Chapter I: Part 1

MEDIAEVAL LORE FROM BARTHOLOMEW ANGLICUS

BY ROBERT STEELE

WITH PREFACE BY WILLIAM MORRIS

"WHEN HOLY WERE THE HAUNTED FOREST BOUGHS,
HOLY THE AIR, THE WATER, AND THE FIRE."
KEATS.

PREFACE

It is not long since the Middle Ages, of the literature of which this book gives us such curious examples, were supposed to be an unaccountable phenomenon accidentally thrust in betwixt the two periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a period without growth or meaning--a period which began about the time of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more or less unaccountably, at the time of the Reformation. The society of this period was supposed to be lawless and chaotic; its ethics a mere conscious hypocrisy; its art gloomy and barbarous fanaticism only; its literature the formless jargon of savages; and as to its science, that side of human intelligence was supposed to be an invention of the time when the Middle Ages had been dead two hundred years.

The light which the researches of modern historians, archaeologists, bibliographers, and others, have let in on our view of the Middle Ages has dispersed the cloud of ignorance on this subject which was one of the natural defects of the qualities of the learned men and keen critics of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries. The Middle-class or Whig theory of life is failing us in all branches of human intelligence. Ethics, Politics, Art, and Literature are more than beginning to be regarded from a wider point of view than that from which our fathers and grandfathers could see them.

For many years there has been a growing reaction against the dull "grey" narrowness of the eighteenth century, which looked on Europe during the last thousand years as but a riotous, hopeless, and stupid prison. It is true that it was on the side of Art alone that this enlightenment began, and that even on that side it progressed slowly enough at first--_e.g._ Sir Walter Scott feels himself obliged, as in the _Antiquary_, to apologize to pedantry for his instinctive love of Gothic architecture. And no less true is it that follies enough were mingled with the really useful and healthful birth of romanticism in Art and Literature. But at last the study of facts by men who were neither artistic nor sentimental came to the help of that first glimmer of instinct, and gradually something like a true insight into the life of the Middle Ages was gained; and we see that the world of Europe was no more running round in a circle then than now, but was developing, sometimes with stupendous speed, into something as different from itself as the age which succeeds this will be different from that wherein we live. The men of those times are no longer puzzles to us; we can understand their aspirations, and sympathise with their lives, while at the same time we have no wish (not to say hope) to put back the clock, and start from the position which they held. For, indeed, it is characteristic of the times in which we live, that whereas in the beginning of the romantic reaction, its supporters were for the most part mere _laudatores temporis acti_, at the present time those who take pleasure in studying the life of the Middle Ages are more commonly to be found in the ranks of those who are pledged to the forward movement of modern life; while those who are vainly striving to stem the progress of the world are as careless of the past as they are fearful of the future. In short, history, the new sense of modern times, the great compensation for the losses of the centuries, is now teaching us worthily, and making us feel that the past is not dead, but is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.

To my mind, therefore, no excuse is needful for the attempt made in the following pages to familiarise the reading public with what was once a famous knowledge-book of the Middle Ages. But the reader, before he can enjoy it, must cast away the exploded theory of the invincible and wilful ignorance of the days when it was written; the people of that time were eagerly desirous for knowledge, and their teachers were mostly single-hearted and intelligent men, of a diligence and laboriousness almost past belief. The "Properties of Things" of Bartholomew the Englishman is but one of the huge encyclopaedias written in the early Middle Age for the instruction of those who wished to learn, and the reputation of it and its fellows shows how much the science of the day was appreciated by the public at large, how many there were who wished to learn. Even apart from its interest as showing the tendency of men's minds in days when Science did actually tell them "fairy tales," the book is a delightful one in its English garb; for the language is as simple as if the author were speaking by word of mouth, and at the same time is pleasant, and not lacking a certain quaint floweriness, which makes it all the easier to retain the subject-matter of the book.

Altogether, this introduction to the study of the Mediaeval Encyclopaedia, and the insight which such works give us into the thought of the past and its desire for knowledge, make a book at once agreeable and useful; and I repeat that it is a hopeful sign of the times when students of science find themselves drawn towards the historical aspect of the world of men, and show that their minds have been enlarged, and not narrowed, by their special studies--a defect which was too apt to mar the qualities of the seekers into natural facts in what must now, I would hope, be called the just-passed epoch of intelligence dominated by Whig politics, and the self-sufficiency of empirical science.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

