Books: Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus
R >>
Robert Steele >> Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10
It will be seen that the theory of the mediaeval alchemist was that
matter is an entity filling all space, on which in different places
different forms were impressed. The elements were a preliminary
grouping of these, and might be present--two, three, or four at a
time--in any substance. No attempt was ever made to separate these
elements by scientific men, just as no attempt is ever made to isolate
the ether of the physical speculations of to-day. The theory of modern
physicists, with its ether and vortices, answers almost exactly to the
matter and form of the ancients, the nature of the vortices
conditioning matter.
The extracts from Book XI. bring us to another class of substances.
All compound bodies are classified as imperfect or perfect. Imperfect
compounds, or meteors, to some extent resemble elements. They are
fiery, as the rainbow, or watery, as dew. Our extract on the rainbow
is somewhat typical of the faults of ancient science. A note is taken
of a rare occurrence--a lunar rainbow; but in describing the common
one, an error of the most palpable kind is made. The placing of blue
as the middle and green as the lowest colour is obviously wrong, and
is inexplicable if we did not know how facts were cut square with
theories in old days.
In the next extract Bartholomew's account of the spirits animating man
is quoted at length. It gives us the mediaeval theory as to the means
by which life, motion, and knowledge were shown in the body. Every
reader of Shakespeare or Chaucer becomes familiar with the vital,
animal, and natural spirits. They were supposed to communicate with
all parts of the body by means of the arteries or wosen, "the nimble
spirits in their arteries," and the sinews or nerves. The word sinew,
by the way, is exactly equal to our word nerve, and ayenward, as our
author would say. Hamlet, when he bursts from his friends, explains
his vigour by the rush of the spirit into the arteries, which makes
"Each petty artery of this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve."
The natural spirit is generated in the liver, the seat of digestion,
"there where our nourishment is administered"; it then passes to the
heart, and manifests itself as the spirit of life; from thence it
passes to the brain, where it is the animal spirit--"spirit animate"
Rossetti calls it--dwelling in the brain.
In the brain there are three ventricles or chambers, the
_foremost_ being the "cell fantastike" of the "Knight's Tale,"
the second the logistic, and the third the chamber of memory, where
"memory, the warder of the brain," keeps watch over the passage of the
spirit into the "sinews" of moving. Into the foremost cell come all
the perceptions of sight, hearing, etc., and thus we have the
opportunity for
"Fantasy,
That plays upon our eyesight,"
to freak it on us. The pedant, Holofernes, in _Love's Labour's
Lost,_ characteristically puts the origin of his good things in the
ventricle of memory.
As a specimen of the physical science of the time the Editor gives
extracts from the chapter on light.
The introduction of extracts enough to give some idea of the mediaeval
astronomy would have made such large demands on the patience of the
reader that the Editor has decided with some regret to omit them
altogether. The universe is considered to be a sphere, whose centre is
the earth and whose circumference revolved about two fixed points. Our
author does not decide the nice point in dispute between the
philosophers and the theologians, the former holding that there is
only one, the latter insisting on seven heavens-the fairy, ethereal,
olympian, fiery, firmament, watery, and empyrean.
The firmament, that
"Majestical roof, fretted with golden fire,"
is the part of heaven in which the planets move. It carries them round
with it; it governs the tides; it stood with men for the type of
irresistible regularity. Each of the planets naturally has a motion of
its own, contrary in direction to that of the firmament, which was
from east to west. All the fixed stars move in circles whose centre is
the centre of the universe, but the courses of the planets (among
which the moon is reckoned) depend on other circles, called eccentric,
since their centre is elsewhere. Either the centre or the
circumference of the circle in which the planet really moves is
applied to the circumference of the eccentric circle, and in this way
all the movements of the planets are fully explained. Our author is
sorely puzzled to account for the existence of the watery heavens
above the fiery, they being cold and moist, but is sure from
scriptural reasons that they are there, and ventures the hypothesis
that their presence may account for the sluggish and evil properties
of Saturn, the planet whose circle is nearest them.
