsewhere, however, that there is a lack of literature on the subject; the sages have only dipped into it and not yet plumbed it to its depths: in fact, only the treatise of Avicenbros has come to his hands, and while that authority has said and written many sublime things, far removed from popular comprehension, still he has made only a beginning in this field.[1169] William also utilizes, however, the works of Hermes Trismegistus[1170] and other books of necromancy and magic--among them Thot Graecus[1171]--the testimony of medical men[1172] and “innumerable experiences” of men at large.[1173]

William professes himself open to conviction and new light on the question of the assumption of bodies by good and bad spirits.[1174] And it must be said that his whole treatment of spirits is full of inconsistencies and difficulties. Part of the time he draws a hard and fast line between spiritual substances and physical creation, but only part of the time. He also essays the difficult task of explaining how and to what extent these spiritual substances are able to disturb physical creation, and how far they in turn are affected by it.

[Sidenote: Spirits in the heavens.]

To begin with, William takes up the difficult position--or rather he makes it difficult for himself--but the usual one with medieval theologians, that angels occupy physical space and are located in their own heaven as the stars are in theirs.[1175] Some modern believers in spiritualism hold a very similar position.[1176] He also declares that the tenth and last or empyrean heaven will be the eternal abode of men whose souls are saved, although the resurrected bodies of the saved would presumably still be corporal substances.[1177] This raises the further difficulty that apparently the empyrean heaven cannot be the abode of the angels, as some theologians and saintly doctors have held (for a corporal place cannot be filled except with corporal substances), for those superficial persons who mock the authentic divine revelation of scripture will say that “if that heaven is a corporal place it cannot be filled except by corporal substances.”

[Sidenote: Will hell be big enough?]

Another point which puzzles William is whether there will be room in hell for all the evil spirits and resurrected bodies of the damned destined to make it their ultimate abode. The infernal regions, located in the interior of our terrestrial globe, seem very small to him compared with the vast expanse of the empyrean heaven which is even greater than that of the fixed stars. And our earth is a mere dot compared to the sphere of the fixed stars. If then that entire empyrean heaven is to be filled with glorified men, how shall the infernal regions hold all the damned?[1178] It will be seen that Dante’s later cosmology is very similar to William’s.

[Sidenote: Astrological necromancy.]

William will not agree, however,[1179] with the books of magic and the masters of images and illusions that the starry heavens and even single planets are inhabited by spirits so that the circle of the moon has fifty ministering spirits and that there are also angels in the twelve signs of the zodiac. On the other hand, in an earlier chapter he makes the statement that he has never heard anywhere even in magic books of demons with power over celestial bodies.[1180] William is of the opinion that Aristotle was deceived by an evil spirit into boasting that a spirit had descended to him from the circle of Venus.[1181] William argues that the starry heavens are rational and able to regulate themselves and do not require any ministering angels; and on the other hand that the nobler spirits would not debase themselves by ministering to mere celestial bodies.[1182] William’s own theory is that demons dwell in the air about the earth and not in the planetary heavens. He also speaks in one passage of their especially frequenting deserts.[1183]

[Sidenote: False accounts of fallen angels.]

William also rejects[1184] some non-Christian assertions concerning fallen angels. One is the statement of the author of a book of sorcery, who claimed to have communed with spirits thirty years, to the effect that new spirits are created daily, and that there are twelve orders of them, and that every day a multitude of them fall and that they fall into different regions of the earth and there rule--some in deserts, some in woods, some in fountains and rivers, some in herbs and trees, some in gems and stones, which thus derive their marvel-working qualities from them. The other account rejected by William is a pretty story from Hermes to this effect.[1185] When two angels were criticizing mankind harshly for its sinfulness God incarnated them to see how much better they would do. Both promptly fell in love with a beautiful woman who would return their love only on condition that they renounce God. When they had done even this, God called them to heaven, reproved them for not having justified their criticism of sinful mankind, and told them to choose now their place of punishment. They selected the air, but later through the prayers of a prophet in Babylon were shut up in a cave to await their final punishment at the last judgment.

[Sidenote: Different kinds of spirits.]

William of course makes the usual sharp Christian distinction between good spirits or angels and bad spirits or demons. It is the latter alone, rather than spiritual substances in general, whom he connects with magic, although naturally the magicians themselves often claim to employ good spirits. William is in doubt whether fauns and pygmies and some other monsters are demons or animals or men.[1186] He also lists satyrs, joculatores, incubi, succubi, nymphs, Lares, Penates and other old Latin names such as cloacina, Lucina, limitanus, priapus, genius, hymenus.[1187] He regards as a delusion the belief fostered by old-wives in demons who injure infants.[1188] Despite his mention of incubi and succubi and despite the verses of Scripture about the sons of God and the daughters of men and that woman ought to veil her head on account of the angels, he regards demons as incapable of sexual intercourse with human beings, but he thinks it possible that they may juggle with nature so as to produce the effects of sexual intercourse.[1189] He mentions the belief in a demon who comes to cellars at night in women’s clothing and bestows abundance and prosperity where food and drink is left uncovered for it to partake of, which it does without diminishing the quantity. “And they call her satia from satiety.”

[Sidenote: Limited demon control of nature.]

What is the extent of the control over matter exercised by the demons in performing marvels? In discussing what demons can and cannot perform in the ways of marvels, William’s decisions seem rather arbitrary and capricious.[1190] He grants them superhuman powers of divination and says that it has been repeatedly proved that they know when invocations and sacrifices are made to them.[1191] But the apparitions which they produce are neither real objects nor images in the air but thoughts and pictures in the mind of the beholder.[1192] The armies of horsemen produced by necromancers leave no prints of hoofs behind them and their elaborate castles with gates, towers, walls, and citadel completely vanish without leaving a trace.[1193] This explains how enchanters and magicians can apparently cut horses in two, although William grants it not unlikely that there may be other ways of doing this for those “who know the marvellous occult virtues of many things.” William also discusses how demons can toss sticks and stones about, throw persons out of bed, and transport men or huge rocks for great distances when they have neither necks nor shoulders to carry them on.[1194] This is no more strange, he says, than the magnet’s ability to draw iron.[1195] He believes that the virtue of spiritual substances can overcome weight which holds bodies at rest and produce lightness which makes motion easy. It was thus that an angel transported one of the Hebrew prophets to Babylon by a lock of his hair. It is doubtful, however, if this last could have been accomplished save by divine aid. He doubts furthermore if horses could be generated as the frogs were by the Egyptian magicians of Pharaoh. The generation of frogs is a much easier and more rapid process. Also the wax lights which mysteriously appear in stables on the horses’ manes and tails would be easy for demons to make.[1196] But William disbelieves in such magic transformations as werwolves. His explanation is that the devil first made the man imagine himself a wolf and then caused a real wolf to appear and frighten people.[1197] Demons cannot make idols or images speak, but when the bodies of human beings are possessed by demons, they form voices after a fashion, although, as exorcists have assured him, in a raucous tone unlike the usual human voice, probably because the vocal chords respond but indifferently to demoniacal abuse of them.[1198]

[Sidenote: Can demons be imprisoned or enter bodies?]

William is sure that demons cannot be imprisoned against their will in material bodies, whether rings, gems, mirrors, or glass phials such as Solomon is said to have shut them up in.[1199] William argues that if a man died in a huge corked bottle his soul would be able to get out. William, however, believes his Bible when it tells him of demons shut up in men whom “they vex with innumerable tortures,” or in swine or in lakes,[1200] although he declares that he does not adduce the case of demons in swine because it is recorded in the Bible but because it is attested by the experience of many. And he declares that even to his day demons give most certain indication of their presence in lakes when stones are thrown in or they are provoked by some other movement or sound.[1201] He states, however, that many medical men deny that human beings are possessed by demons and attribute the seizures and agitations to fumes and vapors.[1202] Many skilled doctors also dispute the existence of the nocturnal demon called ephialtes and attribute the oppressive feeling to action of the heart and not to the weight of a demon. In this instance William is inclined to agree with the physicians.[1203] William holds that it is useless to strike at demons when they appear before you, for you merely beat the air, as many experiments have shown.[1204] But he believes that demons can be punished not only by material hell fire but by contact with the other three elements, air, earth and water.

[Sidenote: Susceptibility of demons to the four elements and to natural objects.]

Demons feel any affront offered or indignity done them very keenly so that saints have often routed them by a volley of spit. William is also inclined to accept the “ancient opinion among the Romans” that human urine dissolves works of magic.[1205] Furthermore there are several natural objects which have the occult virtue of driving away demons, a peony suspended from the neck--Galen’s old remedy for the epileptic boy--or the top of the heart of a certain fish placed on the coals. If it is asked how it is that these proud spiritual substances are thus subject to the virtues of physical bodies, William can only answer that it is probably in consequence of their fall, which also subjected them to hell fire. William’s logic simply reduces to this, that God can do anything He pleases with demons while men can do nothing with them against the demons’ wills and without imperiling their own souls.

[Sidenote: Stock examples of natural marvels.]

William is as credulous concerning the marvelous powers attributed to herbs, gems and animals, and as anxious to find some plausible explanation of their validity, as he was sceptical in regard to images, characters and words. We encounter once more in his pages many of the stock examples of natural marvels which we have met again and again in previous writers and shall find in many writers after him. He rhapsodizes concerning the power of the magnet and mentions its three species according to Hermes (Mercurius).[1206] He tells of the phoenix, of the masculine and feminine palms, and of theriac.[1207] Indeed, the magnet, the palms, and the story of the hazel rod told below are all introduced while William is supposedly discussing divine providence. In more than one passage he tells--perhaps directly from Pliny--of the stupefaction produced by the torpedo in persons who touch it only with a long stick, of the little echinus or remora which stops great ships, or of the powers of lion and basilisk, and of the gem heliotrope which aided by the virtue of the herb of the same name renders one invisible.[1208] For this assertion concerning heliotrope, however, which Pliny stigmatized as an example of the magicians’ impudence,[1209] William cites the writings of experimenters.

[Sidenote: The hazel rod story.]

On the other hand, a passage in William’s work concerning the property of a hazel rod was repeated within a few years by at least three writers: Albertus Magnus, John of St. Amand, and Roger Bacon. William relates that men say that if the rod is split in two lengthwise the halves will approach one another again of their own accord and reunite.[1210] Deceivers attribute this to the virtue of certain words which they utter, but it is by virtue and sense of nature.

[Sidenote: Occult virtues of herbs and animals.]

William regards the occult virtue of things on this earth as so certain that he uses it to argue that the stars too must possess great powers.[1211] This is attested “from the operations of the virtues of other things, both animals and parts of them, also herbs, medicines, and stones.”[1212] Of medicines he especially recommends the empirica to the reader’s consideration.[1213] The virtues of herbs have been proved to be very numerous and very marvelous.[1214] As for animals, after describing the virtues of the basilisk, William adds, “and when you have heard similar and maybe greater things concerning the occult virtues of other animals, you will not marvel at these.” Among many medicines which prolong life he believes that the flesh of snakes has great renovating virtue,[1215] and among medicines supposed to produce visions and revelations he names the eye of an Indian tortoise and the heart of the hoopoe,[1216] which are thought to clear the soul of noxious vapors in sleep and pave the way for illuminations. William suggests that these substances may horrify one so as to shock the soul free from the body. He even mentions a medicine the smoke from which in the room in which one is sleeping will free the soul from the body so that it emerges into the region of light and the luminosity of the Creator.[1217] And in the case of the little fish which binds ships so that they cannot move, he holds it indubitable that this cannot possibly be done by any bodily virtue which it possesses and must be by some spiritual virtue which exists in its soul.[1218] This reminds him of the power of the human imagination as shown in the case of the man who cast down a camel by merely imagining its fall.[1219]

[Sidenote: Virtues of gems.]

To the virtues of gems William alludes a number of times. He recounts how the sapphire of its own motion springs into a diseased human eye and cleanses it of its noxious humors.[1220] He also finds it asserted that the emerald attracts riches to its owner and that the topaz checks the passions of avarice, cupidity, luxury, and evil desire. He endeavors to explain how it may be possible for the stone heliotrope to render one invisible; as the power of the stone turns the brightness of the sunlight to a ruby shade, so it may be that the potency of its color prevents the spectators from discerning at all the color of the man who wears it, just as it is said that a musical instrument strung with snake-skin drowns the sound of all other instruments.[1221]

[Sidenote: A medley of marvelous virtues.]

Some of the virtues ascribed to natural objects William finds almost too marvelous for belief, but then strengthens his faith by recollecting some others which are more marvelous still, as the following passage will illustrate.[1222] The experimenters have put in their books the marvelous statement that the presence of a serpent or of a reed containing some quicksilver affects sorcerers and magicians so that their juggleries and incantations are of no avail. William, who it will be recalled had elsewhere denied the ability of a magic figure to stop a mill-wheel, is also inclined to question whether serpents or quicksilver have any power over evil spirits and incantations. But then he remembers that the experimenters also assert that a crab hung in mid-air keeps moles who move underground out of the field and that the herb peony drives devils out of demoniacs. Since the peony has many virtues necessary for men and demons hate men, William thinks it likely that they hate the herb too, and flee from it, when it is suspended about one’s neck. And in one of the books of the Hebrews it is expressly stated that one of the holy angels said that the top of the heart of a certain fish placed on live coals would drive any kind of demon out of men or women. This book is received as authentic by both Hebrews and Christians, and William also regards an archangel as a good authority. This being established, he sees no reason why a snake may not have power over demons too. He recalls too the ancient belief among the Romans that human urine dissolves all works of magic; the manifest fact that jasper drives away snakes and that eagles place it in their nests for this reason; and that the gem achates or agate taken powdered in drink causes the unchaste to vomit. In Great Britain they test the morals of boys and girls by this experiment. This property of the agate causes William to marvel much, for he sees no connection between stones and virginity. However, if the agate is incompatible with unchastity, what wonder if quicksilver will not tolerate the working of magic in its presence?

It has been made evident that William accepts very extreme powers in natural objects and that with such resources the possibilities of his natural magic should be well-nigh unlimited. If he does not quite believe in all these marvels, he does not definitely deny them, and evidently enjoys repeating them.

[Sidenote: Divination not an art but revelation.]

William states that the proper meaning of divination is imitation of the deity, but that the term is usually not applied to the revelations made by good spirits and prophets but to the revelation of hidden things, especially the future, by evil spirits.[1223] For he also affirms that divination is not a human art but a matter of revelation. The medical prognostications of physicians, although they may seem occult to other men, are based on experience of their art and astronomers are not called diviners but men of learning. While William may deny that the diviner is an artifex, he has to admit that some diviners use tools or materials and so give their predictions the appearance of being based upon some art.

[Sidenote: Divination by inspection of lucid surfaces.]

Of this type is the practice of predicting the future by gazing upon polished and reflecting surfaces which are rubbed with oil to increase their lucidity.[1224] Among the substances employed are mirrors, two-edged swords, children’s finger-nails, egg shells, and ivory handles. Usually a boy or a virgin is employed to gaze thereupon, and sometimes exorcisms, adjurations, and observance of times are added. William affirms that many experiences have demonstrated that only one boy out of seven or ten sees anything therein, and he is of the opinion that the whole apparatus simply conceals “the impiety of diabolical sacrifices.” Some ancient sages, nevertheless, notably Plato, have thought that the soul of the gazer is thrown back upon itself by the luminosity of the object seen and then exercises its latent powers of natural divination. We sometimes see such revelations by the irradiation of spiritual light in the insane, the very ill, dreamers, and those in whom because of great fright or care the mind is abstracted from the body.[1225] William therefore finally concludes that the theory of the philosophers as to divination by inspection of lucid bodies “is undoubtedly possible,” but he still maintains that demons are often involved.

[Sidenote: Other instances of divination, ancient and modern.]

William also tells us of an ancient Latin magician who believed that the soul of an immaculate boy who had been slain by violence would have knowledge of past, present and future.[1226] He therefore murdered a boy, and then went insane himself and imagined that he heard responses from the boy’s soul. This was surely the work of demons. Other ancient philosophers blinded boys or themselves in order to increase the power of the soul in divination.[1227] William further mentions the old-wives of his own time who still persisted in divination and interpreting dreams and could not be made to desist even by beatings.[1228] He states that these old women still cherished the superstition of the augurs that if you find a bird’s nest with the mother bird and little ones or the eggs, and preserve it intact, all will go well with you, while if you harm it or separate any bird or egg from it you will encounter ill fortune.[1229]

[Sidenote: His treatment of astrology.]

William has much to say in his various works of the heavens and the stars, and he rarely overlooks an opportunity to have a tilt with the astrologers. Most of his statements and arguments had been often employed before, however, and he also repeats himself a great deal, and his long-drawn scholastic listing and rebutting of supposed reasons pro and con at times becomes insufferably tedious. We shall therefore compress his treatment to a very small space compared to that which it occupies in his own works and words.

[Sidenote: The philosophers on the nature of the heavens and stars.]

William states that Plato and Aristotle, Boethius, Hermes Trismegistus, and Avicenna, all believed the stars to be divine animals whose souls were as superior to ours, as their celestial bodies are.[1230] Since these philosophers regarded the stars as nobler, wiser, and more powerful than mortals, they made them guardians and guides of humanity, and distributed all earthly objects under their rule. Such doctrines William recalls examining when he was young in the books of judicial astrology and the volumes of magicians and sorcerers, from whom he would appear to distinguish the above-named philosophers none too carefully. He indeed explicitly classes “Plato and Aristotle and their followers” with “those who believe in judgments of the stars.”[1231] He also tells us that Plato regarded the entire universe as one divine animal, and that his followers regarded the tides as the breathing of this world animal; but that Aristotle and his school included only what is above the moon or even only the heaven of the fixed stars.[1232] Avicenna, too, called the heaven an animal obedient to God.

[Sidenote: William’s own opinion and attitude.]

William himself is inclined to think that the divisions and diversities of the nine spheres militate against their being animated by a single soul; and he rejects the theory that the world soul is composed of number and musical consonance.[1233] But he leaves Christians free, if they will, to believe with the Aristotelians and many Italian philosophers that the superior world is either one or many animals, that the heavens are either animated or rational.[1234] In this he sees no peril to the Faith; but hitherto Hebrew and Christian doctrine has not explored such matters, and Christians have been too absorbed in saving men’s souls to note whether the heavens had souls or no. It would indeed be strange if William denied the starry heavens some sort of soul or souls when he has attributed one to a sea-fish like the echinus.[1235] But he declares that “it is manifest that human souls are nobler than those which they put in heavenly bodies.” And he warns against the wicked error of identifying the Holy Spirit with the world soul. We have noted elsewhere his hostility to the theory of astrological necromancy that the heavens and stars are full of ministering spirits. He also contraverts the Aristotelian doctrines that there are as many intelligences moving the heavenly bodies as there are celestial motions and that the heavens love superior intelligences and strive to become assimilated to these.[1236]

[Sidenote: Objection to stars as cause of evil.]

Like most Christian apologists William adopts the argument that the stars, if rational, would not cause evils and misfortunes such as astrologers predict, and seems to think that all the evil in the world can be charged to the account of human perversity or the imperfections inherent in the matter of our inferior world, and that for these two sources of ill neither God nor the stars should be held responsible.[1237] He recognizes, it is true, that someone may argue that these evils exist by the will of the Creator, whose will is nevertheless always good, but he does not seem to see that the same reasoning may be applied to the rule of the stars. He seems to regard as a new discovery of his own and a point hitherto unrecognized by astrologers, the argument that ineptitude on the part of inferior matter receiving the force of the stars may account for many effects apparently due to the heavens. But in thinking this argument novel he is much mistaken. Really his only point here against astrologers is that some of them are careless in their phraseology and speak of the stars as causing evil, which he regards as blasphemy of Him who created the stars. “And all blasphemy against the Creator,” continues William in a truculent and intolerant tone which reveals the spirit of the medieval inquisition, “is an impiety to be exterminated with fire and sword.”

