Chapter II (2)

23. The principal Italian cities became more wealthy and more luxurious after the middle of the thirteenth century. Books, though still very dear, comparatively with the present value of money, were much less so than in other parts of Europe.[246] In Milan, about 1300, there were fifty persons who lived by copying them. At Bologna, it was also a regular occupation at fixed prices.[247] In this state of social prosperity, the keen relish of Italy for intellectual excellence had time to develop itself. A style of painting appeared in the works of Giotto and his followers, rude and imperfect, according to the skilfulness of later times, but in itself pure, noble, and expressive, and well adapted to reclaim the taste from the extravagance of romance to classic simplicity. Those were ready for the love of Virgil, who had formed their sense of beauty by the figures of Giotto and the language of Dante. The subject of Dante is truly mediæval; but his style, the clothing of poetry, bears the strongest marks of his acquaintance with antiquity. The influence of Petrarch was far more direct, and has already been pointed out.

[246] Savigny thinks the price of books in the middle ages has been
much exaggerated; and that we are apt to judge by a few instances
of splendid volumes, which give us no more notion of ordinary
prices than similar proofs of luxury in collectors do at present.
Thousands of manuscripts are extant, and the sight of most of them
may convince us, that they were written at no extraordinary cost.
He then gives a long list of law books, the prices of which he has
found recorded. Gesch. des Römischen Rechts, iii. 519. But unless
this were accompanied with a better standard of value than a mere
monetary one, which last Savigny has given very minutely, it can
afford little information. The impression left on my mind, without
comparing these prices closely with those of other commodities, was
that books were in real value very considerably dearer (that is, in
the ratio of several units to one) than at present, which is
confirmed by many other evidences.

[247] Tiraboschi, iv. 72-80. The price for copying a bible was eighty
Bolognese livres; three of which were equal to two gold florins.

|Exclusive study of antiquity.|

24. The love of Greek and Latin absorbed the minds of these Italian scholars, and effaced all regard to every other branch of literature. Their own language was nearly silent; few condescended so much as to write letters in it; as few gave a moment’s attention to physical science, though we find it mentioned, perhaps as remarkable, in Victorin of Feltre, that he had some fondness for geometry, and had learned to understand Euclid.[248] But even in Latin they wrote very little that can be deemed worthy of remembrance, or even that can be mentioned at all. The ethical dialogues of Francis Barbaro, a noble Venetian, on the married life (De Re Uxoria),[249] and of Poggio on nobility, are almost the only books that fall within this period, except declamatory invectives or panegyrics, and other productions of circumstance. Their knowledge was not yet exact enough to let them venture upon critical philology; though Niccolì and Traversari were silently occupied in the useful task of correcting the text of manuscripts, faulty beyond description in the later centuries. Thus we must consider Italy as still at school, active, acute, sanguine, full of promise, but not yet become really learned, or capable of doing more than excite the emulation of other nations.

[248] Meiners, Lebensbesch, ii. 293.

[249] Barbaro was a scholar of Gasparin in Latin. He had probably
learned Greek of Guarino, for it is said that, on the visit of the
emperor John Paleologus to Italy in 1423, he was addressed by two
noble Venetians, Leonardo Guistiniani and Francesco Barbaro, in as
good language as if they had been born in Greece. Andrès, iii. 33.
The treatise De Re Uxoria, which was published about 1417, made a
considerable impression in Italy. Some account of it may be found
in Shepherd’s Life of Poggio, ch. iii., and in Corniani, ii. 137;
who thinks it the only work of moral philosophy in the fifteenth
century, which is not a servile copy of some ancient system. He was
grandfather of the more celebrated Hermolaus Barbarus.

|Classical learning in France low.|

25. But we find very little corresponding sympathy with this love of classical literature in other parts of Europe; not so much owing to the want of intercourse, as to a difference of external circumstances, and, still more, of national character and acquired habits. Clemangis, indeed, rather before the end of the fourteenth century, is said by Crevier to have restored the study of classical antiquity in France, after an intermission of two centuries;[250] and Eichhorn deems his style superior to that of most contemporary Italians.[251] Even the Latin verses of Clemangis are praised by the same author, as the first that had been tolerably written on this side the Alps for two hundred years. But we do not find much evidence that he produced any effect upon Latin literature in France. The general style was as bad as before. Their writers employed not only the barbarous vocabulary of the schools, but even French words with Latin terminations adapted to them.[252] We shall see that the renovation of polite letters in France must be dated long afterwards. Several universities were established in that kingdom; but even if universities had been always beneficial to literature, which was not the case during the prevalence of scholastic disputation, the civil wars of one unhappy reign, and the English invasions of another, could not but retard the progress of all useful studies. Some Greeks, about 1430, are said to have demanded a stipend, in pursuance of a decree of the council of Vienne in the preceding century, for teaching their language in the university of Paris. The nation of France, one of the four into which that university was divided, assented to this suggestion; but we find no other steps taken in relation to it. In 1455, it is said, that the Hebrew language was publicly taught.[253]

[250] Hist. de l’Université de Paris, iii. 189.

[251] Gesch. der Litteratur, ii. 242. Meiners (Vergleich. der Sitten,
iii. 33) extols Clemangis in equally high terms. He is said to have
read lectures on the rhetoric of Cicero and Aristotle. Id. ii. 647.
Was there a translation of the latter so early?

[252] Bulæus. Hist. Univ. Paris, apud Heeren, p. 118.

