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

by Lynn Thorndike

CHAPTER LIV

BARTHOLOMEW OF ENGLAND

Bartholomew on the character of his book—Question of its date—Who are the most recent authors cited in it?—How far are its citations first-hand?—Its medieval currency—Not a mere compilation nor limited to Biblical topics—The nature of demons—Psychology and physiology—Vision and perspective—Medieval domestic science—The medieval domestic servant—Medieval boys—Medieval girls—A medieval dinner—Dreams and their interpretation—Medical advice—Poisons—The waters above the firmament—The empyrean heaven: Rabanus—Alexander of Hales—Aristotelian theory of one heaven—As the basis of astrology—Properties and effects of the signs and planets—Bartholomew illustrates the general medieval acceptance of astrology—Medieval divisions of the day and hour—Form and matter; fire and coal—Air and its creatures—The swallow, swallow-stone, and swallow-wort—The hoopoe and magic—Water and fish—Jorath on whales—Geography; physical and political—Also economic—Medieval boundaries—France in the thirteenth century—Brittany and the British Isles—A geography by Herodotus—Two passages about magic—Bartholomew and Arnold of Saxony on stones—Citations by Arnold of Saxony and Bartholomew—Virtues of animals—Physiologus—Color, odor, savor, liquor.

Bartholomew on the character of his book.

On the Properties of Things by Bartholomew of England[1317] is, as has been said in a previous chapter, a work of the same sort as those on the natures of things by his earlier fellow-countryman, Alexander of Neckam, and his contemporary of Brabant, Thomas of Cantimpré. Bartholomew himself clearly states the character, purpose, and scope of his work both at its beginning and again in closing. It is primarily a brief compilation of passages on the natures and properties of things, which are scattered through the works both of the saints and the philosophers, with the intent of making plainer the enigmas which the Holy Scriptures conceal under the symbols and figures of the properties of natural and artificial objects. Bartholomew further speaks modestly of his work as an elementary treatise, text-book, or work of reference for the benefit of “young scholars and the general reader (simplices et parvuli) who because of the infinite number of books cannot look up the properties of the objects of which Scripture treats, nor are they able to find quickly even a superficial treatment of what they are after.”[1318] Bartholomew’s book is therefore “a simple and rude” compilation, but he hopes that it may prove useful to persons who, like himself, are not advanced scholars. But after mastering this elementary treatise, they should proceed to more subtle and specialized works. And if they think that anything should be added to what he has given, let them add it. From the tone of these remarks compared to those of Thomas of Cantimpré one would infer that the number of available books and also the amount of available knowledge had considerably increased since Thomas wrote. Yet at the most Bartholomew cannot have written very many years later than Thomas, and it is most likely that their books appeared almost simultaneously.

Question of its date.

If Bartholomew’s last sentence is interpreted as an open invitation to his readers to issue revised editions of the book or at least add to their own copies further extracts from the writings of the saints and the philosophers, we shall feel that it is rather risky to attempt to determine the date of the first appearance of the De proprietatibus rerum from the date of the latest works cited in our present copies. But all the manuscripts seem to be essentially alike regardless of date, and the printed edition seems to vary little from the text of the earliest manuscripts. To assist us in determining when Bartholomew lived and wrote we have a request from the General of the Franciscan Order in 1230 asking the French provincial to send to Magdeburg in Saxony Brother Bartholomaeus Anglicus to act as lecturer there.[1319] Salimbene, writing in 1284, cites a passage from Bartholomew concerning elephants and looks back upon him as a great clerk who lectured on the whole Bible in course at Paris.[1320] Bartholomew speaks of the inhabitants of Livonia as having been forced by the Germans from the cult of demons to the Faith of one God, and states that by divine grace and the cooperation of the Germans they are now believed to be freed from their former errors.[1321] But since the conquest of Livonia began as early as 1202, this passage does not serve to date Bartholomew’s work very definitely.

Who are the most recent authors cited in it?

It has already been remarked by the Histoire Littéraire de la France that in the bibliography at the close of his work Bartholomew mentions no writer of later date than the early thirteenth century.[1322] As Bartholomew himself states, however, he uses “many other” authorities than those given in the list, and other names are found sprinkled through his text. In the printed edition of 1488 the Speculum naturale of Vincent of Beauvais, which was not written until 1250, is cited,[1323] but this mention is found in the last sentence of a chapter and may be pretty certainly regarded as a later interpolation.[1324] In citing commentaries upon the works of Aristotle the printed text confuses the abbreviations Albu., Alber., and Alfre. or Alur., standing respectively for Albumasar, Albertus Magnus, and Aluredus or Alfred of England who alone is listed in Bartholomew’s bibliography. There seems to be no certain citation of Albert. If Bartholomew had read Albert’s sharp criticism of Jorath, he perhaps would not have made use of that author. The bibliography includes the names of Michael Scot who was dead by 1235 and of Robert of Lincoln, by whom Grosseteste must be meant, who was born about 1175, became bishop of Lincoln in 1235, and died in 1253. A Gilbertus mentioned in the bibliography may be either the medical writer, Gilbert of England, whose own date is somewhat uncertain, or a corruption for Gerbert. These three writers are seldom, if ever, cited by name in the text of Bartholomew. But he does cite Alexander of Hales[1325] who died in 1245. On the whole it seems possible that Bartholomew wrote his work as early as 1230.

How far are its citations first-hand?

The Histoire Littéraire asserts that “Bartholomew surely was not acquainted with all the authors, true or supposititious, whom he is pleased to enumerate,” but it gives no grounds except the list itself for this sceptical attitude. It is true that in the case of a few authorities in his list, such as Scipio Africanus, Ninus Delphicus, and Epicurus, it would have been as difficult to find any works by them then as now. But I believe that Bartholomew was a wide reader and acquainted with the greater part of the books and authors that he cites. Modern writers concerning medieval learning have too often proceeded upon the gratuitous assumption that medieval writers seldom were directly acquainted with the authorities which they cite. But one suspects that those who have assumed this were none too well acquainted themselves either with the works citing or cited. And why should medieval scholars take their citations at second hand? The original works were fairly accessible; the earliest manuscripts we have of them are almost invariably medieval, and probably they had many, many more copies that are now destroyed, and possibly some originals that are now forever lost. As for Bartholomew, his citations are so numerous, so varied, so specific that they must be largely first-hand.[1326] Obviously he did not spare himself trouble in making a book to save others trouble. Bartholomew also seems to be scrupulously honest in his citations. For instance, Pythagoras is cited but once in the Etymologies of Isidore,[1327] and when Bartholomew makes use of this passage, he gives both Pythagoras and Isidore credit.[1328] It is therefore only fair to Bartholomew to admit that, had his citation of Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans been drawn from any third author, he would have given him credit too. Bartholomew cites Pliny’s Natural History by book and chapter and is evidently directly acquainted with it. On the whole, I am inclined to think that medieval writers had read quite as much of the works listed in their bibliographies as modern writers have of those listed in theirs.

Its medieval currency.

In the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris alone there are eighteen manuscripts of the De proprietatibus rerum, chiefly of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, and the Histoire Littéraire tells us that its title appears in a catalogue of the books which the medieval booksellers of Paris rented to the students at that university.[1329] The work also occurs with frequency in the manuscript collections of England, Germany, and Italy. Hain’s list of fourteen printed editions of it before 1500 is incomplete, and the British Museum catalogue of books printed in Germany alone in the fifteenth century mentions nine editions. It was translated into French under Charles V in the fourteenth century, and also appeared in English, Spanish, and Dutch versions, all three of which were printed at the end of the fifteenth century. These facts indicate that the work was, and continued until the sixteenth century to be, widely used as a text-book, and suggest the further thought that such widely multiplied and disseminated elementary and popular works are more likely to have survived the stagnant and destructive period of the Black Death and Hundred Years War and to have come down to us than are the more advanced, original, and elaborate works of the thirteenth century. Be that as it may, we must not look upon the De proprietatibus rerum as a specimen of the most advanced medieval scholarship, but rather as an illustration of the rough general knowledge which every person with any pretense to culture was then supposed to possess. At the same time, the large number of authorities cited shows how much wider reading a medieval student might do.

Not a mere compilation nor limited to Biblical topics.