Having considered the simpler substances, those composed of pure
elemental forms, and those resembling them--the meteors--we turn to
the perfect compounds, those which have assumed substantial forms, as
metals, stones, etc. Our author retains the Aristotelian
classification--earthy, and those of other origin, as beasts, roots,
and trees. Earths may be metals or fossils; metals being defined as
hard bodies, generated in the earth or in its veins, which can be
beaten out by a hammer, and softened or liquefied by heat; while
fossils include all other inanimate objects.
A large number of extracts have been made from this part of the
subject, because the book gives the position of positive, as
distinguished from speculative, Alchemy at the time. It is the
Editor's desire to show that at this period there was a system of
theory based on the practical knowledge of the day.
Chemistry took its rise as a science about four hundred years before
our era. In the fragments of two of the four books of Democritus we
have probably the earliest treatise on chemical matters we are ever
likely to get hold of. Whether it is the work of Democritus or of a
much later writer is uncertain. But merely taking it as a
representative work of the early stage of chemistry, we remark that
the receipts are practicable, and some of them, little modified, are
in use to-day in goldsmith's shops. The fragments remaining to us are
on the manufacture of gold and silver, and one receipt for dyeing
purple. In this state of the science the collection of facts is the
chief point, and no purely chemical theory seems to have been formed.
Tradition, confirmed by the latest researches, associates this stage
with Egypt.
The second stage in the history of Chemistry--the birth of Alchemy in
the Western World--occurred when the Egyptian practical receipts, the
neo-Greek philosophies, and the Chinese dreams of an "elixir vitae"
were fused into one by the Arab and Syriac writers. Its period of
activity ranges from the seventh to the tenth centuries. Little is
really known about it, or can be, until the Arabic texts, which are
abundant in Europe, are translated and classified both from the
scholar's and the chemist's standpoint. Many works were translated
into Latin about the end of the tenth century, such as the spurious
fourth book of the _Meteorics of Aristotle_, the treatises of the
_Turta Philosophorum_, _Artis Auriferae_, etc., which formed
the starting-point of European speculation. The theoretical chemistry
of our author is derived from them.
The third stage of chemistry begins with the fourteenth and ends with
the sixteenth century. It is characterized by an immense growth of
theory, a fertile imagination, and untiring industry. It reached its
height in England about 1440, and is represented by the reputed works
of Lully (vixit circ. 1300), which first appeared about this date. In
this period practical alchemy is on its trial.
The fourth stage begins with Boyle, and closes with the eighteenth
century. Still under the dominion of theoretical alchemy, practical
alchemy was rejected by it, and its interest was concentrated on the
collection of facts. It led up to modern chemistry, which begins with
Lavoisier, and the introduction of the balance in the study of
chemical change.
Chemical theory, then, in our author's time stood somewhat thus.
Metals as regarded their elemental composition were considered to
partake of the nature of earth, water, and air, in various
proportions. Fossils, or those things generated in the earth which
were not metals, were again subdivided into two classes--those which
liquefy on being heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do
not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury.
These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in
the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible
aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury
was that to which their weight and powers of becoming fluid were due.
This theory was due to two main facts. Most ores of metals, especially
of copper and lead, contain much sulphur, which can be either obtained
pure from them, or be recognised by its smell when burning. This gave
rise to the sulphur theory, while the presence of mercury was inferred
doubtless from the resemblance of the more commonly molten metals,
silver, tin, and lead, to quicksilver. The properties of each metal
were then put down to the presence of these substances. The list of
seven metals is that of the most ancient times--gold, electrum,
silver, copper, tin, lead, iron; but it is clearly recognised that
electrum is an alloy of gold and silver.
Most of the facts in this book are derived from Pliny through Isidore,
but, that the theory is Arab in origin, one fact alone would convince
us. A consideration of the composition of the metals shows us that tin
is nearest in properties of all metals to the precious ones, but tin
is precisely the metal chosen by Arab alchemists as a starting-point
in the Chrysopoeia.
Beside their scientific interest these passages have supplied many
analogies. When Troilus is piling up his lover's oaths to Cressida,
his final words are:
"As iron to adamant, as earth to centre;"
our chapter on the adamant supplies the origin of this allusion in
part, astronomy gives the other. Diamonds are still, unfortunately,
the precious stones of reconciliation and of love our author bespeaks
them. The editor has not lengthened the chapter by extracts giving the
occult properties of gems, and has contented himself by quoting from
the chapter on glass a new simile and an old story.