[253] Crevier, iv. 43. Heeren, p. 121.

|Much more so in England.|

26. Of classical learning in England we can tell no favourable story. The Latin writers of the fifteenth century, few in number, are still more insignificant in value; they possess scarce an ordinary knowledge of grammar; to say that they are full of barbarisms and perfectly inelegant, is hardly necessary. The university of Oxford was not less frequented at this time than in the preceding century, though it was about to decline; but its pursuits were as nugatory and pernicious to real literature as before.[254] Poggio says, more than once, in writing from England about 1420, that he could find no good books, and is not very respectful to our scholars. “Men given up to sensuality we may find in abundance; but very few lovers of learning; and those barbarous, skilled more in quibbles and sophisms than in literature. I visited many convents; they were all full of books of modern doctors, whom we should not think worthy so much as to be heard. They have few works of the ancients, and those are much better with us. Nearly all the convents of this island have been founded within four hundred years: but that was not a period in which either learned men, or such books as we seek, could be expected, for they had been lost before.”[255]

[254] No place was more discredited for bad Latin. “Oxoniensis loquendi
mos” became a proverb. This means that, being disciples of Scotus
and Ockham, the Oxonians talked their master’s jargon.

[255] Pogg. Epist. p. 43. (edit. 1832.)

|Library of Duke of Gloucester.|

27. Yet books began to be accumulated in our public libraries: Aungerville, in the preceding century, gave part of his collection to a college at Oxford; and Humphry, duke of Gloucester, bequeathed six hundred volumes, as some have said, or one hundred and twenty-nine only, according to another account, to that university.[256] But these books were not of much value in a literary sense, though some may have been historically useful. I am indebted to Heeren for a letter of thanks from the duke of Gloucester to Decembrio, an Italian scholar of considerable reputation, who had sent him a translation of Plato de Republica. It must have been written before July, 1447, the date of Humphry’s death, and was probably as favourable a specimen of our Latinity as the kingdom could furnish.[257]

[256] The former number is given by Warton; the latter I find in a
short tract on English monastic libraries (1831), by the Rev.
Joseph Hunter. In this there is also a catalogue of the library in
the priory of Bretton in Yorkshire, consisting of about 150
volumes. No date is given; but I suppose it was about the first
part of the sixteenth century.

[257] Hoc uno nos longe felicem judicamus, quod tu totque florentissimi
viri Græcis et Latinis literis peritissimi, quot illic apud vos
sunt nostris temporibus, habeantur, quibus nesciamus quid laudum
digne satis possit excogitari. Mitto quod facundiam priscam illam
et priscis viris dignam, quæ prorsus perierat, huic sæculo
renovatis; nec id vobis satis fuit, et Græcas literas scrutati
estis, ut et philosophos Græcas et vivendi magistros, qui nostris
jam obliterati erant et occulti, reseratis, et eos Latinos
facientes in propatulum adducitis. Heeren quotes this, p. 135, from
Sassi de studiis Mediolanensibus. Warton also mentions the letter,
ii. 388. The absurd idiom exemplified in “nos felicem judicamus”
was introduced affectedly by the writers of the twelfth century.
Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 146.

|Gerard Groot’s college at Deventer.|

28. Among the Cisalpine nations, the German had the greatest tendency to literary improvement, as we may judge by subsequent events, rather than by much that was apparent so early as 1440. Their writers in Latin were still barbarous, nor had they partaken in the love of antiquity which actuated the Italians. But the German nation displayed its best characteristic,--a serious, honest, industrious disposition, loving truth and goodness, and glad to pursue whatever path seemed to lead to them. A proof of this character was given in an institution of considerable influence both upon learning and religion, the college, or brotherhood, of Deventer, planned by Gerard Groot, but not built and inhabited till 1400, fifteen years after his death. The associates of this, called by different names, but more usually Brethren of the Life in Common (Gemeineslebens), or Good Brethren and Sisters, were dispersed in different parts of Germany and the Low Countries, but with their head college at Deventer. They bore an evident resemblance to the modern Moravians, by their strict lives, their community, at least a partial one, of goods, their industry in manual labour, their fervent devotion, their tendency to mysticism. But they were as strikingly distinguished from them by the cultivation of knowledge, which was encouraged in brethren of sufficient capacity, and promoted by schools both for primary and for enlarged education. “These schools were,” says Eichhorn, “the first genuine nurseries of literature in Germany, so far as it depended on the knowledge of languages; and in them was first taught the Latin, and in the process of time the Greek and eastern tongues.”[258] It will be readily understood, that Latin only could be taught in the period with which we are now concerned; and, according to Lambinet, the brethren did not begin to open public schools till near the middle of the century.[259] These schools continued to flourish till the civil wars of the Low Countries and the progress of the Reformation broke them up. Groningen had also a school, St. Edward’s, of considerable reputation. Thomas à Kempis, according to Meiners, whom Eichhorn and Heeren have followed, presided over a school at Zwoll, wherein Agricola, Hegius, Langius, and Dringeberg, the restorers of learning in Germany, were educated. But it seems difficult to reconcile this with known dates, or with other accounts of that celebrated person’s history.[260] The brethren Gemeineslebens had forty-five houses in 1430, and in 1460 more than thrice the number. They are said by some to have taken regular vows, though I find a difference in my authorities as to this, and to have professed celibacy. They were bound to live by the labour of their hands, observing the ascetic discipline of monasteries, and not to beg; which made the mendicant orders their enemies. They were protected, however, against these malignant calumniators by the favour of the pope. The passages quoted by Revius, the historian of Deventer, do not quite bear out the reputation for love of literature which Eichhorn has given them; but they were much occupied in copying and binding books.[261] Their house at Bruxelles began to print books instead of copying them, in 1474.[262]

[258] Meiners, Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Männer, ii. 311-324.
Lambinet, Origines de l’Imprimerie, ii. 170. Eichhorn, Geschichte
der Litteratur, ii. 134, iii. 882. Revius, Daventria Illustrata.
Mosheim, cent. xv. c. 2, § 22. Biog. Univ., Gerard, Kempis.