On the other hand, we must not be misled by Bartholomew’s humble tone of self-depreciation nor even by his assertion, repeated at the close as well as the opening of his work, that he presents “little or nothing of my own, but simply the words of the saints and the sayings of the philosophers.” As a matter of fact, he not infrequently alludes to contemporary matters or describes daily life without mentioning any authorities, and his amusing accounts of such animals as cats and dogs, or boys and girls, or his instructions how to set a table and give a dinner, are almost entirely his own and show considerable power of observation and dry humor. His chapters on geography, too, deal in large measure and with unusual fulness with the feudal states and peoples of his own day: Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, Brabant, Anjou, Poitou, and so on through a long list alphabetically arranged. In these and in other chapters he forgets all about the fact that he is supposedly explaining only those things mentioned in the Bible, and is manifestly actuated by a scientific interest in present facts and phenomena. The influence of Isidore’s Etymologies upon Bartholomew’s book is evident, and Bartholomew often makes Isidore his starting point in discussing a given topic. But he also often goes far beyond the other’s brief statements; it seems clear that the scanty contents of the Etymologies are no longer deemed sufficient even in an elementary encylopedia and general text-book. Bartholomew seems to use the scissors less than Thomas of Cantimpré, to state things more in his own words, and not to make such long extracts from or paraphrases of other works.

However, in Bartholomew’s first book, whose subject is God, the first two chapters are taken entirely and perhaps discreetly, since the difficult problem of the Trinity is under discussion, from an Extra of Innocent III, while the third chapter is drawn from more varied authorities, such as Augustine, the treatise on the Trinity ascribed to Boethius,[1330] and the more recent Hugh and Richard, both of St. Victor. Presently the theme of divine names is discussed[1331] and Bartholomew lists and explains the ten Hebrew names of God, which are found also in Isidore, namely: El, Eloe, Sabbaoth, Zelioz or Ramathel, Eyel, Adonay, Ya, Tetragrammaton, Saday, and Eloym.

The nature of demons.

In the second book on the properties of angels is also discussed the nature of demons.[1332] They are naturally perspicacious in matters of science and powerful by their “sense of nature”—a phrase which we have already met in William of Auvergne, whom, however, I think Bartholomew does not cite; perhaps it was a technical expression that spread rapidly from mouth to mouth of medieval psychologists as such expressions do today,—experience of time, and knowledge of Scripture. They can predict many future events, partly because their knowledge of nature gained through their subtler senses is superior to man’s, partly because of their longer lives which permit them to learn more, partly by angelic revelation. Their bodies were celestial before they transgressed but now are aerial. Apuleius’s characterization of them is repeated via Augustine, whose explanation is also given, that they know occult virtues in nature which are hidden from us and by which they are able to accelerate natural processes and work feats of magic such as those performed by Pharaoh’s magicians.

Psychology and physiology.

Bartholomew’s third book may be described as psychological and discusses the human mind or soul (anima), of which definitions by various Greek philosophers are repeated, and the senses. The fourth and fifth books are physiological. These three books seem to be based mainly upon the writings of Constantinus Africanus; less frequently Aristotle and other authorities are cited. One treatise is ascribed to Avicenna and Constantinus which is not in Peter the Deacon’s list of the latter’s works, namely, a treatise on poisonous animals and poisons and presumably a translation of Avicenna by Constantinus.[1333] In this connection we are told that while some animals have poisonous tongues like snakes, others have medicinal and healing tongues like the dog, as Cassiodorus says, and either from the goodness of nature or from some occult property.[1334] We have already noted elsewhere Bartholomew’s acceptance of the usual medieval theory of three brain cells devoted to three mental faculties, in which connection he cites Johannitius or Hunain ibn Ishak.[1335] In discussing the disease of melancholia Bartholomew tells of a noble whom he knew who imagined that he was a cat and insisted upon sleeping under the bed in order to watch the mouse holes.[1336] In a later passage in his seventh book Bartholomew repeats Constantinus’ distinction between mania as an infection of the anterior cell of the brain with injury to the imagination and melancholia as an infection of the central cell with loss of one’s reason.[1337]

Vision and perspective.

In discussing vision Bartholomew gives the views of “an author of the science of perspective” precedence over those of Constantinus.[1338] This author believes that in vision three coterminous pyramids or cones are formed with the apex of each in the pupil of the eye and the base formed by the object seen. One pyramid is made up of species from the object coming along straight lines to the center of the eye. The second pyramid is made by the vision going out from the eye to the object seen. The third pyramid consists of light, which, as Bartholomew explains elsewhere[1339] on the authority of Basel and Dionysius and Augustine, is a distinct substance by which other bodies are illuminated. Light was created three days before sun and moon which are simply vehicles for it. But while this light is always shining, whether visibly or invisibly, it produces illumination only when other bodies are in a condition to receive it. The human eye can see itself only by the reflection of rays, “and possibly the vision delights in the sight of a mirror because through reflection of rays it is, by returning to itself, fortified as it were and in a way strengthened.”[1340]

Medieval domestic science.

Bartholomew’s sixth book is entitled, “Of ages,” but really deals more with matters of daily family and domestic life, discussing in addition to age, death, infancy, childhood, manhood, such family relationships as father, mother, and daughter, and such domestic concerns as servants, food and drink, dinners and banquets, sleep and waking, dreams and exercise. This last topic of exercise is discussed largely in the words of a sermon by Fulgentius, but in other chapters Bartholomew writes so vividly from his own observation that he deserves quotation, although the themes are somewhat of a digression from our main subject.[1341]

The medieval domestic servant.

“The handmaid is a female slave deputed to make herself useful to the housewife. She is assigned to the more laborious and demeaning tasks, she is fed with coarser food, she is clad in meaner clothing, she is oppressed by the yoke of servitude.” Her son becomes a serf and, if she is of servile condition, so does a freeman who marries her, nor is she permitted to marry as she chooses. “Like the serf, she is because of the vice of ingratitude recalled after being manumitted, is afflicted with scoldings, is bruised by rods and beatings, is oppressed by varied and conflicting vexations and anxieties, is scarcely permitted to breathe amid her miseries.” Such painting of her woes does not imply much sympathy on Bartholomew’s part, however, since he concludes by saying that it is written that whoso nourishes his servant delicately will find him insolent in the end.[1342]

Medieval boys.

Boys have a great capacity for mischief but are susceptible to discipline, if put under tutors and compelled to submit to it. Their constitutions are hot and moist, their flesh is soft, their bodies are flexible, agile, and light; their minds are docile. They lead a safe life without care and worry, appreciating only play, fearing no danger more than the rod, loving apples better than gold. They go naked unashamed; they are heedless of praise or scolding, easily angered and easily placated, easily hurt in the body and unable to endure much work. The hot humor that dominates them makes them restless and fickle. They tend to eat too much and are susceptible to various diseases in consequence. They think only of the present and care nothing for the future; they love games and vanities but refuse to attend to gain and utility. “The least things they think the greatest, and vice versa.” “They want what is hurtful and contrary to them.” They do not remember favors received. All that they see they desire and imitate. They prefer to talk with and take advice from other boys, and shun the company of their elders. They can’t keep secrets. They laugh or cry easily, and they are continually shouting, talking, or chattering, and can scarcely keep still even while they are asleep.[1343]

Medieval girls.

Girls “are in constitution hot, moist, and of delicate health; in physique graceful and flexible and beautiful; in mental attitude modest and timid and playful; in their social relations well trained in manners, cautious and reticent in speech, luxurious in dress.” After quoting Aristotle to the effect that women generally have longer and softer hair than men and a longer neck, and remarking the peculiarities of their complexions and figures, Bartholomew says further that they have slenderer and more flexible hands and feet, a weaker voice, voluble and ready speech, that they take short steps, and that in mind they tend to be haughty, are prone to wrath, tenacious in hate, merciful, jealous, impatient of labor, docile, tricky, bitter, and “headlong in lust.”[1344] Whether Bartholomew is inconsistent in this passage or believes that the female nature is, the reader must judge.

A medieval dinner.