Matter and form are principles of all bodily things; and privation of
matter and form is naught else but destruction of all things. And the
more subtle and high matter is in kind, the more able it is to receive
form and shape. And the more thick and earthly it is, the more feeble
is it to receive impression, printing of forms and of shapes. And
matter is principle and beginning of distinction, and of diversity,
and of multiplying, and of things that are gendered. For the thing
that gendereth and the thing that is gendered are not diverse but
touching matter. And therefore where a thing is gendered without
matter, the thing that gendereth, and the thing that is gendered, are
all one in substance and in kind: as it fareth of the persons in the
Trinity. Of form is diversity, by the which one thing is diverse from
another, and some form is essential, and some accidental. Essential
form is that which cometh into matter, and maketh it perfect; and
accordeth therewith to the perfection of some thing. And when form is
had, then the thing hath its being, and when form is destroyed nothing
of the substance of the thing is found. And form accidental is not the
perfection of things, nor giveth them being. But each form accidental
needeth a form substantial. And each form is more simple and more
actual and noble than matter. And so the form asketh that shall be
printed in the matter, the matter ought to be disposed and also
arrayed. For if fire shall be made of matter of earth, it needeth that
the matter of earth be made subtle and pured and more simple. Form
maketh matter known. Matter is cause that we see things that are made,
and so nothing is more common and general than matter. And natheless
nothing is more unknown than is matter; for matter is never seen
without form, nor form may not be seen in deed, but joined to matter.
Elements are simple, and the least particles of a body that is
compound. And it is called least touching us, for it is not perceived
by wits of feeling. For it is the least part and last in undoing of
the body, as it is first in composition. And is called simple, not for
an element is simple without any composition, but for it hath no parts
that compound it, that be diverse in kind and in number as some
medlied bodies have: as it fareth in metals of the which some parts be
diverse; for some part is air, and some is earth. But each part of
fire is fire, and so of others. Elements are four, and so there are
four qualities of elements, of the which every body is composed and
made as of matter. The four elements are Earth, Water, Fire, and Air,
of the which each hath his proper qualities. Four be called the first
and principal qualities, that is, hot, cold, dry, and moist: they are
called the first qualities because they slide first from the elements
into the things that be made of elements. Two of these qualities are
called Active--heat and coldness. The others are dry and wetness and
are called Passive.
The Rainbow is impression gendered in an hollow cloud and dewy,
disposed to rain in endless many gutters, as it were shining in a
mirror, and is shapen as a bow, and sheweth divers colours, and is
gendered by the beams of the sun or of the moon. And is but seldom
gendered by beams of the moon, no more but twice in fifty years, as
Aristotle saith. In the rainbow by cause of its clearness be seen
divers forms, kinds, and shapes that be contrary. Therefore the bow
seemeth coloured, for, as Bede saith, it taketh colour of the four
elements. For therein, as it were in any mirror, shineth figures and
shapes and kinds of elements. For of fire he taketh red colour in the
overmost part, and of earth green in the nethermost, and of the air a
manner of brown colour, and of water somedeal blue in the middle. And
first is red colour, that cometh out of a light beam, that touches the
outer part of the roundness of the cloud: then is a middle colour
somedeal blue, as the quality asketh, that hath mastery in the vapour,
that is in the middle of the cloud. Then the nethermost seemeth a
green colour in the nether part of a cloud; there the vapour is more
earthly. And these colours are more principal than others.
As Beda saith, and the master of stories, forty years tofore the doom,
the rainbow shall not be seen, and that shall be token of drying, and
of default of elements.
And though dew be a manner of airy substance, and most subtle outward,
natheless in a wonder manner it is strong in working and virtue. For
it besprinkleth the earth, and maketh it plenteous, and maketh flour,
pith, and marrow increase in corn and grains: and fatteth and bringeth
forth broad oysters and other shell fish in the sea, and namely dew of
spring time. For by night in spring time oysters open themselves
against dew, and receive dew that cometh in between the two shells,
and hold and keep it; and that dew so holden and kept feedeth the
flesh, and maketh it fat; and by its incorporation with the inner
parts of the fish breedeth a full precious gem, a stone that is called
Margarita. Also the birds of ravens, while they are whitish in
feathers, ere they are black, dew feedeth and sustaineth them, as
Gregory saith.