INTRODUCTION

THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR

MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE

MEDIAEVAL MANNERS

MEDIAEVAL MEDICINE

MEDIAEVAL GEOGRAPHY

MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--TREES

MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--BIRDS AND FISHES

MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--ANIMALS

THE SOURCES OF THE BOOK

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GLOSSARY

INTRODUCTION

THE BOOK AND ITS OBJECT.--The book which we offer to the public of to- day is drawn from one of the most widely read books of mediaeval times. Written by an English Franciscan, Bartholomew, in the middle of the thirteenth century, probably before 1260, it speedily travelled over Europe. It was translated into French by order of Charles V. (1364-81) in 1372, into Spanish, into Dutch, and into English in 1397. Its popularity, almost unexampled, is explained by the scope of the work, as stated in the translator's prologue (p. 9). It was written to explain the allusions to natural objects met with in the Scriptures or in the Gloss. It was, in fact, an account of the properties of things in general; an encyclopaedia of similes for the benefit of the village preaching friar, written for men without deep--sometimes without any-- learning. Assuming no previous information, and giving a fairly clear statement of the state of the knowledge of the time, the book was readily welcomed by the class for which it was designed, and by the small nucleus of an educated class which was slowly forming. Its popularity remained in full vigour after the invention of printing, no less than ten editions being published in the fifteenth century of the Latin copy alone, with four French translations, a Dutch, a Spanish, and an English one.

The first years of the modern commercial system gave its death-blow to the popularity of this characteristically mediaeval work, and though an effort was made in 1582 to revive it, the attempt was unsuccessful--quite naturally so, since the book was written for men desirous to hear of the wonders of strange lands, and did not give an accurate account of anything. The man who bought cinnamon at Stourbridge Fair in 1380 would have felt poorer if any one had told him that it was not shot from the phoenix' nest with leaden arrows, while the merchant of 1580 wished to know where it was grown, and how much he would pay a pound for it if he bought it at first hand. Any attempt to reconcile these frames of mind was foredoomed to failure.

THE INTEREST OF BARTHOLOMEW'S WORK.--The interest of Bartholomew's work to modern readers is twofold: it has its value as literature pure and simple, and it is one of the most important of the documents by the help of which we rebuild for ourselves the fabric of mediaeval life. The charm of its style lies in its simple forcible language, and its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand, we cannot forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is from the mediaeval Latin of an Englishman into English.

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and perhaps Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in order over the universe from God and the angels--through fire, water, air, to earth and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct account of the popular mediaeval theories in Astronomy, Physiology, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but unattainable otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to give sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which mediaeval Science was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at which it arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the popular cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography resumes the traditions current on foreign lands, at a time when Ireland was at a greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.

In the chapter on Mediaeval Society we have not perhaps the daily life of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their pastors and masters--an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and the child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be obtained about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the Natural History of Plants, which gives incidentally their food-stuffs.

It is in the History of Animals that the student of literature will find the richest mine of allusions. The list of similes in Shakespeare explained by our author would fill a volume like this itself. Other writers, again, simply "lift" the book wholesale. Chester and Du Bartas write page after page of rhyme, all but versified direct from Bartholomew. Jonson and Spenser, Marlowe and Massinger, make ample use of him. Lyly and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of space forbid their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor has collected several passages from first-class authors with a view to illustrating the immense importance of this book to Elizabethan literature. It was not without reason that Ireland chose justified, when making a selection of passages from the work for modern readers, in altering his text to this extent--and this only: he has modernised the spelling, and in the case of entirely obsolete grammatical forms he has substituted modern ones (_e.g._ "its" for "his"). In the case of an utterly dead word he has followed the course of substituting a word from the same root, when one exists; and when none could be found, he has left it unchanged in the text. Accordingly a short glossary has been added, which includes, too, many words which we may hope are not dead, but sleeping. In very few cases has a word been inserted, and in those it is marked by italics.

Perhaps we may be allowed to say a word in defence of the principle of modernising our earliest literature. Early English poetry is, in general (with some striking exceptions), incapable of being written in the spelling of our days without losing all of that which makes it verse; but there can be no reason, when dealing with the masterpieces of our Early English prose, for maintaining obsolete forms of spelling and grammar which hamper the passage of thought from mind to mind across the centuries. Editors of Shakespeare and the Bible for general use have long assumed the privilege of altering the spelling, and except on the principle that earlier works are more important, or are only to be read by people who have had the leisure and inclination to familiarise their eyes with the peculiarities of Middle English, there can be no reason for stopping there, or a century earlier. At some point, of course, the number of obsolete words becomes so great that the text cannot be read without a dictionary: then the limit has been reached. But Caxton, Trevisa, and many others are well within it, and it is good to remove all obstacles which prevent the ordinary reader from feeling the continuity of his mother tongue.