These are Bartholomew’s instructions for giving a dinner party: “First the food is prepared; at the same time the guests are assembled; chairs and also stools are required; in the dining room tables are set and the table furnishings are arranged and adorned. The guests with the host are placed at the head table, but they do not sit down at table before the hands of the guests are washed; next the host’s children and then the servants are grouped together at table. Spoons, knives, and salt cellars are first placed upon the table. Loaves of bread and cups of wine are presently added. There follow many and varied courses; the butlers and waiters serve each person diligently. The guests joyfully engage in vying with one another in pledging toasts; they are cheered with viols and citharas; now the wines and now the courses are renewed; they divide and share with one another the dishes which happen to be opposite them; finally the fruit and dessert are brought in. When dinner is finished, the table furnishings and remains of food are carried away and the tables are set aside. Hands are again washed and wiped; thanks are returned to God and to the host; for the sake of good cheer the cups go round again and again. When these features of the dinner are over, the guests either are offered couches for some rest, or are allowed to return home.”[1345]

Dreams and their interpretation.

In a chapter on dreams Bartholomew declares that they are sometimes true and sometimes false. One should neither put indiscriminate faith in them nor spurn them entirely, since sometimes certain conjectures concerning the future may be had through dreams. Moreover, the meaning of some dreams is evident at once; others require interpretation. Dreams arise from varied sources, being produced by divine inspiration, by angelic administration, by diabolic illusion, or by natural and bodily causes.[1346]

Medical advice.

Bartholomew’s seventh book is medical, treating of infirmities in seventy chapters. His desire to be brief is probably what restrains him from including any long medical concoctions. He continues to make much use of Constantinus Africanus, who is cited in almost every chapter, and whose “many other experiments”[1347] Bartholomew often has not time to include. One of the cures cited from Constantinus is to scarify the shin bones in order to cure a headache, the theory being that this will remove the injurious humor from the head to the lower extremities.[1348] A part of the treatment prescribed for cases of frenzy is to shave the scalp and wash it with tepid vinegar or cover it with plasters made of the lung of a pig or cow. Keeping the patient firmly bound in a dark place, bleeding him, and abstaining from answering his foolish questions are other features of the regimen suggested.[1349] To rouse a patient from a state of stupor and lethargy it is recommended to pull hard at his hair or beard, dash cold water frequently in his face, or make a stench under him.[1350] An “experiment” against epilepsy from Platearius consists in scarifying three drops of blood from the patient’s scalp and at the end of the fit giving them to him to eat with a crow’s egg.[1351] Indeed crow’s eggs alone are regarded as quite beneficial. To Platearius is also credited the following method “of curing or at least palliating leprosy.”[1352] Take a red snake with a white belly, remove the venom, cut off the head and tail, cook it with leeks, and administer it frequently with food,—a preparation roughly similar to theriac. Wine in which a snake has lain putrefying a long time is “a medicine useful for many diseases,” and Bartholomew repeats the tale we have heard before of the woman who caused her blind husband to recover his sight instead of killing him when she cooked a snake instead of an eel with garlic for him to eat. After such liberties had been taken with his blindness, one would expect a husband to recover his sight, if he could!

Poisons.

The poisons of venomous animals differ. The venom of the viper is hot and dry; that of the scorpion, cold and dry; that of the spider, cold and moist. Avicenna says that the poison of the male is really more deadly than that of the female, but female serpents have more teeth and so are perhaps worse on the whole. The venom of the old is more injurious than that of the young; that of a fasting animal is more harmful than that of a full animal; and poisons are worse in summer than winter, and at noon than at night.[1353] “Diascorides” says[1354] that river crabs possess an occult virtue against the bite of mad dogs, and their ashes taken with gentian are a singular remedy. A scorpion sting may be cured by placing oil in which the scorpion has been drowned or boiled upon the puncture, or by pulverizing the scorpion’s body and placing it upon the wound. The idea of course is that the poison will return to the body from which it came.

The waters above the firmament.

In book eight Bartholomew discusses the universe and celestial bodies. According to the tradition of the saints there is a visible and an invisible heaven. The visible heaven is multiplex and subdivides into seven heavens, the aerial, ethereal, fiery, Olympian, the firmament, the aqueous or crystalline, and the empyrean. The authority of Scripture concerning the waters above the firmament causes Bartholomew to accept the existence of an aqueous or crystalline heaven. But he rejects Bede’s view that these waters are cold and congealed in order to temper the excessive heat generated by the swift revolution of the other heavens, for Job tells us that there is concord and harmony in the heavens, and cold and humid waters would be contrary to the celestial substance of the heavens. Therefore “the moderns” have in Bartholomew’s opinion “investigated the inmost secrets of philosophy more profoundly,” when, as Alexander of Hales states, they suggest that those waters are neither frigid, fluid, and humid, nor congealed, solid, and ponderous, but on the contrary very mobile and remarkable for their clearness and transparency. It is not because they are congealed but because they are transparent that this heaven is called crystalline.[1355] In other words, the “waters above the firmament” are not really waters. And the original modern investigator who ventured to dispute Bede’s authority on the subject of the waters above the firmament was not Alexander of Hales but, as we have seen, William of Conches, whom Bartholomew lists in his bibliography and quotes in other passages, although he does not mention him by name here.

The empyrean heaven: Rabanus.

Of the other heavens Bartholomew gives most space to the empyrean. It is by nature immobile and unmoved and consequently is not essential like the other heavens for the continued generation of things in our inferior world, but rather, as Alexander of Hales says, to round out the universe and the types of bodies in it. Bartholomew continues: “The empyrean heaven is the first body, simplest in nature, the least corporeal, the subtlest, the first firmament of the world, largest in quantity, lucid in quality, spherical in shape, loftiest in location since farthest from the center, embracing in its amplitude spirits and bodies visible and invisible, and the abode of the supreme God; for God may be everywhere, yet he is said especially to be in the heaven, since there shines most powerfully the working of his virtue.”[1356] After this description of the last of the visible heavens as the abode of invisible spirits and of God Himself there does not seem to be much call for an invisible heaven, which Bartholomew himself seems by this time to have forgotten. For the passage just quoted he cites Rabanus as his source “who employs the words of Basil in the Hexaemeron,” but I have been unable to find the passage either in the Hexaemeron of Basil or the works of Rabanus Maurus.[1357] Nor have I been able to find several other citations which Bartholomew makes from Rabanus in matters astronomical and astrological.

Alexander of Hales.

A word may be introduced concerning Alexander of Hales, whom Bartholomew has twice cited in the foregoing passages, but whom we probably shall not have occasion to mention again. Like Bartholomew, he was an Englishman and a Franciscan, and Bartholomew may have been either an attendant upon his lectures or his colleague at Paris. He died in 1245 and is known as one of the first to attempt to fit together previous Christian opinion and theology with the newly introduced works of Aristotle and writings of the Arabs. Of this we see evidence in the citations made from him by Bartholomew. But Alexander’s field was primarily theology and not natural science.

Aristotelian theory of one heaven.

While the saints may regard the heavens as manifold and list as many as seven of them,[1358] the philosophers will admit only one heaven, says Bartholomew, who this time correctly quotes Basil as affirming in the Hexaemeron that “the philosophers would rather gnaw out their tongues than admit that there are many heavens.” Bartholomew also presents Aristotle’s view in the Liber de celo et mundo that the heaven is characterized by the greatest possible simplicity and purity and has no division or contrariety of parts. According to the new translation of De celo et mundo it is “a perfect complete unit to which there is no like, neither fabricated nor generated,” and with an equal, single, and circular motion. In the De causis elementorum Aristotle holds further that the heaven is a fifth element, differing in natural properties and distinct from the four elements and not like them subject to generation and corruption.[1359] Indeed, they would destroy one another by their mutual contrariety and repugnance were it not for the conciliating influence of celestial virtue.[1360] But while the heaven is one, it has many orbs and circles of varying figure and magnitude, and there is a greater aggregation of light in the stars than in other parts of the sky. Such variations account for the varying or even contrary effects produced by the heaven in our lower world at different times and places, and explain why the pure sky causes corruption as well as generation here below.

As the basis of astrology.

The Aristotelian foundation thus laid for the superstructure of astrological science and art is apparently accepted by Bartholomew, who states that “the Creator established the heaven as the cause and origin of generation and corruption, and therefore it was necessary that it should not be subject to generation and corruption.” In short, the universe divides into two parts. The heaven, beginning with the circle of the moon, is the nobler, simpler, superior, and active portion of the universe. The other part, extending from the sphere of the moon downward to earth’s center, is inferior, passive, acted upon and governed by the heaven. In all his later scientific and astrological discussion Bartholomew implies this hypothesis, and, after the two chapters which we have already summarized on the waters above the firmament and the empyrean heaven, pays no more attention to the seven heavens of the saints. The firmament, “called by the philosophers the first heaven and the last, in whose convexity are situated the bodies of stars and planets,” absorbs his attention during the remaining forty-eight chapters of his eighth book. “By means of its motion, it is the effective principle of generation and corruption in the inferior world.” Rabanus explains how its rays converge as toward a center upon the earth’s surface and exert a concentrated impression there; and the science of perspective also illustrates this. The three less stable elements, air, fire, and water, obey the firmament even to the extent of local motion, as is illustrated by the tides. The element earth is not influenced in this way, but produces diverse species from itself in obedience to the celestial impressions which it receives.

