CHAPTER LVIII
PETRUS HISPANUS
Nationality: at Paris—Medical works and later life—Death and character—The Thesaurus pauperum—Is it interpolated?—Its essential character is fairly represented even by the printed version—Devout tone of its preface—Arrangement of the text—Emphasis on occult virtue—Authority and experiment—Some of Peter’s authorities—Parts of animals; suspensions—Remedies for toothache—Prescriptions for epilepsy—Against sorcerers and demons—De morbis oculorum—Summa de conservanda sanitate—A marvelous treatise on waters—Other works ascribed to him—Commentaries on Isaac’s Diets; their scholastic method—Their questions concerning nature—Absence of astrology and occult virtue—Incorrect ideas about nature—Reason and experience—Via experimenti—Question of Peter’s relation to Roger Bacon and Galen—John of St. Amand on medical experimentation—Natural and occult science in John of St. Amand—Appendix I. Some Manuscripts of the Thesaurus pauperum.
Nationality: at Paris.
Petrus Hispanus, or Peter of Spain, who finally became Pope John XXI, is said by Ptolemy of Lucca, who died fifty years after him in 1327, to have been of Portuguese nationality.[1614] His birth is placed at Lisbon between 1210 and 1220, and he is said to have been the son of a physician named Julian.[1615] However, in the preface to his De conservanda sanitate, as preserved in a fifteenth century manuscript, Peter speaks of himself as from Compostella and as familiar with all Italy, Burgundy, Gascony, and parts of Spain.[1616] In other manuscripts he calls himself Petrus Hispanus. He came to the University of Paris at an early age, as he himself testified when pope in a letter to the bishop of Paris.[1617] In the same epistle he refers to the many years he spent at Paris occupied with varied studies. His text-book in logic was universally adopted and often commented upon, and has now been shown to be, not, as Prantl held in his History of Logic,[1618] a copy of the work of Psellus, but an independent product of the Parisian school. It was printed from forty to fifty times between 1477 and 1519.[1619]
Medical works and later life.
From 1246 to 1250 Peter was at Siena in the faculty of arts. Perhaps he then wrote the letter to the emperor, Frederick II, On the Rule of Health, if it be a genuine work, which precedes his Thesaurus pauperum in at least one manuscript.[1620] Ptolemy of Lucca calls Peter “an all-round scholar and specialist in medicine,”[1621] and mentions particularly among his medical works the famous Thesaurus pauperum, which we shall presently consider as a very influential and representative handbook of medieval medicine. In all seventeen medical works are attributed to Peter, of which only three have been printed.[1622] At the beginning of his treatise on eye diseases Peter speaks of himself as a professor of the art of medicine and an investigator of the truth.[1623] In the Thesaurus pauperum he cites Albertus Magnus as well as Gilbertus Anglicus, but he probably did not write it very late in life. Pope Gregory X made Peter a cardinal in 1273,[1624] he was also an archbishop, and in 1276 the career of the celebrated scholar culminated in his election to the papal see following Gregory’s death.
Death and character.
The next year Peter met an untimely death from the fall of a ceiling, a catastrophe which according to the gossip of Ptolemy of Lucca occurred while he was engaged in a fit of complacent and self-admiring laughter and shortly after he had issued some fulminations against the monks, for whom he had little love. Ptolemy criticizes the pope as not dignified enough in speech and manner for his office, but concedes that he was easily approached and very kindly to all scholars and men of letters. Millot-Carpentier regarded him as “assuredly one of the most illustrious personages of the thirteenth century both as a philosopher and as a dialectician,” and as “a true scholar and worthy representative of the University of Paris, ... having all the faults of his time but endowed with a liberal spirit.”[1625] Millot-Carpentier also gives a list of ecclesiastical offices, honors, and dignities held by other physicians of the period in addition to the supreme honor of a papal election which Peter attained.
The Thesaurus pauperum.
Peter’s book, the Thesaurus pauperum, became perhaps the leading brief medical manual during the remainder of the middle ages, as the numerous extant manuscripts and many printed editions bear witness.[1626] It was translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English. The work was intended to be a condensed compilation and its title, “The Treasure of the Poor,” indicates that it was written especially for the benefit of poor students and medical practitioners, who could not afford many books. It thus continues the type of book represented by Galen’s Euporista and by the compendiums of post-classical medicine, and is to be regarded, like Bartholomew of England’s “On the Properties of Things,” as an example of a medieval text-book and not as a specialized work.
Is it interpolated?