THE AUTHOR.--The facts known of our author's life have been summarised by Miss Toulmin Smith in her article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. In the sixteenth century he was generally believed to date from about 1360, and to have belonged to the Glanvilles--an honourable Suffolk family in the Middle Ages; but there seems to be no authority whatever for the statement. We first hear of him in a letter from the provincial of the Franciscans of Saxony to the provincial of France, asking that Bartholomew Anglicus and another friar should be sent to assist him in his newly-created province. Next year (1231) a MS. chronicle reports that two were sent, and that Bartholomew Anglicus was appointed teacher of holy theology to the brethren in the province. We learn from Salimbene, who wrote the Chronicles of Parma (1283), that he had been a professor of theology in the University of Paris, where he had lectured on the whole Bible. The subject in treating of which he is referred to was an elephant belonging to the Emperor; and Salimbene quotes a passage on the elephant from his _De Proprietatibus Rerum_. What may be a quotation from the _De Proprietatibus_ can be found in Roger Bacon's _Opus Tertium_ (1267).

THE DATE OF THE WORK.--The date of the work seems fairly easy to fix. It cannot, as we have above seen, be later than 1267, and Amable Jourdain fixes it before 1260 by the fact that the particular translations of Aristotle from which Bartholomew quotes (Latin through the Arabic), went almost universally out of use by 1260. On the other hand, quotations are made from Albertus Magnus, who was in Paris in 1248. And that it was written near this year is evident from the fact that no quotations are made from Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, or Egidius Colonna, all of whom were in Paris during the second half of the thirteenth century. The earliest known MS. is in the Ashmole Collection, and was written in 1296. Two French MSS. are dated 1297 and 1329 respectively.

As we said in the beginning of this chapter, the work had an immediate and lasting success. Bartholomew Anglicus became known as "Magister de Proprietatibus Rerum," and his book was on the list of those which students could borrow from the University chest. It is probable that much of this popularity was due to the fact that he was a teacher for many years of the Grey Friars, and that these, the most popular and the most human preachers of the day, carried his book and his stories with them wherever they went.

SOURCES.--The chief sources of our author's inspiration are notable. He relies on St. Dionysius the Areopagite for heaven and the angels, Aristotle for Physics and Natural History, Pliny's Natural History, Isidore of Seville's Etymology, Albumazar, Al Faragus, and other Arab writers for Astronomy, Constantinus Afer's Pantegna for Medical Science, and Physiologus, the Bestiarium, and the Lapidarium for the properties of gems, animals, etc. Besides these he quotes many other writers (a list of whom is given in an appendix) little known to modern readers.

THE TRANSLATION AND PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION.--The translation from which we quote was made for Sir Thomas lord of Berkeley in 1397 by John Trevisa, his chaplain. We owe this good Englishman something for the works in English prose he called into existence--some not yet printed; may we not see in him another proof of what we owe to Chaucer--a language stamped with the seal of a great poet, henceforth sufficient for the people who speak it, ample for the expression of their thoughts or needs?

In selecting from such a book, the principles which have guided the editor are these: To the general reader he desires to offer a fair representation of the work of Bartholomew Anglicus, preserving the language and style. To be fair, the work must be sometimes dull--in the whole book there are many very dull passages. He has desired to select passages of interest for their quaint language, and their views of things, often for their very misrepresentations of matters of common knowledge to-day, and for their bearing upon the literature of the country. The student of literature and science will find in it the materials in which the history of their growth is read. In conclusion, the editor ventures to hope that the work will not be unwelcome to the numerous and growing class who love English for its own sake as the noblest tongue on earth, and who desire not to forget the rock from which it was hewn, and the pit from which it was digged.

Our first selection will naturally be the translator's prologue in the very shortened form of Berthelet. The present editor's work is, to avoid confusion, printed in small type throughout.

THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR

True it is that after the noble and expert doctrine of wise and well- learned Philosophers, left and remaining with us in writing, we know that the properties of things follow and ensue their substance. Herefore it is that after the order and the distinction of substances, the order and the distinction of the properties of things shall be and ensue. Of the which things this work of all the books ensuing, by the grace, help, and assistance of all mighty God is compiled and made.