Properties and effects of the signs and planets.

Bartholomew discusses the signs of the zodiac in much the usual astrological fashion. They are given animal names because in their effects they represent the properties of those animals.[1361] In their effects, too, they may be distinguished as hot or cold, masculine or feminine, diurnal or nocturnal; and they are grouped in trios with the four elements and cardinal points and in varied relations with the planets. Each governs its portion of the human body; thus the Ram “dominates the head and face, and produces a hairy body, a crooked frame, an oblique face, heavy eyes, short ears, a long neck.”[1362] Each sign also has its bearings on human life; thus Virgo is “the house of sickness, of serfs and handmaids and the domestic animals. It signifies inconstancy and changing from place to place.”[1363] Bartholomew indeed devotes a separate chapter to “the properties and occult virtues” of each sign “according to the astrologers.”[1364] The seven planets by their progress through the signs and conjunctions in them influence every creature on earth.[1365] Bartholomew outlines their successive control of the formation of the child in the womb. He also devotes a chapter to the influence of each planet. Mars, for example, “disposes men to mobility and levity of mind, to wrath and animosity and other choleric passions; it also fits men for arts employing fire such as those of smiths and bakers, just as Saturn produces agriculturists and porters of heavy weights, and Jupiter on the contrary turns out men adapted to lighter pursuits such as orators and money-changers.”[1366] Bartholomew also discusses the head and tail of the dragon as “two stars which are not planets but yet seem to have the nature and influence of the planets.”[1367] The fixed stars, too, have their influence, causing storms or clear weather and, according to the mathematici, presignifying sad or glad events. Bartholomew further sets forth the theory of the magnus annus or return of all the stars to the same positions after an interval of 15,000 or 36,000 years. “But whatever the philosophers have said concerning it, this much is sure that it is not for us to determine the last day.”[1368] God alone knows. Bartholomew’s most frequently cited authorities on the subject of astrology seem to be Albumasar, Messahala[1369] (Ma Sha’ Allah), and Alphraganus.

Bartholomew illustrates the general medieval acceptance of astrology.

Thus Bartholomew, a Franciscan in good standing, who lectured on the Bible at Paris and was called by the General of his Order to lecture in Saxony, in a work intended for elementary students and the general reader, far from engaging in any tilt with the astrologers or attacking their art as involving fatalism and contrary to morality and free will, affirms the general law of the control of earth by sky and repeats with little or no question a mass of astrological detail from Arabian writers. After such an exhibition as this of what a commonplace and matter-of-course affair astrological theory was in the thirteenth century, how impossible it is to have the least sympathy with those specialists in medieval learning who would have the work of Daniel of Morley shunned like the pest because of its astrological doctrine, or account for Bacon’s imprisonment in 1278 by his astrological doctrine, or deny that Albertus Magnus could have written the Speculum astronomiae with its astrological doctrine. But of Bacon and Albertus more later.

Medieval divisions of the day and hour.

Bartholomew’s ninth book deals with time and its parts. He defines a day as the time occupied by a complete revolution of the sun around the earth, and states that a day consists of twenty-four hours, or of four “quarters” of six hours each. But he seems unacquainted with our division of the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds. Instead he subdivides the hour into four “points” or forty “moments.” Each moment is thus equivalent to a minute and a half of our time, and it may be divided further into twelve unciae (ounces), while each uncia includes forty-seven atoms, making 22,560 atoms in an hour as against 3,600 of our seconds. Honorius of Autun in his De imagine mundi, a work written presumably in the first part of the twelfth century, speaks of the hour as a twelfth part of the day, but makes it consist of four “points,” forty “moments,” and 22,560 atoms just as Bartholomew does. But Honorius also divides the hour into ten “minutes,” fifteen “parts,” and sixty ostenta, which last would correspond to our minutes, if his hour was of the same length as ours. Honorius does not mention the unciae of Bartholomew. [1370] Bartholomew further tells us that Sunday is called the Lord’s Day and is privileged in many particulars, since on it the world was created, the Lord was born, rose from the dead, and also sent the Holy Spirit. We have already presented Bartholomew’s discussion of the Egyptian days in an earlier chapter.

Form and matter: fire and coal.

The tenth book, in nine brief chapters, is entitled, “Form and Matter,” but after one chapter on form, discusses the elements. An element, according to Constantinus, is a simple substance and the least particle of a compound body. The rest of the chapters are devoted to the particular element fire and to things closely associated with it, such as flame, smoke, sparks, and ashes. Carbo, “Rabanus says, is fire actually incorporated and united with earthly matter.” Bartholomew’s further description suggests our coal, but perhaps he has only charcoal in mind.

Air and its creatures.

The eleventh book treats in sixteen chapters of the element air and its “passions,” such as winds, clouds, rainbows, dew, rain, hail, snow, thunder and lightning, and leads up to the following book on birds, or rather, creatures of the air, since bees, flies, crickets, locusts, bats, and griffins are included in the alphabetical list of thirty-eight chapters. The birds described are for the most part familiar ones: the eagle, hawk, owl, dove, turtle-dove, quail, stork, crow, crane, hen, swallow, kite, partridge, peacock, pelican, screech-owl, sparrow, vulture, hoopoe, phoenix. Some of these creatures place precious stones in their nests to keep off snakes, the eagle employing the gem achates[1371] and the griffin an emerald.[1372]

The swallow, swallow-stone, and swallow-wort.

Swallows have gems called celidonii in their gizzards, one white and one red. The red variety is called masculine because it is of greater virtue than the white kind. These stones are especially valuable if they have been extracted from the chick before it touches the ground, “as is said in Lapidarius where their virtues are described as Constantinus says.”[1373] Lapidarius can scarcely mean Marbod’s poem on gems, since he wrote later than Constantinus Africanus, and while he discusses the chelidonius, he says nothing of extracting it so soon and describes the colors of its two varieties as black and red,[1374] and so does Bartholomew later on.[1375] Marcellus Empiricus had called them black and white.[1376] Chelidonius seems to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, χελιδών, and to mean the swallow-stone. Pliny mentions two varieties but simply states that they are like the swallow in color, not that they come from its gizzard. Furthermore he describes the color of one as purple on one side, of the other as “purple besprinkled with black spots.”[1377] Solinus mentions swallows but says nothing of any stone connected with them. Bartholomew, however, also mentions the herb celidonia or swallow-wort. He cites Macrobius for the story that, if anyone blinds the young of swallows, the parent birds restore their offspring’s sight by anointing their eyes with the juice of this herb, a statement which is also found in Pliny.[1378] Not only does the swallow contain gems of great virtue and know of healing herbs; it has medical properties itself. For instance, blood extracted from its right wing is a remedy for the eyes.

The hoopoe and magic.

