Thomas Norton (15th Century).
§ 45. Thomas Norton, the author of the celebrated Ordinall of Alchemy, was probably born shortly before the commencement of the fifteenth century. The Ordinall, which is written in verse (and which will be found in Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum),[61] is anonymous, but the author’s identity is revealed by a curious device. The initial syllables of the proem and of the first six chapters, together with the first line of the seventh chapter, give the following couplet:—
“Tomais Norton of Briseto,
A parfet Master ye maie him call trowe.”
[61] A prose version will be found in The Hermetic Museum translated back into English from a Latin translation by Maier.
Samuel Norton, the grandson of Thomas, who was also an alchemist, says that Thomas Norton was a member of the privy chamber of Edward IV. Norton’s distinctive views regarding the generation of the metals we have already mentioned (see [§ 20]). He taught that true knowledge of the Art of Alchemy could only be obtained by word of mouth from an adept, and in his Ordinall he gives an account of his own initiation. He tells us that he was instructed by his master (probably Sir George Ripley) and learnt the secrets of the Art in forty days, at the age of twenty-eight. He does not, however, appear to have reaped the fruits of this knowledge. Twice, he tells us, did he prepare the Elixir, and twice was it stolen from him; and he is said to have died in 1477, after ruining himself and his friends by his unsuccessful experiments.