Marvel not, ye witty and eloquent readers, that I, thin of wit and void of cunning, have translated this book from Latin into our vulgar language, as a thing profitable to me, and peradventure to many other, which understand not Latin, nor have not the knowledge of the properties of things, which things be approved by the books of great and cunning clerks, and by the experience of most witty and noble Philosophers. All these properties of things be full necessary and of great value to them that will be desirous to understand the obscurities, or darkness of holy scriptures: which be given unto us under figures, under parables and semblance, or likelihoods of things natural and artificial. Saint Denys, that great Philosopher and solemn clerk, in his book named the heavenly hierarchies of angels, testifieth and witnesseth the same, saying in this manner:--What so ever any man will conject, feign, imagine, suppose, or say: it is a thing impossible that the light of the heavenly divine clearness, covered and closed in the deity, or in the godhead, should shine upon us, if it were not by the diversities of holy covertures. Also it is not possible, that our wit or intendment might ascend unto the contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies immaterial, if our wit be not led by some material thing, as a man is led by the hand: so by these forms visible, our wit may be led to the consideration of the greatness or magnitude of the most excellent beauteous clarity, divine and invisible. Reciteth this also the blessed apostle Paul in his epistles, saying that by these things visible, which be made and be visible, man may see and know by his inward sight intellectual, the divine celestial and godly things, which be invisible to this our natural sight. Devout doctors of Theology or divinity, for this consideration prudently and wisely read and use natural philosophy and moral, and poets in their fictions and feigned informations, unto this fine and end, so that by the likelihood or similitude of things visible our wit or our understanding spiritually, by clear and crafty utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear. Loth to offend, I purpose to say somewhat under the correction of excellent learned doctors and wise men: what every creature reasonable ought to believe in this our blessed Christian faith.

ENDETH THE PROLOGUE

I

MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE

The following selections will give an idea of the natural science of the Middle Ages. In introducing them, the Editor will attempt to give some connected account of them to show that though their study seems to involve a few difficulties, their explanation is simple, and will not make too great a demand on the reader's patience.

From the earliest times men have asked themselves two questions about nature: "Why?" and "How?" Mediaeval science concerned itself with the former; modern science thinks it has learnt that no answer to that question can be given it, and concerns itself with the latter. It thus happens that the more one becomes in sympathy with the thought of our time, the less one can interest one's self in the work of the past, distinguished as it is by its disregard of all we think important, and by its striving for an unattainable goal.

It is, however, necessary, if we would enjoy Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare, to obtain some notion of that system of the universe from which they drew so many of their analogies. The symbolism of Dante appears to us unnaturally strained until we know that the science of his day saw everything as symbolic.

And how could we appreciate the strength of Chaucer's metaphor:

"O firste moving cruel firmament,
With thy diurnal swegh that croudest ay,
And hurtlest all from Est til Occident,
That naturally wold hold another way,"

without some knowledge of the astronomy of his day?

Our first extracts explain themselves. They deal with the mystery of the constitution of substances, as fascinating to us as to the early Greeks, and begin with definitions of matter and form.

The principal design of early philosophers in physics was to explain how everything was generated, and to trace the different states through which things pass until they become perfect. They observed that as a thing is not generated out of any other indifferently--for example, that marble is not capable of making flesh, all bodies cannot be compounded of principles alone, connected in a simple way, but imagined they could be made up of a few simple compounds. These ultimate compounds, if we may so express it, were their elements. The number of elements was variously estimated, but was generally taken as four--a number arrived at rather from the consideration of the sensations bodies awaken in us, than from the study of bodies themselves. Aristotle gives us the train of thought by which the number is reached. He considers the qualities observed by the senses, classifying them as Heat, Cold, Dryness or Hardness, and Moistness or Capability of becoming liquid. These may partially co-exist, two at a time, in the same substance. There are thus four possible combinations, Cold and dry, Cold and moist, Hot and dry, Hot and moist. He then names these from their prototypes Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, distinguishing these elements from the actual Earth, etc., of everyday life.

The habit of extending analogies beyond their legitimate application was a source of confusion in the early ages of science. Most of the superstitions of primitive religion, of astrology, and of alchemy, arose from this source. A good example is the extension of the metaphor in the words _generation_ and _corruption_: words in constant use in scientific works until the nineteenth century began. Generation is the production of a substance that before was not, and corruption is the destruction of a substance, by its ceasing to be what it was before. Thus, fire is generated, and wood is corrupted, when the latter is burnt. But the implicit metaphor in the use of the terms likens substances to the human body, their production and destruction implies liability to disease, and thus prepares the way for the notion of the elixir, which is first a potion giving long life, and curing bodily ailments, and only after some time a remedy for diseased metals--the philosopher's stone.

It will be seen that the theory of the mediaeval alchemist was that matter is an entity filling all space, on which in different places different forms were impressed. The elements were a preliminary grouping of these, and might be present--two, three, or four at a time--in any substance. No attempt was ever made to separate these elements by scientific men, just as no attempt is ever made to isolate the ether of the physical speculations of to-day. The theory of modern physicists, with its ether and vortices, answers almost exactly to the matter and form of the ancients, the nature of the vortices conditioning matter.