[Sidenote: Virtues of the stars.]

William raises certain difficulties in regard to astrological technique only to answer them himself. And he grants that fixed stars which seem close together may really be separated by vast distances and so have very different virtue. And he cannot deny “many marvelous and occult virtues” in celestial bodies, when he admits “so many and so great occult virtues” in terrestrial bodies. Indeed all philosophers agree that the virtues of the stars far surpass even those of precious stones. The variations in the heat of the sun, while its course continues constant, seem to William a sure indication that the other planets and fixed stars participate in influencing our world.

[Sidenote: Extent of their influence upon nature and man.]

While William was not unwilling to concede souls or reason to the stars, he believes that it is perilous for Christians to regard the souls of the heavens as “governors of inferior things and especially of human affairs.”[1238] Those who hold that man’s actions are caused of necessity by the motion of the sky and the positions of the stars, ruin, in his opinion, the foundations of law and morality.[1239] “Against that error, one ought not so much to dispute with arguments as fight with fire and sword.” Some have argued that because stars and lights were created before vegetation, animal life, and human beings, they are causes of these others, both generating and regulating them.[1240] In favor of this contention so much has been written that it can scarcely be read, says William, and the stars do give much aid in generation and in conservation of generated things, but not so much as the astrologers think.[1241] They should not be consulted even as signs--rather than causes--in human concerns.[1242] In our sublunar world their power extends only to the four elements and four humors and only to such animals composed of these as lack free will and obey natural necessity. Thus William really excludes only human free will and intellect from sidereal control,[1243] and he admits that “the multitude and populace from want of intelligence and other evil dispositions lives almost after the manner of brutes,” following natural impulse to a great extent, so that astrologers may predict popular agitations and mob uprisings with a fair degree of accuracy, but should not predict concerning individuals. Even in the case of individuals, however, he does not deny that natural virtues and vices are attributable to the stars, such vices, for instance, as irascibility, levity, and lubricity, which medical authorities ascribe not to moral fault but physical constitution.[1244] William would limit the influence of the stars not only by individual freedom of the will but by the power of prayer.[1245] He does not believe the decrees of fate so fixed and the laws of nature so unchangeable that God’s wrath may not be placated by prayer, and freedom from any threatening evil obtained from His goodness. Belief in the power of the stars and belief in the power of prayers: which is the more superstitious, which the more nearly scientific? Or which belief has led to progress in science?

[Sidenote: Against nativities, interrogations, and images.]

William complains that “Ptolemy and Haly and other astronomers” have attributed original sin and all its consequences to the constellations and hours of nativity, in that they have presumed to write books of horoscopes and nativities.[1246] He feels it “necessary to say something against that insanity” because of the great reputation such famous writers have among the “simple and stupid multitude” which regards them as profound sages and sublime prophets. Into William’s particular arguments against the art of casting nativities, which much resemble the arguments of Augustine and John of Salisbury, we will not go. Elsewhere he also attacks the practice of interrogations.[1247] He also strongly objects to the books which he says astrologers have written on discovering men’s secret thoughts through the significations of the stars.[1248]

William has much to say against astrological images, but his attitude has already been partially indicated in stating his attitude towards images, figures, and characters in general. He declares that belief in astrological images “derogates more from the honor and glory of the Creator than the error which attributes such virtue to the stars and luminaries themselves.” It seems to him “a strange and quite intolerable error to think that stars which cannot help themselves can bestow such gifts as invincibility, social graces, temperance or chastity.”[1249] Yet elsewhere we have heard him mention with seeming complaisance the bestowal of riches and checking of evil passions by emeralds and topazes. His best argument as against figures and characters in general is that such lifeless bodies cannot produce intellectual and moral effects in living human beings, especially when the engraved gems are, as is usual, hidden away somewhere, or buried underground.

[Sidenote: Astrology and religion and history.]

William condemns as error the association of the world’s leading religions with the planets, as Judaism with Saturn, Islam with Venus, and Christianity with the sun.[1250] The stars, he declares, are subject to religion, not religion to the stars, and Joshua made even the sun and moon stand still. William is candid enough to recognize that the seven-branched candlestick in the Jewish tabernacle designated the seven planets, but elsewhere states that the Mosaic Law forbade observation of the stars.[1251] William also considers the doctrine of the magnus annus or Platonic year, that after 36,000 solar years history will repeat itself down to the minutest detail owing to the recurrence of the former series of positions of the constellations.[1252] Since this has the support of men of great reputation, he lists various arguments advanced in its favor and rebuts them in detail.

[Sidenote: Comets and the star of Bethlehem.]

William believes that comets appear in the sky and in the air “as signs of slaughters and other great events in the world.” He mentions “the universal belief” that they foretell the deaths of kings and political changes.[1253] But he asserts that the star announcing Christ’s birth was not of this sort and that the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion was not due to an ordinary eclipse.

FOOTNOTES:

[1102] Gulielmi Alverni episcopi Parisiensis mathematici perfectissimi eximii philosophi ac theologi praestantissimi Opera omnia per Joannem Dominicum Traianum Neapolitanum Venetiis ex officina Damiani Zenari, 1591. The De universo occupies nearly half of the volume, pp. 561-1012. My references will be to this edition and to the De universo unless some other title is specified. In it--and in such other editions of William’s works as I have seen--the chapter headings are often very poor guides to the contents, especially if the chapter is of any length. There are at Paris thirteenth century MSS of the De fide and De legibus (BN 15755) and De universo (BN 15756).

The chief secondary work on William of Auvergne is Noel Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Paris, 1880. One chapter is devoted to his attitude to the superstitions of his age, and goes to the other extreme from Daunou, HL XVIII, 375, whom Valois criticizes for calling William extremely credulous. The inadequacy of Valois’ chapter, at least from our standpoint, may be inferred from his total omission of William’s conception of “natural magic.” Valois has no treatment of William’s attitude to natural science but contents himself with a discussion of his philosophy and psychology. (See also M. Baumgartner, Die Erkenntnislehre des Wilhelm von Auvergne, Münster, 1893.) The chapter on William’s attitude to superstition is largely given over to examples of popular superstitions in the thirteenth century, supplementing legends of Brittany and other stories told by William with similar anecdotes from the pages of Stephen of Bourbon, Caesar of Heisterbach, and Gervaise of Tilbury. Valois’ citations of William’s works are from an edition in which the pages were numbered differently from those in the one I used.

[1103] Valois (1880), pp. 9-11.

[1104] Valois (1880), p. 53.

[1105] HL 18, 357.

[1106] II-iii-20, (pp. 994-95). Yet in another connection (I-i-46, pp. 625-26) William inconsistently makes the assertion that everything depends absolutely upon God’s will alone as an argument against employing magic images to gain one’s ends. He tells a story of a man who, when a magician offered to secure him some great dignity in his city, asked him if he could get it against God’s will. When the magician admitted that he could not, the man asked if he could prevent securing it if God willed it and the magician again answered “No.” The man then said that he would commit it all to God. William does not seem to see that this attitude is the same as that of ignorant persons who leave scientific investigation to God or of hungry people who expect God to feed them.

[1107] I-i-44, (p. 613).

[1108] I-i-42, (p. 608).

[1109] Ibid., (p. 606).

[1110] See I-iii-31, (p. 759). See also Valois, 304 and M. K. Werner, Wilhelms von Auvergne Verhältniss z. d. Platonikern des XII. Jhts, in Vienna Sitzb., vol. 74 (1873), p. 119 et seq.

[1111] See I-ii-30, (p. 694) for an expression of this view.

[1112] I-ii-31, (p. 695).

[1113] II-iii-23, (pp. 1003-4).

[1114] De legibus, Cap. 25, (p. 75).

[1115] I-ii-21, (p. 680): II-iii-7, (p. 973).

[1116] II-iii-23, p. (1003): De legibus, Cap. 24, (p. 73): II-ii-29, (p. 820).

[1117] II-iii-7, (p. 971).

[1118] II-iii-22, (p. 998).

[1119] De legibus, Cap. 9, (pp. 38-39).

[1120] See Cap. 13 (p. 43) and before

[1121] Cap. 23, (p. 65).

[1122] Cap. 14, (pp. 44-45).

[1123] II-iii-22, (p. 998) ... opera huiusmodi quae opera magica et ludificationes vel hominum vel daemonum nuncupantur.

[1124] II-iii-7, (p. 971): II-iii-12, (pp. 977-79).

[1125] II-iii-21, (pp. 997-998) naturarum vires et potentias occultas, etc.

[1126] I-i-43, (p. 612): De legibus, Cap. 24, (p. 67).

[1127] De legibus, Cap. 14 (p. 44).

[1128] II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1129] II-iii-23, (p. 1003).

[1130] De legibus, Cap. 14, (p. 46).

[1131] II-iii-21, (p. 998).

[1132] II-iii-12, (p. 979).

[1133] De legibus, Cap. 24, (pp. 67-68).

[1134] I-i-46, (p. 627).

[1135] De legibus, Cap. 24, (pp. 67-68).

[1136] I-i-43, (p. 612).

[1137] “Sensus naturae,” De legibus, Cap. 27, (p. 88).

[1138] See pp. 875, 876 and 983 as well as the following reference. I-i-46, (p. 624).

[1139] II-ii-70, (p. 870).

[1140] II-ii-69, (p. 869).

[1141] II-ii-70, (p. 870).

[1142] I-i-46, (p. 625).

[1143] II-iii-22, (p. 1000).

[1144] I-i-46, (p. 625).

[1145] I-i-46, (p. 626).

[1146] I-i-46, (p. 624).

[1147] I-i-46, (p. 627).

[1148] De legibus, Cap. 23, (p. 64): II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1149] De legibus, Cap. 26, (p. 82).

[1150] Ibid., Cap. 27, (pp. 84 ff.).

[1151] II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1152] De legibus, Cap. 26, (p. 84).

[1153] Ibid., Cap. 27, (pp. 86-87).

[1154] Ibid., Cap. 23, (p. 65).

[1155] II-iii-23, (p. 1003).

[1156] De legibus, Cap. 27, (p. 89).

[1157] Ibid., (pp. 87-88).

[1158] Ibid., (p. 89).

[1159] De legibus, Cap. 27, (p. 84).

[1160] Ibid., Cap. 4, (p. 34).

[1161] II-iii-25, (p. 1010).

[1162] II-ii-96, (p. 895).

[1163] De universo, pp. 996-7, also 1003; De legibus, cap. 27 (p. 89).

[1164] Berlin 956, 12th century, fol. 21, Hic incipit alchamia....

[1165] Bridges, II, 212.

[1166] Theatrum Chymicum, Strasburg, 1613, IV, 221.

[1167] Sloane 1118, 15th century, #28. Arthephii capitulum ex opere solis extractum.

[1168] Gildemeister in Zeitsch. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Ges. XXXIII, 534: cited by Lippmann (1919), 408.

[1169] De legibus, Cap. 26, (pp. 81-82): I-i-44, (p. 613).

[1170] De universo II-ii-37, (p. 831): II-ii-100 (p. 898).

[1171] Ibid., II-ii-96, (p. 895).

[1172] Ibid., II-iii-13, (p. 982): II-iii-24, (p. 1007).

[1173] Ibid., II-ii-63, (p. 860): II-ii-70, (p. 871): II-iii-6, (p. 968): II-iii-17, (p. 988).

[1174] Ibid., II-iii-24, (p. 1007).

[1175] Ibid., II-ii-84 and 85, (pp. 885-6).

[1176] Among errors condemned at Paris in 1240 by William as bishop the seventh was “that neither glorified souls nor glorious or glorified bodies will be in the empyrean heaven with the angels but in the watery or crystalline (heaven) which is above the firmament. Which they even presume to say of the blessed virgin. On the contrary it should be believed that there is the same place for holy angels and souls of the blest, namely, the empyrean heaven,” etc.

The eighth error was “that an angel can in the same instant be in different places and is everywhere if he wishes to be everywhere.”

These errors and various other sets of errors condemned at Paris and Oxford are printed in an incunabulum numbered IA.4778 in the British Museum.

[1177] De universo I-i-34, (p. 595 ff). Also Cap. 43 (pp. 609 to 611).

[1178] Who William believes will exceed the saved in numbers: “De multitudine vero damnandorum omnis lex determinatum habet apud se quod multo maior futura sit multitudine glorificandorum.” The passage has already been quoted in HL XVIII, 371-2.

[1179] De legibus, Cap. 24, (p. 73.) De universo II-ii-96, (p. 895).

[1180] Ibid., II-ii-70, (p. 871).

[1181] Ibid., II-ii-39 and 98, (pp. 833 and 897) and II-iii-6, (p. 967): also II-ii-96, (p. 895).

[1182] De universo, II-ii-97, (p. 896).

[1183] De legibus, Cap. 9, (pp. 38-39).

[1184] De universo, II-ii-29, (p. 820) and II-iii-6 to 8, (pp. 966 to 973).

[1185] Ibid., II-ii-37, (p. 831): II-ii-100, (p. 898).

[1186] De universo, II-iii-7, (p. 970).

[1187] Ibid., II-iii-12, (pp. 976-7).

[1188] Ibid., II-iii-24, (p. 1004).

[1189] Ibid., II-iii-25, (pp. 1009-10).

[1190] Ibid., II-iii-23, (p. 1000).

[1191] De legibus, Cap. 24, (p. 67).

[1192] De universo, I-ii-21, (p. 680), and II-ii-63, (p. 860).

[1193] Ibid., II-iii-12, (p. 979).

[1194] De universo, II-ii-70, (p. 871).

[1195] Ibid. (p. 1001).

[1196] Ibid. (pp. 1003-1004).

[1197] Ibid., II-iii-13, (p. 983).

[1198] De legibus, Cap. 26, (p. 83-4).

[1199] De legibus, Cap. 26, (p. 81).

[1200] De universo, II-iii-6, (p. 968).

[1201] Ibid., II-iii-17, (p. 987).

[1202] Ibid., II-iii-13, (p. 982).

[1203] Ibid., II-iii-24, (p. 1007).

[1204] Ibid., II-iii-17, (p. 988).

[1205] Ibid., II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1206] I-iii-11, (p. 731: also pp. 756-57).

[1207] I-ii-16, (p. 668): II-iii-22 (p. 999).

[1208] II-ii-73, (p. 873): II-iii-22, (p. 998): II-iii-16, (p. 986): I-i-46, (p. 621).

[1209] NH 37, 60.

[1210] I-iii-11, (p. 731).

[1211] I-i-46, (p. 621).

[1212] The influence of this passage is seen in a MS at Paris which was once the property of the humanist Budé: BN nouv. acq. 433, anno 1486, fol. 1: Excerpta from William of Auvergne, “et primo ex capitulo de virtutibus occultis quorundam animalium herbarum et lapidum relatorum ad consideracionem astronomicam et astronomorum, ut plurimum, errancium.”

[1213] II-ii-76 (p. 876), necnon et exemplis occultarum operationum et mirabilium quaeque nonnulli medicorum et etiam quidam philosophorum naturalium empirica vocant.

[1214] II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1215] I-i-59, (p. 639).

[1216] II-iii-21, (p. 997).

[1217] II-iii-20, (p. 995).

[1218] II-iii-16, (p. 986).

[1219] This illustration is also used by Peter of Abano, Conciliator, Diff. 135; and is found in the 219 opinions of Siger de Brabant and others condemned at Paris in 1277 (see below, Chapter 62).

[1220] I-i-46, (p. 621).

[1221] II-iii-22, (p. 998).

[1222] II-iii-22, (p. 999).

[1223] II-iii-18, (p. 989).

[1224] Ibid. and De legibus, Cap. 24, (p. 68).

[1225] II-iii-20, (p. 993).

[1226] II-iii-19, (p. 990).

[1227] II-iii-20, (p. 994).

[1228] I-iii-27, (pp. 750-51).

[1229] De legibus, Cap. 2, (p. 31).

[1230] De legibus, cap. 25 (p. 75). De universo, I-iii-27, (p. 751).

[1231] I-iii-28, (p. 753).

[1232] I-iii-27, (pp. 751-2).

[1233] I-iii-30, (p. 757).

[1234] I-iii-31, (p. 759).

[1235] I-ii-29, (p. 693).

[1236] I-ii-5, (p. 650): II-i-45, (p. 794): II-i-4, (p. 763).

[1237] I-i-46, (pp. 618-23).

[1238] I-iii-28, (pp. 753-4).

[1239] I-iii-20, (p. 740).

[1240] I-i-42, (pp. 606-7).

[1241] I-i-46, (pp. 627-8).

[1242] I-iii-31, (p. 759).

[1243] I-i-46, (pp. 628-9).

[1244] Ibid., (p. 620).

[1245] Ibid., (p. 626).

[1246] De vitiis et peccatis, cap. 6, (p. 264).

[1247] De legibus, cap. 20, (p. 55).

[1248] I-i-46, (p. 628).

[1249] De universo, I-i-46, (pp. 622 ff). De legibus, cap. 23, (p. 65).

[1250] Ibid., cap. 20, (p. 53).

[1251] Ibid., cap. 2, (p. 31): I-i-46, (p. 628).

[1252] I-ii-16 and 17, (pp. 667-9).

[1253] I-i-46, (p. 629).

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LIII. THOMAS OF CANTIMPRÉ

De natura rerum; date, authorship, and relation to similar works--Life of Thomas--Character of the De natura rerum--Plan and contents--Chief authorities--Embodiment of long extracts--Other citations--Credulous attitude--Very uncritical character of the Bonum universale de apibus--A chapter on the lion--Different kinds of lions: their generation--Disposition and behavior--Fear inspired and felt by lions--Their diet, medicine, and mode of fighting--Medical virtues of the lion’s carcass--Medieval and modern encyclopedias compared--Examples of the zoology of the Experimenter--Fish, worms, and toads--Solomon’s experiment in worms--Trees--Marvelous virtues of stones--An adamantine mariner’s compass--The mariner’s compass and magic--Occult virtues of sculptured gems--Thetel on images on stones--Zahel or Zaël the Israelite--Consecration of gems--The seven metals: modern plumbing--The seven regions of the air--Astrological--Elements and spirits--Other works incorrectly ascribed to Thomas of Cantimpré--Appendix I. The Manuscripts of the De natura rerum--Appendix II. Some Manuscripts of the Treatise of Thetel on Seals.

[Sidenote: De natura rerum; Date, authorship, and relation to similar works.]

We now approach the consideration of two works with titles similar to Alexander Neckam’s On the Natures of Things, namely, Thomas of Cantimpré’s On the Nature of Things[1254] and Bartholomew of England’s On the Properties of Things. These two works are much longer and more elaborate than Neckam’s, containing each nineteen books, whereas of his five books only two really dealt with the natures of things, and they lead up to the later and still better known natural encyclopedia of Vincent of Beauvais. Thomas and Bartholomew were contemporaries and it is difficult to say whose book was finished or appeared first but we shall consider Thomas first. As he says that he spent fourteen or fifteen years in collecting his material, he perhaps began to write first and his work seems to reflect a somewhat less developed state of learning. Thomas is later than Michael Scot whom he cites, while an allusion to Jacques de Vitry as the most recent of his authorities and as now bishop of Tusculum and a cardinal indicates that the work was finished between 1228 and 1244. On the whole Thomas and Bartholomew seem to have compiled their works independently, employing different general plans, emphasizing rather different fields, and using somewhat different authorities. Possibly, therefore, the two works may have been completed almost simultaneously, and one wonders whether they may not have represented rival ventures of the two friar orders. Bormans and Rose[1255] after him have dwelt on the use made of Thomas’s compilation by his fellow Dominicans, Vincent of Beauvais and Albertus Magnus, but I have little doubt that most of his sources were known to them directly. The De natura rerum remained long in use; an official price was fixed for it at the University of Paris in the reign of Philip the Fair;[1256] and the manuscripts of it are numerous and widespread, but as yet often unidentified because in the manuscripts themselves it is either anonymous or ascribed to Albertus Magnus.[1257] This attribution to Albert is found even in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, while “Albert in the book De naturis rerum,” is cited in the Thesaurus pauperum[1258] by Petrus Hispanus, a work written at some time before 1277 when its author died as Pope John XXI. But Thomas himself speaks in the Bonum universale de apibus[1259] of the De natura rerum as an earlier work of his, which seems decisive, and he is also credited with the authorship of both these works in the fourteenth century Dominican bibliography. A critical edition of the De natura rerum would be a valuable contribution to the study of medieval learning.