[259] Origines de l’Imprimerie, p. 180.

[260] Meiners, p. 323. Eichhorn, p. 137. Heeren, p. 145. Biog. Univ.,
Kempis. Revius, Davent. Illust.

[261] Daventria Illustrata, p. 35.

[262] Lambinet.

|Physical sciences in middle ages.|

|Arabian numerals and method.|

29. We have in the last chapter made no mention of the physical sciences, because little was to be said, and it seemed expedient to avoid breaking the subject into unnecessary divisions. It is well known that Europe had more obligations to the Saracens in this, than in any other province of research. They indeed had borrowed much from Greece, and much from India; but it was through their language that it came into use among the nations of the west. Gerbert, near the end of the tenth century, was the first who, by travelling into Spain, learned something of Arabian science. A common literary tradition ascribes to him the introduction of their numerals, and of the arithmetic founded on them, into Europe. This has been disputed, and again re-asserted, in modern times.[263] It is sufficient to say here, that only a very unreasonable scepticism has questioned the use of Arabic numerals in calculation during the thirteenth century; the positive evidence on this side cannot be affected by the notorious fact, that they were not employed in legal instruments, or in ordinary accounts; such an argument, indeed, would be equally good in comparatively modern times. These numerals are found, according to Andrès, in Spanish manuscripts of the twelfth century; and, according both to him and Cossali, who speak from actual inspection, in the treatise of arithmetic and algebra by Leonard Fibonacci Pisa, written in 1202.[264] This has never been printed. It is by far our earliest testimony to the knowledge of algebra in Europe; but Leonard owns that he learned it among the Saracens. “This author appears,” says Hutton, or rather Cossali, from whom he borrows, “to be well skilled in the various ways of reducing equations to their final simple state by all the usual methods.” His algebra includes the solution of quadratics.

[263] See Andrès, the Archæologia, vol. viii., and the Encyclopædias,
Britannic and Metropolitan, on one side, against Gerbert; Montucla,
i. 502, and Kästner, Geschichte der Mathematik, i. 35, and ii. 695,
in his favour. The latter relies on a well-known passage in William
of Malmsbury concerning Gerbert: Abacum certe primus a Saracenis
rapiens, regulas dedit, quæ a sudantibus abacistis vix
intelliguntur; upon several expressions in his writings, and upon a
manuscript of his geometry, seen and mentioned by Pez, who refers
it to the twelfth century, in which Arabic numerals are introduced.
It is answered, that the language of Malmsbury is indefinite, that
Gerbert’s own expressions are equally so, and that the copyist of
the manuscript may have inserted the cyphers.

It is evident that the use of the numeral signs does not of itself
imply an acquaintance with the Arabic calculation, though it was a
necessary step to it. Signs bearing some resemblance to these (too
great for accident) are found in MSS. of Boethius, and are
published by Montucla, (vol. i. planch. ii.) In one MS. they appear
with names written over each of them, not Greek, or Latin, or
Arabic, or in any known language. These singular names, and nearly
the same forms, are found also in a manuscript well deserving of
notice,--No. 343 of the Arundel MSS., in the British Museum, and
which is said to have belonged to a convent at Mentz. This has been
referred by some competent judges to the twelfth, and by others to
the very beginning of the thirteenth century. It purports to be an
introduction to the art of multiplying and dividing numbers;
quicquid ab abacistis excerpere potui, compendiose collegi. The
author uses nine digits, but none for ten, or zero, as is also the
case in the MS. of Boethius. Sunt vero integri novem sufficientes
ad infinitam multiplicationem, quorum nomina singulis sunt
superjecta. A gentleman of the British Museum, who had the
kindness, at my request, to give his attention to this hitherto
unknown evidence in the controversy, is of opinion that the
rudiments, at the very least, of our numeration are indicated in
it, and that the author comes within one step of our present
system, which is no other than supplying an additional character
for zero. His ignorance of this character renders his process
circuitous, as it does not contain the principle of juxtaposition
for the purpose of summing; but it does contain the still more
essential principle, a decuple increase of value for the same sign,
in a progressive series of location from right to left. I shall be
gratified if this slight notice should cause the treatise, which is
very short, to be published, or more fully explained.

[264] Montucla, whom several other writers have followed, erroneously
places this work in the beginning of the fifteenth century.

|Proofs of them in thirteenth century.|

30. In the thirteenth century, we find Arabian numerals employed in the tables of Alfonso X., king of Castile, published about 1252. They are said to appear also in the Treatise of the Sphere, by John de Sacro Bosco, probably about twenty years earlier; and there is an unpublished treatise, De Algorismo, ascribed to him, which treats expressly of this subject.[265] Algorismus was the proper name for the Arabic notation and method of reckoning. Matthew Paris, after informing us that John Basing first made Greek numeral figures known in England, observes, that in these any number may be represented by a single figure, which is not the case “in Latin nor in Algorism.”[266] It is obvious that in some few numbers only this is true of the Greek; but the passage certainly implies an acquaintance with that notation, which had obtained the name of Algorism. It cannot, therefore, be questioned that Roger Bacon knew these figures; yet he has, I apprehend, never mentioned them in his writings: for a calendar, bearing the date 1292, which has been blunderingly ascribed to him, is expressly declared to have been framed at Toledo. In the year 1282, we find a single Arabic figure 3 inserted in a public record; not only the first indisputable instance of their employment in England, but the only one of their appearance in so solemn an instrument.[267] But I have been informed that they have been found in some private documents before the end of the century. In the following age, though they were still by no means in common use among accountants, nor did they begin to be so till much later, there can be no doubt that mathematicians were thoroughly conversant with them, and instances of their employment in other writings may be adduced.[268]