The extracts from Book XI. bring us to another class of substances. All compound bodies are classified as imperfect or perfect. Imperfect compounds, or meteors, to some extent resemble elements. They are fiery, as the rainbow, or watery, as dew. Our extract on the rainbow is somewhat typical of the faults of ancient science. A note is taken of a rare occurrence--a lunar rainbow; but in describing the common one, an error of the most palpable kind is made. The placing of blue as the middle and green as the lowest colour is obviously wrong, and is inexplicable if we did not know how facts were cut square with theories in old days.

In the next extract Bartholomew's account of the spirits animating man is quoted at length. It gives us the mediaeval theory as to the means by which life, motion, and knowledge were shown in the body. Every reader of Shakespeare or Chaucer becomes familiar with the vital, animal, and natural spirits. They were supposed to communicate with all parts of the body by means of the arteries or wosen, "the nimble spirits in their arteries," and the sinews or nerves. The word sinew, by the way, is exactly equal to our word nerve, and ayenward, as our author would say. Hamlet, when he bursts from his friends, explains his vigour by the rush of the spirit into the arteries, which makes

"Each petty artery of this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve."

The natural spirit is generated in the liver, the seat of digestion, "there where our nourishment is administered"; it then passes to the heart, and manifests itself as the spirit of life; from thence it passes to the brain, where it is the animal spirit--"spirit animate" Rossetti calls it--dwelling in the brain.

In the brain there are three ventricles or chambers, the _foremost_ being the "cell fantastike" of the "Knight's Tale," the second the logistic, and the third the chamber of memory, where "memory, the warder of the brain," keeps watch over the passage of the spirit into the "sinews" of moving. Into the foremost cell come all the perceptions of sight, hearing, etc., and thus we have the opportunity for

"Fantasy,
That plays upon our eyesight,"

to freak it on us. The pedant, Holofernes, in _Love's Labour's Lost,_ characteristically puts the origin of his good things in the ventricle of memory.

As a specimen of the physical science of the time the Editor gives extracts from the chapter on light.

The introduction of extracts enough to give some idea of the mediaeval astronomy would have made such large demands on the patience of the reader that the Editor has decided with some regret to omit them altogether. The universe is considered to be a sphere, whose centre is the earth and whose circumference revolved about two fixed points. Our author does not decide the nice point in dispute between the philosophers and the theologians, the former holding that there is only one, the latter insisting on seven heavens-the fairy, ethereal, olympian, fiery, firmament, watery, and empyrean.

The firmament, that

"Majestical roof, fretted with golden fire,"

is the part of heaven in which the planets move. It carries them round with it; it governs the tides; it stood with men for the type of irresistible regularity. Each of the planets naturally has a motion of its own, contrary in direction to that of the firmament, which was from east to west. All the fixed stars move in circles whose centre is the centre of the universe, but the courses of the planets (among which the moon is reckoned) depend on other circles, called eccentric, since their centre is elsewhere. Either the centre or the circumference of the circle in which the planet really moves is applied to the circumference of the eccentric circle, and in this way all the movements of the planets are fully explained. Our author is sorely puzzled to account for the existence of the watery heavens above the fiery, they being cold and moist, but is sure from scriptural reasons that they are there, and ventures the hypothesis that their presence may account for the sluggish and evil properties of Saturn, the planet whose circle is nearest them.

Having considered the simpler substances, those composed of pure elemental forms, and those resembling them--the meteors--we turn to the perfect compounds, those which have assumed substantial forms, as metals, stones, etc. Our author retains the Aristotelian classification--earthy, and those of other origin, as beasts, roots, and trees. Earths may be metals or fossils; metals being defined as hard bodies, generated in the earth or in its veins, which can be beaten out by a hammer, and softened or liquefied by heat; while fossils include all other inanimate objects.

A large number of extracts have been made from this part of the subject, because the book gives the position of positive, as distinguished from speculative, Alchemy at the time. It is the Editor's desire to show that at this period there was a system of theory based on the practical knowledge of the day.

Chemistry took its rise as a science about four hundred years before our era. In the fragments of two of the four books of Democritus we have probably the earliest treatise on chemical matters we are ever likely to get hold of. Whether it is the work of Democritus or of a much later writer is uncertain. But merely taking it as a representative work of the early stage of chemistry, we remark that the receipts are practicable, and some of them, little modified, are in use to-day in goldsmith's shops. The fragments remaining to us are on the manufacture of gold and silver, and one receipt for dyeing purple. In this state of the science the collection of facts is the chief point, and no purely chemical theory seems to have been formed. Tradition, confirmed by the latest researches, associates this stage with Egypt.

