Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus Part 1

Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus.

by Robert Steele.

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 cla.s.sical 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-cla.s.s 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-pa.s.sed epoch of intelligence dominated by Whig politics, and the self-sufficiency of empirical science.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

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. a.s.suming 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 cla.s.s for which it was designed, and by the small nucleus of an educated cla.s.s 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 doc.u.ments 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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 Ma.s.singer, make ample use of him. Lyly and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of s.p.a.ce forbid their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor has collected several pa.s.sages from first-cla.s.s authors with a view to ill.u.s.trating the immense importance of this book to Elizabethan literature. It was not without reason that Ireland chose justified, when making a selection of pa.s.sages 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 subst.i.tuted modern ones (_e.g._ "its" for "his"). In the case of an utterly dead word he has followed the course of subst.i.tuting 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 pa.s.sage of thought from mind to mind across the centuries. Editors of Shakespeare and the Bible for general use have long a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sage 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, Alb.u.mazar, 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 pa.s.sages. He has desired to select pa.s.sages 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 cla.s.s who love English for its own sake as the n.o.blest 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sistance of all mighty G.o.d 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.dhead, should s.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.dly 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 a.n.a.logies. 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 const.i.tution of substances, as fascinating to us as to the early Greeks, and begin with definitions of matter and form.

The princ.i.p.al design of early philosophers in physics was to explain how everything was generated, and to trace the different states through which things pa.s.s 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, cla.s.sifying 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, distinguis.h.i.+ng these elements from the actual Earth, etc., of everyday life.

The habit of extending a.n.a.logies beyond their legitimate application was a source of confusion in the early ages of science. Most of the superst.i.tions 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 ent.i.ty filling all s.p.a.ce, 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 cla.s.s of substances.

All compound bodies are cla.s.sified 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.