[265] Several copies of this treatise are in the British Museum.
Montucla has erroneously said that this arithmetic of Sacro Bosco
is written in verse. Wallis, his authority, informs us only that
some verses, two of which he quotes, are subjoined to the treatise.
This is not the case in the manuscripts I have seen. I should add,
that only one of them bears the name of Sacro Bosco, and that in a
later handwriting.

[266] Hic insuper magister Joannes figuras Græcorum numerales, et
earum notitiam et significationes in Angliam portavit, et
familiaribus suia declaravit. Per quas figuras etiam literæ
repræsentantur. De quibus figuris hoc maxime admirandum, quod unica
figura quilibet numerus representatur; quod non est in Latino, vel
in Algorismo. Matt. Paris, A.D. 1252, p. 721.

[267] Parliamentary Writs, i. 232, edited under the Record Commission
by Sir Francis Palgrave. It was probably inserted for want of room,
not enough having been left for the word IIIum. It will not be
detected with ease, even by the help of this reference.

[268] Andrès, ii. 92, gives on the whole the best account of the
progress of numerals. The article by Leslie in the Encyclopædia
Britannica is too dogmatical in denying their antiquity. That in
the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, by Mr. Peacock, is more learned.
Montucla is as superficial as usual; and Kästner has confined
himself to the claims of Gerbert, admitting which, he is too
indifferent about subsequent evidence.

|Mathematical treatises.|

31. Adelard of Bath, in the twelfth century, translated the elements of Euclid from the Arabic, and another version was made by Campanus in the next age. The first printed editions are of the latter. The writings of Ptolemy became known through the same channel; and the once celebrated treatise on the Sphere by John de Sacro Bosco (Holywood, or, according to Leland, Halifax) about the beginning of the thirteenth century, is said to be but an abridgment of the Alexandrian geometer.[269] It has been frequently printed, and was even thought worthy of a commentary by Clavius. Jordan of Namur (Nemorarius) near the same time, shows a considerable insight into the properties of numbers.[270] Vitello, a native of Poland, not long afterwards, first made known the principles of optics in a treatise in ten books, several times printed in the sixteenth century, and indicating an extensive acquaintance with the Greek and Arabian geometers. Montucla has charged Vitello with having done no more than compress and arrange a work on the same subject by Alhazen; which Andrès, always partial to the Arabian writers, has not failed to repeat. But the author of an article on Vitello in the Biographie Universelle repels this imputation, which could not, he says, have proceeded from any one who had compared the two writers. A more definite judgment is pronounced by the laborious German historian of mathematics, Kästner. “Vitello,” he says, “has with diligence and judgment collected, as far as lay in his power, what had been previously known; and, avoiding the tediousness of Arabian verbosity, is far more readable, perspicuous, and methodical than Alhazen; he has also gone much farther in the science.”[271]

[269] Montucla, i. 506. Biogr. Univ., Kästner.

[270] Montucla. Kästner.

[271] Gesch. der Mathem. ii. 263. The true name is Vitello, as Playfair
has remarked (Dissertat. in Encycl. Brit.), but Vitello is much
more common. Kästner is correct, always copying the old editions.

|Roger Bacon.|

32. It seems hard to determine whether or not Roger Bacon be entitled to the honours of a discoverer in science; that he has not described any instrument analogous to the telescope, is now generally admitted; but he paid much attention to optics, and has some new and important notions on that subject. That he was acquainted with the explosive powers of gunpowder, it seems unreasonable to deny: the mere detonation of nitre in contact with an inflammable substance, which of course might be casually observed, is by no means adequate to his expressions in the well-known passage on that subject.[272] But there is no ground for doubting that the Saracens were already conversant with gunpowder.

[272] This has been suggested by Professor Leslie, in the article on
arithmetic above quoted; a great chemical authority, but who had
not taken the trouble to look at Bacon, and forgot that he mentions
charcoal and sulphur as well as nitre.

|His resemblance to Lord Bacon.|

33. The mind of Roger Bacon was strangely compounded of almost prophetic gleams of the future course of science, and the best principles of the inductive philosophy, with a more than usual credulity in the superstitions of his own time. Some have deemed him overrated by the nationality of the English.[273] But if we may have sometimes given him credit for discoveries to which he has only borne testimony, there can be no doubt of the originality of his genius. I have in another place remarked the singular resemblance he bears to Lord Bacon, not only in the character of his philosophy, but in several coincidences of expression. This has since been followed up by a later writer,[274] (with no knowledge, probably, of what I had written, since he does not allude to it), who plainly charges Lord Bacon with having borrowed much, and with having concealed his obligations. The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon was not published till 1733, but the manuscripts were not uncommon, and Selden had thoughts of printing the work. The quotations from the Franciscan and the Chancellor, printed in parallel columns by Mr. Forster, are sometimes very curiously similar; but he presses the resemblance too far; and certainly the celebrated distinction, in the Novum Organum, of four classes of _Idola_ which mislead the judgment, does not correspond in meaning, as he supposes, with the causes of error assigned by Roger Bacon.

