A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2) / During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era

by Lynn Thorndike

APPENDIX I

THE PROBLEM OF DATING THE DE EODEM ET DIVERSO AND QUESTIONES NATURALES AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER

Difficulty of the problem.

It is a difficult matter to fix the date either of the De eodem et diverso or of the Questiones naturales, and to account satisfactorily for the various allusions to contemporary events and to Adelard’s own movements which occur in either. It is not even entirely certain which treatise was written first, as neither contains an unmistakable allusion to the other. On general grounds the De eodem et diverso would certainly seem the earlier work, but there are some reasons for thinking the contrary. It seems clear that not many years elapsed between the composition of the two works, but how many is uncertain. It is evident that the De eodem et diverso must have been written by 1116 at the latest in order to dedicate it to William, bishop of Syracuse. But the Questiones naturales apparently might have been dedicated to Richard, bishop of Bayeux, at almost any time during his pontificate from 1107 to 1133, although probably not long after 1116.

Before what queen did Adelard play the cithara?

Professor Haskins would narrow down the time during which the De eodem et diverso could have been written to the years from about 1104 to 1109, with the single year 1116 as a further possibility. He says, “Adelard speaks of having played the cithara before the queen in the course of his musical studies in France the preceding year, and as there was no queen of France between the death of Philip I and the marriage of Louis VI in 1115, the treatise, unless the bishop of Syracuse was still alive in 1116, would not be later than 1109.”[104] But may not the queen referred to have been Matilda, the wife of Henry I?[105] She was a patroness both of artists and of men of letters, and the Pipe Roll for 1130 and the treatise on the astrolabe have shown us that later, at least, it was the English royal family with which Adelard, himself an Englishman, was connected. It is of “Gaul,” not of “France” in the sense of territory subject to the French monarch, that Adelard writes,[106] and Normandy was of course under Henry’s rule after the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106.

Circumstances under which the De eodem et diverso was written.

The De eodem et diverso takes the form of a letter[107] from Adelard to his nephew, justifying his “laborious itinerary” in pursuit of learning against the reproach of “levity and inconstancy” made by the nephew, and stating “the cause of my travel among the learned men of various regions,” at which the nephew has time and again expressed his astonishment, and the reasons for which his uncle has kept concealed from him for two years.[108] This letter seems to have been written by Adelard in Sicily, since it is prefaced with a dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse, and since towards its close Adelard speaks of “coming from Salerno into Graecia maior”[109]—a phrase by which he presumably refers to the ancient Magna Graecia, or southern Italy, and perhaps also Sicily. In the preceding year, however, Adelard and his nephew had been together in Tours.[110] It thus appears that the De eodem was written not very long after Adelard set out on his quest for foreign learning, while he was still in the Greek or semi-Greek learned society of southern Italy and Sicily, and presumably before he had come into contact with the science of the Saracens, which he does not mention in the De eodem et diverso, although traces of it undoubtedly lingered in Sicily. He writes as if the idea had only comparatively recently come to him “that he could much broaden his education, if he crossed the Alps and visited other teachers than those of Gaul.”

Different situation depicted in the Natural Questions.

In the Natural Questions, on the other hand, he returns to England after seven years, instead of a single year, of separation from his nephew, after a visit to the principality of Antioch,[111] and after a considerable period of study among the Saracens or Arabs. It is rather natural, however, to conclude that the same absence abroad is referred to in both treatises, and that Adelard wrote De eodem et diverso to his nephew after he had been absent a year, while the Natural Questions was composed after his return at the end of seven years. Thus six years would separate the two treatises. But the Natural Questions depicts a different last parting of uncle and nephew from that of De eodem et diverso. It does not allude to their having been together in Tours seven years ago, but reminds the nephew how, when his uncle took leave of him and his other pupils at Laon seven years since, it was agreed between them that while Adelard investigated Arabian learning, his nephew should continue his studies in Gaul.[112] In the De eodem et diverso, on the contrary, neither Laon nor the Arabs nor any such agreement between uncle and nephew is mentioned. Rather, the uncle seems to have at first kept secret the motives for his crossing the Alps. It therefore may be that Adelard had returned from Sicily to Gaul and had taught at Laon for a short time before setting out on a longer period of travel in quest of Arabian science. This would agree well enough with his allusion to his nephew in the De eodem et diverso as “still a boy,”[113] and the statement in the Natural Questions that his nephew was “little more than a boy”[114] when he parted from him seven years before. In this case the Natural Questions would have been written more than seven years after the De eodem et diverso. This is, I think, the most tenable and plausible hypothesis.

Some apparent indications that the De eodem et diverso was written after the Natural Questions.

There are, it is true, one or two circumstances which might be taken to indicate that the De eodem et diverso was written after the Questiones naturales. In the sole manuscript of the De eodem thus far known[115] it follows that treatise, and its title Of the same and different might be taken as a continuation with variations of the general line of thought of the other treatise. But it is perhaps just because some copyist has so interpreted its title that it is put after the Natural Questions in this manuscript. At any rate in the text itself Adelard gives another explanation of its title, stating that it has reference to the allegorical figures, Philosophia and Philocosmia, who address him in his vision, and who, he says, are designated as eadem and diversa “by the prince of philosophers,”—an allusion perhaps to some of Aristotle’s pronouns.[116] Another curious circumstance is that the problem, How far would a stone of great weight fall, if dropped in a hole extending through the earth at the center? occurs in both the De eodem and Natural Questions.[117] In the latter the nephew puts the query to his uncle: in the former a Grecian philosopher whom Adelard has been questioning concerning the properties of the magnet in attracting iron, in his turn asks Adelard this question. Now in the Natural Questions Adelard’s answer is given, as if the nephew had never heard it before, but in the De eodem et diverso it is simply stated that the Greek “listened to my explanation of this,” as if the nephew had already heard the explanation from his uncle.[118]

How long had Henry I been reigning?

