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[Illustration: Philosophers on Mount Olympus.]
MEDIAEVAL LORE FROM BARTHOLOMEW ANGLICUS
BY ROBERT STEELE
WITH PREFACE BY WILLIAM MORRIS
"WHEN HOLY WERE THE HAUNTED FOREST BOUGHS,
HOLY THE AIR, THE WATER, AND THE FIRE."
KEATS.
PREFACE
It is not long since the Middle Ages, of the literature of which this
book gives us such curious examples, were supposed to be an
unaccountable phenomenon accidentally thrust in betwixt the two
periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a
period without growth or meaning--a period which began about the time
of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more or less
unaccountably, at the time of the Reformation. The society of this
period was supposed to be lawless and chaotic; its ethics a mere
conscious hypocrisy; its art gloomy and barbarous fanaticism only; its
literature the formless jargon of savages; and as to its science, that
side of human intelligence was supposed to be an invention of the time
when the Middle Ages had been dead two hundred years.
The light which the researches of modern historians, archaeologists,
bibliographers, and others, have let in on our view of the Middle Ages
has dispersed the cloud of ignorance on this subject which was one of
the natural defects of the qualities of the learned men and keen
critics of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries.
The Middle-class or Whig theory of life is failing us in all branches
of human intelligence. Ethics, Politics, Art, and Literature are more
than beginning to be regarded from a wider point of view than that
from which our fathers and grandfathers could see them.
For many years there has been a growing reaction against the dull
"grey" narrowness of the eighteenth century, which looked on Europe
during the last thousand years as but a riotous, hopeless, and stupid
prison. It is true that it was on the side of Art alone that this
enlightenment began, and that even on that side it progressed slowly
enough at first--_e.g._ Sir Walter Scott feels himself obliged,
as in the _Antiquary_, to apologize to pedantry for his
instinctive love of Gothic architecture. And no less true is it that
follies enough were mingled with the really useful and healthful birth
of romanticism in Art and Literature. But at last the study of facts
by men who were neither artistic nor sentimental came to the help of
that first glimmer of instinct, and gradually something like a true
insight into the life of the Middle Ages was gained; and we see that
the world of Europe was no more running round in a circle then than
now, but was developing, sometimes with stupendous speed, into
something as different from itself as the age which succeeds this will
be different from that wherein we live. The men of those times are no
longer puzzles to us; we can understand their aspirations, and
sympathise with their lives, while at the same time we have no wish
(not to say hope) to put back the clock, and start from the position
which they held. For, indeed, it is characteristic of the times in
which we live, that whereas in the beginning of the romantic reaction,
its supporters were for the most part mere _laudatores temporis
acti_, at the present time those who take pleasure in studying the
life of the Middle Ages are more commonly to be found in the ranks of
those who are pledged to the forward movement of modern life; while
those who are vainly striving to stem the progress of the world are as
careless of the past as they are fearful of the future. In short,
history, the new sense of modern times, the great compensation for the
losses of the centuries, is now teaching us worthily, and making us
feel that the past is not dead, but is living in us, and will be alive
in the future which we are now helping to make.
To my mind, therefore, no excuse is needful for the attempt made in
the following pages to familiarise the reading public with what was
once a famous knowledge-book of the Middle Ages. But the reader,
before he can enjoy it, must cast away the exploded theory of the
invincible and wilful ignorance of the days when it was written; the
people of that time were eagerly desirous for knowledge, and their
teachers were mostly single-hearted and intelligent men, of a
diligence and laboriousness almost past belief. The "Properties of
Things" of Bartholomew the Englishman is but one of the huge
encyclopaedias written in the early Middle Age for the instruction of
those who wished to learn, and the reputation of it and its fellows
shows how much the science of the day was appreciated by the public at
large, how many there were who wished to learn. Even apart from its
interest as showing the tendency of men's minds in days when Science
did actually tell them "fairy tales," the book is a delightful one in
its English garb; for the language is as simple as if the author were
speaking by word of mouth, and at the same time is pleasant, and not
lacking a certain quaint floweriness, which makes it all the easier to
retain the subject-matter of the book.
Altogether, this introduction to the study of the Mediaeval
Encyclopaedia, and the insight which such works give us into the
thought of the past and its desire for knowledge, make a book at once
agreeable and useful; and I repeat that it is a hopeful sign of the
times when students of science find themselves drawn towards the
historical aspect of the world of men, and show that their minds have
been enlarged, and not narrowed, by their special studies--a defect
which was too apt to mar the qualities of the seekers into natural
facts in what must now, I would hope, be called the just-passed epoch
of intelligence dominated by Whig politics, and the self-sufficiency
of empirical science.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
INTRODUCTION
THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR
MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE
MEDIAEVAL MANNERS
MEDIAEVAL MEDICINE
MEDIAEVAL GEOGRAPHY
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--TREES
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--BIRDS AND FISHES
MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--ANIMALS
THE SOURCES OF THE BOOK
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION
THE BOOK AND ITS OBJECT.--The book which we offer to the public of to-
day is drawn from one of the most widely read books of mediaeval
times. Written by an English Franciscan, Bartholomew, in the middle of
the thirteenth century, probably before 1260, it speedily travelled
over Europe. It was translated into French by order of Charles V.