Stapper states in his Life of Pope John XXI[1627] that the text of the Thesaurus pauperum has suffered greatly from later interpolations, that every successive transcriber of the manuscript felt at liberty to add any further recipes of past authors that hit his fancy, and that thereby a great deal of superstitious nonsense for which the pope should not be held accountable was added to the original work. But on what authority or from what personal inspection of manuscripts Stapper makes this assertion is not clear. He lists, it is true, a number of manuscripts in continental libraries and a few at Oxford, but his citations of the Thesaurus pauperum are all from the Lyons edition of 1525. It is also true that he affirms that he has searched the manuscripts in vain for the sentence in the preface of the printed text in which it is stated that ligatures are not superstitious. But I have found the passage without much search in three manuscripts of one library.[1628] Possibly one reason why Stapper failed to find it is that the opening word of the sentence is not Litteras, which he gives presumably from the 1525 edition, and which would mean “characters” if it could mean anything in the context in question, but Ligaturas, as the 1497 edition correctly has it.[1629]
Essential character of the work fairly represented even by the printed version.
My own feeling is rather that the book, even in the printed editions of 1497 and 1578 which I had access to, is not more superstitious than one would expect a compilation of ancient, Arabic, and medieval medicine to be. The 1497 edition, it is true, confesses to a number of additions from a Peter of Tuscany (? de tusciano) and from Bernard Gordon; but it gives these additions separately at the close of various chapters. I have also inspected a number of manuscripts of the work at the British Museum, none of which Stapper mentions in his list, and which date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is not easy to compare these different copies or versions, since they vary greatly in headings and arrangement, so that the same statement may be found in different places in them. But there seem to be passages in the 1497 edition which are not in the manuscripts, and these in turn, as is usually the case, are not all alike in contents.[1630] But while there may be considerable interpolation, it does not seem to have essentially altered the original character of the book. The superstitious nonsense may have increased in amount but scarcely in degree. Much the same sort of remedies may be found in the earliest manuscript and latest printed text. To be on the safe side, however, in the ensuing account of the Thesaurus pauperum I shall follow the manuscripts rather than the printed text. I shall then add some account of other treatises which I have found ascribed to Peter in the manuscripts and of his printed Commentaries on Isaac’s Diets.
Devout tone of its preface.
The brief preface, which appears in most of the manuscripts that I have seen as well as in the printed editions, gives a good idea of the nature of the work. Its opening sentence reflects the religious spirit of the age and status of the author. “In the name of the holy and indissoluble Trinity, who created all things which are not God and who endowed individual objects with their particular virtues, from whom all wisdom is given to the wise and science to scientists, I approach a task beyond my powers trusting in the aid of the same, who works through us as instruments all good works.” In a second sentence, given differently in the manuscripts and printed texts, the author states the title of his work, Thesaurus pauperum. Later he adds that the attentive reader will find here easy and efficacious medicines for almost all infirmities, provided he has Him as helper who created medicine from earth. He also warns the physician, lest by his science he impugn God the giver of science, to take the utmost care not to reveal to anyone any medicines by which pregnancy may be prevented or abortions provoked. In most manuscripts that I have examined the preface presently concludes with the sentence, “Therefore in the name of Jesus Christ, the supreme physician, who heals at His will all our infirmities, since He is the head of the faithful, let us begin with diseases of the head and descend to the feet.”
Arrangement of the text.
This top to toe order, taking up one ailment after another and listing remedies in connection with each, was already common[1631] and is generally followed with some variations in the manuscripts. The 1497 preface also states that the work is divided into four books, but this division is neither promised nor performed in most of the manuscripts. Two seem to go no farther than where the third book ends in the 1497 edition, and two others give the first few chapters of its fourth book as a separate treatise on fevers.[1632] Indeed the colophon to the 1497 edition states that Peter’s treatise on fevers has been added to the Thesaurus pauperum. In the 1578 edition instead of four books we find simply eighty-five headings representing as many diseases. Some manuscripts also have tables of contents. Royal 12 B III gives but fifty-two headings, ending with quartan fever, while Additional MS. 32,622 and Harleian MS. 5218 sometimes have more and sometimes fewer headings than the 1497 text, which has 21, 18, 19, and 20 chapters respectively in its four books. The other manuscripts which I have seen have to a considerable extent the same headings, and still more so the same matter, but the order varies somewhat.
Emphasis on occult virtue.
Returning to the preface, we may note that the author counsels the reader not to despise what he reads because it is unfamiliar to him, and also not to apply the remedies before carefully considering the nature of the disease and the condition of the patient. “And let him study diligently to learn the natures and constitutions and substances of things, and as far as he can the occult virtue of particular things.”[1633] Otherwise it will be a case of blind leading blind. We have already seen that in addition to this profession of belief in occult virtue of particular objects some manuscripts, though hardly the oldest or most reliable ones, assert further that ligatures are not superstitious but act directly, especially if a right foot is bound on the right foot, or a male animal on a man.
Authority and experiment.