Fumosities that are drawn out of the waters and off the earth by
strength of heat of heaven are drawn to the nethermost part of the
middle space of the air, and there by coldness of the place they are
made thick, and then by heat dissolving and departing the moisture
thereof and not wasting all, these fumosities are resolved and fall
and turn into rain and showers.
If rain be temperate in quality and quantity, and agreeable to the
time, it is profitable to infinite things. For rain maketh the land to
bear fruit, and joineth it together, if there be many chines therein,
and assuageth and tempereth strength of heat, and cleareth the air,
and ceaseth and stinteth winds, and fatteth fish, and helpeth and
comforteth dry complexion. And if rain be evil and distemperate in its
qualities, and discording to place and time, it is grievous and noyful
to many things. For it maketh deepness and uncleanness and
slipperiness in ways and in paths, and bringeth forth much
unprofitable herbs and grass, and corrupteth and destroyeth fruit and
seeds, and quencheth in seeds the natural heat, and maketh darkness
and thickness in the air, and taketh from us the sun beams, and
gathereth mist and clouds, and letteth the work of labouring men, and
tarrieth and letteth ripening of corn and of fruits, and exciteth
rheum and running flux, and increaseth and strengtheneth all moist
ills, and is cause of hunger and of famine, and of corruption and
murrain of beasts and sheep; for corrupt showers do corrupt the grass
and herbs of pasture, whereof cometh needful corruption of beasts.
Of impressions that are gendered in the air of double vapour, the
first is thunder, the which impression is gendered in watery substance
of a cloud. For moving and shaking hither and thither of hot vapour
and dry, that fleeth its contrary, is beset and constrained in every
side, and smit into itself, and is thereby set on fire and on flame,
and quencheth itself at last in the cloud, as Aristotle saith. When a
storm of full strong winds cometh in to the clouds, and the whirling
wind and the storm increaseth, and seeketh out passage: it cleaveth
and breaketh the cloud, and falleth out with a great rese and strong,
and all to breaketh the parts of the cloud, and so it cometh to the
ears of men and of beasts with horrible and dreadful breaking and
noise. And that is no wonder: for though a bladder be light, yet it
maketh great noise and sound, if it be strongly blown, and afterward
violently broken. And with the thunder cometh lightning, but lightning
is sooner seen, for it is clear and bright; and thunder cometh later
to our ears, for the wit of sight is more subtle than the wit of
hearing. As a man seeth sooner the stroke of a man that heweth a tree,
than he heareth the noise of the stroke.
The lightning which is called Clarum is of a wonderful kind, for it
catcheth and draweth up wine out of the tuns, and toucheth not the
vessel, and melteth gold and silver in purses, and melteth not the
purse.
As wits and virtues are needed to the ruling of kind, so to the
perfection thereof needeth needly some spirits, by whose benefit and
continual moving, both wits and virtues in beasts are ruled to work
and do their deeds. As we speak here of a spirit, a spirit is called a
certain substance, subtle and airy, that stirreth and exciteth the
virtues of the body to their doings and works. A spirit is a subtle
body, by the strength of heat gendered, and in man's body giving life
by the veins of the body, and by the veins and pulses giveth to
beasts, breath, life, and pulses, and working, wilful moving, and wit
by means of sinews and muscles in bodies that have souls. Physicians
say that this spirit is gendered in this manner wise. Whiles by heat
working in the blood, in the liver is caused strong boiling and
seething, and thereof cometh a smoke, the which is pured, and made
subtle of the veins of the liver. And turneth into a subtle spiritual
substance and airly kind, and that is called the natural spirit. For
kindly by the might thereof it maketh the blood subtle. And by
lightness thereof it moveth the blood and sendeth it about into all
the limbs. And this same spirit turneth to heartward by certain veins.