(1364-81) in 1372, into Spanish, into Dutch, and into English in 1397.
Its popularity, almost unexampled, is explained by the scope of the
work, as stated in the translator's prologue (p. 9). It was written to
explain the allusions to natural objects met with in the Scriptures or
in the Gloss. It was, in fact, an account of the properties of things
in general; an encyclopaedia of similes for the benefit of the village
preaching friar, written for men without deep--sometimes without any--
learning. Assuming no previous information, and giving a fairly clear
statement of the state of the knowledge of the time, the book was
readily welcomed by the class for which it was designed, and by the
small nucleus of an educated class which was slowly forming. Its
popularity remained in full vigour after the invention of printing, no
less than ten editions being published in the fifteenth century of the
Latin copy alone, with four French translations, a Dutch, a Spanish,
and an English one.
The first years of the modern commercial system gave its death-blow to
the popularity of this characteristically mediaeval work, and though
an effort was made in 1582 to revive it, the attempt was
unsuccessful--quite naturally so, since the book was written for men
desirous to hear of the wonders of strange lands, and did not give an
accurate account of anything. The man who bought cinnamon at
Stourbridge Fair in 1380 would have felt poorer if any one had told
him that it was not shot from the phoenix' nest with leaden arrows,
while the merchant of 1580 wished to know where it was grown, and how
much he would pay a pound for it if he bought it at first hand. Any
attempt to reconcile these frames of mind was foredoomed to failure.
THE INTEREST OF BARTHOLOMEW'S WORK.--The interest of Bartholomew's
work to modern readers is twofold: it has its value as literature pure
and simple, and it is one of the most important of the documents by
the help of which we rebuild for ourselves the fabric of mediaeval
life. The charm of its style lies in its simple forcible language, and
its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand, we cannot
forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is
from the mediaeval Latin of an Englishman into English.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place
himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards
nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the
philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author
affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and perhaps
Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and
sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in
order over the universe from God and the angels--through fire, water,
air, to earth and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct
account of the popular mediaeval theories in Astronomy, Physiology,
Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but
unattainable otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to
give sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which mediaeval
Science was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at
which it arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the
popular cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography resumes
the traditions current on foreign lands, at a time when Ireland was at
a greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.
In the chapter on Mediaeval Society we have not perhaps the daily life
of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their
pastors and masters--an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday
facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and
the child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be
obtained about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the
Natural History of Plants, which gives incidentally their food-stuffs.
It is in the History of Animals that the student of literature will
find the richest mine of allusions. The list of similes in Shakespeare
explained by our author would fill a volume like this itself. Other
writers, again, simply "lift" the book wholesale. Chester and Du
Bartas write page after page of rhyme, all but versified direct from
Bartholomew. Jonson and Spenser, Marlowe and Massinger, make ample use
of him. Lyly and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of space
forbid their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor
has collected several passages from first-class authors with a view to
illustrating the immense importance of this book to Elizabethan
literature. It was not without reason that Ireland chose justified,
when making a selection of passages from the work for modern readers,
in altering his text to this extent--and this only: he has modernised
the spelling, and in the case of entirely obsolete grammatical forms
he has substituted modern ones (_e.g._ "its" for "his"). In the
case of an utterly dead word he has followed the course of
substituting a word from the same root, when one exists; and when none
could be found, he has left it unchanged in the text. Accordingly a
short glossary has been added, which includes, too, many words which
we may hope are not dead, but sleeping. In very few cases has a word
been inserted, and in those it is marked by italics.
Perhaps we may be allowed to say a word in defence of the principle of
modernising our earliest literature. Early English poetry is, in
general (with some striking exceptions), incapable of being written in
the spelling of our days without losing all of that which makes it
verse; but there can be no reason, when dealing with the masterpieces
of our Early English prose, for maintaining obsolete forms of spelling
and grammar which hamper the passage of thought from mind to mind
across the centuries. Editors of Shakespeare and the Bible for general
use have long assumed the privilege of altering the spelling, and
except on the principle that earlier works are more important, or are
only to be read by people who have had the leisure and inclination to
familiarise their eyes with the peculiarities of Middle English, there
can be no reason for stopping there, or a century earlier. At some
point, of course, the number of obsolete words becomes so great that
the text cannot be read without a dictionary: then the limit has been
reached. But Caxton, Trevisa, and many others are well within it, and
it is good to remove all obstacles which prevent the ordinary reader
from feeling the continuity of his mother tongue.