[Sidenote: Life of Thomas.]

The date of the birth of Thomas in Brabant has not been fixed but seems to lie between the years 1186 and 1210 and probably is close to the latter date. He attended the episcopal school at Liège for eleven years and entered the Dominican order in 1232. He states that he was in Paris in 1238 when William of Auvergne as bishop of that city called a meeting of all the masters in the chapter house of the Friars Preachers to consider the abuse of plurality of benefices.[1260] In 1246 he became subprior and lector of the Dominicans at Louvain. Kaufmann placed the date of his death between 1263 and 1293, but if the date 1276 mentioned in his Bonum universale de apibus is correct,[1261] he was alive then. In that work he seems to refer to Aquinas and Albertus Magnus as both still living,[1262] but the former had already completed his studies with Albert and become a professor of theology himself,[1263] while Albert is spoken of as if an old man.[1264] Thomas says that he was an attendant upon his lectures “for a long while” when he occupied the chair of theology. It does not seem, however, that this passage implies any very close relation of discipleship between Thomas and Albert.

[Sidenote: Character of the De natura rerum.]

The De natura rerum is professedly a handy compilation made from numerous other writings, as Thomas states both in his preface and conclusion. Stimulated by the remark in Augustine’s Christian Doctrine that it would be a splendid achievement if someone should collect in one volume data concerning the natures of things and especially of animals, Thomas has spared neither labor, solicitude, nor expense toward that end and has spent fourteen or fifteen years in collecting material “scattered widely over the world in the diverse writings” of many philosophers and authors. He has not been satisfied to pursue his investigations merely in Gaul and Germany, although books abound in those countries, but has gone beyond the sea and collected the books published in England on nature, and has made excerpts from all sources. He asks indulgence of his readers if he has omitted anything that should be included, reminding them how great a task it is for one man to read and digest all the varied and scattered works of the philosophers. Nevertheless he feels that “there will scarcely be found among the Latins so much and so varied material compressed into a single volume.”[1265] Thomas does not directly state as his aim, although it is perhaps involved in his citation of Augustine, the elucidation of the properties of things mentioned in the Bible, as we shall find that Bartholomew of England does. But he expresses a hope that arguments for the Faith and illustrations serviceable in sermons may be derived from his work, and there are a number of little books in existence in manuscript which seem to be extracts from the works of Thomas or Bartholomew intended for pulpit use.[1266] Thomas will sometimes, moreover, like Alexander Neckam, explain the allegorical or moral significance of natural phenomena, “but not continually, because we have tried to avoid prolixity.” As a matter of fact, it is rarely that he does so,[1267] although the amount of allegory or moralizing varies somewhat in different manuscripts. These also differ as to the fulness of the text generally and there are numerous minor differences, certain passages being abbreviated or entirely omitted in some manuscripts. Copies have also been discovered of a second or revised edition in which a twentieth book has been added.[1268]

[Sidenote: Plan and contents.]

The manuscripts also differ in their arrangement of the work, but as Thomas supplies us with a table of contents, there can be no doubt as to the original and correct order. He begins with the parts of the human body, devoting a chapter to each member, its ills and their cure, and having considerable to say on the subject of obstetrics. His second book discusses the soul (anima). The brief third book treats of strange and monstrous races of men who are found chiefly in the orient but in some cases elsewhere, hermaphrodites, for instance, in France. Then come successive books on quadrupeds, birds, marine monsters, fish, serpents, and worms. These six books devoted to animal life other than man occupy considerably more than half of the entire work. Thomas turns next to the vegetable kingdom, devoting two books to trees, of which the second deals with aromatic and medicinal trees, and one book to herbs. After the brief thirteenth book on fountains and other bodies of water he comes to (14) precious stones, (15) the seven metals, (16) the seven regions of air, (17) the sphere and planets, (18) meteorology, and finally to the universe and four elements. These two topics of his nineteenth book are usually discussed near the start of medieval scientific treatises, and the reason for the order adopted by Thomas is not very evident, unless perhaps he at first intended to write about animals alone and then added further books on other subjects, or unless he decided to begin with man the microcosm and end with the mundus or macrocosm. If such was his plan, he does not seem to say so, and it is hardly surprising that liberties were taken with his order in some of the manuscripts, which begin with book sixteen and end with book fifteen, apparently in order to start with the heavens and elements and then consider the particular creatures of inferior creation.

[Sidenote: Chief authorities.]

As the work of Thomas is professedly a compilation, it is important to note his authorities. At the start he mentions those to whom he is most indebted: first, Aristotle, and then Pliny. Third comes the De mirabilibus (instead of memorabilibus) mundi of Solinus whom Thomas esteems both as a man of marvelous eloquence and as a diligent scrutinizer of the natures of things. Very different this from Albertus Magnus’ sceptical estimate of Solinus as a philosopher who told many lies, and yet there are modern scholars who contend that Albert took much of his natural science ready-made and without acknowledgment from the De natura rerum of his pupil[1269] Thomas. It will be noted that Thomas names his chief authorities in chronological order. Fourth comes Ambrose, to whose eloquent description of birds and beasts in the Hexaemeron Thomas finds it necessary, however, to make additions; and fifth, Isidore. Sixth, and most recent in time, is the Oriental History of Jacques de Vitry to whom Thomas “was intimately devoted.”[1270] Jacques had occupied several chapters of his Oriental History[1271] with the fountains, trees and herbs, animals, serpents, birds, and rare fish, precious stones and strange races of the orient, and had then added a briefer list to show that the west, too, was not without its marvels. Thomas also mentions two anonymous works, which he appears to cite chiefly concerning animals[1272] and whose titles he gives as Experimentator and Liber rerum. Thomas was probably correct in his surmise that Experimentator had been compiled in recent times and we shall meet citations of it in other authors of the thirteenth century. But the original texts of the Liber rerum and Experimentator do not seem to have survived.

[Sidenote: Embodiment of long extracts.]

Thomas mentions yet other authorities in his preface and even more in the course of his work. His method in using his sources varies. Sometimes he combines in one paragraph brief statements from a number of authorities bearing on the same topic. Again he may insert practically verbatim a long extract or complete treatment of a matter by some one author, or even an entire treatise such as the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle or Thetel’s discussion of seals in stones. Thus in his first book on the human body he uses a work supposed to have been written by Cleopatra to her daughter on the subject of gynecology, and inserts in condensed form John of Spain’s translation from the Arabic of the medical portion of The Secret of Secrets supposed to have been written by Aristotle to Alexander. His second book on the soul follows Augustine’s treatise De anima. His third book on strange and monstrous races of men includes also some account of the Gymnosophists and Brahmans and their verbal repartee or epistolary correspondence with Alexander of Macedon.

[Sidenote: Other citations.]

With some of the authors whom he names Thomas was almost surely not directly acquainted. Dorotheus the Athenian, Menander, and Mago, for instance, he mentions as “authorities according to Pliny.” He does not seem to make as much use of Galen as might be expected, were that author’s works already accessible in Latin translation; but he probably had the old Latin version of Alexander Tralles, to whom he probably refers as “Alexander medicus.” He probably also had seen Basil’s Hexaemeron in Latin translation, since he cites it as well as Ambrose a number of times, and also in the preface to his Bonum universale de apibus lists “the great Basil” together with Aristotle, Solinus, Pliny, Ambrose, and Jacques de Vitry as his authorities in the discussion of bees in the De natura rerum. Many other writers he has without much doubt read for himself: Boethius, Martianus Capella, and Rabanus of earlier medieval Latin writers; Platearius and Constantinus Africanus in medicine; Aldhelme[1273] and Physiologus on animals; of the Arabs Alfraganus, Albumasar, and perhaps Averroës. Michael Scot seems to be cited in some manuscripts and not in others.[1274] In treating of stones Thomas does not cite Marbod by name but states that he is using the metrical version of the account which Evax, king of Arabia, is said to have written for the emperor Nero. Thomas, however, adds statements from other authors on stones. Like Alexander Neckam Thomas seems to use the Natural Questions of Adelard of Bath without acknowledgment. In discussing herbs he asks the three opening questions of Adelard’s treatise and proceeds to solve them in words which are often identical. After this general introduction his chapters on particular herbs are almost invariably introduced by the formula, “As Platearius says.” Ferckel has pointed out that the greater part of three chapters in his first book on human anatomy is drawn from the Philosophia of William of Conches,[1275] and that the twentieth book, added in some manuscripts, is taken from the same work. Thus Thomas makes much use of comparatively recent authorities. He also tells us that he has not disdained to include some popular beliefs.

[Sidenote: Credulous attitude.]

Thomas of Cantimpré must be reckoned as one of the most credulous of our authors. In his books on animals he seems of the uncritical school of the marvelous of Solinus, Basil, Ambrose, the Physiologus, and Jacques de Vitry. Seldom does he question any statement that he finds in his authorities; indeed, he does not appear to possess the independent knowledge of animal life to enable him to do so. He does state that the power of the little echinus to stop ships has seemed incredible to many, but inasmuch as Ambrose, Jacques, Aristotle, Isidore, and Basil all assert it confidently, he does not see how there is any room left for doubt.[1276] The story of the beaver’s self-castration in order to escape its hunters is given without comment, and we are further told that the animal cannot live unless it keeps its tail in the water.[1277] Thomas tells us that Isidore held that the Sirens were really harlots who enticed men to moral ruin, but he adds that the more general opinion is that they are irrational marine monsters who still exist and he cites “those who testify that they have seen the Sirens themselves.” Their song is more like that of birds than it is like articulate speech. Sometimes, on the other hand, Thomas prefers a miraculous or supernatural to a natural explanation of a marvelous statement. He is not sure whether the onocentaur seen by St. Anthony in the desert was real or a deception of the devil, and he regards as not natural but a divine miracle the story that the Apostle Peter had shut up in a mountain near Rome a dragon which will live until the end of the world. He adds, however, the tale of the two dragons found alive under the tower from the History of the Britons. About all that can be said for Thomas on this score is that he does not appear to add many new marvels of his own to the incredible assertions of past writers.

[Sidenote: Very uncritical character of the Bonum universale de apibus.]

Thomas’s credulity seems to have increased with age, since his later Bonum universale de apibus,[1278] in which bees are a mere starting point for a disquisition on the qualities which bishops and other clergy should possess and the introduction of innumerable anecdotes, is a tissue of monkish tales and gossip, instances of special providence, apparitions of the dead and of demons, and other miracles and moralities, most of which are supposed to have occurred in Thomas’s own time and are recounted upon hearsay. Thus we read of a son who did not adequately support his aged father and was punished by a toad leaping onto his face and taking such a hold that it could not be removed but remained as a disfiguring growth. As a penance the son was sent by his bishop through the diocese as an example and warning to others. Or Thomas assures us that Albertus Magnus told him that at Paris the demon appeared to him in the form of a fellow friar in an effort to call him away from his studies, but departed by virtue of the sign of the cross. In short, the work is on the same order as the Dialogues of Gregory the Great.

[Sidenote: A chapter on the lion.]

Thomas’s treatment of animals in general and quadrupeds in particular can perhaps best be illustrated by a paraphrase of some one chapter entire, for which purpose I have selected that on the lion. It will be noted that there is no apparent logic in the order of the statements which I have had to divide into paragraphs rather arbitrarily. It has seemed fairer, however, to reproduce the order unchanged than to bring together scattered statements bearing on the same point. Many of Thomas’s statements are found also in Aristotle’s History of Animals,[1279] although Thomas’s citations would indicate that some items, at least, were derived by him from that source only indirectly.

[Sidenote: Different kinds of lions: their generation.]

The lion, as Jacques and Solinus state, is called the king of animals. There are three kinds of lions. Many are short and have curly manes but are weak and cowardly. Those generated by pards are ignoble and degenerate and have no manes. The larger ones with ordinary manes are noble and keen and without guile or suspicion. The lion’s brow and tail reveal his intentions. His virtue resides in his breast and forefoot and tail.[1280] And he is stout-hearted.[1281] He is so hot of nature that he is said to have sexual intercourse at all times.[1282] The lioness bears first five, then four, then three, then two cubs, then only one, after which she becomes sterile.[1283] Aristotle accounts for this by the great heat attending the generation of lions who have solider and stronger bodies for their size than other animals. The lioness has only two tits and not corresponding in size to her body. This is not because she has so few cubs but because she eats only flesh which does not readily turn into milk.

[Sidenote: Disposition and behavior.]

Solinus says that the lion is not easily enraged, but when anyone does provoke him he shows no mercy to his adversary. On the other hand, he spares the prostrate captive and allows those whom he meets by chance to proceed on their way.[1284] He is fiercer to men than to women, and to women who have had intercourse with men than to virgins and children. Adelinus says that he sleeps with his eyes open. Pliny says that as he walks he obliterates his tracks with his tail in order to foil his hunters. Lions do not fight among themselves.[1285] Solinus[1286] says that if hunted in the open, the lion will wait for the dogs and dissimulate his fear, but in the woods, where no one can see his cowardice, will take to his heels. When pursuing his prey he leaps into the air in order to see farther, but not when he is fleeing. Aristotle states that the lion and Arabian camel are the only quadrupeds to move the right foot first. In making water the lion lifts his foot like a dog. When the lion opens his mouth a strong odor exudes. “The lion, very swift by fortitude, is somewhat heavy of nature because of its slow digestion.” When running, it cannot come to a stop the instant it wishes.

[Sidenote: Fear inspired and felt by lions.]

When about to drink, the lion draws a wide circle with its tail and roars so that the other animals dare not cross this line.[1287] Ambrose tells a marvel to the effect that many animals which are swift enough to evade the lion’s onset are paralyzed by the sound of its roar. As king of beasts the lion scorns the society of the other animals and will not touch meat which is a day old.[1288] But it fears a scorpion. According to the Liber rerum, some say that the lion is consumed internally by its own fury and fiery blood, even when it does not have the appearance of being angry. Solinus says that a lion in captivity fears the sound of wheels but dreads a fire still more. Jacques says that it is also afraid of a white cock. Pliny says that a captive lion can be tamed by seeing its cub whipped or by watching a dog obey a man.

[Sidenote: Their diet, medicine, and mode of fighting.]

Lions are never found overladen with fat. They take food or drink on alternate days, and fast if their digestion fails to operate. If they devour too much flesh, they put their claws into their mouths and extract it. The lion has a natural enmity for the wild ass. A sick lion eats an ape, as Ambrose says, or drains a dog’s blood. Pliny tells of a Syracusan whom a lion persistently followed until he extracted a splinter from its foot. Another lion insisted on having a bone removed from its teeth. Some manuscripts[1289] here insert from Pliny and Solinus the tale of the wiles of the lioness to conceal her amours with the pard, and the assertion that a lion wags its tail only when in good humor. When a lion begins to move it beats the ground with its tail but as it increases its speed lashes its back. When wounded it always takes note of the man who inflicted the wound and goes for him. If a man has hurled missiles at it but failed to hit it, the lion merely knocks him down. Philosopher says that when fighting for its cubs the lion keeps its gaze fixed on the ground so as not to be terrified by the spears of the hunters.

[Sidenote: Medical virtues of the lion’s carcass.]

Pliny recommends eating the flesh and heart of a lion to persons afflicted with colds. The lion’s bones are so hard that they strike fire like flint. The hollow in its bones is very small and rarely contains any marrow, and then only in the hip bones, as Experimenter[1290] says. Lion’s fat is an antidote for poisons, and a man anointed with it and wine puts to flight all beasts and snakes. It is hotter than the fat of any other quadruped. The lion is almost always feverish, and that with quartan fever. The effect of its roar upon other beasts is again mentioned. When crossing hard or stony ground the lion spares its claws since they are its weapons. Pliny asserts that lion fat with oil of roses keeps the face white and free from blotches. The neck bone of the lion is continuous and the flesh there cartilaginous like a muscle, so that it cannot turn its neck, a disability which some, the Liber rerum states, ascribe incorrectly to indignation or stolidity on the lion’s part. Aristotle says that the internal organs and teeth of a lion are like those of a dog.

[Sidenote: Medieval and modern encyclopedias compared.]

After this account in the De natura rerum the article on the lion in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica will be found rather dull reading and scanty as concerns the behavior of lions as well as the medicinal properties of their carcasses. Almost all of antiquity’s interesting assertions concerning lions are omitted, no doubt as false, but little of interest is supplied in their place. We are told a number of things that the lion will not do: he will not climb, he will not take more than three bounds after his prey. But even Thomas does not say that a lion ever climbs; the notion does not seem even to have occurred to him.[1291] Nor does Thomas assert that all lions are brave or noble or magnanimous. On the whole, the lion does not seem a subject upon which modern science has added vastly to our knowledge. There were far more lions in existence in antiquity, and men were more interested in them then, and thought at least that they knew more about them.

[Sidenote: Examples of the zoology of the Experimenter.]

Some notion of the work ascribed by Thomas to Experimentator may be gained from Thomas’s citations of it in his chapter on the wolf. Experimenter explains the fact stated by Ambrose, that a man who is seen first by a wolf cannot speak, by arguing that the rays from the wolf’s eyes dry up the spiritus of human vision which in its turn dries up the human spiritus generally. Thereby the wind-pipes are dried up and in consequence the throat so that man cannot speak. Experimenter states further that the wolf collects willow leaves in his mouth and makes a pile of them under which he hides in order to catch goats. And when walking over dry leaves he licks his paws so that the dogs will not hear him. An insulting reflection upon the canine sense of smell!

[Sidenote: Fish, worms, and toads.]

We will pass over Thomas’s books on birds, marine monsters, fish, and serpents, except to note in passing that Delisle credited him with supplying some new information concerning the medieval herring fisheries,[1292] and come to his separate treatment of “worms.” Those with only two or four feet have a little blood, but those with more feet than four are bloodless, because the blood is exhausted in providing nutrition for so many feet and because the motion of so many feet annihilates the blood. Many worms begin and end their life in the course of a summer, since they are born rather from corruption than from seed. Earthworms in particular are generated from pure and unadulterated earth with no admixture of semen, and so furnish illustration and proof of the virgin birth of Christ. In the opinion of the Liber rerum the toad is a worm. It is venomous and has a pestilential glance. It feeds on earth, eating as much as it can clutch in its forefoot, in which it is emblematic of avarice and cupidity. In Gaul there are big toads or frogs with a voice like a horn, but they lose their voice if taken outside of that country, typifying clergymen who like Jonah will not preach outside of their own land. Some manuscripts add from “Alexander”[1293] that toads are fond of the plant salvia and that it is sometimes poisoned by contact with them. Hence it is advised to touch a patch of salvia with rue, the dew from which is deadly to toads. A stone found in the head of a toad, if worn by a man, is an amulet against poison. Several toads can be generated from the ashes of a toad.

[Sidenote: Solomon’s experiment in worms.]

In planning to build a temple of fine marbles Solomon found embarrassing the prohibition in the Mosaic law forbidding one to cut stones for the altar of the Lord with iron. But then he sought by an experiment in worms what the art of man knew not. He shut up the fledglings of an ostrich in a glass vase, so that the mother bird could see them but could not get at them to feed them. The ostrich thereupon flew (?) off to the desert and came back with a worm. It then broke the glass vase by smearing it with the blood of this worm. Solomon found this worm, called Thamur or the worm of Solomon, equally efficacious in cutting marble.

[Sidenote: Trees.]