[273] Meiners, of all modern historians of literature, is the least
favourable to Bacon, on account of his superstition and credulity
in the occult sciences. Vergleichung der Sitten, ii. 710, and iii.
232. Heeren, p. 244, speaks more candidly of him. It is impossible,
I think, to deny that credulity is one of the points of resemblance
between him and his namesake.

[274] Hist. of Middle Ages, iii. 539. Forster’s Mahometanism Unveiled,
ii. 312.

|English mathematicians of fourteenth century.|

34. The English nation was not at all deficient in mathematicians during the fourteenth century; on the contrary, no other in Europe produced nearly so many. But their works have rarely been published. The great progress of physical science, since the invention of printing, has rendered these imperfect treatises interesting only to the curiosity of a very limited class of readers. Thus Richard Suisset, or Swineshead, author of a book entitled the Calculator, of whom Cardan speaks in such language as might be applied to himself, is scarcely known, except by name, to literary historians; and though it has once been printed, the book is of the extremest rarity.[275] But the most conspicuous of our English geometers was Thomas Bradwardin, archbishop of Canterbury; yet more for his rank, and for his theological writings, than for the arithmetical and geometrical speculations which give him a place in science. Montucla, with a carelessness of which there are too many instances in his valuable work, has placed Bradwardin, who died in 1348, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though his work was printed in 1495.[276]

[275] The character of Suisset’s book given by Brucker, iii. 852, who
had seen it, does not seem to justify the wish of Leibnitz that it
should be republished. It is a strange medley of arithmetical and
geometrical reasoning with the scholastic philosophy. Kästner
(Geschichte der Mathematik, i. 50) seems not to have looked at
Brucker, and, like Montucla, has a very slight notion of the nature
of Suisset’s book. His suspicion that Cardan had never seen the
book he so much extols, because he calls the author the Calculator,
which is the title of the work itself, seems unwarrantable. Suisset
probably had obtained the name from his book, which is not
uncommon; and Cardan was not a man to praise what he had never read.

[276] It may be considered a proof of the attention paid to geometry in
England, that two books of Euclid were read at Oxford about the
middle of the fifteenth century. Churton’s Life of Smyth, p. 151,
from the University Register. We should not have expected to find
this.

|Astronomy.|

|Alchemy.|

35. It is certain that the phenomena of physical astronomy were never neglected; the calendar was known to be erroneous, and Roger Bacon has even been supposed by some to have divined the method of its restoration, which has long after been adopted. The Arabians understood astronomy well, and their science was transfused more or less into Europe. Nor was astrology the favourite superstition of both the eastern and western world, without its beneficial effect upon the observation and registering of the planetary motions. Thus too, alchemy, which, though the word properly means but chemistry, was generally confined to the mystery all sought to penetrate, the transmutation of metals into gold, led more or less to the processes by which a real knowledge of the component parts of substances has been attained.[277]

[277] I refer to Dr. Thomson’s History of Chemistry for much curious
learning on the alchemy of the Middle Ages. In a work like the
present, it is impossible to follow up every subject; and I think
that a general reference to a book of reputation and easy
accessibility, is better than an attempt to abridge it.

|Medicine.|

36. The art of medicine was cultivated with great diligence by the Saracens both of the east and of Spain, but with little of the philosophical science that had immortalised the Greek school. The writings, however, of these masters were translated into Arabic; whether correctly or not, has been disputed among oriental scholars; and Europe derived her acquaintance with the physic of the mind and body, with Hippocrates as well as Aristotle, through the same channel. But the Arabians had eminent medical authorities of their own; Rhases, Avicenna, Albucazi who possessed greater influence. In modern times, that is, since the revival of Greek science, the Arabian theories have been in general treated with much scorn. It is admitted, however, that pharmacy owes a long list of its remedies to their experience, and to their intimacy with the products of the east. The school of Salerno, established as early as the eleventh century,[278] for the study of medicine, from whence the most considerable writers of the next ages issued, followed the Arabians in their medical theory. But these are deemed rude, and of little utility at present.

[278] Meiners refers it to the tenth, ii. 413; and Tiraboschi thinks
it may be as ancient, iii. 347.

|Anatomy.|

37. In the science of anatomy an epoch was made by the treatise of Mundinus, a professor at Bologna, who died in 1326. It is entitled Anatome omnium humani corporis interiorum membrorum. This book had one great advantage over those of Galen, that it was founded on the actual anatomy of the human body. For Galen is supposed to have only dissected apes, and judged of mankind by analogy; and though there may be reason to doubt whether this were altogether the case, it is certain that he had very little practice in human dissection. Mundinus seems to have been more fortunate in his opportunities of this kind than later anatomists, during the prevalence of a superstitious prejudice, have found themselves. His treatise was long the text-book of the Italian universities, till, about the middle of the sixteenth century, Mundinus was superseded by greater anatomists. The statutes of the university of Padua prescribed, that anatomical lecturers should adhere to the literal text of Mundinus. Though some have treated this writer as a mere copier of Galen, he has much, according to Portal, of his own. There were also some good anatomical writers in France during the fourteenth century.[279]

[279] Tiraboschi, v. 209-244, who is very copious for a non-medical
writer. Portal, Hist, de l’Anatomie. Biogr. Univ., Mondino,
Chauliac. Eichhorn, Gesch. der Litt. ii. 416-447.