Of the birds described by Bartholomew the upupa or hoopoe is especially associated with the practice of magic. Pliny cites the poet Aeschylus as saying that the bird changes its form;[1379] and from Aristotle to modern French peasants it has been believed to build its nest of human ordure.[1380] After quoting Isidore, who in part uses Pliny,[1381] for the bird’s supposed filthy habits, its frequenting sepulchers, and the statement that anyone anointed with its blood will see demons suffocating him in his dreams, Bartholomew adds that its heart is used in sorceries. Students of nature (Phisici) say that when it grows old and cannot see or fly, its offspring tear off its outworn pinions and bathe its eyes with the juices of herbs—thus just reversing the relation between the swallow and its young—and warm it under their wings until its feathers grow again and, perfectly renovated, it is able to see and fly as well as they. In Basil’s Hexaemeron a similar story is told of the filial devotion of young storks toward their aged parent. The hoopoe’s renovation by its young also is included in the Latin bestiaries,[1382] but Bartholomew appears to cite Phisici rather than Physiologus.[1383] Thomas of Cantimpré’s chapter on the hoopoe is similar to Bartholomew’s except that all he says to connect it with magic is that anointing one’s temples with its blood protects one from sorcerers and enchanters; but “how this is, Experimenter does not state.” Vincent of Beauvais gives a somewhat fuller account of the hoopoe in his Speculum naturale and the bird’s properties are also treated by Albertus Magnus in his De animalibus,[1384] and in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to him, also by Petrus Hispanus in the Thesaurus pauperum,[1385] and by Arnald of Villanova in Remedia contra maleficia. For the use of the bird’s heart in magic Vincent cites a Liber de natura rerum, which perhaps is the Liber rerum cited by Thomas of Cantimpré, who, however, in that case failed to copy the statement in question. Vincent attributes to “Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans,” the statement that sprinkling a sleeping person with the blood of the hoopoe will cause him to see phantasms of demons, which is essentially the same statement that Bartholomew draws from Isidore and Pliny. But Bartholomew sometimes cites Pythagoras in The Book of the Romans. These instances show the difficulty of dealing with medieval citations, but on the whole indicate that Vincent used independently the same sources as Thomas and Bartholomew and made a different selection from them.

Waters and fish.

In the thirteenth book Bartholomew deals with the element water, with wells, streams, seas, ponds, pools, and drops of water, with some particular bodies of water such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan, Lake of Tiberias, and Mediterranean Sea. In the last chapter fish are considered. As in the account of birds, use is made of Isidore and Pliny, notably concerning the cleverness with which fish escape the snares laid for them by fishermen. Some fish are said to help their fellows withdraw from the basket-like traps set for them by fishermen by seizing their tails in their mouths and pulling them out backwards. Aristotle, too, is cited and Avicenna is referred to several times on the question whether a particular fish is edible or not. But an authority especially employed in this chapter is Jorath or Iorat, who in the bibliography at the end of the work is called a Chaldean. From his book on animals Bartholomew takes such details as that there are fish who live only three hours, who conceive from dew alone or in accord with the phases of the moon and the rising and setting of the stars. Dolphins, when a man is drowning, can tell from the odor whether he has ever eaten the flesh of a dolphin. If he has not, they rescue him and bring him safe to land; if he has, they devour him on the spot.

Jorath on whales.

Bartholomew also depends upon Jorath for his account of whales, which were not treated of by Pliny. The whale possesses a superabundance of sperm which floats on the water and, when collected and dried, turns to amber. When hungry, the whale has only to open its mouth and emit a fragrant odor like amber, and the other fish, attracted and delighted thereby, swim into its jaws and down its throat. On some occasions, however, this pleasant breath, if it may be so termed, of the whale saves the other fish instead of luring them on to destruction. When a certain serpentine and venomous fish approaches, they take refuge behind the whale, who then repels the fetid odor of the newcomer by the sweetness of his own effusion. While Bartholomew lists the whale along with fish, he notes that Jorath says that terrestrial matter dominates in it over water, and that consequently it becomes very corpulent and fat, and in its old age dust collects on its back to such an extent that vegetation grows there and the creature is often mistaken for an island and lures sailors to their destruction,—a reminiscence, we may suppose, of one of Lucian’s stories. So fat is the whale that he must be wounded deeply to feel it at all, but once his inner flesh is reached by the weapon, he cannot endure the bitterness of the salt water, seeks the shore, and is easily captured. The whale cherishes its young with wondrous love, and when they are stranded on shoals it frees them by spouting water over them. When a severe storm is raging, it swallows them and they abide safely in its belly until the storm is past, when it vomits them forth again.

Geography, physical and political.

In the fourteenth book Bartholomew treats of earth, and besides defining mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, meadows, deserts, caves, and ditches in general, describes over thirty particular peaks or mountain ranges, most of which are named in the Bible, like Ararat, Bethel, Hermon, Hebron, and Horeb. But in the fifteenth book, on Provinces, his geography is that of classical antiquity and of the feudal world of his own time rather than that of Scripture. Where the medieval region was known under the same name in antiquity, he is apt to continue to use the old description of it, even though it may be really out-of-date and no longer closely applicable. Sometimes, however, as in the chapter on Burgundy, he uses only a little of Isidore’s description and apparently writes the rest of the paragraph from personal knowledge. And in the case of new localities and names, for which he can find no ancient and early medieval authorities, he describes the province intelligently and accurately as it is in his own time. On the whole his account, although its 175 chapters are brief, is of considerable value[1386] for the political geography of Europe in the thirteenth century, both as a general survey showing what regions he deemed important enough to mention[1387] and what he thought might be omitted, and also often for particular details concerning particular places, while it is sometimes enlivened by the spice of local or racial prejudice.

Also economic.

Citing Isidore, Bartholomew divides the world as in a T map into Asia, occupying one-half the circle, and Europe and Africa each occupying a quarter. Indeed he says later that Africa is smaller than Europe;[1388] Africa of course had not yet been circumnavigated. In speaking of Alemannia he alludes to other provinces “in either Germany” which are not included in his list of chapter headings: Austria and Bavaria near the Danube, Alsace along the Rhine, “and many others which it would be tedious to enumerate one by one.”[1389] He describes Apulia as the maritime region in Italy separated from the island of Sicily by an arm of the sea, and as a very populous land, full of gold and silver, rich in grain, wine, and oil, famous for its renowned cities, well fortified in castles and towns, fertile and fecund in varied crops. Brindisi (Brundusium) is its metropolis, and across the sea from Apulia to the south is Barbary.[1390] Bartholomew thus uses the term “Apulia” as “Le Puglie” is used today, to include both ancient Apulia and Calabria, which he does not mention by that name. His description testifies to the greater prosperity of that region under the Normans and Frederick II than in later times, and also shows that Bartholomew is not blind to economic conditions in his survey of various regions. He is very apt, indeed, to tell whether the soil is well-watered and fertile or rocky and arid, and to describe the other resources of the district and the characteristics of the peoples inhabiting it. He speaks in high praise of the extensive dominions and sea-power of Venice and of the justice and concord of its citizens.[1391] He also recognizes the importance of the wool trade between England and Flanders.[1392]

Medieval boundaries.

Bartholomew often undertakes to state the boundaries of a region under discussion. Sometimes he is clear and convincing in this, as when he states that Gascony used to be a part of Aquitaine, that it is bounded by the Pyrenees, the Ocean, and the county of Toulouse, and approaches the territory of the Poitevins to the north; that it is drained by the Garonne river and that Bordeaux is its metropolis.[1393] Sometimes his statements are confusing, but we must remember that feudal states were very difficult to bound exactly and varied greatly in extent from time to time. Some mistakes in the points of the compass are perhaps slips of copyists rather than of Bartholomew. He speaks of Brabant and Lorraine as the westernmost or frontier provinces of Germany. Brabant is bounded on the north by Frisia, the Britannic Ocean (North Sea), and the Gulf of Flanders; on the west by lower Gaul and on the south by upper France. It is watered by the Meuse and Scheldt.[1394] Lorraine is bounded by Brabant, the Rhine, Alsace, the region of Sens, and Belgic Gaul. Metz is located in it.[1395] Flanders is a province of Belgic Gaul next the seacoast, with Germany to the east, the Gallic sea to the west, and the region of Sens and Burgundy to the south.[1396]

France in the thirteenth century.

Bartholomew is uncertain whether France is named from the Franks or from a free hangman (a franco carnifice) who became king at Paris and from whom the executioners received privileges. Isidore does not mention Francia, so that Bartholomew does not derive this etymology from him. He seems uncertain also whether to identify France with all ancient Gaul or simply with Belgic Gaul. He would carry it south only to the province of Narbonensis and the Pennine Alps, but east to the Rhine and Germany. This perhaps is an attestation of the growing territorial power of the French monarch, but perhaps is also a hold-over from the ancient boundaries of Gaul. At any rate many of his other regions would overlap and conflict with a France of this size. He extols the stone and cement about Paris, which give it an advantage over other localities in building construction, and he further eulogizes the city itself as the Athens of his age which elevates the science and culture not of France only but all Europe.[1397]

Brittany and the British Isles.