The second stage in the history of Chemistry--the birth of Alchemy in the Western World--occurred when the Egyptian practical receipts, the neo-Greek philosophies, and the Chinese dreams of an "elixir vitae" were fused into one by the Arab and Syriac writers. Its period of activity ranges from the seventh to the tenth centuries. Little is really known about it, or can be, until the Arabic texts, which are abundant in Europe, are translated and classified both from the scholar's and the chemist's standpoint. Many works were translated into Latin about the end of the tenth century, such as the spurious fourth book of the _Meteorics of Aristotle_, the treatises of the _Turta Philosophorum_, _Artis Auriferae_, etc., which formed the starting-point of European speculation. The theoretical chemistry of our author is derived from them.

The third stage of chemistry begins with the fourteenth and ends with the sixteenth century. It is characterized by an immense growth of theory, a fertile imagination, and untiring industry. It reached its height in England about 1440, and is represented by the reputed works of Lully (vixit circ. 1300), which first appeared about this date. In this period practical alchemy is on its trial.

The fourth stage begins with Boyle, and closes with the eighteenth century. Still under the dominion of theoretical alchemy, practical alchemy was rejected by it, and its interest was concentrated on the collection of facts. It led up to modern chemistry, which begins with Lavoisier, and the introduction of the balance in the study of chemical change.

Chemical theory, then, in our author's time stood somewhat thus. Metals as regarded their elemental composition were considered to partake of the nature of earth, water, and air, in various proportions. Fossils, or those things generated in the earth which were not metals, were again subdivided into two classes--those which liquefy on being heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which their weight and powers of becoming fluid were due.

This theory was due to two main facts. Most ores of metals, especially of copper and lead, contain much sulphur, which can be either obtained pure from them, or be recognised by its smell when burning. This gave rise to the sulphur theory, while the presence of mercury was inferred doubtless from the resemblance of the more commonly molten metals, silver, tin, and lead, to quicksilver. The properties of each metal were then put down to the presence of these substances. The list of seven metals is that of the most ancient times--gold, electrum, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron; but it is clearly recognised that electrum is an alloy of gold and silver.

Most of the facts in this book are derived from Pliny through Isidore, but, that the theory is Arab in origin, one fact alone would convince us. A consideration of the composition of the metals shows us that tin is nearest in properties of all metals to the precious ones, but tin is precisely the metal chosen by Arab alchemists as a starting-point in the Chrysopoeia.

Beside their scientific interest these passages have supplied many analogies. When Troilus is piling up his lover's oaths to Cressida, his final words are:

"As iron to adamant, as earth to centre;"

our chapter on the adamant supplies the origin of this allusion in part, astronomy gives the other. Diamonds are still, unfortunately, the precious stones of reconciliation and of love our author bespeaks them. The editor has not lengthened the chapter by extracts giving the occult properties of gems, and has contented himself by quoting from the chapter on glass a new simile and an old story.

Matter and form are principles of all bodily things; and privation of matter and form is naught else but destruction of all things. And the more subtle and high matter is in kind, the more able it is to receive form and shape. And the more thick and earthly it is, the more feeble is it to receive impression, printing of forms and of shapes. And matter is principle and beginning of distinction, and of diversity, and of multiplying, and of things that are gendered. For the thing that gendereth and the thing that is gendered are not diverse but touching matter. And therefore where a thing is gendered without matter, the thing that gendereth, and the thing that is gendered, are all one in substance and in kind: as it fareth of the persons in the Trinity. Of form is diversity, by the which one thing is diverse from another, and some form is essential, and some accidental. Essential form is that which cometh into matter, and maketh it perfect; and accordeth therewith to the perfection of some thing. And when form is had, then the thing hath its being, and when form is destroyed nothing of the substance of the thing is found. And form accidental is not the perfection of things, nor giveth them being. But each form accidental needeth a form substantial. And each form is more simple and more actual and noble than matter. And so the form asketh that shall be printed in the matter, the matter ought to be disposed and also arrayed. For if fire shall be made of matter of earth, it needeth that the matter of earth be made subtle and pured and more simple. Form maketh matter known. Matter is cause that we see things that are made, and so nothing is more common and general than matter. And natheless nothing is more unknown than is matter; for matter is never seen without form, nor form may not be seen in deed, but joined to matter.

Elements are simple, and the least particles of a body that is compound. And it is called least touching us, for it is not perceived by wits of feeling. For it is the least part and last in undoing of the body, as it is first in composition. And is called simple, not for an element is simple without any composition, but for it hath no parts that compound it, that be diverse in kind and in number as some medlied bodies have: as it fareth in metals of the which some parts be diverse; for some part is air, and some is earth. But each part of fire is fire, and so of others. Elements are four, and so there are four qualities of elements, of the which every body is composed and made as of matter. The four elements are Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, of the which each hath his proper qualities. Four be called the first and principal qualities, that is, hot, cold, dry, and moist: they are called the first qualities because they slide first from the elements into the things that be made of elements. Two of these qualities are called Active--heat and coldness. The others are dry and wetness and are called Passive.