|Encyclopædic works of middle ages.|

|Vincent of Beauvais.|

38. Several books of the later middle ages, sometimes of great size, served as collections of natural history, and, in fact, as encyclopædias of general knowledge. The writings of Albertus Magnus belong, in part, to this class. They have been collected, in twenty-one volumes folio, by the Dominican Peter Jammi, and published at Lyons in 1651. After setting aside much that is spurious, Albert may pass for the most fertile writer in the world. He is reckoned by some the founder of the schoolmen; but we mention him here as a compiler, from all accessible sources, of what physical knowledge had been accumulated in his time. A still more comprehensive contemporary writer of this class was Vincent de Beauvais, in the Speculum naturale, morale, doctrinale et historiale, written before the middle of the thirteenth century. The second part of this vast treatise in ten volumes folio, usually bound in four, Speculum morale, seems not to be written by Vincent de Beauvais, and is chiefly a compilation from Thomas Aquinas, and other theologians of the same age. The first, or Speculum naturale, follows the order of creation as an arrangement; and after pouring out all the author could collect on the heavens and earth, proceeds to the natural kingdoms; and, finally, to the corporeal and mental structure of man. In the third part of this encyclopædia, under the title Speculum doctrinale, all arts and sciences are explained; and the fourth contains an universal history.[280] The sources of this magazine of knowledge are of course very multifarious. In the Speculum naturale, at which alone I have looked, Aristotle’s writings, especially the history of animals, those of other ancient authors, of the Arabian physicians, and of all who had treated the same subjects in the middle ages, are brought together in a comprehensive, encyclopædic manner, and with vast industry, but with almost a studious desire, as we might now fancy, to accumulate absurd falsehoods. Vincent, like many, it must be owned, in much later times, through his haste to compile, does not give himself the trouble to understand what he copies. But, in fact, he relied on others to make extracts for him, especially from the writings of Aristotle, permitting himself or them, as he tells us, to change the order, condense the meaning, and explain the difficulties.[281] It may be easily believed that neither Vincent of Beauvais, nor his amanuenses, were equal to this work of abridging and transposing their authors. Andrès, accordingly, has quoted a passage from the Speculum naturale, and another to the same effect from Albertus Magnus, relating, no doubt, in the Arabian writer from whom they borrowed, to the polarity of the magnet, but so strangely turned into nonsense, that it is evident they could not have understood in the least what they wrote. Probably, as their language is nearly the same, they copied a bad translation.[282]

[280] Biogr. Univ., Vincentius Bellovacensis.

[281] A quibusdam fratribus excerpta susceperam; non eodem penitus
verborum schemate, quo in originalibus suis jacent, sed ordine
plerumque transposito, non nunquam etiam mutata perpaululum ipsorum
verborum forma, manente tamen auctoris sententia; prout ipsa vel
prolixitatis abbreviandæ vel multitudinis in unam colligendæ, vel
etiam obscuritatis explanandæ necessitas exigebat.

[282] Andrès, ii. 112. See also xiii. 141.

|Berchorius.|

39. In the same class of compilation with the Speculum of Vincent of Beauvais, we may place some later works, the Trésor of Brunetto Latini, written in French about 1280, the Reductorium, Repertorium, et Dictionarium morale of Berchorius, or Berchœur, a monk, who died at Paris in 1362,[283] and a treatise by Bartholomew Glanvil, De Proprietatibus Rerum, soon after that time. Reading all they could find, extracting from all they read, digesting their extracts under some natural, or, at worst, alphabetical classification, these laborious men gave back their studies to the world with no great improvement of the materials, but sometimes with much convenience in their disposition. This, however, depended chiefly on their ability as well as diligence; and in the mediæval period, the want of capacity to discern probable truth was a very great drawback from the utility of their compilations.

[283] This book, according to De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, iii. 550,
contains a few good things among many follies. I have never seen it.

|Spanish ballads.|

40. It seems to be the better opinion, that very few only of the Spanish romances or ballads founded on history or legend, so many of which remain, belong to a period anterior to the fifteenth century. One may be excepted, which bears the name of Don Juan Manuel, who died in 1364.[284] Most of them should be placed still lower. Sanchez has included none in his collection of Spanish poetry, limited by its title to that period; though he quotes one or two fragments which he would refer to the fourteenth century.[285] Some, however, have conceived, perhaps with little foundation, that several, in the general collections of romances, have been modernised in language from more ancient lays. They have all a highly chivalrous character; every sentiment congenial to that institution, heroic courage, unsullied honour, generous pride, faithful love, devoted loyalty, were displayed in Castilian verse, not only in their real energy, but sometimes with an hyperbolical extravagance to which the public taste accommodated itself, and which long continued to deform the national literature. The ballad of the Conde de Alarcos, which may be found in Bouterwek, or in Sismondi, and seems to be one of the most ancient, will serve as a sufficient specimen.[286]

[284] Don Juan Manuel, a prince descended from Ferdinand III., was the
most accomplished man whom Spain produced in his age. One of the
earliest specimens of Castilian prose, El Conde Lucanor, places him
high in the literature of his country. It is a moral fiction, in
which, according to the custom of novelists, many other tales are
interwoven. “In every passage of the book,” says Bouterwek, “the
author shows himself a man of the world and an observer of human
nature.”

[285] The Marquis of Santillana, early in the fifteenth century, wrote
a short letter on the state of poetry in Spain to his own time.
Sanchez has published this with long and valuable notes.

[286] Bouterwek’s History of Spanish and Portuguese Poetry, i. 55.
See also Sismondi, Littérature du Midi, iii. 228, for the romance
of the Conde de Alarcos.