In speaking of trees most manuscripts[1294] tell of an oak under which Abraham dwelt and which lasted until Constantine’s time. The trees in the Garden of Eden or terrestrial paradise are also discussed, though of course no longer accessible. Josephus is cited concerning trees near the Red Sea and apples of Sodom. Thomas thinks that the Sun-tree and Moon-tree mentioned in Alexander’s letter to Aristotle had been referred to much earlier in the benediction of Joseph in Deuteronomy. As for the responses which these trees are said to have given Alexander, Thomas has little doubt that this was the work of demons, although some contend that it was done by divine permission through ministering angels.

[Sidenote: Marvelous virtues of stones.]

Like Marbod, Thomas points out that, while plants and fruits receive their virtues “through the medium of the operations of nature,” no excess of cold or heat can be observed in stones to account for their miraculous powers, such as conferring invisibility, and that consequently their virtues must come direct from God. He alludes to the belief that Solomon imprisoned demons beneath the gems in rings, and cites the fifteenth book of The City of God for the statement that demons are attracted by various stones, herbs, woods, animals, and incantations.

[Sidenote: An adamantine mariner’s compass.]

While Thomas’s exposition of the virtues of gems is largely based upon Marbod, in discussing adamas or adamant he introduces a description of the mariner’s compass, concerning which Marbod is silent and which had probably not been invented or introduced in western Europe that early, although Neckam of course alludes to it before Thomas. After speaking of a variety of adamant which can be broken without resort to goat’s blood but which will attract iron even away from the magnet, Thomas adds that it also betrays the location of the star of the sea which is called Maria. When sailors cannot direct their course to port amid obscure mists, they take a needle and, after rubbing its point on adamant, fasten it transversely on a small stick or straw and place it in a vessel full of water. Then by carrying some adamant around the vessel they start the needle rotating. Then the stone is suddenly withdrawn and presently the point of the needle comes to rest pointing towards the star in question.[1295]

[Sidenote: The mariner’s compass and magic.]

Having concluded this description of a mariner’s compass, Thomas again follows the poem of Marbod and goes on to say that the adamant is also said to be potent in magic arts, to make its bearer brave against the enemy, to repel vain dreams and poison, and to benefit lunatics and demoniacs. I mention this accidental juxtaposition of the mariner’s compass and magic because, as we shall find in the case of Roger Bacon, it has often been stated that those in possession of the secret of the mariner’s compass were long afraid to reveal it for fear of being suspected of magic, or that sailors were at first afraid to employ the new device for the same reason. This passage in the De natura rerum is as far as I know the only one in the sources that might even seem to suggest such a connection, but Thomas does not really connect the compass and magic at all. Later in the same book, in discussing the magnet, he says nothing of the compass, although repeating the usual statements that the magnet attracts iron, is used in magic, and has the occult property of revealing an unchaste wife.

[Sidenote: Occult virtues of sculptured gems.]

After completing his account of the occult virtues of gems in their natural state, Thomas goes on to discuss the sculpture of gems and the additional virtues which they thereby acquire, a subject on which Marbod had not touched. Thomas had already announced at the beginning of his book on stones:[1296] “Moreover, at the close of this book we have given certain opinions of the ancients which we think are neither to be credited in every respect nor denied in every respect, and in this we follow the glorious Augustine. The children of Israel are said to have carved certain gems in the desert, especially carnelians, and their work of sculpture is said to have been of such subtle skill that no one since has ever dared attempt an imitation of it. And there is no doubt but that figures and images of figures are engraved according to the efficacies of the virtues of gems.” Thomas also admits that the Israelites should have been adepts in such work, when he recalls the divine direction which they received in the case of the twelve gems in the breast-plate of the high priest. “Therefore it is evident that sculptures are not found on gems without good reason. On the other hand, I would not say that every such engraving is a token of mystic virtue.” Later, when he comes to “the relations of the ancient sculptors concerning the engraving of gems,” Thomas warns that, although the form of stones is to be honored for its virtue, “yet hope is not to be put in them but, according to what is written, in God alone from whom is derived the virtue of stones and the dignity of every creature.” The astrological character of such engraved images is made manifest by the connection of many of them with the signs of the zodiac.

[Sidenote: Thetel on images on stones.]

Thomas complains that the ancient authorities for such images and their virtues are often not cited, but he had found a treatise in which the images which the children of Israel were supposed to have engraved in the desert were recorded by a Jewish philosopher named Thetel or Techel.[1297] Of this treatise Thomas makes a Latin translation for his readers, cautioning them, however, that Thetel’s opinions “are not to be trusted on every point.” Thetel’s treatise, at least as it is reproduced by Thomas who, however, has perhaps already used parts of it in his preceding discussion, begins with the sentence: “When a jasper is found and on it a man with a shield about his neck or in his hand and a serpent beneath his feet, this has virtue against all enemies.” It ends with the sentence: “When there is found on a stone a foaming horse and above a man holding a scepter in his hand, this is good for those who have power over men.” These sentences perhaps sufficiently suggest the character of the work. It is also found separately in the manuscripts as early as the twelfth century.[1298] Some of these vary considerably from the text as given by Thomas. The popularity of the treatise is also attested by the allusions in its prefaces to spurious imitations of it.

[Sidenote: Zahel or Zaël the Israelite.]

This Thetel, Techel, or Cehel, with his seals of the children of Israel, is presumably no other than Zethel or Zachel or Zahel or Zaël, the Israelite or Ismaelite,[1299] some of whose astrological treatises appeared in early printed editions,[1300] and several of whose works are listed by Albertus Magnus in the Speculum astronomiae.[1301] This Sahl ben Bisr ben Habib lived until 823 with the governor of Chorasan and then became the astrologer of El-Hasan, vizier to the Caliph al-Mamun. He was highly esteemed by the Byzantines, who called him Σέχελ or τοῦ σοφωτάτου Ἰουδαίου τοῦ Σὰχλ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Πέσρ.[1302] The translation of his works into Latin seems to have begun at an early date, as his Fatidica or Decrees of Fate was translated in 1138 by Hermann of Dalmatia,[1303] while our treatise on seals appears in a twelfth century manuscript.

[Sidenote: Consecration of gems.]

Thomas terminates his book on stones by instructions, quite in the tone of the blessed Hildegard, concerning the blessing of gems. As a result of Adam’s fall every creature was corrupted and lost some of its original virtue, and even such virtues as are left to gems are often further corrupted by the touch of impious and impure men. Hence, just as sinful men are renovated by baptism and penance, so gems can have some of their lost virtues restored by a ceremony of consecration and sanctification. They should be wrapped in linen, placed on the altar, and the priest, after saying mass and while still wearing his sacred robes, should offer this prayer:

“God, almighty Father, who showed Thy virtue to all through certain insensible creatures, who bade Thy servant Moses adorn himself among other holy vestments with twelve precious stones as a token of judgment, and also showed the Evangelist John the heavenly city of Jerusalem eternally constructed of the virtues which these same stones typify, we humbly beseech Thy Majesty to deign to consecrate and sanctify these stones by the sanctification and invocation of Thy Name, that they may be sanctified and consecrated, and may recover the efficacious virtues with which the experience of wise men proves Thee to have endowed them, so that whatever persons may wear them, may feel Thy virtue present through them and may deserve to receive the gifts of Thy grace and the protection of Thy virtue, through Jesus, Thy Son, in whom all sanctification consists, who lives with Thee, and reigns as God through infinite successions of cycles.”[1304]

[Sidenote: The seven metals: modern plumbing.]

In his book on the seven metals, namely, gold, electrum, silver, copper, lead, tin, and iron, Thomas alludes to transmutation in speaking of copper and cites a work of alchemy ascribed to Aristotle, The Light of Lights (De lumine luminum), for the assertion that the best gold is that made from a boy’s urine and brass. This statement is to be understood, however, only of the color of the gold and not of the substance. In his discussion of lead, tin, and iron Thomas cites no authorities except that once he remarks, “as the philosopher says.”[1305] Perhaps therefore we have here what is largely a contribution of his own. At any rate it seems to include the first mention of the invention of modern plumbing.[1306] Tin, Thomas tells us, rusts out easily if it lies long in water. Therefore the underground pipes of aqueducts have long been made of lead, but they used to be joined with tin, but in “modern times” human art has thought out a method of uniting them with hot molten lead. For while tin will not remain solid for long, “lead lasts forever underground.” Thomas goes on to say that lead has the peculiar property among the metals of always increasing in size. Like Hildegard, he also mentions steel, which he says is hardened by many tensions so that it surpasses iron in virtue. He further tells of an oriental iron[1307] which is very good for cutting and is fusible like copper or silver but not ductile like the iron in other parts of the world.

[Sidenote: The seven regions of the air.]

The discussion in the De natura rerum of the seven regions of the air and their humors, namely, dew, snow, hail, rain, “laudanum,” manna and honey, reminds one of Michael Scot’s treatment of the same subject,[1308] but seems to be drawn from a common source rather than directly copied from it. Thomas states that Aristotle has treated more fully of these humors in his Meteorology, but in reality Aristotle says nothing of the last three named in the Meteorology, although in the History of Animals he says that honey is distilled from the air by the stars. Thomas draws the same distinction as Michael Scot had made between natural honey and the artificial sort made by bees. He is willing to grant that the manna upon which the children of Israel lived was created in this region of the sky, although especially prepared for them by a divine miracle.

[Sidenote: Astrological.]

The astrological passages of the De natura rerum are neither striking nor novel. In his books on animals Thomas had stated that various animal substances such as the brains of wolves or the livers of mice vary in size with the waxing and waning of the moon. He denies that the planets possess sense or that their movements are voluntary, but he quotes Pliny’s statement that by the influence of Venus all things on earth are generated, and states the influence of each planet when it is in the ascendant. Under Mars men become choleric and bellicose. Jupiter is such a source of safety and good health that Martianus declared that were Jupiter the only planet, men would be immortal. Such, however, was not the Creator’s will. The word “Jupiter” is not without reason derived from iubens and pater, since during the ascension of this planet all terrestrial things are born. For unless seeds were severed from their beginnings by some occult virtue, they would always remain immovable in the state in which they were created. God accordingly put such power in the spheres of the stars and especially the planets that created things might obey his command to increase and multiply. They return, however, to the earth from which they came; the processes of nature are unceasingly repeated; and, as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Thomas therefore reaches the usual conclusion that except for human free will and special manifestations of divine will, all nature is placed by God under the rule of the stars. The influence of sun and moon is manifest, and “why should we not with entire reason believe the same of the other planets?”

[Sidenote: Elements and spirits.]

The nineteenth book opens with a discussion of the universe and creation and closes with a discussion of the four elements. Fire has eight effects expressed in the couplet:

Destruit, emollit, restringit, consolidatque; Clarificat, terret, accendit, letificatque.

Thomas illustrates each of these effects by a verse of Scripture. Fire also has six properties, likewise expressed in a couplet:

Mobilis et siccus mundusque favilla tenetur; Crescit et accendit[1309] sed aqua modica removetur.

Concerning these properties also Thomas quotes Scripture. He then treats briefly of that purest fire which is above the seven regions of the air. Demons dwell in the air “awaiting with torments the judgment day.”[1310] When they appear to men, they assume bodies from that part of the air which is densest and most mixed with the other three elements. But angels coming as messengers to mankind assume bodies in the region of pure fire extending from the sphere of the moon to the firmament.

[Sidenote: Other works incorrectly ascribed to Thomas of Cantimpré.]

In the life of Albertus Magnus written by Peter of Prussia toward the end of the fifteenth century[1311] it is stated on the authority of the chronicle of Brother Jacobus de Zuzato, master of theology, that Thomas of Cantimpré translated word for word from Greek into Latin “all the books of Aristotle in rational, natural, and moral philosophy and metaphysics which we now use in the schools,[1312] and this at the instance of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, for in Albert’s time all commonly used the old translation.”[1313] The task of translating Aristotle was scarcely one for which Thomas of Cantimpré was qualified, and his name almost never appears in the extant manuscripts of translations of Aristotle.[1314] Peter of Prussia and his source have probably confused William of Moerbeke with Thomas of Cantimpré, as they both came from Brabant, and their names are juxtaposed in a fourteenth century list of writings by Dominicans, where, however, William is said to have “translated all the books of natural and moral philosophy from Greek into Latin at the instance of brother Thomas.”[1315] Because of Thomas of Cantimpré’s chapters on gynecology, the De secretis mulierum usually ascribed to Albertus Magnus has sometimes been attributed to him, but Ferckel denies this.[1316]

FOOTNOTES:

[1254] Only extracts of the De natura rerum have been printed (by J. B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, III, and in HL and Ferckel as noted below). Some discussion of the MSS and a partial list of them will be found in Appendix I to this chapter. I have chiefly used MSS Royal 12-E-XVII, 13th century; Royal 12-F-VI, 14th century; Egerton 1984, 13th century, fols. 34-145; Arundel 323, 13th century, fols. 1-98; and Arundel 164, 15th century, at the British Museum; and BN 347B and 523A at Paris. As any topic to which a chapter is devoted can be found without much difficulty in these MSS, which are divided into books and chapters and equipped with tables of contents, I shall usually not take the time and space to make specific citations by folio in the ensuing chapter.

Of Thomas’s Bonum universale de apibus I have used the 1516 edition.

Some books and articles on Thomas and his natural science are: Bormans, “Thomas de Cantimpré indiqué comme une des sources où Albert le Grand et surtout Maerlant ont puisé les matériaux de leur écrits sur l’histoire naturelle”; in Bulletins de l’Acad. roy. des Sciences de Belgique, XIX, 132-59, Brussels, 1852.

Carus, Geschichte der Zoologie, Munich, 1872, pp. 211-33.

HL 30 (1888) 365-84, Delisle, “La Nature des Choses, par Thomas de Cantimpré,” supplementing and correcting the earlier account by Daunou in HL 19 (1838) 177-84, where the De natura rerum had been called an anonymous work known only from Vincent of Beauvais’ citation of it.

A. Kaufmann, Thomas von Cantimpré, Cologne, 1899, 137 pp., an unfinished work published posthumously without a projected section on Thomas’s natural science, which the author had scarcely begun.

Stadler, “Albertus Magnus, Thomas von Cantimpré, und Vincent von Beauvais,” in Natur und Kultur, IV, 86-90, Munich, 1906.

C. Ferckel, Die Gynäkologie des Thomas von Brabant, ausgewählte Kapitel aus Buch I de naturis rerum beendet um 1240, Munich, 1912 (in G. Klein, Alte Meister d. Medizin u. Naturkunde).

[1255] V. Rose (1875), pp. 335, 340.

[1256] HL 30: 380.

[1257] Sometimes the work concludes with the extraordinary Explicit, “the book of Lucius Annisius Seneca of Cordova, disciple of Fortinus the Stoic, De naturis rerum,” as in Arundel 323.

[1258] III, 16.

[1259] In the preface.

[1260] Bonum universale de apibus, I, 19, vii.

[1261] Ibid., II, 57, lix. At I, 5, ii, 1252 is given as the date of the “recent” murder of a Dominican by heretics at Verona; at II, 57, iii, great winds and thunders are mentioned, which frightened men in Germany nearly out of their wits in 1256.

[1262] Aquinas died in 1274, Albert in 1280.

[1263] Bonum universale de apibus, I, 20, xi.

[1264] Ibid., II, 57, li, “venerabilis ille frater ordinis predicatorum magister Albertus.”

[1265] From this statement one might infer either that Bartholomew’s book was not yet published or that Thomas did not know of it.

[1266] HL 30: 384.

[1267] As HL 30: 374-5 has already noted.

[1268] HL 30: 383 mentions three such MSS; see also CLM 6908, where, however, the three last books are missing; Lincoln College 57, 13th century; CU Trinity 1058, 13th century; Wolfenbüttel 4499, 14th century.

[1269] As has been said above, it is doubtful if there was any close relation of master and disciple between Albert and Thomas.

[1270] HL 30: 377.

[1271] Jacobus de Vitriaco, libri duo ... prior Orientalis ... alter Occidentalis Historiae, 1597, Hist. Orient. caps. 85-92.

[1272] Experimentator, however, is also cited concerning the properties of air.

[1273] Thomas’s extracts from Adhelmus were printed by Pitra (1855) III, 425-7. Concerning St. Aldhelm see above, chapter 27, page 636.

[1274] Michael Scot is cited concerning silk-worms and gourds in Egerton 1984, fols. 100r and 121r, and, judging from the catalogue notice, also in Corpus Christi 221, but not in the corresponding passages in either Royal 12-E-XVII or 12-F-VI. The Histoire Littéraire, however, gives a citation of Michael’s translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals from three Paris MSS.

[1275] Ferckel (1912), p. 4, “und tatsächlich ist fast das ganze Kapitel De Impregnatione ein Teil des folgenden und die erste grössere Hälfte des Kapitels 73 fast wörtlich der Philosophia des Wilhelm von Conches entnommen.”

[1276] “Tanta fides in hoc auctorum est et tanta concordia ut nulli umquam de hoc dubitare relinquatur.”

[1277] In the condensed version of Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323 the castration story is omitted, but the other statement is made.

[1278] A fuller form of the title is: Liber apum aut de apibus mysticis sive de proprietatibus apum seu universale bonum tractans de prelatis et subditis ubique sparsim exemplis notabilibus.

[1279] See especially Historia animalium, VI, 31; VIII, 5, IX, 44.

[1280] In Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323 this statement occurs later and is ascribed to “Alexander”. These MSS add that in its fore-quarters the lion is of a hot nature, in the hind-quarters cold, like the Sun in Leo.

[1281] “Firmitas autem in pectore est.”

[1282] Egerton 1984, “to be feverish all the time.”

[1283] EB, 11th edition, “The number of cubs at a birth is from two to four, usually three.”

[1284] Ibid. “The lion ... seldom attacks his prey openly, unless compelled by extreme hunger.... He appears ... as a general rule only to kill when hungry or attacked, and not for the mere pleasure of killing, as with some other carnivorous animals.”

[1285] EB, “Though not strictly gregarious, lions appear to be sociable towards their own species.”

[1286] Also Aristotle, IX, 44.

[1287] EB, 11th edition, “On no occasions are their voices to be heard in such perfection, or so intensely powerful, as when two or three troops of strange lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time.”

[1288] Ibid. “He, moreover, by no means limits himself to animals of his own killing, but, according to Selous, often prefers eating game that has been killed by man, even when not very fresh, to taking the trouble to catch an animal himself.”

[1289] For instance, I found the passage in Royal 12-E-XVII, but not in Royal 12-F-VI.

[1290] Aristotle, instead of Experimentator, in Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323. Of the small amount of marrow in lions’ bones Aristotle treats twice, Historia animalium III, 7 and 20.

[1291] I am told, however, that in a recent moving picture lions are seen climbing trees to escape from dogs.

[1292] HL 30: 367.

[1293] Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323.

[1294] Omitted in the two MSS mentioned in the preceding note.

[1295] Compare the similar description of the magnetised needle in Neckam, De naturis rerum, II, 98 (RS 34: 183).

[1296] HL 30: 370 does not mention this introductory passage but quotes a somewhat similar passage which occurs later on. In fact, Thomas makes practically the same statement at least three times in the course of his fourteenth book.

[1297] “Rechel” in Royal 12-F-VI, fols. 106-7. Printed by Pitra (1855) III, 335-7, as “Cethel aut veterum Judaeorum Physiologorum de lapidibus sententiae.”

[1298] A further discussion of them will be found in Appendix II to this chapter.

[1299] Steinschneider (1906) 54-5, 103-4, fails to include our treatise on seals in his mentions of Zaël’s works; but in BN 16204, 13th century, the Seals of Theel is immediately preceded by two treatises of “Zehel the Israelite” on interrogations and elections.

[1300] In the astrological miscellany of Petrus Liechtenstein, Basel, 1551, fols. 122-7, Introductorium de principiis judiciorum; 127-38, De interrogationibus; 138-41, De electionibus; 141-2, De significatione temporis ad judicia. Steinschneider mentions only the Elections as printed in 1551, but also notes a 1533 edition of it and 1493 and 1519 editions of all these treatises.