In opening the Natural Questions Adelard states that Henry I was reigning when he returned to England recently. This statement, in Professor Haskins’ opinion, “would seem to imply that he originally left England for his studies in France before Henry’s accession.” I am not quite sure that this inference follows, but if it does, may one not go a step further and argue that Henry I had come to the throne since Adelard parted from his nephew at Laon to investigate the learning of the Arabs? Had Henry become king of England while Adelard was still studying or teaching in northern Gaul, he would almost certainly have heard of it, and it would have been no news to him on his return from his studies among the Arabs. If we accept this view, Adelard’s return to England would be not later than 1107. But it could scarcely be earlier, if he wrote and dedicated the Natural Questions promptly after his arrival, of which he speaks as a recent event in that work, since the dedicatee did not become Bishop of Bayeux until 1107. And if the De eodem et diverso was written more than seven years before the Natural Questions, we should have to date it back into the eleventh century, which would perhaps be too early for its dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse. And to put these two works so early is to leave a gap between them and the other known dates of Adelard’s career, 1126, 1130, and 1142-1146, and make the period of his literary productivity quite a long one. He would have been quite a graybeard when he wrote on the astrolabe for the juvenile Henry Plantagenet. On the whole, therefore, I am inclined to think that Henry I had been reigning for some time when Adelard wrote the Natural Questions.

[104] Haskins (1911) pp. 492-3.

[105] It is true that after 1109, “The queen herself, who had for a time accompanied the movements of her husband, now resided mostly at Westminster” (G. B. Adams in Hunt and Poole, Political History of England, II, 151), so that Adelard would not have had many opportunities to play before her in the English possessions across the channel after that date.

[106] De eodem et diverso, pp. 25-6, Philosophy addresses Adelard, “... cum praeterito anno in eadem musica Gallicis studiis totus sudares adessetque in serotino tempore magister artis una cum discipulis cum eorum reginaeque rogatu citharam tangeres.”

[107] P. 3, line 16, “Quoniam autem in epistola hac ...”; line 25, “Hanc autem epistolam ‘De eodem et diverso’ intitulavi”; p. 34, line 7, “Vale; et utrum recte disputaverim, tecum dijudica.”

[108] P. 3, line 9, “Nam et ego, cum idem metuens iniustae cuidam nepotis mei accusationi rescribere vererer, in hanc demum sententiam animum compuli, ut reprehensionis metum patienter ferrem, accusationi iniustae pro posse meo responderem.”

P. 4, line 6, “Saepenumero admirari soles, nepos, laboriosi itineris mei causam et aliquando acrius sub nomine levitatis et inconstantiae propositum accusare ...”; line 17, “Et ego, si tibi idem videtur, causam erroris mei—ita enim vocare soles—paucis edisseram et multiplicem labyrinthum ad unum honesti exitum vocabo ...”; line 22, “Ego rem, quam per biennium celavi, ut tibi morem geram aperiam....”

P. 34, line 3, “Hactenus, carissime nepos, tibi causam itineris mei per diversarum regionum doctores flexi satagens explicavi, ut et me injustae accusationis tuae onere alleviarem et tibi eorundem studiorum affectum applicarem....”

[109] P. 33, line 13, “... a Salerno veniens in Graecia maiore ...”; also p. 32, line 27, “Quod enim Gallica studia nesciunt, transalpina reserabunt; quod apud Latinos non addisces, Graecia facunda docebit.”

[110] P. 4, line 25, “Erat praeterito in anno vir quidam apud Turonium ... et te eius probitas non lateat, qui una ibi mecum adesses.”

[111] Quest. nat., cap. 51, “Cum semel in partibus Antiochenis pontem civitatis Manistre transires, ipsam pontem simul etiam totam ipsam regionem terre motu contremuisse.” It is true that this remark is put into the nephew’s mouth, but it is probably meant to refer to an incident of Adelard’s recent trip abroad and not to some previous one.

[112] Quest. nat., proemium, “Meministi, nepos, septennio iam transacto, cum te in gallicis studiis pene puerum iuxta laudisdunum una cum ceteris auditoribus meis dimiserim, id inter nos convenisse ut arabum studia pro posse meo scrutarer, te vero gallicarum sententiarum in constantiam non minus acquireres?

(Nepos) Memini eo quoque magis quod tu discedens philosophie attentum futurum me fidei promissione astringeres.”

[113] De eodem, p. 4, line 10, “cum in pueritia adhuc detinearis.” In this treatise, too, Adelard himself is regularly spoken of as iuvenis, which is, however, an exceedingly vague word.

[114] “pene puerum.”

[115] Latin MS 2389, a twelfth century parchment, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The Questiones naturales end at fol. 82v, whence the De eodem et diverso continues to fol. 91v. The manuscript is described by Willner at p. 37 of his edition of the De eodem et diverso.

[116] P. 3, line 25ff. “Hanc autem epistolam ‘De eodem et diverso’ intitulavi, quoniam videlicet maximam orationis partem duabus personis, philosophiae scilicet atque philocosmiae attribui, una quarum eadem, alter vero diversa a principe philosophorum appellatur.” Adelard fails to explain why the title is not De eadem et diversa, as his explanation might seem to require.

[117] Quest. nat., cap. 49; De eodem et diverso, p. 33.

[118] In both treatises Adelard regards the stars as divine animals, as we have seen, and refers to the same partition of the head among the mental faculties in both (Quest. nat., cap. 18; De eodem, p. 32) but there is nothing to indicate which passage is prior.