THE AUTHOR.--The facts known of our author's life have been summarised
by Miss Toulmin Smith in her article in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. In the sixteenth century he was generally believed to
date from about 1360, and to have belonged to the Glanvilles--an
honourable Suffolk family in the Middle Ages; but there seems to be no
authority whatever for the statement. We first hear of him in a letter
from the provincial of the Franciscans of Saxony to the provincial of
France, asking that Bartholomew Anglicus and another friar should be
sent to assist him in his newly-created province. Next year (1231) a
MS. chronicle reports that two were sent, and that Bartholomew
Anglicus was appointed teacher of holy theology to the brethren in the
province. We learn from Salimbene, who wrote the Chronicles of Parma
(1283), that he had been a professor of theology in the University of
Paris, where he had lectured on the whole Bible. The subject in
treating of which he is referred to was an elephant belonging to the
Emperor; and Salimbene quotes a passage on the elephant from his _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_. What may be a quotation from the _De
Proprietatibus_ can be found in Roger Bacon's _Opus Tertium_
(1267).
THE DATE OF THE WORK.--The date of the work seems fairly easy to fix.
It cannot, as we have above seen, be later than 1267, and Amable
Jourdain fixes it before 1260 by the fact that the particular
translations of Aristotle from which Bartholomew quotes (Latin through
the Arabic), went almost universally out of use by 1260. On the other
hand, quotations are made from Albertus Magnus, who was in Paris in
1248. And that it was written near this year is evident from the fact
that no quotations are made from Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas,
Roger Bacon, or Egidius Colonna, all of whom were in Paris during the
second half of the thirteenth century. The earliest known MS. is in
the Ashmole Collection, and was written in 1296. Two French MSS. are
dated 1297 and 1329 respectively.
As we said in the beginning of this chapter, the work had an immediate
and lasting success. Bartholomew Anglicus became known as "Magister de
Proprietatibus Rerum," and his book was on the list of those which
students could borrow from the University chest. It is probable that
much of this popularity was due to the fact that he was a teacher for
many years of the Grey Friars, and that these, the most popular and
the most human preachers of the day, carried his book and his stories
with them wherever they went.
SOURCES.--The chief sources of our author's inspiration are notable.
He relies on St. Dionysius the Areopagite for heaven and the angels,
Aristotle for Physics and Natural History, Pliny's Natural History,
Isidore of Seville's Etymology, Albumazar, Al Faragus, and other Arab
writers for Astronomy, Constantinus Afer's Pantegna for Medical
Science, and Physiologus, the Bestiarium, and the Lapidarium for the
properties of gems, animals, etc. Besides these he quotes many other
writers (a list of whom is given in an appendix) little known to
modern readers.
THE TRANSLATION AND PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION.--The translation from
which we quote was made for Sir Thomas lord of Berkeley in 1397 by
John Trevisa, his chaplain. We owe this good Englishman something for
the works in English prose he called into existence--some not yet
printed; may we not see in him another proof of what we owe to
Chaucer--a language stamped with the seal of a great poet, henceforth
sufficient for the people who speak it, ample for the expression of
their thoughts or needs?
In selecting from such a book, the principles which have guided the
editor are these: To the general reader he desires to offer a fair
representation of the work of Bartholomew Anglicus, preserving the
language and style. To be fair, the work must be sometimes dull--in
the whole book there are many very dull passages. He has desired to
select passages of interest for their quaint language, and their views
of things, often for their very misrepresentations of matters of
common knowledge to-day, and for their bearing upon the literature of
the country. The student of literature and science will find in it the
materials in which the history of their growth is read. In conclusion,
the editor ventures to hope that the work will not be unwelcome to the
numerous and growing class who love English for its own sake as the
noblest tongue on earth, and who desire not to forget the rock from
which it was hewn, and the pit from which it was digged.
Our first selection will naturally be the translator's prologue in the
very shortened form of Berthelet. The present editor's work is, to
avoid confusion, printed in small type throughout.
THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR
True it is that after the noble and expert doctrine of wise and well-
learned Philosophers, left and remaining with us in writing, we know
that the properties of things follow and ensue their substance.
Herefore it is that after the order and the distinction of substances,
the order and the distinction of the properties of things shall be and
ensue. Of the which things this work of all the books ensuing, by the
grace, help, and assistance of all mighty God is compiled and made.