Léopold Delisle, writing in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, endeavored to claim Bartholomew as a Frenchman, despite the Anglicus that regularly accompanies his name. Yet for all Bartholomew’s praise of Paris and Venice, his chapters on England, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany[1398] are alone almost enough to determine his nationality. He asserts that Brittany should be called Britannia Minor, and the island Britannia Maior or Great Britain, since Brittany was settled by fugitive Britons from the island and the daughter should not be raised to an equality with the mother country, especially since it cannot equal Great Britain either in population or merit.[1399] Also Bartholomew represents the Irish as savages[1400] and describes the Scots in very unfavorable terms. His view is that if they have any good customs, they borrowed them from the English. He admits, however, that the Scots would be good-looking in face and figure, but then adds the insulting condition, if they would not insist on deforming themselves by wearing their national costume.[1401] But as for England, or Albion as it was once called, after describing it as the largest island in the (Atlantic) ocean and recounting some of its legends and history, Bartholomew quotes a metrical description of it as a fertile corner of the world, a rich island which has little need of the rest of the world but whose products all the rest of the world requires, and whose people are happy, jocose, and free of mind, tongue, and hand.[1402] Censure of and prejudice against all others who claim to be British, ill-concealed insular pride! Who can doubt that the writer is an Englishman?

A geography by Herodotus.

Some writer named Herodotus is cited a good deal by Bartholomew for such regions as Poitou, Picardy, Saxony, Sclavia, Scotland, and Thuringia, of which the Greek historian Herodotus of course knew nothing and said nothing.

Two passages about magic.

The inhabitants of Finland, we are told, are a barbarous race “occupied with magic arts.” They practice divination by means of the number of knots in a ball of thread and sell favorable winds to the sailors who navigate along their shores. In reality, Bartholomew explains, the demons send the winds or not, in order to secure the souls of the Finns in the end.[1403] While we are on the subject of magic, a passage from Bartholomew’s next book may be noted.[1404] Discussing the gem Heliotrope, he cites Isidore for the statement that “it manifests the stupidity of enchanters and magicians who glory in their prodigies, for they deceive men’s eyes in their operations just as this gem does, of which he says by way of illustration that together with the herb of the same name and certain incantations it deceives the gaze of the spectators and causes them not to see the man who carries it.” But when we turn to the Etymologies,[1405] we find that Isidore simply quotes the sentence of Pliny, “This too is a manifest instance of the impudence of the magicians that they say that the bearer of this stone cannot be seen if he joins to it the herb Heliotrope and adds certain prayers.” Bartholomew has evidently put his own interpretation upon the passage.

Bartholomew and Arnold of Saxony on stones.

The last passage has introduced us to Bartholomew’s sixteenth book on gems, minerals, and metals. Valentin Rose,[1406] in what Langlois praised as “sa belle dissertation sur le De lapidibus aristotélique et sur le Lapidaire d’Arnoldus Saxo,”[1407] exploited a hitherto obscure German writer, Arnold of Saxony, who appears to be cited only by Vincent of Beauvais and of whose works but a single manuscript is known. Yet Rose would have us believe that Albertus Magnus made much use of him without acknowledgment in his work on minerals[1408] and that Bartholomew did the same in his sixteenth book. I shall endeavor to show that it is much more likely that Arnold copied Bartholomew. First, it is less likely that Bartholomew, who was called to Magdeburg to instruct the Saxons, possibly after his De proprietatibus rerum had been completed, would have borrowed from one of them than that the opposite should be the case. Second, Bartholomew’s work is much fuller than Arnold’s which Rose admits is “meager and mechanical.” Third, Bartholomew’s work is professedly a compilation; his object is to cite his authorities and he usually does so scrupulously; hence if he made much use of Arnold, he would certainly mention him somewhere. Fourth, in descriptions of particular stones Arnold of Saxony cites no authorities but merely makes the lump statement at the start that he uses Aristotle, Aaron and Evax, by whom he means Marbod’s poem, and “Diascorides”; Bartholomew on the other hand in the case of each gem makes distinct citations from Isidore, Lapidarius,[1409] and “Diascorides,” all of whom he is evidently using directly but with discrimination and in different combinations in each particular case. Fifth, the same stones are treated more fully by Bartholomew than by Arnold, whose terse descriptions suggest the style of an abbreviator. Thus Bartholomew devotes two columns to the sapphire; Arnold gives it but eleven lines. Sixth, although Rose denied that Arnold used Aristotle and “Diascorides” except in his other work De virtute universali, and contended that in his De virtutibus lapidum he used only Marbod and one other unknown source, in point of fact almost every passage in Arnold which Rose refers to this unknown source is given by Bartholomew as from “Diascorides.” If, therefore, Arnold’s unknown source is not “Diascorides,” it must be Bartholomew. The natural inference is that while Bartholomew has made direct use of some treatise passing under the name of Dioscorides, Arnold has not seen this treatise itself but has probably condensed or extracted it at second-hand from Bartholomew without acknowledging his indebtedness to Bartholomew at all and only vaguely acknowledging his debt to “Diascorides” in his preface. This inference is supported by the use made of Isidore on stones by our two authors; Bartholomew uses Isidore directly and cites book and chapter; Arnold repeats indirectly through Marbod a bare skeleton of brief phrases which originally were in Isidore.[1410]

Citations by Arnold of Saxony and by Bartholomew.

Rose further asserted, without printing the passages in question to support his contention, that Albertus Magnus had simply copied a number of citations from Arnold, such as Jorach on animals, Pictagoras in The Book of the Romans, Esculapius in De membris, Zeno in De naturalibus, Velbetus in De sensibus, and Alchyldis De venenis. But we have already noted that Bartholomew cites Jorath and Pythagoras; Zeno, too, is in his bibliography, and in the introduction to his eighteenth book he cites the Liber Escolapii de occultis membrorum virtutibus. Vincent of Beauvais also cites these works more than once. I do not believe that Bartholomew took his citations from Arnold, and I doubt if either Albert or Vincent did. The probability is that such books were common property then, however little may be known about them today, and that it would be as easy then for anyone to lay his hand on these books as on the works of Arnold of Saxony, whom Vincent alone mentions. In discussing other mineral substances than gems, such as metals, sulphur, salt, soda, glass, Bartholomew cites Aristotle, Avicenna, and Platearius as well as Lapidarius, Isidore, and “Diascorides,” but in the seventeenth book on trees and herbs he continues to cite “Dyascorides” and Isidore, although also making extensive use of Pliny. In the eighteenth book on animals his list of authorities widens again and he cites Solinus, Papias, Marcianus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Avicenna, and Isaac, but Pliny continues to be his chief reliance.

Virtues of animals.

In the introduction to this book Bartholomew takes the view, supported by the authority both of Pliny and of John of Damascus,[1411] that all kinds of animals were created for man’s benefit. Even fleas and vermin, like wild beasts and reptiles, are useful in leading him to recognize his own infirmity and to invoke the name of God. But furthermore “there is nothing in the body of an animal which is without manifest or occult medicinal virtue.” Escolapius in The Occult Virtues of Members states that hemorrhoids may be cured by sitting on a lion’s skin, and Bartholomew lists other examples of amulets, ligatures, and suspensions from Pliny and the Viaticum of Constantinus Africanus as well as “Dyascorides” and “Pitagoras in The Book of the Romans.” The knowledge of medicinal herbs and the semi-human emotions or moral virtues supposed to be possessed by animals also receive the usual treatment. Bartholomew informs us that the deadly basilisk loses its venomous character when burned to an ash, and that its ashes are considered useful in operations of alchemy and especially in the transmutation of metals.[1412] Jerome and Solinus are cited concerning dragons who overturn ships by flying against their sails, and of the use made by the Ethiopians of the blood of dragons against the summer’s heat and of their flesh for divers diseases. For as David says, “Thou gavest him for food to the peoples of Ethiopia.”[1413] Marvelous monsters of India are not forgotten, and Aristotle is cited concerning a terrible man-eating wolf in India with three sets of teeth, a lion’s foot, a scorpion’s tail, human face and voice. Its voice is furthermore terrible like the sound of a trumpet, and it is swift as a deer.[1414] Bartholomew’s credulity and scepticism vary with the attitude of his authorities. When he finds them in disagreement over the question whether the beaver castrates itself in order to escape its hunters—Cicero, Juvenal, Isidore, and Physiologus asserting this, while Pliny, Dyascorides, and Platearius deny it—he prefers the arguments of the latter, especially since the experience of his own time supports their view.[1415]

Physiologus.