The Rainbow is impression gendered in an hollow cloud and dewy, disposed to rain in endless many gutters, as it were shining in a mirror, and is shapen as a bow, and sheweth divers colours, and is gendered by the beams of the sun or of the moon. And is but seldom gendered by beams of the moon, no more but twice in fifty years, as Aristotle saith. In the rainbow by cause of its clearness be seen divers forms, kinds, and shapes that be contrary. Therefore the bow seemeth coloured, for, as Bede saith, it taketh colour of the four elements. For therein, as it were in any mirror, shineth figures and shapes and kinds of elements. For of fire he taketh red colour in the overmost part, and of earth green in the nethermost, and of the air a manner of brown colour, and of water somedeal blue in the middle. And first is red colour, that cometh out of a light beam, that touches the outer part of the roundness of the cloud: then is a middle colour somedeal blue, as the quality asketh, that hath mastery in the vapour, that is in the middle of the cloud. Then the nethermost seemeth a green colour in the nether part of a cloud; there the vapour is more earthly. And these colours are more principal than others.

As Beda saith, and the master of stories, forty years tofore the doom, the rainbow shall not be seen, and that shall be token of drying, and of default of elements.

And though dew be a manner of airy substance, and most subtle outward, natheless in a wonder manner it is strong in working and virtue. For it besprinkleth the earth, and maketh it plenteous, and maketh flour, pith, and marrow increase in corn and grains: and fatteth and bringeth forth broad oysters and other shell fish in the sea, and namely dew of spring time. For by night in spring time oysters open themselves against dew, and receive dew that cometh in between the two shells, and hold and keep it; and that dew so holden and kept feedeth the flesh, and maketh it fat; and by its incorporation with the inner parts of the fish breedeth a full precious gem, a stone that is called Margarita. Also the birds of ravens, while they are whitish in feathers, ere they are black, dew feedeth and sustaineth them, as Gregory saith.

Fumosities that are drawn out of the waters and off the earth by strength of heat of heaven are drawn to the nethermost part of the middle space of the air, and there by coldness of the place they are made thick, and then by heat dissolving and departing the moisture thereof and not wasting all, these fumosities are resolved and fall and turn into rain and showers.

If rain be temperate in quality and quantity, and agreeable to the time, it is profitable to infinite things. For rain maketh the land to bear fruit, and joineth it together, if there be many chines therein, and assuageth and tempereth strength of heat, and cleareth the air, and ceaseth and stinteth winds, and fatteth fish, and helpeth and comforteth dry complexion. And if rain be evil and distemperate in its qualities, and discording to place and time, it is grievous and noyful to many things. For it maketh deepness and uncleanness and slipperiness in ways and in paths, and bringeth forth much unprofitable herbs and grass, and corrupteth and destroyeth fruit and seeds, and quencheth in seeds the natural heat, and maketh darkness and thickness in the air, and taketh from us the sun beams, and gathereth mist and clouds, and letteth the work of labouring men, and tarrieth and letteth ripening of corn and of fruits, and exciteth rheum and running flux, and increaseth and strengtheneth all moist ills, and is cause of hunger and of famine, and of corruption and murrain of beasts and sheep; for corrupt showers do corrupt the grass and herbs of pasture, whereof cometh needful corruption of beasts.

Of impressions that are gendered in the air of double vapour, the first is thunder, the which impression is gendered in watery substance of a cloud. For moving and shaking hither and thither of hot vapour and dry, that fleeth its contrary, is beset and constrained in every side, and smit into itself, and is thereby set on fire and on flame, and quencheth itself at last in the cloud, as Aristotle saith. When a storm of full strong winds cometh in to the clouds, and the whirling wind and the storm increaseth, and seeketh out passage: it cleaveth and breaketh the cloud, and falleth out with a great rese and strong, and all to breaketh the parts of the cloud, and so it cometh to the ears of men and of beasts with horrible and dreadful breaking and noise. And that is no wonder: for though a bladder be light, yet it maketh great noise and sound, if it be strongly blown, and afterward violently broken. And with the thunder cometh lightning, but lightning is sooner seen, for it is clear and bright; and thunder cometh later to our ears, for the wit of sight is more subtle than the wit of hearing. As a man seeth sooner the stroke of a man that heweth a tree, than he heareth the noise of the stroke.

The lightning which is called Clarum is of a wonderful kind, for it catcheth and draweth up wine out of the tuns, and toucheth not the vessel, and melteth gold and silver in purses, and melteth not the purse.