[1301] In cap. 6, Introductio, “Scito quod signa sunt duodecim”; in cap. 9, Judicia Arabum, “Cum interrogatus fueris”; De significatione temporis, “Et scito quod tempore excitat motus”; in cap. 10, Liber electionis, “Omnes concordati sunt”; Quinquaginta praeceptorum, “Scito quod significata lunae.”

[1302] CCAG V, 3, 98-106.

[1303] Steinschneider (1905), p. 34, names Hermann the Dalmatian as translator and notes CUL 2022, 15th century, fols. 102r-115v, Hermanni secundi translatio. “Explicit Fatidica Ben Bixir Caldei....,” but the Gi in the Explicit of the following MS might stand for Gerardi and indicate Gerard of Cremona, who would, it is true, have been but twenty-four in 1138: Digby 114, 14th century, fols. 176-99, “Explicit fetidica Zael Banbinxeir Caldei. Translacio hec mam. Gi. astronomie libri anno Domini 1138, 3 kal. Octobris translatus (sic) est.”

Some other MSS which Steinschneider does not mention are: Harleian 80; Sloane 2030, 12-13th century, fols. 41-76; Amplon. Quarto 361, 14th century, fols. 96-113, Chehelbenbis Israelite; and perhaps Sloane 3847, 17th century, fols. 101-12, Zebel alias Zoel, liber imaginum, but more probably this is the Pseudo-Zebel found in Berlin 965, 16th century, fols. 1-63, and printed at Prague, 1592, “Incipit zebelis sapientis arabum de interpretatione diversorum eventuum secundum lunam in 12 signis zodiaci.”

[1304] This consecration of gems also follows Techel’s treatise on seals in Ashmole 1471, fol. 67v, while in Canon. Misc. 285 the work of Thetel is preceded at fol. 36v by De consecratione lapidum, and at fol. 38 by De modo praecipuos quosdam lapides consecrandi.

[1305] Or, in one MS, “sicut dicunt phisici.”

[1306] This fact has already been noted by the HL.

[1307] Called andena in one MS, and alidea in another.

[1308] See above, chapter 51, page 324.

[1309] Or perhaps “ascendit.”

[1310] Compare Bede, De natura rerum, cap. 25.

[1311] Petrus de Prussia, Vita B. Alberti Magni, (1621), p. 294.

[1312] Trithemius, De script, eccles. probably has Peter and Jacobus in mind when he states that some writers say that Thomas of Cantimpré knew Greek and translated the works of Aristotle used in the schools.

[1313] As Albert lived six years beyond Aquinas, this would indicate that his Aristotelian treatises were completed early in life. Yet some accuse him of using Thomas’s De natura rerum in these works.

[1314] Additional 17345, late 13th century, imperfect, ascribes the antiqua translatio of the fourteen books of Metaphysics to him, but is the only such MS I know of.

[1315] One wonders if this can mean Thomas Brabantinus, whose name immediately follows that of Wilhelmus Brabantinus in the list, rather than Thomas Aquinas.

[1316] Ferckel (1912), pp. 1-2, 10.

APPENDIX I

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE DE NATURA RERUM

Of the half dozen or so MSS which I have examined Egerton 1984, 13th century, fols. 34-145, and Arundel 323, 13th century, fols. 1-98, present a different version from the others, arranged in a different order and somewhat more condensed, although sometimes inserting points omitted in the other MSS, as has already been illustrated in the text in the reproduction of the chapter on the lion. These two MSS open with what is usually the 16th book on the seven regions of the air and continue with the subjects of the heavens and elements to which books 17-19 are usually devoted. Then, omitting the themes of the usual first three books, they consider quadrupeds (Egerton 1984, fol. 51v; Arundel 323, fol. 33r), other animals, and herbs. Then follow precious stones and metals, after instead of before which comes a truncated version of the book on fountains (Egerton 1984, fol. 142v; Arundel 323, fol. 91r). Next comes a treatment of parts of the human body which roughly answers to Thomas’s first book but omits entirely the chapters dealing with generation and obstetrics. Indeed in Egerton 1984 the text breaks off at fol. 145v in the midst of the chapter on teeth and in the middle of a word, and then ends on the upper part of fol. 146r with the closing portion of the chapter De anchis and the chapter on Spondilia. Arundel 323 continues as far as the 44th chapter on the spleen. It then at fol. 98r introduces a brief discussion of geography (Incipiunt Divisiones Provinciarum), at the close of which we read, “Explicit liber lucii annisii Senece Cordubensis fortini stoyci discipuli De naturis rerum.” The text, however, goes on to fol. 103v with a discussion of diseases, remedies, and astrological medicine. Neither this nor the list of provinces forms a part of the De natura rerum as contained in Royal 12-E-XVII and 12-F-VI.

As the Histoire Littéraire de la France listed only MSS of the De natura rerum at Paris and in a few other continental libraries, and as the authorship of Thomas of Cantimpré is seldom recognized in the MSS catalogues, I append a list of MSS in British and continental libraries which are not noted in the Histoire Littéraire. No doubt the list is still very incomplete. C. Ferckel (1912), pp. 11-18 gives a fuller list than that in the Histoire Littéraire, but only those MSS which are marked with an asterisk in the following list have been noted by Ferckel:

British Museum

Egerton 1984, 13th century, described above.

Royal 12-E-XVII, 13th century.

Royal 12-F-VI, 14th century, fols. 3-119.

*Arundel 323, perhaps 13th century, described above.

*Arundel 142, 15th century, fols. 1-93.

The following contain only portions of the work:

*Arundel 298, perhaps 13th century, fols. 1-83, Books 3-9.

*Arundel 164, 15th century, fols. 5-58, preface and four books.

Sloane 2428, 13th century, 9 fols., Book 14 on gems.

Sloane 405, 15th century, fols. 65-107, “De natura rerum liber primus,” attributed to Albertus Magnus but really the prologue of Thomas and most of his first book on anatomy.

At Oxford

Selden supra 75 (Bernard 3463), early 14th century, fols. 1r-231v, de naturis rerum secundum diversos philosophos. In 1919 the proof sheets for the new Summary Catalogue of Bodleian MSS still stated: “The author, who wrote while Jacobus de Vitriaco was bishop of Tusculum (1228-44: fol. 1v), appears to be unknown.”

*Canon. Misc. 356, 14th century, Anon. De naturis rerum.

Corpus Christi 221, 14th century, fol. 2-. Liber in quo tractatus de motu coeli, de elementis, de mari, de propriis mirabilibus cuiuslibet terrae, de lapidibus pretiosis, de metallis, de fructibus, de avibus, de bestiis, etc.

*Corpus Christi 274, 15th century, fol. 6-, Anon, de naturis rerum.

Lincoln College 57, 13th century, Anon, de proprietatibus rerum. This is the version in 20 books.

At Cambridge

Trinity 1058, 13th century, well-written, the version in 20 books, ending at fol. 186v.

James fails to rectify the attribution of the work to Albertus Magnus in both the following MSS:

Gonville and Caius 414, 13th century, fols. 1-161v.

Gonville and Caius 35, 15th century, fols. 1-137.

At Vienna

Vienna 2357, 14th century, fols. 1-46, Lucretius de naturis rerum.

Vienna 5371, 15th century, fols. 1-100r, Opus de rerum naturis.

At Munich

CLM 326, 14th century, 95 fols. The catalogue states, “Liber Thomae Cantipr. vel. Conradi Megenb. similis, sed multo amplior”; but its preceding description of the contents is sufficient to identify the work as Thomas of Cantimpré’s.

CLM 2655, 13th century, fols. 1-94, de naturis rerum visibilium.

CLM 3206, 13-14th century, fols. 1-145, de naturis rerum liber.

CLM 6908, 13th century, fols. 1-78, Tractatus de naturis animalium in xx libros divisus quorum tres extremi desunt.

CLM 8439, 15th century, fols. 84-144, Alberti Magni de naturis rerum.

CLM 11481, anno 1390, de naturis rerum.

CLM 13582, 14th century, Thomae Cantipratensis liber de natura rerum.

CLM 14340, 15th century, Thomae de Catimprato de naturis seu proprietatibus rerum, in codice tributus Alberto Magno.

CLM 21008, 14th century, De proprietatibus rerum.

CLM 23879, 15th century, fols. 1-93, de natura rerum.

CLM 27006, anno 1409, fols. 1-170, de natura rerum.

Miscellaneous

*Wolfenbüttel 4499, 14th century, the version in 20 books, catalogued by Heinemann as anonymous.

Dôle 173-80, 15th century, fols. 1-189, “De secretis nature, Alberti Magni.”

S. Marco XII-65, 15th century, ascribed to Albert, but opening, “Septem sunt regiones aeris, ut dicunt philosophi.”

* Florence, Ashburnham 115, 15th century, “Expliciunt Capitula de naturis Lucii Anney Senece Cordubensis, Fortini Stoyci discipuli.”

APPENDIX II

SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF THE TREATISE OF THETEL ON SEALS

For the Berlin MS I follow the catalogue description by V. Rose. I have examined personally the two Paris MSS and some of those at Oxford.

Berlin 956, 12th century, fol. 22, what Rose calls the “very peculiar original text.” “Hic incipit liber sigillorum filiorum israel quem fecerunt in deserto. Cum pluribus libris nobilibus magne auctoritatis et nominis vigilante animo atque perspicaci, fratres karissimi, studeamus,” etc., which may be translated: “Here begins the books of seals of the children of Israel which they made in the desert. Although, dearest brothers, we have studied many noble books of great authority and name with vigilant and perspicacious mind, we have not found any book so dear and precious as this is. For this is that great and secret precious book of seals of Cehel the Israelite, which the children of Israel made in the desert after their exodus from Egypt according to the course and motion of the stars. And because many false books are made in imitation of this, in order that we may perfectly know the virtue of these seals we have noted them down in this little book.”

BN 8454, 12-13th century, fols. 65v-66r, Liber magnus et secretus sigillorum Cehel. The Incipit and text closely resemble Digby 79, except that the name is spelled “Cehel” and that no mention is made of the planets.

BN 16204, 13th century, pp. 500-7. Has the same Incipit as BN 8454 and Digby 79, except that the name is spelled “Theel” and that the last clause of the Incipit, “et quia multi ... subnotavimus” (for which see the description of Digby 79 below) is omitted. On the other hand, we have the following opening paragraph of text which is not found in BN 8454: “I, Theel, one of the sons of the children of Israel, who after the transit of the Red Sea ate manna in the wilderness and drank water from the rock and saw innumerable miracles with my own eyes, and heard why from the twelve tribes twelve precious stones are worn by order of the Lord on Aaron’s vestments. And I myself chose them. And besides this selection I have inspected the engraving of gems made, as the divine Nature willed, according to the movement of the signs and the courses of the planets. And I have learned the virtues of many. And I am called Theel (or rather, Cheel) for this reason, because I have written of sealing (de celatione), that is, concerning the sculpture of gems, and not because I have concealed and kept to myself what God and nature have produced, for I write to you, my posterity, in order that through these few brief words many seals may be known in the nature of stones.”

This MS then has at pp. 500-2 the same text as BN 8454 except that the names of the planets are inserted before the first seven seals. At p. 502 the text as given in BN 8454 ends with the words, “Hoc autem sigillum fertur habuisse galienus,” but the listing of seals continues in BN 16204 until the top of p. 507, where the work of Haly on elections begins.

Digby 79, 13th century, fols. 178v-180, opens, “In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Hic est liber preciosus magnus atque secretus sigillorum Eethel quem fecerunt filii Israel in deserto post exitum ab Egipto secundum motus et cursus siderum, et quia multi ad similitudinem huius falso facti sunt, in hoc libello subnotavimus.” This version differs from that of Thomas of Cantimpré, since its first seal is made under the planet Mercury and is an image of a man seated on a plow. Then “under Mars” comes a fuller description of what is the first seal in Thomas’s version.

Digby 193, 14th century, fol. 30, closely resembles Digby 79, except that the name is spelled “Cethel.”

Ashmole 1471, late 14th century, fols. 65v-67v, closely resembles Thomas of Cantimpré’s text. “Incipit liber Techel. Liber Techel nomine editus de sculpturis lapidum a filiis Israel eo tempore quo per desertum transierunt, et transierunt ut intrarent terram promissionis: propterea hii lapides leguntur fuisse assignati in templo Appollonis a rege Persarum cum consilio omnium astrologorum tam Egiptiorum quam Caldeorum secundum cursum signorum et cursum planetarum.” Next ensue the same preliminary observations that Thomas makes; the text of Techel proper begins only at fol. 66v.

Canon. Misc. 285, 15th century, fol. 40, anon., “In nomine dei Amen; Pretiosissimus liber sigillorum quem filii Israel post exitum....”

Corpus Christi 221, 14th century, fol. 55.

Selden 3464 (Bernard), #9.

CUL 1391, 14th century, fols. 204v-207v, “Liber magnus de sigillis lapidum et de virtutibus eorum quem fecerunt Filii Israelis in Deserto.” Like BN 8454 it closes, “hoc sigillum fertur habuisse Gallienus.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LIV. BARTHOLOMEW OF ENGLAND

Bartholomew on the character of his book--Question of its date--Who are the most recent authors cited in it?--How far are its citations first-hand?--Its medieval currency--Not a mere compilation nor limited to Biblical topics--The nature of demons--Psychology and physiology--Vision and perspective--Medieval domestic science--The medieval domestic servant--Medieval boys--Medieval girls--A medieval dinner--Dreams and their interpretation--Medical advice--Poisons--The waters above the firmament--The empyrean heaven: Rabanus--Alexander of Hales--Aristotelian theory of one heaven--As the basis of astrology--Properties and effects of the signs and planets--Bartholomew illustrates the general medieval acceptance of astrology--Medieval divisions of the day and hour--Form and matter; fire and coal--Air and its creatures--The swallow, swallow-stone, and swallow-wort--The hoopoe and magic--Water and fish--Jorath on whales--Geography; physical and political--Also economic--Medieval boundaries--France in the thirteenth century--Brittany and the British Isles--A geography by Herodotus--Two passages about magic--Bartholomew and Arnold of Saxony on stones--Citations by Arnold of Saxony and Bartholomew--Virtues of animals--Physiologus--Color, odor, savor, liquor.

[Sidenote: Bartholomew on the character of his book.]

On the Properties of Things by Bartholomew of England[1317] is, as has been said in a previous chapter, a work of the same sort as those on the natures of things by his earlier fellow-countryman, Alexander of Neckam, and his contemporary of Brabant, Thomas of Cantimpré. Bartholomew himself clearly states the character, purpose, and scope of his work both at its beginning and again in closing. It is primarily a brief compilation of passages on the natures and properties of things, which are scattered through the works both of the saints and the philosophers, with the intent of making plainer the enigmas which the Holy Scriptures conceal under the symbols and figures of the properties of natural and artificial objects. Bartholomew further speaks modestly of his work as an elementary treatise, text-book, or work of reference for the benefit of “young scholars and the general reader (simplices et parvuli) who because of the infinite number of books cannot look up the properties of the objects of which Scripture treats, nor are they able to find quickly even a superficial treatment of what they are after.”[1318] Bartholomew’s book is therefore “a simple and rude” compilation, but he hopes that it may prove useful to persons who, like himself, are not advanced scholars. But after mastering this elementary treatise, they should proceed to more subtle and specialized works. And if they think that anything should be added to what he has given, let them add it. From the tone of these remarks compared to those of Thomas of Cantimpré one would infer that the number of available books and also the amount of available knowledge had considerably increased since Thomas wrote. Yet at the most Bartholomew cannot have written very many years later than Thomas, and it is most likely that their books appeared almost simultaneously.

[Sidenote: Question of its date.]

If Bartholomew’s last sentence is interpreted as an open invitation to his readers to issue revised editions of the book or at least add to their own copies further extracts from the writings of the saints and the philosophers, we shall feel that it is rather risky to attempt to determine the date of the first appearance of the De proprietatibus rerum from the date of the latest works cited in our present copies. But all the manuscripts seem to be essentially alike regardless of date, and the printed edition seems to vary little from the text of the earliest manuscripts. To assist us in determining when Bartholomew lived and wrote we have a request from the General of the Franciscan Order in 1230 asking the French provincial to send to Magdeburg in Saxony Brother Bartholomaeus Anglicus to act as lecturer there.[1319] Salimbene, writing in 1284, cites a passage from Bartholomew concerning elephants and looks back upon him as a great clerk who lectured on the whole Bible in course at Paris.[1320] Bartholomew speaks of the inhabitants of Livonia as having been forced by the Germans from the cult of demons to the Faith of one God, and states that by divine grace and the cooperation of the Germans they are now believed to be freed from their former errors.[1321] But since the conquest of Livonia began as early as 1202, this passage does not serve to date Bartholomew’s work very definitely.

[Sidenote: Who are the most recent authors cited in it?]

It has already been remarked by the Histoire Littéraire de la France that in the bibliography at the close of his work Bartholomew mentions no writer of later date than the early thirteenth century.[1322] As Bartholomew himself states, however, he uses “many other” authorities than those given in the list, and other names are found sprinkled through his text. In the printed edition of 1488 the Speculum naturale of Vincent of Beauvais, which was not written until 1250, is cited,[1323] but this mention is found in the last sentence of a chapter and may be pretty certainly regarded as a later interpolation.[1324] In citing commentaries upon the works of Aristotle the printed text confuses the abbreviations Albu., Alber., and Alfre. or Alur., standing respectively for Albumasar, Albertus Magnus, and Aluredus or Alfred of England who alone is listed in Bartholomew’s bibliography. There seems to be no certain citation of Albert. If Bartholomew had read Albert’s sharp criticism of Jorath, he perhaps would not have made use of that author. The bibliography includes the names of Michael Scot who was dead by 1235 and of Robert of Lincoln, by whom Grosseteste must be meant, who was born about 1175, became bishop of Lincoln in 1235, and died in 1253. A Gilbertus mentioned in the bibliography may be either the medical writer, Gilbert of England, whose own date is somewhat uncertain, or a corruption for Gerbert. These three writers are seldom, if ever, cited by name in the text of Bartholomew. But he does cite Alexander of Hales[1325] who died in 1245. On the whole it seems possible that Bartholomew wrote his work as early as 1230.

[Sidenote: How far are its citations first-hand?]

The Histoire Littéraire asserts that “Bartholomew surely was not acquainted with all the authors, true or supposititious, whom he is pleased to enumerate,” but it gives no grounds except the list itself for this sceptical attitude. It is true that in the case of a few authorities in his list, such as Scipio Africanus, Ninus Delphicus, and Epicurus, it would have been as difficult to find any works by them then as now. But I believe that Bartholomew was a wide reader and acquainted with the greater part of the books and authors that he cites. Modern writers concerning medieval learning have too often proceeded upon the gratuitous assumption that medieval writers seldom were directly acquainted with the authorities which they cite. But one suspects that those who have assumed this were none too well acquainted themselves either with the works citing or cited. And why should medieval scholars take their citations at second hand? The original works were fairly accessible; the earliest manuscripts we have of them are almost invariably medieval, and probably they had many, many more copies that are now destroyed, and possibly some originals that are now forever lost. As for Bartholomew, his citations are so numerous, so varied, so specific that they must be largely first-hand.[1326] Obviously he did not spare himself trouble in making a book to save others trouble. Bartholomew also seems to be scrupulously honest in his citations. For instance, Pythagoras is cited but once in the Etymologies of Isidore,[1327] and when Bartholomew makes use of this passage, he gives both Pythagoras and Isidore credit.[1328] It is therefore only fair to Bartholomew to admit that, had his citation of Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans been drawn from any third author, he would have given him credit too. Bartholomew cites Pliny’s Natural History by book and chapter and is evidently directly acquainted with it. On the whole, I am inclined to think that medieval writers had read quite as much of the works listed in their bibliographies as modern writers have of those listed in theirs.