Sismondi refers it to the fourteenth century; but perhaps no strong
reason for this could be given. I find, however, in the Cancionero
General, a “romance viejo,” containing the first two lines of the
Conde de Alarcos, continued on another subject. It was not uncommon
to build romances on the stocks of old ones, taking only the first
lines; several other instances occur among those in the Cancionero,
which are not numerous.

|Metres of Spanish poetry.|

41. The very early poetry of Spain (that published by Sanchez) is marked by a rude simplicity, a rhythmical, and not very harmonious versification, and, especially in the ancient poem of the Cid, written, probably, before the middle of the twelfth century, by occasional vigour and spirit. This poetry is in that irregular Alexandrine measure, which, as has been observed, arose out of the Latin pentameter. It gave place in the fifteenth century to a dactylic measure, called _versos de arte mayor_, generally of eleven syllables, the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth being accented, but subject to frequent licences, especially that of an additional short syllable at the beginning of the line. But the favourite metre in lyric songs and romances was the redondilla, the type of which was a line of four trochees, requiring, however, alternately, or at the end of a certain number, one deficient in the last syllable, and consequently throwing an emphasis on the close. By this a poem was sometimes divided into short stanzas, the termination of which could not be mistaken by the ear. It is no more, where the lines of eight and seven syllables alternate, than that English metre with which we are too familiar to need an illustration. Bouterwek has supposed that this alternation, which is nothing else than the trochaic verse of Greek and Latin poetry, was preserved traditionally in Spain from the songs of the Roman soldiers. But it seems by some Arabic lines which he quotes, in common characters, that the Saracens had the line of four trochees, which, in all languages where syllables are strongly distinguished in time and emphasis, has been grateful to the ear. No one can fail to perceive the sprightliness and grace of this measure, when accompanied by simple melody. The lighter poetry of the southern nations is always to be judged with some regard to its dependence upon a sister art. It was not written to be read, but to be heard; and to be heard in the tones of song, and with the notes of the lyre or the guitar. Music is not at all incapable of alliance with reasoning or descriptive poetry; but it excludes many forms which either might assume, and requires a rapidity as well as intenseness of perception, which language cannot always convey. Hence the poetry designed for musical accompaniment is sometimes unfairly derided by critics, who demand what it cannot pretend to give; but it is still true, that, as it cannot give all which metrical language is able to afford, it is not poetry of the very highest class.

|Consonant and assonant rhymes.|

42. The Castilian language is rich in perfect rhymes. But in their lighter poetry the Spaniards frequently contented themselves with _assonances_, that is, with the correspondence of final syllables, wherein the vowel alone was the same, though with different consonants, as _duro_ and _humo_, _boca_ and _cosa_. These were often intermingled with perfect or consonant rhymes. In themselves, unsatisfactory as they may seem at first sight to our prejudices, there can be no doubt but that the assonances contained a musical principle, and would soon give pleasure to and be required by the ear. They may be compared to the alliteration so common in the northern poetry, and which constitutes almost the whole regularity of some of our oldest poems. But though assonances may seem to us an indication of a rude stage of poetry, it is remarkable that they belong chiefly to the later period of Castilian lyric poetry, and that consonant rhymes, frequently with the recurrence of the same syllable, are reckoned, if I mistake not, a presumption of the antiquity of a romance.[287]

[287] Bouterwek’s Introduction. Velasquez, in Dieze’s German
translation, p. 288. The assonance is peculiar to the Spaniards.

|Nature of the gloss.|

43. An analogy between poetry and music, extending beyond the mere laws of sound, has been ingeniously remarked by Bouterwek in a very favourite species of Spanish composition, the _glosa_. In this a few lines, commonly well known and simple, were glosed, or paraphrased, with as much variety and originality as the poet’s ingenuity could give, in a succession of stanzas, so that the leading sentiment should be preserved in each, as the subject of an air runs through its variations. It was often contrived that the chief words of the glosed lines should recur separately in the course of each stanza. The two arts being incapable of a perfect analogy, this must be taken as a general one; for it was necessary that each stanza should be conducted so as to terminate in the lines, or a portion of them, which form the subject of the gloss.[288] Of these artificial, though doubtless, at the time, very pleasing compositions, there is nothing, as far as I know, to be found beyond the Peninsula;[289] though, in a general sense, it may be said, that all lyric poetry, wherein a burthen or repetition of leading verses recurs, must originally be founded on the same principle, less artfully and musically developed. The burthen of a song can only be an impertinence, if its sentiment does not pervade the whole.

[288] Bouterwek, p. 118.

[289] They appear with the name Grosas in the Cancionero General of
Resende; and there seems, as I have observed already, to be
something much of the same kind in the older Portuguese collection
of the thirteenth century.

|The Cancionero General.|

44. The Cancionero General, a collection of Spanish poetry written between the age of Juan de la Mena, near the beginning of the fifteenth century, and its publication by Castillo in 1517, contains the productions of one hundred and thirty-six poets, as Bouterwek says; and in the edition of 1520 I have counted one hundred and thirty-nine. There is also much anonymous. The volume is in two hundred and three folios, and includes compositions by Villena, Santillana, and the other poets of the age of John II., besides those of later date. But I find also the name of Don Juan Manuel, which, if it means the celebrated author of the Conde Lucanor, must belong to the fourteenth century, though the preface of Castello seems to confine his collection to the age of Mena. A small part only are strictly love songs (canciones); but the predominant sentiment of the larger portion is amatory. Several romances occur in this collection; one of them is Moorish, and, perhaps, older than the capture of Granada; but it was long afterwards that the Spanish romancers habitually embellished their fictions with Moorish manners. These romances, as in the above instance, were sometimes glosed, the simplicity of the ancient style readily lending itself to an expansion of the sentiment. Some that are called romances contain no story; as the Rosa Fresca and the Fonte Frida, both of which will be found in Bouterwek and Sismondi.