As wits and virtues are needed to the ruling of kind, so to the perfection thereof needeth needly some spirits, by whose benefit and continual moving, both wits and virtues in beasts are ruled to work and do their deeds. As we speak here of a spirit, a spirit is called a certain substance, subtle and airy, that stirreth and exciteth the virtues of the body to their doings and works. A spirit is a subtle body, by the strength of heat gendered, and in man's body giving life by the veins of the body, and by the veins and pulses giveth to beasts, breath, life, and pulses, and working, wilful moving, and wit by means of sinews and muscles in bodies that have souls. Physicians say that this spirit is gendered in this manner wise. Whiles by heat working in the blood, in the liver is caused strong boiling and seething, and thereof cometh a smoke, the which is pured, and made subtle of the veins of the liver. And turneth into a subtle spiritual substance and airly kind, and that is called the natural spirit. For kindly by the might thereof it maketh the blood subtle. And by lightness thereof it moveth the blood and sendeth it about into all the limbs. And this same spirit turneth to heartward by certain veins. And there by moving and smiting together of the parts of the heart, the spirit is more pured, and turned into a more subtle kind. And then it is called of physicians the vital spirit: because that from the heart, by the wosen, and veins, and small ways, it spreadeth itself into all the limbs of the body, and increaseth the virtues spiritual, and ruleth and keepeth the works thereof. For out of a den of the left side of the heart cometh an artery vein, and in his moving is departed into two branches: the one thereof goeth downward, and spreadeth in many boughs, and sprays, by means of which the vital spirit is brought to give the life to all the nether limbs of the body. The other bough goeth upward, and is again departed in three branches. The right bough thereof goeth to the right arm, and the left bough to the left arm equally, and spreadeth in divers sprays. And so the vital spirit is spread into all the body and worketh in the artery veins the pulses of life. The middle bough extendeth itself to the brain, and other higher parts and giveth life, and spreadeth the vital spirit in all the parts about. The same spirit piercing and passing forth to the dens of the brain, is there more directed and made subtle, and is changed into the animal spirit, which is more subtle than the other. And so this animal spirit is gendered in the foremost den of the brain, and is somewhat spread into the limbs of feeling. But yet nevertheless some part thereof abideth in the aforesaid dens, that common sense, the common wit, and the virtue imaginative may be made perfect. Then he passeth forth into the middle den that is called Logistic, to make the intellect and understanding perfect. And when he hath enformed the intellect, then he passeth forth to the den of memory, and bearing with him the prints of likeness, which are made in those other dens, he layeth them up in the chamber of memory. From the hindermost parts of the brain he pierceth and passeth by the marrow of the ridge bone, and cometh to the sinews of moving, that so wilful moving may be engendered, in all the parts of the nether body. Then one and the same spirit is named by divers names. For by working in the liver it is called the natural spirit, in the heart the vital spirit, and in the head, the animal spirit. We may not believe that this spirit is man's reasonable soul, but more soothly, as saith Austin, the car therof and proper instrument. For by means of such a spirit the soul is joined to the body: and without the service of such a spirit, no act the soul may perfectly exercise in the body. And therefore if these spirits be impaired, or let of their working in any work, the accord of the body and soul is resolved, the reasonable spirit is let of all its works in the body. As it is seen in them that be amazed, and mad men and frantic, and in others that oft lose use of reason.

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.

In the book Meteorics, a little before the end, Aristotle saith that gold, as other metals, hath other matter of subtle brimstone and red, and of quicksilver subtle and white. In the composition thereof is more sadness of brimstone than of air and moisture of quicksilver, and therefore gold is more sad and heavy than silver. In composition of silver is more commonly quicksilver than white brimstone. Then among metals nothing is more sad in substance, or more better compact than gold. And therefore though it be put in fire, it wasteth not by smoking and vapours, nor lesseth not the weight, and so it is not wasted in fire, but if it be melted with strong heat, then if any filth be therein, it is cleansed thereof. And that maketh the gold more pure and shining. No metal stretcheth more with hammer work than gold, for it stretcheth so, that between the anvil and the hammer without breaking and rending in pieces it stretcheth to gold foil. And among metals there is none fairer in sight than gold, and therefore among painters gold is chief and fairest in sight, and so it embellisheth colour and shape, and colour of other metals. Also among metals is nothing so effectual in virtue as gold. Plato describeth the virtue thereof and saith that it is more temperate and pure than other metals. For it hath virtue to comfort and for to cleanse superfluities gathered in bodies. And therefore it helpeth against leprosy and meselry. The filings of gold taken in meat or in drink or in medicine, preserve and let breeding of leperhood, or namely hideth it and maketh it unknown.