And there by moving and smiting together of the parts of the heart,
the spirit is more pured, and turned into a more subtle kind. And then
it is called of physicians the vital spirit: because that from the
heart, by the wosen, and veins, and small ways, it spreadeth itself
into all the limbs of the body, and increaseth the virtues spiritual,
and ruleth and keepeth the works thereof. For out of a den of the left
side of the heart cometh an artery vein, and in his moving is departed
into two branches: the one thereof goeth downward, and spreadeth in
many boughs, and sprays, by means of which the vital spirit is brought
to give the life to all the nether limbs of the body. The other bough
goeth upward, and is again departed in three branches. The right bough
thereof goeth to the right arm, and the left bough to the left arm
equally, and spreadeth in divers sprays. And so the vital spirit is
spread into all the body and worketh in the artery veins the pulses of
life. The middle bough extendeth itself to the brain, and other higher
parts and giveth life, and spreadeth the vital spirit in all the parts
about. The same spirit piercing and passing forth to the dens of the
brain, is there more directed and made subtle, and is changed into the
animal spirit, which is more subtle than the other. And so this animal
spirit is gendered in the foremost den of the brain, and is somewhat
spread into the limbs of feeling. But yet nevertheless some part
thereof abideth in the aforesaid dens, that common sense, the common
wit, and the virtue imaginative may be made perfect. Then he passeth
forth into the middle den that is called Logistic, to make the
intellect and understanding perfect. And when he hath enformed the
intellect, then he passeth forth to the den of memory, and bearing
with him the prints of likeness, which are made in those other dens,
he layeth them up in the chamber of memory. From the hindermost parts
of the brain he pierceth and passeth by the marrow of the ridge bone,
and cometh to the sinews of moving, that so wilful moving may be
engendered, in all the parts of the nether body. Then one and the same
spirit is named by divers names. For by working in the liver it is
called the natural spirit, in the heart the vital spirit, and in the
head, the animal spirit. We may not believe that this spirit is man's
reasonable soul, but more soothly, as saith Austin, the car therof and
proper instrument. For by means of such a spirit the soul is joined to
the body: and without the service of such a spirit, no act the soul
may perfectly exercise in the body. And therefore if these spirits be
impaired, or let of their working in any work, the accord of the body
and soul is resolved, the reasonable spirit is let of all its works in
the body. As it is seen in them that be amazed, and mad men and
frantic, and in others that oft lose use of reason.
The sight is most simple, for it is fiery, and knoweth suddenly things
that be full far. The sight is shapen in this manner. In the middle of
the eye, that is, the black thereof, is a certain humour most pure and
clear. The philosophers call it crystalloid, for it taketh suddenly
divers forms and shapes of colours as crystal doth. The sight is a wit
of perceiving and knowing of colours, figures, and shapes, and outer
properties. Then to make the sight perfect, these things are needful,
that is to wit, the cause efficient, the limb of the eye convenient to
the thing that shall be seen, the air that bringeth the likeness to
the eye, and taking heed, and easy moving. The cause efficient is that
virtue that is called animal. The instrument and limb is the humour
like crystal in either eye clear and round. It is clear that by the
clearness thereof the eye may beshine the spirit, and air; it is round
that it be stronger to withstand griefs. The outer thing helping to
work, is the air, without which being a means, the sight may not be
perfect. It needeth to take heed, for if the soul be occupied about
other things than longeth to the sight, the sight is the less perfect.
For it deemeth not of the thing that is seen. And easy moving is
needful, for if the thing that is seen moveth too swiftly, the sight
is cumbered and disparcled with too swift and continual moving: as it
is in an oar that seemeth broken in the water, through the swift
moving of the water. In three manners the sight is made. One manner by
straight lines, upon the which the likeness of the thing that is seen,
cometh to the sight. Another manner, upon lines rebounded again: when
the likeness of a thing cometh therefrom to a shewer, and is bent, and
re-boundeth from the shewer to the sight. The third manner is by
lines, the which though they be not bent and rebounded, but stretched
between the thing that is seen and the sight: yet they pass not always
forthright, but other whiles they blench some whether, aside from the
straight way. And that is when divers manners spaces of divers
clearness and thickness be put between the sight and the thing that is
seen.
Aristotle rehearseth these five mean colours [between white and black]
by name, and calleth the first yellow, and the second citrine, and the
third red, the fourth purple, and the fifth green.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10