|Bouterwek’s character of Spanish songs.|

45. “Love songs,” says Bouterwek, “form by far the principal part of the old Spanish cancioneros. To read them regularly through would require a strong passion for compositions of this class, for the monotony of the authors is interminable. To extend and spin out a theme as long as possible, though only to seize a new modification of the old ideas and phrases, was, in their opinion, essential to the truth and sincerity of their poetic effusions of the heart. That loquacity which is an hereditary fault of the Italian canzone, must also be endured in perusing the amatory flights of the Spanish redondillas, while in them the Italian correctness of expression would be looked for in vain. From the desire, perhaps, of relieving their monotony by some sort of variety, the authors have indulged in even more witticisms and plays of words than the Italians, but they also sought to infuse a more emphatic spirit into their compositions than the latter. The Spanish poems of this class exhibit, in general, all the poverty of the compositions of the troubadours, but blend with the simplicity of these bards the pomp of the Spanish national style in its utmost vigour. This resemblance to the troubadour songs was not, however, produced by imitation; it arose out of the spirit of romantic love, which at that period, and for several preceding centuries, gave to the south of Europe the same feeling and taste. Since the age of Petrarch, this spirit had appeared in classical perfection in Italy. But the Spanish amatory poets of the fifteenth century had not reached an equal degree of cultivation; and the whole turn of their ideas required rather a passionate than a tender expression. The sighs of the languishing Italians became cries in Spain. Glowing passion, despair, and violent ecstacy were the soul of the Spanish love songs. The continually recurring picture of the contest between reason and passion is a peculiar characteristic of these songs. The Italian poets did not attach so much importance to the triumph of reason. The rigidly moral Spaniard was, however, anxious to be wise even in the midst of his folly. But this obtrusion of wisdom in an improper place frequently gives an unpoetical harshness to the lyric poetry of Spain, in spite of all the softness of its melody.”[290]

[290] Vol. i. p. 109.

|John II.|

|Poets of his court.|

46. It was in the reign of John II., king of Castile from 1407 to 1454, that this golden age of lyric poetry commenced.[291] A season of peace and regularity, a monarchy well limited, but no longer the sport of domineering families, a virtuous king, a ministry too haughty and ambitious, but able and resolute, were encouragements to that light strain of amorous poetry which a state of ease alone can suffer mankind to enjoy. And Portugal, for the whole of this century, was in as flourishing a condition as Castile during this single reign. But we shall defer the mention of her lyric poetry, as it seems chiefly to be of a later date. In the court of John II. were found three men, whose names stand high in the early annals of Spanish poetry,--the marquises of Villena and Santillana, and Juan de Mena. But, except for their zeal in the cause of letters, amidst the dissipations of a court, they have no pretensions to compete with some of the obscure poets to whom we owe the romances of chivalry. A desire, on the contrary, to show needless learning, and to astonish the vulgar by an appearance of profundity, so often the bane of poetry, led them into prosaic and tedious details, and into affected refinements.[292]

[291] Velasquez, pp. 165, 442. (in Dieze), mentions, what has escaped
Bouterwek, a more ancient Cancionero than that of Castillo,
compiled in the reign of John II., by Juan Alfonso de Baena, and
hitherto, or at least in his time, unpublished. As it is entitled
Cancionero di Poetas Antiguos, it may be supposed to contain some
earlier than the year 1400. I am inclined to think, however, that
few would be found to ascend much higher. I do not find the name of
Don Juan Manuel, which occurs in the Cancionero of Castillo. A copy
of this manuscript Cancionero of Baena, was lately sold (1836),
among the MSS. of Mr. Heber, and purchased for 120l., by the king
of France.

[292] Bouterwek, p. 78.

|Charles, duke of Orleans.|

47. Charles, duke of Orleans, long prisoner in England after the battle of Agincourt, was the first who gave polish and elegance to French poetry. In a more enlightened age, according to Goujet’s opinion, he would have been among their greatest poets.[293] Except a little allegory in the taste of his times, he confined himself to the kind of verse called rondeaux, and to slight amatory poems, which, if they aim at little, still deserve the praise of reaching what they aim at. The easy turns of thought, and graceful simplicity of style, which these compositions require, came spontaneously to the Duke of Orleans. Without as much humour as Clément Marot long afterwards displayed, he is much more of a gentleman, and would have been in any times, if not quite what Goujet supposes, a great poet, yet the pride and ornament of the court.[294]

[293] Goujet, Bibliothèque Française, ix. 233.

[294] The following very slight vaudeville will show the easy style of
the Duke of Orleans. It is curious to observe how little the manner
of French poetry, in such productions, has been changed since the
fifteenth century.

Petit mercier, petit panier:
Pourtant si je n’ai marchandize
Qui soit du tout à votre quise
Ne blamez pour ce mon mestier;
Je gagne denier à denier;
C’est loin du trésor de Vénise.

Petit mercier, petit panier,
Et tandis qu’il est jour, ouvrier,
Le temps perds, quand a vous devise,
Je vais parfaire mon emprise,
Et parmi les rues crier:
Petit mercier, petit panier.

(Recueil des anciens poètes Français, ii. 196.)

|English poetry.|

|Lydgate.|

|James I. of Scotland.|