Marvel not, ye witty and eloquent readers, that I, thin of wit and
void of cunning, have translated this book from Latin into our vulgar
language, as a thing profitable to me, and peradventure to many other,
which understand not Latin, nor have not the knowledge of the
properties of things, which things be approved by the books of great
and cunning clerks, and by the experience of most witty and noble
Philosophers. All these properties of things be full necessary and of
great value to them that will be desirous to understand the
obscurities, or darkness of holy scriptures: which be given unto us
under figures, under parables and semblance, or likelihoods of things
natural and artificial. Saint Denys, that great Philosopher and solemn
clerk, in his book named the heavenly hierarchies of angels,
testifieth and witnesseth the same, saying in this manner:--What so
ever any man will conject, feign, imagine, suppose, or say: it is a
thing impossible that the light of the heavenly divine clearness,
covered and closed in the deity, or in the godhead, should shine upon
us, if it were not by the diversities of holy covertures. Also it is
not possible, that our wit or intendment might ascend unto the
contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies immaterial, if our wit be
not led by some material thing, as a man is led by the hand: so by
these forms visible, our wit may be led to the consideration of the
greatness or magnitude of the most excellent beauteous clarity, divine
and invisible. Reciteth this also the blessed apostle Paul in his
epistles, saying that by these things visible, which be made and be
visible, man may see and know by his inward sight intellectual, the
divine celestial and godly things, which be invisible to this our
natural sight. Devout doctors of Theology or divinity, for this
consideration prudently and wisely read and use natural philosophy and
moral, and poets in their fictions and feigned informations, unto this
fine and end, so that by the likelihood or similitude of things
visible our wit or our understanding spiritually, by clear and crafty
utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these
things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these
things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by
these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian
faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is
incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with
great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear.
Loth to offend, I purpose to say somewhat under the correction of
excellent learned doctors and wise men: what every creature reasonable
ought to believe in this our blessed Christian faith.
ENDETH THE PROLOGUE
I
MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE
The following selections will give an idea of the natural science of
the Middle Ages. In introducing them, the Editor will attempt to give
some connected account of them to show that though their study seems
to involve a few difficulties, their explanation is simple, and will
not make too great a demand on the reader's patience.
From the earliest times men have asked themselves two questions about
nature: "Why?" and "How?" Mediaeval science concerned itself with the
former; modern science thinks it has learnt that no answer to that
question can be given it, and concerns itself with the latter. It thus
happens that the more one becomes in sympathy with the thought of our
time, the less one can interest one's self in the work of the past,
distinguished as it is by its disregard of all we think important, and
by its striving for an unattainable goal.
It is, however, necessary, if we would enjoy Chaucer, Dante, and
Shakespeare, to obtain some notion of that system of the universe from
which they drew so many of their analogies. The symbolism of Dante
appears to us unnaturally strained until we know that the science of
his day saw everything as symbolic.
And how could we appreciate the strength of Chaucer's metaphor:
"O firste moving cruel firmament,
With thy diurnal swegh that croudest ay,
And hurtlest all from Est til Occident,
That naturally wold hold another way,"
without some knowledge of the astronomy of his day?
Our first extracts explain themselves. They deal with the mystery of
the constitution of substances, as fascinating to us as to the early
Greeks, and begin with definitions of matter and form.
The principal design of early philosophers in physics was to explain
how everything was generated, and to trace the different states
through which things pass until they become perfect. They observed
that as a thing is not generated out of any other indifferently--for
example, that marble is not capable of making flesh, all bodies cannot
be compounded of principles alone, connected in a simple way, but
imagined they could be made up of a few simple compounds. These
ultimate compounds, if we may so express it, were their elements. The
number of elements was variously estimated, but was generally taken as
four--a number arrived at rather from the consideration of the
sensations bodies awaken in us, than from the study of bodies
themselves. Aristotle gives us the train of thought by which the
number is reached. He considers the qualities observed by the senses,
classifying them as Heat, Cold, Dryness or Hardness, and Moistness or
Capability of becoming liquid. These may partially co-exist, two at a
time, in the same substance. There are thus four possible
combinations, Cold and dry, Cold and moist, Hot and dry, Hot and
moist. He then names these from their prototypes Earth, Water, Fire,
and Air, distinguishing these elements from the actual Earth, etc., of
everyday life.
The habit of extending analogies beyond their legitimate application
was a source of confusion in the early ages of science. Most of the
superstitions of primitive religion, of astrology, and of alchemy,
arose from this source. A good example is the extension of the
metaphor in the words _generation_ and _corruption_: words
in constant use in scientific works until the nineteenth century
began. Generation is the production of a substance that before was
not, and corruption is the destruction of a substance, by its ceasing
to be what it was before. Thus, fire is generated, and wood is
corrupted, when the latter is burnt. But the implicit metaphor in the
use of the terms likens substances to the human body, their production
and destruction implies liability to disease, and thus prepares the
way for the notion of the elixir, which is first a potion giving long
life, and curing bodily ailments, and only after some time a remedy
for diseased metals--the philosopher's stone.
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