[Sidenote: Its medieval currency.]

In the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris alone there are eighteen manuscripts of the De proprietatibus rerum, chiefly of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, and the Histoire Littéraire tells us that its title appears in a catalogue of the books which the medieval booksellers of Paris rented to the students at that university.[1329] The work also occurs with frequency in the manuscript collections of England, Germany, and Italy. Hain’s list of fourteen printed editions of it before 1500 is incomplete, and the British Museum catalogue of books printed in Germany alone in the fifteenth century mentions nine editions. It was translated into French under Charles V in the fourteenth century, and also appeared in English, Spanish, and Dutch versions, all three of which were printed at the end of the fifteenth century. These facts indicate that the work was, and continued until the sixteenth century to be, widely used as a text-book, and suggest the further thought that such widely multiplied and disseminated elementary and popular works are more likely to have survived the stagnant and destructive period of the Black Death and Hundred Years War and to have come down to us than are the more advanced, original, and elaborate works of the thirteenth century. Be that as it may, we must not look upon the De proprietatibus rerum as a specimen of the most advanced medieval scholarship, but rather as an illustration of the rough general knowledge which every person with any pretense to culture was then supposed to possess. At the same time, the large number of authorities cited shows how much wider reading a medieval student might do.

[Sidenote: Not a mere compilation nor limited to Biblical topics.]

On the other hand, we must not be misled by Bartholomew’s humble tone of self-depreciation nor even by his assertion, repeated at the close as well as the opening of his work, that he presents “little or nothing of my own, but simply the words of the saints and the sayings of the philosophers.” As a matter of fact, he not infrequently alludes to contemporary matters or describes daily life without mentioning any authorities, and his amusing accounts of such animals as cats and dogs, or boys and girls, or his instructions how to set a table and give a dinner, are almost entirely his own and show considerable power of observation and dry humor. His chapters on geography, too, deal in large measure and with unusual fulness with the feudal states and peoples of his own day: Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, Brabant, Anjou, Poitou, and so on through a long list alphabetically arranged. In these and in other chapters he forgets all about the fact that he is supposedly explaining only those things mentioned in the Bible, and is manifestly actuated by a scientific interest in present facts and phenomena. The influence of Isidore’s Etymologies upon Bartholomew’s book is evident, and Bartholomew often makes Isidore his starting point in discussing a given topic. But he also often goes far beyond the other’s brief statements; it seems clear that the scanty contents of the Etymologies are no longer deemed sufficient even in an elementary encylopedia and general text-book. Bartholomew seems to use the scissors less than Thomas of Cantimpré, to state things more in his own words, and not to make such long extracts from or paraphrases of other works.

However, in Bartholomew’s first book, whose subject is God, the first two chapters are taken entirely and perhaps discreetly, since the difficult problem of the Trinity is under discussion, from an Extra of Innocent III, while the third chapter is drawn from more varied authorities, such as Augustine, the treatise on the Trinity ascribed to Boethius,[1330] and the more recent Hugh and Richard, both of St. Victor. Presently the theme of divine names is discussed[1331] and Bartholomew lists and explains the ten Hebrew names of God, which are found also in Isidore, namely: El, Eloe, Sabbaoth, Zelioz or Ramathel, Eyel, Adonay, Ya, Tetragrammaton, Saday, and Eloym.

[Sidenote: The nature of demons.]

In the second book on the properties of angels is also discussed the nature of demons.[1332] They are naturally perspicacious in matters of science and powerful by their “sense of nature”--a phrase which we have already met in William of Auvergne, whom, however, I think Bartholomew does not cite; perhaps it was a technical expression that spread rapidly from mouth to mouth of medieval psychologists as such expressions do today,--experience of time, and knowledge of Scripture. They can predict many future events, partly because their knowledge of nature gained through their subtler senses is superior to man’s, partly because of their longer lives which permit them to learn more, partly by angelic revelation. Their bodies were celestial before they transgressed but now are aerial. Apuleius’s characterization of them is repeated via Augustine, whose explanation is also given, that they know occult virtues in nature which are hidden from us and by which they are able to accelerate natural processes and work feats of magic such as those performed by Pharaoh’s magicians.

[Sidenote: Psychology and physiology.]

Bartholomew’s third book may be described as psychological and discusses the human mind or soul (anima), of which definitions by various Greek philosophers are repeated, and the senses. The fourth and fifth books are physiological. These three books seem to be based mainly upon the writings of Constantinus Africanus; less frequently Aristotle and other authorities are cited. One treatise is ascribed to Avicenna and Constantinus which is not in Peter the Deacon’s list of the latter’s works, namely, a treatise on poisonous animals and poisons and presumably a translation of Avicenna by Constantinus.[1333] In this connection we are told that while some animals have poisonous tongues like snakes, others have medicinal and healing tongues like the dog, as Cassiodorus says, and either from the goodness of nature or from some occult property.[1334] We have already noted elsewhere Bartholomew’s acceptance of the usual medieval theory of three brain cells devoted to three mental faculties, in which connection he cites Johannitius or Hunain ibn Ishak.[1335] In discussing the disease of melancholia Bartholomew tells of a noble whom he knew who imagined that he was a cat and insisted upon sleeping under the bed in order to watch the mouse holes.[1336] In a later passage in his seventh book Bartholomew repeats Constantinus’ distinction between mania as an infection of the anterior cell of the brain with injury to the imagination and melancholia as an infection of the central cell with loss of one’s reason.[1337]

[Sidenote: Vision and perspective.]

In discussing vision Bartholomew gives the views of “an author of the science of perspective” precedence over those of Constantinus.[1338] This author believes that in vision three coterminous pyramids or cones are formed with the apex of each in the pupil of the eye and the base formed by the object seen. One pyramid is made up of species from the object coming along straight lines to the center of the eye. The second pyramid is made by the vision going out from the eye to the object seen. The third pyramid consists of light, which, as Bartholomew explains elsewhere[1339] on the authority of Basel and Dionysius and Augustine, is a distinct substance by which other bodies are illuminated. Light was created three days before sun and moon which are simply vehicles for it. But while this light is always shining, whether visibly or invisibly, it produces illumination only when other bodies are in a condition to receive it. The human eye can see itself only by the reflection of rays, “and possibly the vision delights in the sight of a mirror because through reflection of rays it is, by returning to itself, fortified as it were and in a way strengthened.”[1340]

[Sidenote: Medieval domestic science.]

Bartholomew’s sixth book is entitled, “Of ages,” but really deals more with matters of daily family and domestic life, discussing in addition to age, death, infancy, childhood, manhood, such family relationships as father, mother, and daughter, and such domestic concerns as servants, food and drink, dinners and banquets, sleep and waking, dreams and exercise. This last topic of exercise is discussed largely in the words of a sermon by Fulgentius, but in other chapters Bartholomew writes so vividly from his own observation that he deserves quotation, although the themes are somewhat of a digression from our main subject.[1341]

[Sidenote: The medieval domestic servant.]

“The handmaid is a female slave deputed to make herself useful to the housewife. She is assigned to the more laborious and demeaning tasks, she is fed with coarser food, she is clad in meaner clothing, she is oppressed by the yoke of servitude.” Her son becomes a serf and, if she is of servile condition, so does a freeman who marries her, nor is she permitted to marry as she chooses. “Like the serf, she is because of the vice of ingratitude recalled after being manumitted, is afflicted with scoldings, is bruised by rods and beatings, is oppressed by varied and conflicting vexations and anxieties, is scarcely permitted to breathe amid her miseries.” Such painting of her woes does not imply much sympathy on Bartholomew’s part, however, since he concludes by saying that it is written that whoso nourishes his servant delicately will find him insolent in the end.[1342]

[Sidenote: Medieval boys.]

Boys have a great capacity for mischief but are susceptible to discipline, if put under tutors and compelled to submit to it. Their constitutions are hot and moist, their flesh is soft, their bodies are flexible, agile, and light; their minds are docile. They lead a safe life without care and worry, appreciating only play, fearing no danger more than the rod, loving apples better than gold. They go naked unashamed; they are heedless of praise or scolding, easily angered and easily placated, easily hurt in the body and unable to endure much work. The hot humor that dominates them makes them restless and fickle. They tend to eat too much and are susceptible to various diseases in consequence. They think only of the present and care nothing for the future; they love games and vanities but refuse to attend to gain and utility. “The least things they think the greatest, and vice versa.” “They want what is hurtful and contrary to them.” They do not remember favors received. All that they see they desire and imitate. They prefer to talk with and take advice from other boys, and shun the company of their elders. They can’t keep secrets. They laugh or cry easily, and they are continually shouting, talking, or chattering, and can scarcely keep still even while they are asleep.[1343]

[Sidenote: Medieval girls.]

Girls “are in constitution hot, moist, and of delicate health; in physique graceful and flexible and beautiful; in mental attitude modest and timid and playful; in their social relations well trained in manners, cautious and reticent in speech, luxurious in dress.” After quoting Aristotle to the effect that women generally have longer and softer hair than men and a longer neck, and remarking the peculiarities of their complexions and figures, Bartholomew says further that they have slenderer and more flexible hands and feet, a weaker voice, voluble and ready speech, that they take short steps, and that in mind they tend to be haughty, are prone to wrath, tenacious in hate, merciful, jealous, impatient of labor, docile, tricky, bitter, and “headlong in lust.”[1344] Whether Bartholomew is inconsistent in this passage or believes that the female nature is, the reader must judge.

[Sidenote: A medieval dinner.]

These are Bartholomew’s instructions for giving a dinner party: “First the food is prepared; at the same time the guests are assembled; chairs and also stools are required; in the dining room tables are set and the table furnishings are arranged and adorned. The guests with the host are placed at the head table, but they do not sit down at table before the hands of the guests are washed; next the host’s children and then the servants are grouped together at table. Spoons, knives, and salt cellars are first placed upon the table. Loaves of bread and cups of wine are presently added. There follow many and varied courses; the butlers and waiters serve each person diligently. The guests joyfully engage in vying with one another in pledging toasts; they are cheered with viols and citharas; now the wines and now the courses are renewed; they divide and share with one another the dishes which happen to be opposite them; finally the fruit and dessert are brought in. When dinner is finished, the table furnishings and remains of food are carried away and the tables are set aside. Hands are again washed and wiped; thanks are returned to God and to the host; for the sake of good cheer the cups go round again and again. When these features of the dinner are over, the guests either are offered couches for some rest, or are allowed to return home.”[1345]

[Sidenote: Dreams and their interpretation.]

In a chapter on dreams Bartholomew declares that they are sometimes true and sometimes false. One should neither put indiscriminate faith in them nor spurn them entirely, since sometimes certain conjectures concerning the future may be had through dreams. Moreover, the meaning of some dreams is evident at once; others require interpretation. Dreams arise from varied sources, being produced by divine inspiration, by angelic administration, by diabolic illusion, or by natural and bodily causes.[1346]

[Sidenote: Medical advice.]

Bartholomew’s seventh book is medical, treating of infirmities in seventy chapters. His desire to be brief is probably what restrains him from including any long medical concoctions. He continues to make much use of Constantinus Africanus, who is cited in almost every chapter, and whose “many other experiments”[1347] Bartholomew often has not time to include. One of the cures cited from Constantinus is to scarify the shin bones in order to cure a headache, the theory being that this will remove the injurious humor from the head to the lower extremities.[1348] A part of the treatment prescribed for cases of frenzy is to shave the scalp and wash it with tepid vinegar or cover it with plasters made of the lung of a pig or cow. Keeping the patient firmly bound in a dark place, bleeding him, and abstaining from answering his foolish questions are other features of the regimen suggested.[1349] To rouse a patient from a state of stupor and lethargy it is recommended to pull hard at his hair or beard, dash cold water frequently in his face, or make a stench under him.[1350] An “experiment” against epilepsy from Platearius consists in scarifying three drops of blood from the patient’s scalp and at the end of the fit giving them to him to eat with a crow’s egg.[1351] Indeed crow’s eggs alone are regarded as quite beneficial. To Platearius is also credited the following method “of curing or at least palliating leprosy.”[1352] Take a red snake with a white belly, remove the venom, cut off the head and tail, cook it with leeks, and administer it frequently with food,--a preparation roughly similar to theriac. Wine in which a snake has lain putrefying a long time is “a medicine useful for many diseases,” and Bartholomew repeats the tale we have heard before of the woman who caused her blind husband to recover his sight instead of killing him when she cooked a snake instead of an eel with garlic for him to eat. After such liberties had been taken with his blindness, one would expect a husband to recover his sight, if he could!

[Sidenote: Poisons.]

The poisons of venomous animals differ. The venom of the viper is hot and dry; that of the scorpion, cold and dry; that of the spider, cold and moist. Avicenna says that the poison of the male is really more deadly than that of the female, but female serpents have more teeth and so are perhaps worse on the whole. The venom of the old is more injurious than that of the young; that of a fasting animal is more harmful than that of a full animal; and poisons are worse in summer than winter, and at noon than at night.[1353] “Diascorides” says[1354] that river crabs possess an occult virtue against the bite of mad dogs, and their ashes taken with gentian are a singular remedy. A scorpion sting may be cured by placing oil in which the scorpion has been drowned or boiled upon the puncture, or by pulverizing the scorpion’s body and placing it upon the wound. The idea of course is that the poison will return to the body from which it came.

[Sidenote: The waters above the firmament.]

In book eight Bartholomew discusses the universe and celestial bodies. According to the tradition of the saints there is a visible and an invisible heaven. The visible heaven is multiplex and subdivides into seven heavens, the aerial, ethereal, fiery, Olympian, the firmament, the aqueous or crystalline, and the empyrean. The authority of Scripture concerning the waters above the firmament causes Bartholomew to accept the existence of an aqueous or crystalline heaven. But he rejects Bede’s view that these waters are cold and congealed in order to temper the excessive heat generated by the swift revolution of the other heavens, for Job tells us that there is concord and harmony in the heavens, and cold and humid waters would be contrary to the celestial substance of the heavens. Therefore “the moderns” have in Bartholomew’s opinion “investigated the inmost secrets of philosophy more profoundly,” when, as Alexander of Hales states, they suggest that those waters are neither frigid, fluid, and humid, nor congealed, solid, and ponderous, but on the contrary very mobile and remarkable for their clearness and transparency. It is not because they are congealed but because they are transparent that this heaven is called crystalline.[1355] In other words, the “waters above the firmament” are not really waters. And the original modern investigator who ventured to dispute Bede’s authority on the subject of the waters above the firmament was not Alexander of Hales but, as we have seen, William of Conches, whom Bartholomew lists in his bibliography and quotes in other passages, although he does not mention him by name here.

[Sidenote: The empyrean heaven: Rabanus.]

Of the other heavens Bartholomew gives most space to the empyrean. It is by nature immobile and unmoved and consequently is not essential like the other heavens for the continued generation of things in our inferior world, but rather, as Alexander of Hales says, to round out the universe and the types of bodies in it. Bartholomew continues: “The empyrean heaven is the first body, simplest in nature, the least corporeal, the subtlest, the first firmament of the world, largest in quantity, lucid in quality, spherical in shape, loftiest in location since farthest from the center, embracing in its amplitude spirits and bodies visible and invisible, and the abode of the supreme God; for God may be everywhere, yet he is said especially to be in the heaven, since there shines most powerfully the working of his virtue.”[1356] After this description of the last of the visible heavens as the abode of invisible spirits and of God Himself there does not seem to be much call for an invisible heaven, which Bartholomew himself seems by this time to have forgotten. For the passage just quoted he cites Rabanus as his source “who employs the words of Basil in the Hexaemeron,” but I have been unable to find the passage either in the Hexaemeron of Basil or the works of Rabanus Maurus.[1357] Nor have I been able to find several other citations which Bartholomew makes from Rabanus in matters astronomical and astrological.

[Sidenote: Alexander of Hales.]

A word may be introduced concerning Alexander of Hales, whom Bartholomew has twice cited in the foregoing passages, but whom we probably shall not have occasion to mention again. Like Bartholomew, he was an Englishman and a Franciscan, and Bartholomew may have been either an attendant upon his lectures or his colleague at Paris. He died in 1245 and is known as one of the first to attempt to fit together previous Christian opinion and theology with the newly introduced works of Aristotle and writings of the Arabs. Of this we see evidence in the citations made from him by Bartholomew. But Alexander’s field was primarily theology and not natural science.

[Sidenote: Aristotelian theory of one heaven.]

While the saints may regard the heavens as manifold and list as many as seven of them,[1358] the philosophers will admit only one heaven, says Bartholomew, who this time correctly quotes Basil as affirming in the Hexaemeron that “the philosophers would rather gnaw out their tongues than admit that there are many heavens.” Bartholomew also presents Aristotle’s view in the Liber de celo et mundo that the heaven is characterized by the greatest possible simplicity and purity and has no division or contrariety of parts. According to the new translation of De celo et mundo it is “a perfect complete unit to which there is no like, neither fabricated nor generated,” and with an equal, single, and circular motion. In the De causis elementorum Aristotle holds further that the heaven is a fifth element, differing in natural properties and distinct from the four elements and not like them subject to generation and corruption.[1359] Indeed, they would destroy one another by their mutual contrariety and repugnance were it not for the conciliating influence of celestial virtue.[1360] But while the heaven is one, it has many orbs and circles of varying figure and magnitude, and there is a greater aggregation of light in the stars than in other parts of the sky. Such variations account for the varying or even contrary effects produced by the heaven in our lower world at different times and places, and explain why the pure sky causes corruption as well as generation here below.

[Sidenote: As the basis of astrology.]

The Aristotelian foundation thus laid for the superstructure of astrological science and art is apparently accepted by Bartholomew, who states that “the Creator established the heaven as the cause and origin of generation and corruption, and therefore it was necessary that it should not be subject to generation and corruption.” In short, the universe divides into two parts. The heaven, beginning with the circle of the moon, is the nobler, simpler, superior, and active portion of the universe. The other part, extending from the sphere of the moon downward to earth’s center, is inferior, passive, acted upon and governed by the heaven. In all his later scientific and astrological discussion Bartholomew implies this hypothesis, and, after the two chapters which we have already summarized on the waters above the firmament and the empyrean heaven, pays no more attention to the seven heavens of the saints. The firmament, “called by the philosophers the first heaven and the last, in whose convexity are situated the bodies of stars and planets,” absorbs his attention during the remaining forty-eight chapters of his eighth book. “By means of its motion, it is the effective principle of generation and corruption in the inferior world.” Rabanus explains how its rays converge as toward a center upon the earth’s surface and exert a concentrated impression there; and the science of perspective also illustrates this. The three less stable elements, air, fire, and water, obey the firmament even to the extent of local motion, as is illustrated by the tides. The element earth is not influenced in this way, but produces diverse species from itself in obedience to the celestial impressions which it receives.

[Sidenote: Properties and effects of the signs and planets.]

Bartholomew discusses the signs of the zodiac in much the usual astrological fashion. They are given animal names because in their effects they represent the properties of those animals.[1361] In their effects, too, they may be distinguished as hot or cold, masculine or feminine, diurnal or nocturnal; and they are grouped in trios with the four elements and cardinal points and in varied relations with the planets. Each governs its portion of the human body; thus the Ram “dominates the head and face, and produces a hairy body, a crooked frame, an oblique face, heavy eyes, short ears, a long neck.”[1362] Each sign also has its bearings on human life; thus Virgo is “the house of sickness, of serfs and handmaids and the domestic animals. It signifies inconstancy and changing from place to place.”[1363] Bartholomew indeed devotes a separate chapter to “the properties and occult virtues” of each sign “according to the astrologers.”[1364] The seven planets by their progress through the signs and conjunctions in them influence every creature on earth.[1365] Bartholomew outlines their successive control of the formation of the child in the womb. He also devotes a chapter to the influence of each planet. Mars, for example, “disposes men to mobility and levity of mind, to wrath and animosity and other choleric passions; it also fits men for arts employing fire such as those of smiths and bakers, just as Saturn produces agriculturists and porters of heavy weights, and Jupiter on the contrary turns out men adapted to lighter pursuits such as orators and money-changers.”[1366] Bartholomew also discusses the head and tail of the dragon as “two stars which are not planets but yet seem to have the nature and influence of the planets.”[1367] The fixed stars, too, have their influence, causing storms or clear weather and, according to the mathematici, presignifying sad or glad events. Bartholomew further sets forth the theory of the magnus annus or return of all the stars to the same positions after an interval of 15,000 or 36,000 years. “But whatever the philosophers have said concerning it, this much is sure that it is not for us to determine the last day.”[1368] God alone knows. Bartholomew’s most frequently cited authorities on the subject of astrology seem to be Albumasar, Messahala[1369] (Ma Sha’Allah), and Alphraganus.