Physiologus is cited a number of times[1416] by Bartholomew concerning the snake, crocodile, elephant, wolf, wild ass or onager, the onocentaur who is half human and half ass, panther, siren, and taxo or melus. Rather strangely he does not cite Physiologus in describing the lion. Bartholomew’s citations of Physiologus bear out the points we have made in an earlier chapter that Physiologus is one thing, and the allegorical interpretation of passages cited from Physiologus another thing, that Physiologus means what it says, “Natural Scientist,” and not allegorist or moralizer. For although a primary purpose of Bartholomew’s own work is supposed to be the elucidation of the truth concealed in Scripture under the symbolism of natural phenomena, he cites Physiologus simply for zoological data and omits entirely the moral application and spiritual allegory which it has become customary to associate with the term Physiologus. Moreover, much which Bartholomew ascribes to Physiologus cannot be found in any of the bestiaries which are commonly associated with that name.[1417] This again shows how the middle ages added to its ancient authorities.

Color, odor, savor, liquor.

In his nineteenth and last book Bartholomew states that he will treat “first of color, then of odor, then of savor, last of liquor.” The discussion of color occupies the first thirty-six chapters in which Aristotle is more frequently cited than any other authority. The citations become less numerous from chapter eleven to thirty-six[1418] while particular colors are being described, and where Bartholomew perhaps gives us some original information. Isaac seems to be Bartholomew’s chief authority in the chapters upon smell and taste. Concerning the latter matter Bartholomew states that the theories of philosophers and medical men disagree.[1419] Under the caption of Liquor he describes honey, mead, claretum (which was a mixture of wine, honey, and spices), milk, butter, and cheese. These last suggest eggs, and chapters 77 to 113 are devoted to those of various animals. The work then proceeds to consider weights and measures, and concludes with chapters describing various musical instruments.[1420]

[1317] Bartholomew has already been presented in part to English-speaking readers in Steele’s Medieval Lore, London, 1907, and more recently in excerpts in Coulton’s Social Life in Britain from the Norman Conquest to the Reformation, Cambridge, 1918, but their quotations and most other modern references to him are based upon the later medieval English versions of his work and not upon his own original Latin text. My summary is based directly upon the Latin text as printed by Lindelbach at Heidelberg in 1488:

“Explicit liber de proprietatibus rerum editus a fratre Bartholomeo anglico ordinis fratrum minorum. Anno domini Mcccclxxxviii kalendas vero Junii xii.”

I am indebted to the liberality of the John Crerar Library in Chicago in allowing this rare volume to be transported to Cleveland for my use.

I have also checked up the printed text to some extent by examination of the following MSS at Paris. On the whole the discrepancies between the MSS and printed version seem slight, although a modern critical edition of Bartholomew’s work is certainly desirable, especially in view of the rarity of the editio princeps.

BN 16098, 13th century.

BN 16099, 13th century.

BN 347, 14th century.

Since I finished this chapter a paper has appeared by G. E. Se Boyar, “Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopaedia,” in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XIX (1920) 168-89.

[1318] De propriet. rerum, Book XIX, close.

[1319] Wadding, Annales, 1230, No. 16; cited HL XXX, 355.

[1320] Cited HL XXX, 354.

[1321] De propriet. rerum, XV, 88.

[1322] HL XXX, 357; at pp. 356-7 it reproduces Bartholomew’s bibliography.

[1323] IV, 2, “Hec vincentius in speculo suo naturali, li. III, ca. lxxiii.” I was not able to find this citation in such MSS as I examined.

[1324] Had the Speculum naturale been written before the De proprietatibus rerum, Bartholomew, if he cited it at all, would have made use of it more than once, but would hardly have spoken as he did of the need of one compilation on the natures and properties of things, had the Speculum already been in existence.

[1325] VIII, 3.

[1326] It is true that they do not always seem absolutely accurate, but copyists may have altered or misplaced them.

[1327] Etymol., XII, 4.

[1328] De propriet. rerum, XVIII, 8.

[1329] HL XXX, 363.

[1330] And now again accepted as his; see above, chapter 27, page 619.

[1331] De propriet. rerum, I, 19.

[1332] Ibid., II, 19-20.

[1333] De propriet. rerum, V, 21-22. (Henceforth all citations in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be to this work.) BN 16099, fol. 31r, V. 21, “ut dicunt avicenna et constantinus in tractatu de venenosis animalibus et venenis”; V. 22, “ut dicunt predicti auctores in tractatu de venenis.”

[1334] V, 21.

[1335] III, 10 and 16; V, 3.

[1336] IV, 11.

[1337] VII, 5.

[1338] III, 17.

[1339] VIII, 40.

[1340] V, 7.

[1341] Since I completed this chapter in manuscript form there has appeared in print G. C. Coulton’s Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, Cambridge, 1918, in which he has selected almost exactly the same passages from Bartholomew as illustrations of his theme. This is welcome confirmation of their interest and importance, and I have decided to let the following paragraphs stand for two reasons, despite the fact that they are now available elsewhere in English. In the first place any description of the De proprietatibus rerum would seem rather incomplete without them. In the second place Mr. Coulton gives the passages in Trevisa’s English translation, while I have made a translation direct from the Latin text in more modern English. The exaggerated impression of quaintness and illiteracy which the old English version makes upon the modern reader finds in my opinion little or no justification in the original Latin. Men apparently could think more directly in Latin in the thirteenth century than they could express themselves in English in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

[1342] VI, 11.

[1343] VI, 5.

[1344] VI, 6.

[1345] VI, 22.

[1346] VI, 27.

[1347] VII, 9 and 16.

[1348] VII, 2.

[1349] VII, 4.

[1350] VII, 6.

[1351] VII, 9.

[1352] VII, 64.

[1353] VII, 66.

[1354] VII, 68.

[1355] VIII, 3.

[1356] VIII, 4.

[1357] At least as printed in Migne, PL.

[1358] R. H. Charles, in discussing “The Seven Heavens—an early Jewish and Christian belief” (Morfill and Charles, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford, 1896, pp. xxx-xlvii), asserts that after Chrysostom, “Finally such conceptions, failing in the course of the next few centuries to find a home in Christian lands, betook themselves to Mohammedan countries” (Ibid., xxxi-xxxii). But Bartholomew ascribes to “the tradition of the saints” a belief in the plurality of heavens and a sevenfold division of them other than the planetary spheres.

[1359] VIII, 2.

[1360] VIII, 28.

[1361] VIII, 9.

[1362] VIII, 10.

[1363] VIII, 15.

[1364] VIII, 21, which is the last of the twelve chapters.

[1365] VIII, 22.

[1366] VIII, 25.

[1367] VIII, 31.

[1368] VIII, 33.

[1369] In the bibliography Miselat astrologus; in the text Misa., Misael, mesahel, Misalach, etc. I am convinced that none of these is meant for Michael Scot who is also listed in the bibliography but does not seem to be cited in the text.

[1370] Migne, PL vol. 172, col. 147, “Hora ... est duodecim pars diei, constans ex quatuor punctis, minutis decem, partibus quindecim, momentis quadraginta, ostentis sexaginta, atomis viginti duobus mil, quingentis et sexaginta.”

[1371] XII, 1.

[1372] XII, 19.

[1373] XII, 21, “hi lapidi dicuntur celidonii et sunt preciosi maxime quando extrahuntur de pullo antequam tangat terram ut dicitur in lapidario ubi eorum virtutes describuntur, ut dicit Constan. Sanguis de dextra ala extractus oculis medetur....” But perhaps the “ut dicit Constan.” goes with these last words rather than the preceding.

[1374] Migne, PL 171, 1750. In a number of other cases Bartholomew’s citations of Lapidarius do not apply to Marbod.

[1375] XVI, 30.

[1376] De medicamentis, cap. viii.

[1377] NH 37, 56.

[1378] NH 25, 50.

[1379] NH 10, 44.

[1380] Bostock and Riley, English Translation of Pliny’s Natural History, London, 1890 (Bohn Library), II, 511 note. And see D’Arcy W. Thompson’s note on Aristotle’s History of Animals, IX, 15.

[1381] Etymologies, XII, vii, 66, in Migne PL 82, 468.

[1382] Cahier (1851); De bestiis, I, 51, ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor, in Migne PL 177, 50.

[1383] Phisici in the printed edition used; in BN 16099, fol. 97r, ph’i; BN 347, fol. 126r, ph’ici. In the work of Thomas of Cantimpré, however, BN 347B, 14th century, fol. 104v, “Dicit ph’s” which may stand for Physiologus, Philosophus, or Phisicus.