[Sidenote: Bartholomew illustrates the general medieval acceptance of astrology.]

Thus Bartholomew, a Franciscan in good standing, who lectured on the Bible at Paris and was called by the General of his Order to lecture in Saxony, in a work intended for elementary students and the general reader, far from engaging in any tilt with the astrologers or attacking their art as involving fatalism and contrary to morality and free will, affirms the general law of the control of earth by sky and repeats with little or no question a mass of astrological detail from Arabian writers. After such an exhibition as this of what a commonplace and matter-of-course affair astrological theory was in the thirteenth century, how impossible it is to have the least sympathy with those specialists in medieval learning who would have the work of Daniel of Morley shunned like the pest because of its astrological doctrine, or account for Bacon’s imprisonment in 1278 by his astrological doctrine, or deny that Albertus Magnus could have written the Speculum astronomiae with its astrological doctrine. But of Bacon and Albertus more later.

[Sidenote: Medieval divisions of the day and hour.]

Bartholomew’s ninth book deals with time and its parts. He defines a day as the time occupied by a complete revolution of the sun around the earth, and states that a day consists of twenty-four hours, or of four “quarters” of six hours each. But he seems unacquainted with our division of the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds. Instead he subdivides the hour into four “points” or forty “moments.” Each moment is thus equivalent to a minute and a half of our time, and it may be divided further into twelve unciae (ounces), while each uncia includes forty-seven atoms, making 22,560 atoms in an hour as against 3,600 of our seconds. Honorius of Autun in his De imagine mundi, a work written presumably in the first part of the twelfth century, speaks of the hour as a twelfth part of the day, but makes it consist of four “points,” forty “moments,” and 22,560 atoms just as Bartholomew does. But Honorius also divides the hour into ten “minutes,” fifteen “parts,” and sixty ostenta, which last would correspond to our minutes, if his hour was of the same length as ours. Honorius does not mention the unciae of Bartholomew.[1370] Bartholomew further tells us that Sunday is called the Lord’s Day and is privileged in many particulars, since on it the world was created, the Lord was born, rose from the dead, and also sent the Holy Spirit. We have already presented Bartholomew’s discussion of the Egyptian days in an earlier chapter.

[Sidenote: Form and matter: fire and coal.]

The tenth book, in nine brief chapters, is entitled, “Form and Matter,” but after one chapter on form, discusses the elements. An element, according to Constantinus, is a simple substance and the least particle of a compound body. The rest of the chapters are devoted to the particular element fire and to things closely associated with it, such as flame, smoke, sparks, and ashes. Carbo, “Rabanus says, is fire actually incorporated and united with earthly matter.” Bartholomew’s further description suggests our coal, but perhaps he has only charcoal in mind.

[Sidenote: Air and its creatures.]

The eleventh book treats in sixteen chapters of the element air and its “passions,” such as winds, clouds, rainbows, dew, rain, hail, snow, thunder and lightning, and leads up to the following book on birds, or rather, creatures of the air, since bees, flies, crickets, locusts, bats, and griffins are included in the alphabetical list of thirty-eight chapters. The birds described are for the most part familiar ones: the eagle, hawk, owl, dove, turtle-dove, quail, stork, crow, crane, hen, swallow, kite, partridge, peacock, pelican, screech-owl, sparrow, vulture, hoopoe, phoenix. Some of these creatures place precious stones in their nests to keep off snakes, the eagle employing the gem achates[1371] and the griffin an emerald.[1372]

[Sidenote: The swallow, swallow-stone, and swallow-wort.]

Swallows have gems called celidonii in their gizzards, one white and one red. The red variety is called masculine because it is of greater virtue than the white kind. These stones are especially valuable if they have been extracted from the chick before it touches the ground, “as is said in Lapidarius where their virtues are described as Constantinus says.”[1373] Lapidarius can scarcely mean Marbod’s poem on gems, since he wrote later than Constantinus Africanus, and while he discusses the chelidonius, he says nothing of extracting it so soon and describes the colors of its two varieties as black and red,[1374] and so does Bartholomew later on.[1375] Marcellus Empiricus had called them black and white.[1376] Chelidonius seems to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, χελιδών, and to mean the swallow-stone. Pliny mentions two varieties but simply states that they are like the swallow in color, not that they come from its gizzard. Furthermore he describes the color of one as purple on one side, of the other as “purple besprinkled with black spots.”[1377] Solinus mentions swallows but says nothing of any stone connected with them. Bartholomew, however, also mentions the herb celidonia or swallow-wort. He cites Macrobius for the story that, if anyone blinds the young of swallows, the parent birds restore their offspring’s sight by anointing their eyes with the juice of this herb, a statement which is also found in Pliny.[1378] Not only does the swallow contain gems of great virtue and know of healing herbs; it has medical properties itself. For instance, blood extracted from its right wing is a remedy for the eyes.

[Sidenote: The hoopoe and magic.]

Of the birds described by Bartholomew the upupa or hoopoe is especially associated with the practice of magic. Pliny cites the poet Aeschylus as saying that the bird changes its form;[1379] and from Aristotle to modern French peasants it has been believed to build its nest of human ordure.[1380] After quoting Isidore, who in part uses Pliny,[1381] for the bird’s supposed filthy habits, its frequenting sepulchers, and the statement that anyone anointed with its blood will see demons suffocating him in his dreams, Bartholomew adds that its heart is used in sorceries. Students of nature (Phisici) say that when it grows old and cannot see or fly, its offspring tear off its outworn pinions and bathe its eyes with the juices of herbs--thus just reversing the relation between the swallow and its young--and warm it under their wings until its feathers grow again and, perfectly renovated, it is able to see and fly as well as they. In Basil’s Hexaemeron a similar story is told of the filial devotion of young storks toward their aged parent. The hoopoe’s renovation by its young also is included in the Latin bestiaries,[1382] but Bartholomew appears to cite Phisici rather than Physiologus.[1383] Thomas of Cantimpré’s chapter on the hoopoe is similar to Bartholomew’s except that all he says to connect it with magic is that anointing one’s temples with its blood protects one from sorcerers and enchanters; but “how this is, Experimenter does not state.” Vincent of Beauvais gives a somewhat fuller account of the hoopoe in his Speculum naturale and the bird’s properties are also treated by Albertus Magnus in his De animalibus,[1384] and in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to him, also by Petrus Hispanus in the Thesaurus pauperum,[1385] and by Arnald of Villanova in Remedia contra maleficia. For the use of the bird’s heart in magic Vincent cites a Liber de natura rerum, which perhaps is the Liber rerum cited by Thomas of Cantimpré, who, however, in that case failed to copy the statement in question. Vincent attributes to “Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans,” the statement that sprinkling a sleeping person with the blood of the hoopoe will cause him to see phantasms of demons, which is essentially the same statement that Bartholomew draws from Isidore and Pliny. But Bartholomew sometimes cites Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans. These instances show the difficulty of dealing with medieval citations, but on the whole indicate that Vincent used independently the same sources as Thomas and Bartholomew and made a different selection from them.

[Sidenote: Waters and fish.]

In the thirteenth book Bartholomew deals with the element water, with wells, streams, seas, ponds, pools, and drops of water, with some particular bodies of water such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan, Lake of Tiberias, and Mediterranean Sea. In the last chapter fish are considered. As in the account of birds, use is made of Isidore and Pliny, notably concerning the cleverness with which fish escape the snares laid for them by fishermen. Some fish are said to help their fellows withdraw from the basket-like traps set for them by fishermen by seizing their tails in their mouths and pulling them out backwards. Aristotle, too, is cited and Avicenna is referred to several times on the question whether a particular fish is edible or not. But an authority especially employed in this chapter is Jorath or Iorat, who in the bibliography at the end of the work is called a Chaldean. From his book on animals Bartholomew takes such details as that there are fish who live only three hours, who conceive from dew alone or in accord with the phases of the moon and the rising and setting of the stars. Dolphins, when a man is drowning, can tell from the odor whether he has ever eaten the flesh of a dolphin. If he has not, they rescue him and bring him safe to land; if he has, they devour him on the spot.

[Sidenote: Jorath on whales.]

Bartholomew also depends upon Jorath for his account of whales, which were not treated of by Pliny. The whale possesses a superabundance of sperm which floats on the water and, when collected and dried, turns to amber. When hungry, the whale has only to open its mouth and emit a fragrant odor like amber, and the other fish, attracted and delighted thereby, swim into its jaws and down its throat. On some occasions, however, this pleasant breath, if it may be so termed, of the whale saves the other fish instead of luring them on to destruction. When a certain serpentine and venomous fish approaches, they take refuge behind the whale, who then repels the fetid odor of the newcomer by the sweetness of his own effusion. While Bartholomew lists the whale along with fish, he notes that Jorath says that terrestrial matter dominates in it over water, and that consequently it becomes very corpulent and fat, and in its old age dust collects on its back to such an extent that vegetation grows there and the creature is often mistaken for an island and lures sailors to their destruction,--a reminiscence, we may suppose, of one of Lucian’s stories. So fat is the whale that he must be wounded deeply to feel it at all, but once his inner flesh is reached by the weapon, he cannot endure the bitterness of the salt water, seeks the shore, and is easily captured. The whale cherishes its young with wondrous love, and when they are stranded on shoals it frees them by spouting water over them. When a severe storm is raging, it swallows them and they abide safely in its belly until the storm is past, when it vomits them forth again.

[Sidenote: Geography, physical and political.]

In the fourteenth book Bartholomew treats of earth, and besides defining mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, meadows, deserts, caves, and ditches in general, describes over thirty particular peaks or mountain ranges, most of which are named in the Bible, like Ararat, Bethel, Hermon, Hebron, and Horeb. But in the fifteenth book, on Provinces, his geography is that of classical antiquity and of the feudal world of his own time rather than that of Scripture. Where the medieval region was known under the same name in antiquity, he is apt to continue to use the old description of it, even though it may be really out-of-date and no longer closely applicable. Sometimes, however, as in the chapter on Burgundy, he uses only a little of Isidore’s description and apparently writes the rest of the paragraph from personal knowledge. And in the case of new localities and names, for which he can find no ancient and early medieval authorities, he describes the province intelligently and accurately as it is in his own time. On the whole his account, although its 175 chapters are brief, is of considerable value[1386] for the political geography of Europe in the thirteenth century, both as a general survey showing what regions he deemed important enough to mention[1387] and what he thought might be omitted, and also often for particular details concerning particular places, while it is sometimes enlivened by the spice of local or racial prejudice.

[Sidenote: Also economic.]

Citing Isidore, Bartholomew divides the world as in a T map into Asia, occupying one-half the circle, and Europe and Africa each occupying a quarter. Indeed he says later that Africa is smaller than Europe;[1388] Africa of course had not yet been circumnavigated. In speaking of Alemannia he alludes to other provinces “in either Germany” which are not included in his list of chapter headings: Austria and Bavaria near the Danube, Alsace along the Rhine, “and many others which it would be tedious to enumerate one by one.”[1389] He describes Apulia as the maritime region in Italy separated from the island of Sicily by an arm of the sea, and as a very populous land, full of gold and silver, rich in grain, wine, and oil, famous for its renowned cities, well fortified in castles and towns, fertile and fecund in varied crops. Brindisi (Brundusium) is its metropolis, and across the sea from Apulia to the south is Barbary.[1390] Bartholomew thus uses the term “Apulia” as “Le Puglie” is used today, to include both ancient Apulia and Calabria, which he does not mention by that name. His description testifies to the greater prosperity of that region under the Normans and Frederick II than in later times, and also shows that Bartholomew is not blind to economic conditions in his survey of various regions. He is very apt, indeed, to tell whether the soil is well-watered and fertile or rocky and arid, and to describe the other resources of the district and the characteristics of the peoples inhabiting it. He speaks in high praise of the extensive dominions and sea-power of Venice and of the justice and concord of its citizens.[1391] He also recognizes the importance of the wool trade between England and Flanders.[1392]

[Sidenote: Medieval boundaries.]

Bartholomew often undertakes to state the boundaries of a region under discussion. Sometimes he is clear and convincing in this, as when he states that Gascony used to be a part of Aquitaine, that it is bounded by the Pyrenees, the Ocean, and the county of Toulouse, and approaches the territory of the Poitevins to the north; that it is drained by the Garonne river and that Bordeaux is its metropolis.[1393] Sometimes his statements are confusing, but we must remember that feudal states were very difficult to bound exactly and varied greatly in extent from time to time. Some mistakes in the points of the compass are perhaps slips of copyists rather than of Bartholomew. He speaks of Brabant and Lorraine as the westernmost or frontier provinces of Germany. Brabant is bounded on the north by Frisia, the Britannic Ocean (North Sea), and the Gulf of Flanders; on the west by lower Gaul and on the south by upper France. It is watered by the Meuse and Scheldt.[1394] Lorraine is bounded by Brabant, the Rhine, Alsace, the region of Sens, and Belgic Gaul. Metz is located in it.[1395] Flanders is a province of Belgic Gaul next the seacoast, with Germany to the east, the Gallic sea to the west, and the region of Sens and Burgundy to the south.[1396]

[Sidenote: France in the thirteenth century.]

Bartholomew is uncertain whether France is named from the Franks or from a free hangman (a franco carnifice) who became king at Paris and from whom the executioners received privileges. Isidore does not mention Francia, so that Bartholomew does not derive this etymology from him. He seems uncertain also whether to identify France with all ancient Gaul or simply with Belgic Gaul. He would carry it south only to the province of Narbonensis and the Pennine Alps, but east to the Rhine and Germany. This perhaps is an attestation of the growing territorial power of the French monarch, but perhaps is also a hold-over from the ancient boundaries of Gaul. At any rate many of his other regions would overlap and conflict with a France of this size. He extols the stone and cement about Paris, which give it an advantage over other localities in building construction, and he further eulogizes the city itself as the Athens of his age which elevates the science and culture not of France only but all Europe.[1397]

[Sidenote: Brittany and the British Isles.]

Léopold Delisle, writing in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, endeavored to claim Bartholomew as a Frenchman, despite the Anglicus that regularly accompanies his name. Yet for all Bartholomew’s praise of Paris and Venice, his chapters on England, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany[1398] are alone almost enough to determine his nationality. He asserts that Brittany should be called Britannia Minor, and the island Britannia Maior or Great Britain, since Brittany was settled by fugitive Britons from the island and the daughter should not be raised to an equality with the mother country, especially since it cannot equal Great Britain either in population or merit.[1399] Also Bartholomew represents the Irish as savages[1400] and describes the Scots in very unfavorable terms. His view is that if they have any good customs, they borrowed them from the English. He admits, however, that the Scots would be good-looking in face and figure, but then adds the insulting condition, if they would not insist on deforming themselves by wearing their national costume.[1401] But as for England, or Albion as it was once called, after describing it as the largest island in the (Atlantic) ocean and recounting some of its legends and history, Bartholomew quotes a metrical description of it as a fertile corner of the world, a rich island which has little need of the rest of the world but whose products all the rest of the world requires, and whose people are happy, jocose, and free of mind, tongue, and hand.[1402] Censure of and prejudice against all others who claim to be British, ill-concealed insular pride! Who can doubt that the writer is an Englishman?

[Sidenote: A geography by Herodotus.]

Some writer named Herodotus is cited a good deal by Bartholomew for such regions as Poitou, Picardy, Saxony, Sclavia, Scotland, and Thuringia, of which the Greek historian Herodotus of course knew nothing and said nothing.

[Sidenote: Two passages about magic.]

The inhabitants of Finland, we are told, are a barbarous race “occupied with magic arts.” They practice divination by means of the number of knots in a ball of thread and sell favorable winds to the sailors who navigate along their shores. In reality, Bartholomew explains, the demons send the winds or not, in order to secure the souls of the Finns in the end.[1403] While we are on the subject of magic, a passage from Bartholomew’s next book may be noted.[1404] Discussing the gem Heliotrope, he cites Isidore for the statement that “it manifests the stupidity of enchanters and magicians who glory in their prodigies, for they deceive men’s eyes in their operations just as this gem does, of which he says by way of illustration that together with the herb of the same name and certain incantations it deceives the gaze of the spectators and causes them not to see the man who carries it.” But when we turn to the Etymologies,[1405] we find that Isidore simply quotes the sentence of Pliny, “This too is a manifest instance of the impudence of the magicians that they say that the bearer of this stone cannot be seen if he joins to it the herb Heliotrope and adds certain prayers.” Bartholomew has evidently put his own interpretation upon the passage.

[Sidenote: Bartholomew and Arnold of Saxony on stones.]

The last passage has introduced us to Bartholomew’s sixteenth book on gems, minerals, and metals. Valentin Rose,[1406] in what Langlois praised as “sa belle dissertation sur le De lapidibus aristotélique et sur le Lapidaire d’Arnoldus Saxo,”[1407] exploited a hitherto obscure German writer, Arnold of Saxony, who appears to be cited only by Vincent of Beauvais and of whose works but a single manuscript is known. Yet Rose would have us believe that Albertus Magnus made much use of him without acknowledgment in his work on minerals[1408] and that Bartholomew did the same in his sixteenth book. I shall endeavor to show that it is much more likely that Arnold copied Bartholomew. First, it is less likely that Bartholomew, who was called to Magdeburg to instruct the Saxons, possibly after his De proprietatibus rerum had been completed, would have borrowed from one of them than that the opposite should be the case. Second, Bartholomew’s work is much fuller than Arnold’s which Rose admits is “meager and mechanical.” Third, Bartholomew’s work is professedly a compilation; his object is to cite his authorities and he usually does so scrupulously; hence if he made much use of Arnold, he would certainly mention him somewhere. Fourth, in descriptions of particular stones Arnold of Saxony cites no authorities but merely makes the lump statement at the start that he uses Aristotle, Aaron and Evax, by whom he means Marbod’s poem, and “Diascorides”; Bartholomew on the other hand in the case of each gem makes distinct citations from Isidore, Lapidarius,[1409] and “Diascorides,” all of whom he is evidently using directly but with discrimination and in different combinations in each particular case. Fifth, the same stones are treated more fully by Bartholomew than by Arnold, whose terse descriptions suggest the style of an abbreviator. Thus Bartholomew devotes two columns to the sapphire; Arnold gives it but eleven lines. Sixth, although Rose denied that Arnold used Aristotle and “Diascorides” except in his other work De virtute universali, and contended that in his De virtutibus lapidum he used only Marbod and one other unknown source, in point of fact almost every passage in Arnold which Rose refers to this unknown source is given by Bartholomew as from “Diascorides.” If, therefore, Arnold’s unknown source is not “Diascorides,” it must be Bartholomew. The natural inference is that while Bartholomew has made direct use of some treatise passing under the name of Dioscorides, Arnold has not seen this treatise itself but has probably condensed or extracted it at second-hand from Bartholomew without acknowledging his indebtedness to Bartholomew at all and only vaguely acknowledging his debt to “Diascorides” in his preface. This inference is supported by the use made of Isidore on stones by our two authors; Bartholomew uses Isidore directly and cites book and chapter; Arnold repeats indirectly through Marbod a bare skeleton of brief phrases which originally were in Isidore.[1410]

[Sidenote: Citations by Arnold of Saxony and by Bartholomew.]

Rose further asserted, without printing the passages in question to support his contention, that Albertus Magnus had simply copied a number of citations from Arnold, such as Jorach on animals, Pictagoras in The Book of the Romans, Esculapius in De membris, Zeno in De naturalibus, Velbetus in De sensibus, and Alchyldis De venenis. But we have already noted that Bartholomew cites Jorath and Pythagoras; Zeno, too, is in his bibliography, and in the introduction to his eighteenth book he cites the Liber Escolapii de occultis membrorum virtutibus. Vincent of Beauvais also cites these works more than once. I do not believe that Bartholomew took his citations from Arnold, and I doubt if either Albert or Vincent did. The probability is that such books were common property then, however little may be known about them today, and that it would be as easy then for anyone to lay his hand on these books as on the works of Arnold of Saxony, whom Vincent alone mentions. In discussing other mineral substances than gems, such as metals, sulphur, salt, soda, glass, Bartholomew cites Aristotle, Avicenna, and Platearius as well as Lapidarius, Isidore, and “Diascorides,” but in the seventeenth book on trees and herbs he continues to cite “Dyascorides” and Isidore, although also making extensive use of Pliny. In the eighteenth book on animals his list of authorities widens again and he cites Solinus, Papias, Marcianus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Avicenna, and Isaac, but Pliny continues to be his chief reliance.

[Sidenote: Virtues of animals.]

In the introduction to this book Bartholomew takes the view, supported by the authority both of Pliny and of John of Damascus,[1411] that all kinds of animals were created for man’s benefit. Even fleas and vermin, like wild beasts and reptiles, are useful in leading him to recognize his own infirmity and to invoke the name of God. But furthermore “there is nothing in the body of an animal which is without manifest or occult medicinal virtue.” Escolapius in The Occult Virtues of Members states that hemorrhoids may be cured by sitting on a lion’s skin, and Bartholomew lists other examples of amulets, ligatures, and suspensions from Pliny and the Viaticum of Constantinus Africanus as well as “Dyascorides” and “Pitagoras in The Book of the Romans.” The knowledge of medicinal herbs and the semi-human emotions or moral virtues supposed to be possessed by animals also receive the usual treatment. Bartholomew informs us that the deadly basilisk loses its venomous character when burned to an ash, and that its ashes are considered useful in operations of alchemy and especially in the transmutation of metals.[1412] Jerome and Solinus are cited concerning dragons who overturn ships by flying against their sails, and of the use made by the Ethiopians of the blood of dragons against the summer’s heat and of their flesh for divers diseases. For as David says, “Thou gavest him for food to the peoples of Ethiopia.”[1413] Marvelous monsters of India are not forgotten, and Aristotle is cited concerning a terrible man-eating wolf in India with three sets of teeth, a lion’s foot, a scorpion’s tail, human face and voice. Its voice is furthermore terrible like the sound of a trumpet, and it is swift as a deer.[1414] Bartholomew’s credulity and scepticism vary with the attitude of his authorities. When he finds them in disagreement over the question whether the beaver castrates itself in order to escape its hunters--Cicero, Juvenal, Isidore, and Physiologus asserting this, while Pliny, Dyascorides, and Platearius deny it--he prefers the arguments of the latter, especially since the experience of his own time supports their view.[1415]

[Sidenote: Physiologus.]

Physiologus is cited a number of times[1416] by Bartholomew concerning the snake, crocodile, elephant, wolf, wild ass or onager, the onocentaur who is half human and half ass, panther, siren, and taxo or melus. Rather strangely he does not cite Physiologus in describing the lion. Bartholomew’s citations of Physiologus bear out the points we have made in an earlier chapter that Physiologus is one thing, and the allegorical interpretation of passages cited from Physiologus another thing, that Physiologus means what it says, “Natural Scientist,” and not allegorist or moralizer. For although a primary purpose of Bartholomew’s own work is supposed to be the elucidation of the truth concealed in Scripture under the symbolism of natural phenomena, he cites Physiologus simply for zoological data and omits entirely the moral application and spiritual allegory which it has become customary to associate with the term Physiologus. Moreover, much which Bartholomew ascribes to Physiologus cannot be found in any of the bestiaries which are commonly associated with that name.[1417] This again shows how the middle ages added to its ancient authorities.

[Sidenote: Color, odor, savor, liquor.]

In his nineteenth and last book Bartholomew states that he will treat “first of color, then of odor, then of savor, last of liquor.” The discussion of color occupies the first thirty-six chapters in which Aristotle is more frequently cited than any other authority. The citations become less numerous from chapter eleven to thirty-six[1418] while particular colors are being described, and where Bartholomew perhaps gives us some original information. Isaac seems to be Bartholomew’s chief authority in the chapters upon smell and taste. Concerning the latter matter Bartholomew states that the theories of philosophers and medical men disagree.[1419] Under the caption of Liquor he describes honey, mead, claretum (which was a mixture of wine, honey, and spices), milk, butter, and cheese. These last suggest eggs, and chapters 77 to 113 are devoted to those of various animals. The work then proceeds to consider weights and measures, and concludes with chapters describing various musical instruments.[1420]

FOOTNOTES:

[1317] Bartholomew has already been presented in part to English-speaking readers in Steele’s Medieval Lore, London, 1907, and more recently in excerpts in Coulton’s Social Life in Britain from the Norman Conquest to the Reformation, Cambridge, 1918, but their quotations and most other modern references to him are based upon the later medieval English versions of his work and not upon his own original Latin text. My summary is based directly upon the Latin text as printed by Lindelbach at Heidelberg in 1488:

“Explicit liber de proprietatibus rerum editus a fratre Bartholomeo anglico ordinis fratrum minorum. Anno domini Mcccclxxxviii kalendas vero Junii xii.”

I am indebted to the liberality of the John Crerar Library in Chicago in allowing this rare volume to be transported to Cleveland for my use.

I have also checked up the printed text to some extent by examination of the following MSS at Paris. On the whole the discrepancies between the MSS and printed version seem slight, although a modern critical edition of Bartholomew’s work is certainly desirable, especially in view of the rarity of the editio princeps.

BN 16098, 13th century.

BN 16099, 13th century.

BN 347, 14th century.

Since I finished this chapter a paper has appeared by G. E. Se Boyar, “Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopaedia,” in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XIX (1920) 168-89.

[1318] De propriet. rerum, Book XIX, close.

[1319] Wadding, Annales, 1230, No. 16; cited HL XXX, 355.

[1320] Cited HL XXX, 354.

[1321] De propriet. rerum, XV, 88.

[1322] HL XXX, 357; at pp. 356-7 it reproduces Bartholomew’s bibliography.

[1323] IV, 2, “Hec vincentius in speculo suo naturali, li. III, ca. lxxiii.” I was not able to find this citation in such MSS as I examined.

[1324] Had the Speculum naturale been written before the De proprietatibus rerum, Bartholomew, if he cited it at all, would have made use of it more than once, but would hardly have spoken as he did of the need of one compilation on the natures and properties of things, had the Speculum already been in existence.

[1325] VIII, 3.

[1326] It is true that they do not always seem absolutely accurate, but copyists may have altered or misplaced them.

[1327] Etymol., XII, 4.

[1328] De propriet. rerum, XVIII, 8.

[1329] HL XXX, 363.

[1330] And now again accepted as his; see above, chapter 27, page 619.

[1331] De propriet. rerum, I, 19.

[1332] Ibid., II, 19-20.

[1333] De propriet. rerum, V, 21-22. (Henceforth all citations in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be to this work.) BN 16099, fol. 31r, V. 21, “ut dicunt avicenna et constantinus in tractatu de venenosis animalibus et venenis”; V. 22, “ut dicunt predicti auctores in tractatu de venenis.”

[1334] V, 21.

[1335] III, 10 and 16; V, 3.

[1336] IV, 11.

[1337] VII, 5.

[1338] III, 17.

[1339] VIII, 40.

[1340] V, 7.

[1341] Since I completed this chapter in manuscript form there has appeared in print G. C. Coulton’s Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, Cambridge, 1918, in which he has selected almost exactly the same passages from Bartholomew as illustrations of his theme. This is welcome confirmation of their interest and importance, and I have decided to let the following paragraphs stand for two reasons, despite the fact that they are now available elsewhere in English. In the first place any description of the De proprietatibus rerum would seem rather incomplete without them. In the second place Mr. Coulton gives the passages in Trevisa’s English translation, while I have made a translation direct from the Latin text in more modern English. The exaggerated impression of quaintness and illiteracy which the old English version makes upon the modern reader finds in my opinion little or no justification in the original Latin. Men apparently could think more directly in Latin in the thirteenth century than they could express themselves in English in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

[1342] VI, 11.

[1343] VI, 5.

[1344] VI, 6.

[1345] VI, 22.

[1346] VI, 27.

[1347] VII, 9 and 16.

[1348] VII, 2.

[1349] VII, 4.

[1350] VII, 6.

[1351] VII, 9.

[1352] VII, 64.

[1353] VII, 66.

[1354] VII, 68.

[1355] VIII, 3.

[1356] VIII, 4.

[1357] At least as printed in Migne, PL.

[1358] R. H. Charles, in discussing “The Seven Heavens--an early Jewish and Christian belief” (Morfill and Charles, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford, 1896, pp. xxx-xlvii), asserts that after Chrysostom, “Finally such conceptions, failing in the course of the next few centuries to find a home in Christian lands, betook themselves to Mohammedan countries” (Ibid., xxxi-xxxii). But Bartholomew ascribes to “the tradition of the saints” a belief in the plurality of heavens and a sevenfold division of them other than the planetary spheres.

[1359] VIII, 2.

[1360] VIII, 28.

[1361] VIII, 9.

[1362] VIII, 10.

[1363] VIII, 15.

[1364] VIII, 21, which is the last of the twelve chapters.

[1365] VIII, 22.

[1366] VIII, 25.

[1367] VIII, 31.

[1368] VIII, 33.

[1369] In the bibliography Miselat astrologus; in the text Misa., Misael, mesahel, Misalach, etc. I am convinced that none of these is meant for Michael Scot who is also listed in the bibliography but does not seem to be cited in the text.

[1370] Migne, PL vol. 172, col. 147, “Hora ... est duodecim pars diei, constans ex quatuor punctis, minutis decem, partibus quindecim, momentis quadraginta, ostentis sexaginta, atomis viginti duobus mil, quingentis et sexaginta.”

[1371] XII, 1.

[1372] XII, 19.

[1373] XII, 21, “hi lapidi dicuntur celidonii et sunt preciosi maxime quando extrahuntur de pullo antequam tangat terram ut dicitur in lapidario ubi eorum virtutes describuntur, ut dicit Constan. Sanguis de dextra ala extractus oculis medetur....” But perhaps the “ut dicit Constan.” goes with these last words rather than the preceding.

[1374] Migne, PL 171, 1750. In a number of other cases Bartholomew’s citations of Lapidarius do not apply to Marbod.

[1375] XVI, 30.

[1376] De medicamentis, cap. viii.

[1377] NH 37, 56.

[1378] NH 25, 50.

[1379] NH 10, 44.

[1380] Bostock and Riley, English Translation of Pliny’s Natural History, London, 1890 (Bohn Library), II, 511 note. And see D’Arcy W. Thompson’s note on Aristotle’s History of Animals, IX, 15.

[1381] Etymologies, XII, vii, 66, in Migne PL 82, 468.

[1382] Cahier (1851); De bestiis, I, 51, ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor, in Migne PL 177, 50.

[1383] Phisici in the printed edition used; in BN 16099, fol. 97r, ph’i; BN 347, fol. 126r, ph’ici. In the work of Thomas of Cantimpré, however, BN 347B, 14th century, fol. 104v, “Dicit ph’s” which may stand for Physiologus, Philosophus, or Phisicus.

[1384] De animal, XXIII, 111.

[1385] Thesaurus pauperum, cap. 85.

[1386] Yet neither Bartholomew of England nor Thomas of Cantimpré is mentioned by C. Kretschmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, 1889, although he uses Neckam, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon.

[1387] Bartholomew’s list of provinces with the Latin name anglicized in some cases is as follows. Asia, Assyria, Arabia, Armenia, Aradia, Albania (i.e., in Asia), Attica, Achaia, Arcadia, Alania (land of the Alani), Amazonia (land of the Amazons), Alemannia, Anglia (England), Aquitaine, Anjou, Auvergne, Apulia, Africa, Asturia, Aragon, Babylonia, Bactria, Braciana, Brabant, Belgica, Bithynia, Britannia, Boecia (Boeotia), Bohemia, Burgundy, Cappadocia, Chaldea, Cedar, Kent, Cantabria, Canaan, Campania, Cauda, Cilicia, Cyprus, Crete, Cyclades, Choa, Corsica (later occurs a longer chapter on Korsica), Dalmatia, Denmark (Dacia), Delos, Dedan, Europe, Evilath, Ethiopia, Egypt, Hellas, Eola (Aeolia?), Franconia, Francia (i.e. France), Flanders, Fenix (Phoenicia?), Phrygia, Frisia, Fortunate Islands (Canaries), Galilee, Gallacia (in central Europe), Gallicia (in the Spanish peninsula), Gaul, Gadis, Greece, Isle of the Gorgons, Gothia and the island of Gothland (Sweden and Gotland), Guido, India, Hyrcania, Idumea, Judea, Iberia, Italy, Spain (Hispania), Ireland (Hibernia), Icaria, the island in the salt sea (De insula in salo sita), Carthage, Carinthia, Lacedemonia, Lithuania (Lectonia), Livonia, Lycia, Lydia, Libya (Lybia), Lorraine (Lothoringia), Lusitania, Mauritania, Macedonia, Magnesia, Mesopotamia, Media, Melos, Midia, Meissen, Mytilene, Nabathea, Norway, Normandy, Numidia, Narbonensis, Ophir, Holland (Ollandia), Orcades, Paradise, Parthia, Palestine, Pamphylia, Pannonia, Paros, Pentapolis, Persia, Pyrenees, Pigmy-land, Poitou (Pictavia), Picardy, Ramathea, Reucia, Rivalia, Rinchonia, the Roman province (i.e., Provence), Romania, Rhodes, Ruthia, Sabaea, Samaria, Sambia, Sabaudia, Sardinia, Sarmatia, Samos, Saxony, Sclavia (land of the Slavs), Sparta (Sparciata), Seres (i.e., China), Seeland (Zeeland), Semogallia, Senonensis (region about Sens), Syria, Sichima, Scythia, Sicyon, Sicily, Sirtes, Scotland (Scotia), Suecia (Sweden, before called Gothia), Suevia (Swabia), Tanatos, Taprobana, Thrace, Traconitida, Thessaly, Tenedos, Thule, Tripoli (two are distinguished in Syria and Africa respectively), Tragodea, Troyland, Tuscany (Thuscia), Thuringia, Thuronia (the region about Tours), Gascony (Vasconia), Venice, Westphalia, Vironia, Finland, Vitria, Iceland, Zeugia.

[1388] XV, 19.

[1389] XV, 13.

[1390] XV, 18.

[1391] XV, 169.

[1392] XV, 58.

[1393] XV, 168.

[1394] XV, 25.

[1395] XV, 92.

[1396] XV, 58.

[1397] XV, 57.

[1398] Of these four chapters Delisle (HL XXX, 353-65) quoted only that on England. Delisle gave extracts from Bartholomew’s descriptions of several French provinces to show that he knew them well and stated that he gave much fewer details concerning England, but that he (Delisle) would transcribe the chapter “parce qu’on pourrait supposer qu’il renferme des allusions à la prétendue origine anglaise de Barthélemi.” Delisle also cited (p. 362) the chapter on Britannia, but omitted the statements which I shall cite, and earlier said (p. 358), “Nous n’avons rien à relever dans les chapitres de la Normandie, de la Bretagne,” etc.

Yet the statements I shall cite occur in both the MSS which Delisle used, where the chapter on Britannia is continued beyond the point where his quotation leaves off as follows:

BN 16098, 13th century, fol. 14Or. “Est autem alia britannia minor super oceanum aquitanicum sita in partibus galliarum que a britonibus relinquentibus britanniam maiorem propter importunitatem germanorum est usque hodie populata, vero usque adhuc genus britonum et nomen perseverat, et quamvis hec britannia in multis laude digna sit, non potest tamen filia matri, minor britannia maiori comparari, et immo bene minor britannia debuit vocari que sicut nec numero populi sic nec merito soli potest maiori britannia adequari.”

BN 347, 14th century, fol. 145, is the same except that tamen precedes potest, and that the words minor britannia maiori comparari et immo bene are omitted, evidently by the mistake of a copyist who has jumped from one minor to the next minor and thus inadvertently omitted the intervening words.

[1399] XV, 28.

[1400] XV, 80.

[1401] XV, 152.

[1402] XV, 14.

[1403] XV, 172.

[1404] XVI, 41.

[1405] Etymol., XVI, 7.

[1406] V. Rose, “Aristoteles De Lapidibus und Arnoldus Saxo,” in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, XVIII (1875), 321-455.

[1407] Langlois (1911), p. 124.

[1408] J. Ruska, Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, 1912, p. 38, reiterates, “Sein Büchlein De virtutibus lapidum ist die Grundlage des Steinverzeichnisses in Albertus Magnus’ 5 Büchern De mineralibus.”

It also is asserted that Vincent and Albert learned of the mariner’s compass from this Arnold’s De virtute universali,--a view which overlooks Alexander Neckam’s earlier allusions to the compass.

[1409] This title can scarcely refer to Arnold’s De virtutibus lapidum.

[1410] The fact is that Rose examined the text of Bartholomew in a careless and superficial manner. He used some Frankfurt edition of the De proprietatibus rerum for which he gives no date, and he usually fails to state what chapter of Bartholomew he is citing, but refers to him simply by the letter B. Also he fails to note that the first two stones listed by Arnold, namely, abeston (asbestos) and absictus (apsyctos) are both in Bartholomew, and what is more, are spelled exactly the same by both authors. Nor are these the only gems that Rose fails to note are treated of by both authors. Others are alabandina, calcofanus (which Bartholomew begins with a k), virites or pyrites (also spelled a little differently in Bartholomew), and turcois (De turchoge in Bartholomew). In the first three of these four passages Arnold’s statements sound like a bald and abbreviated copy of Bartholomew’s description.

[1411] John of Damascus, who wrote on theology, dialectic, and so forth in the first half of the eighth century (works in Migne, PG vols. 94-96) became well known to western writers through the twelfth century translation of him by Burgundio of Pisa. Some of the works ascribed to him are probably spurious, but “his undoubted works are numerous and embrace a wide range.” A chapter is devoted to the introduction of his writings into western Europe in J. de Ghellinck, S. J., Le Mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle, Études, Recherches, et Documents, Paris, 1914; see EHR (1915), p. 112. But see Steinschneider (1866), pp. 375-91.

[1412] XVIII, 15.

[1413] XVIII, 37.

[1414] XVIII, 69.

[1415] XVIII, 28, “et hoc quotidie patet in castoribus qui in diversis locis inveniuntur.”

[1416] XVIII, 8, 32, 43, 69, 76, 77, 80, 95, 101.

[1417] Lauchert (1889), p. 105, has recognized this fact, saying of the De proprietatibus rerum, “worin ebenfalls der Physiologus häufig citirt ist und auch für Manches das nicht aus ihm stammt.”

[1418] In reading the printed edition I thought that some of these chapters might be later interpolations, since after minium has been described in chapter 16 it is again considered in chapter 25, and indicum is similarly discussed in both chapters 21 and 31. But these chapters are also repeated in BN 347, 16098, and 16099.

[1419] XIX, 40.

[1420] These matters are found in BN 16098 and 16099 as well as in the printed edition. “Explicit Tractatus de proprietatibus” precedes the bibliography in BN 16099, follows it in BN 16098.

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