[1384] De animal, XXIII, 111.

[1385] Thesaurus pauperum, cap. 85.

[1386] Yet neither Bartholomew of England nor Thomas of Cantimpré is mentioned by C. Kretschmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, 1889, although he uses Neckam, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon.

[1387] Bartholomew’s list of provinces with the Latin name anglicized in some cases is as follows. Asia, Assyria, Arabia, Armenia, Aradia, Albania (i.e., in Asia), Attica, Achaia, Arcadia, Alania (land of the Alani), Amazonia (land of the Amazons), Alemannia, Anglia (England), Aquitaine, Anjou, Auvergne, Apulia, Africa, Asturia, Aragon, Babylonia, Bactria, Braciana, Brabant, Belgica, Bithynia, Britannia, Boecia (Boeotia), Bohemia, Burgundy, Cappadocia, Chaldea, Cedar, Kent, Cantabria, Canaan, Campania, Cauda, Cilicia, Cyprus, Crete, Cyclades, Choa, Corsica (later occurs a longer chapter on Korsica), Dalmatia, Denmark (Dacia), Delos, Dedan, Europe, Evilath, Ethiopia, Egypt, Hellas, Eola (Aeolia?), Franconia, Francia (i.e. France), Flanders, Fenix (Phoenicia?), Phrygia, Frisia, Fortunate Islands (Canaries), Galilee, Gallacia (in central Europe), Gallicia (in the Spanish peninsula), Gaul, Gadis, Greece, Isle of the Gorgons, Gothia and the island of Gothland (Sweden and Gotland), Guido, India, Hyrcania, Idumea, Judea, Iberia, Italy, Spain (Hispania), Ireland (Hibernia), Icaria, the island in the salt sea (De insula in salo sita), Carthage, Carinthia, Lacedemonia, Lithuania (Lectonia), Livonia, Lycia, Lydia, Libya (Lybia), Lorraine (Lothoringia), Lusitania, Mauritania, Macedonia, Magnesia, Mesopotamia, Media, Melos, Midia, Meissen, Mytilene, Nabathea, Norway, Normandy, Numidia, Narbonensis, Ophir, Holland (Ollandia), Orcades, Paradise, Parthia, Palestine, Pamphylia, Pannonia, Paros, Pentapolis, Persia, Pyrenees, Pigmy-land, Poitou (Pictavia), Picardy, Ramathea, Reucia, Rivalia, Rinchonia, the Roman province (i.e., Provence), Romania, Rhodes, Ruthia, Sabaea, Samaria, Sambia, Sabaudia, Sardinia, Sarmatia, Samos, Saxony, Sclavia (land of the Slavs), Sparta (Sparciata), Seres (i.e., China), Seeland (Zeeland), Semogallia, Senonensis (region about Sens), Syria, Sichima, Scythia, Sicyon, Sicily, Sirtes, Scotland (Scotia), Suecia (Sweden, before called Gothia), Suevia (Swabia), Tanatos, Taprobana, Thrace, Traconitida, Thessaly, Tenedos, Thule, Tripoli (two are distinguished in Syria and Africa respectively), Tragodea, Troyland, Tuscany (Thuscia), Thuringia, Thuronia (the region about Tours), Gascony (Vasconia), Venice, Westphalia, Vironia, Finland, Vitria, Iceland, Zeugia.

[1388] XV, 19.

[1389] XV, 13.

[1390] XV, 18.

[1391] XV, 169.

[1392] XV, 58.

[1393] XV, 168.

[1394] XV, 25.

[1395] XV, 92.

[1396] XV, 58.

[1397] XV, 57.

[1398] Of these four chapters Delisle (HL XXX, 353-65) quoted only that on England. Delisle gave extracts from Bartholomew’s descriptions of several French provinces to show that he knew them well and stated that he gave much fewer details concerning England, but that he (Delisle) would transcribe the chapter “parce qu’on pourrait supposer qu’il renferme des allusions à la prétendue origine anglaise de Barthélemi.” Delisle also cited (p. 362) the chapter on Britannia, but omitted the statements which I shall cite, and earlier said (p. 358), “Nous n’avons rien à relever dans les chapitres de la Normandie, de la Bretagne,” etc.

Yet the statements I shall cite occur in both the MSS which Delisle used, where the chapter on Britannia is continued beyond the point where his quotation leaves off as follows:

BN 16098, 13th century, fol. 14Or. “Est autem alia britannia minor super oceanum aquitanicum sita in partibus galliarum que a britonibus relinquentibus britanniam maiorem propter importunitatem germanorum est usque hodie populata, vero usque adhuc genus britonum et nomen perseverat, et quamvis hec britannia in multis laude digna sit, non potest tamen filia matri, minor britannia maiori comparari, et immo bene minor britannia debuit vocari que sicut nec numero populi sic nec merito soli potest maiori britannia adequari.”

BN 347, 14th century, fol. 145, is the same except that tamen precedes potest, and that the words minor britannia maiori comparari et immo bene are omitted, evidently by the mistake of a copyist who has jumped from one minor to the next minor and thus inadvertently omitted the intervening words.

[1399] XV, 28.

[1400] XV, 80.

[1401] XV, 152.

[1402] XV, 14.

[1403] XV, 172.

[1404] XVI, 41.

[1405] Etymol., XVI, 7.

[1406] V. Rose, “Aristoteles De Lapidibus und Arnoldus Saxo,” in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, XVIII (1875), 321-455.

[1407] Langlois (1911), p. 124.

[1408] J. Ruska, Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, 1912, p. 38, reiterates, “Sein Büchlein De virtutibus lapidum ist die Grundlage des Steinverzeichnisses in Albertus Magnus’ 5 Büchern De mineralibus.”

It also is asserted that Vincent and Albert learned of the mariner’s compass from this Arnold’s De virtute universali,—a view which overlooks Alexander Neckam’s earlier allusions to the compass.

[1409] This title can scarcely refer to Arnold’s De virtutibus lapidum.

[1410] The fact is that Rose examined the text of Bartholomew in a careless and superficial manner. He used some Frankfurt edition of the De proprietatibus rerum for which he gives no date, and he usually fails to state what chapter of Bartholomew he is citing, but refers to him simply by the letter B. Also he fails to note that the first two stones listed by Arnold, namely, abeston (asbestos) and absictus (apsyctos) are both in Bartholomew, and what is more, are spelled exactly the same by both authors. Nor are these the only gems that Rose fails to note are treated of by both authors. Others are alabandina, calcofanus (which Bartholomew begins with a k), virites or pyrites (also spelled a little differently in Bartholomew), and turcois (De turchoge in Bartholomew). In the first three of these four passages Arnold’s statements sound like a bald and abbreviated copy of Bartholomew’s description.

[1411] John of Damascus, who wrote on theology, dialectic, and so forth in the first half of the eighth century (works in Migne, PG vols. 94-96) became well known to western writers through the twelfth century translation of him by Burgundio of Pisa. Some of the works ascribed to him are probably spurious, but “his undoubted works are numerous and embrace a wide range.” A chapter is devoted to the introduction of his writings into western Europe in J. de Ghellinck, S. J., Le Mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle, Études, Recherches, et Documents, Paris, 1914; see EHR (1915), p. 112. But see Steinschneider (1866), pp. 375-91.

[1412] XVIII, 15.

[1413] XVIII, 37.

[1414] XVIII, 69.

[1415] XVIII, 28, “et hoc quotidie patet in castoribus qui in diversis locis inveniuntur.”

[1416] XVIII, 8, 32, 43, 69, 76, 77, 80, 95, 101.

[1417] Lauchert (1889), p. 105, has recognized this fact, saying of the De proprietatibus rerum, “worin ebenfalls der Physiologus häufig citirt ist und auch für Manches das nicht aus ihm stammt.”

[1418] In reading the printed edition I thought that some of these chapters might be later interpolations, since after minium has been described in chapter 16 it is again considered in chapter 25, and indicum is similarly discussed in both chapters 21 and 31. But these chapters are also repeated in BN 347, 16098, and 16099.

[1419] XIX, 40.

[1420] These matters are found in BN 16098 and 16099 as well as in the printed edition. “Explicit Tractatus de proprietatibus” precedes the bibliography in BN 16099, follows it in BN 16098.