The preface also informs us of the sources whence the work has been compiled. These are “the books of the ancient philosophers and masters and of modern experimenters.” The author has tried either to present their views in their own words, or to express their precise meaning in other words of easier comprehension, so that if you had their books at hand you would find nothing other than what he sets down here, and so that in perusing his book you may seem to read the originals. The mention of “modern experimenters” is a foretaste of the “experimental” character of the Thesaurus pauperum. In some manuscripts it is called a Book of Experiments or a Summa of medicinal experiments, and it is sometimes included in collections of expressly experimental works. One reason for this is the common medieval use of the word “experimentum” for almost any medicinal recipe or remedy, but another reason is that Peter’s remedies are rather empirical in character. And as early as Galen’s time the Empirics relied partly for their experiences upon the statements of past authors. Moreover, we meet throughout the Thesaurus pauperum with assurances that this or that has been experienced, or that experts or “Experimenter” have said so, or even that “I have experienced this.”[1634] These uses of the first person are often probably copied from Peter’s authorities, but they later came to be regarded as his own experiences, since the 1578 edition describes the Thesaurus pauperum in the full title as “an empirical work from all sorts of authors and his own experience.”
Some of his authorities.
Among his authorities Peter makes much use of recent works and writers, such as Constantinus Africanus and Platearius and the Antidotarium of Nicholaus, Walter and Richard and Roger, Experimentator and Lapidarius and Liber de natura rerum, Gilbert of England and Albertus Magnus. He of course utilizes such Hebrew and Arabic medical writers as Isaac, Rasis, Haly, and Avicenna. It is worth noting as a hint of the superstitious character of parts of his work that he cites the Kiranides a good deal. Galen and “Dyascorides”—often pseudo, Pliny and Esculapius, are of course not forgotten.
Parts of animals: suspensions.
Much use is made of parts of animals, and perhaps especially of those least to be mentioned. Less nauseating examples are, among many similar parts of animals prescribed for epileptics, the liver of a vulture drunk with its blood for nine days, or the gall still warm from a dog who should have been killed the moment the epileptic fell in the fit. This last is borrowed from Gilbert. Portions of the human body, too, are employed; for instance, burnt human bones or the tooth of a dead man. Suspensions from the neck of such objects as the hairs of a dog or a cabbage root are also in favor.[1635]
Remedies for toothache.
Selection of a few details from two or three specimen chapters will further illustrate the nature of the contents. For toothache is recommended touching the ailing tooth with one from a corpse, holding in the mouth violets cooked in wine, holding a grain of opium between the teeth. Other remedies are vinegar in which a root of jusquiam has been boiled, deer horn burnt until it whitens and dries, and a powder made from dogs’ teeth. Cavities may be filled with the brain of a partridge or crow’s dung. The latter “breaks the tooth and removes pain.” A tooth may be easily extracted by touching it with dog’s milk or applying a hot root of jusquiam to its roots. But in the latter case beware not to touch the other teeth or they will fall out too.[1636] These remedies are, however, mild indeed compared to the treatment for toothache prescribed by Pliny in two chapters of his Natural History.[1637] Nor do I find in those chapters a passage ascribed to Pliny in the Thesaurus pauperum, in which one is directed to dig a root without use of iron, touch the ailing tooth with it for three days, and then replace it where one has dug it, after which “that tooth will never ache again.”
Prescriptions for epilepsy.
For epilepsy besides parts of animals and suspensions already mentioned, “Experimenter says and I have heard from experts that eating a wolf’s heart cures.”[1638] Or one may try the following experiment: Take a frog and split him down the back with a knife, and extract his liver and wrap it up in a cabbage leaf, and reduce it to a powder in a sealed pot, and give it to the epileptic to drink with the best wine. “And if one frog does not cure him, give him another, and so on until he is cured; and don’t doubt concerning the cure, for he will be cured beyond a doubt.”[1639] From Constantinus and Walter[1640] is repeated the cure of an epileptic child by bringing him to church on certain days and having him hear mass and having the priest read over him the Scripture about this sort of demon not being cast out except by fasting and prayer. Most of the manuscripts also state that one who carries with him the names of the three kings who adored Christ will be free from epilepsy, and some give their names, Jasper, Baltaser, Melchior.[1641]
Against sorcerers and demons.
Under the caption of remedies for witchcraft and possession by demons are found such procedures as smearing the walls of the house with the blood of a black dog or burying a reed filled with quicksilver under the threshold. A recipe to rescue a patient from infatuation in love produced by sorcery is hardly translateable, but affords too good an example of sympathetic magic or of human psychology to be omitted entirely. “Si quis ad aliquam vel aliquem nimis amandum maleficiatus fuerit, tum stercus recens illius quem vel quam diligit ponatur in ocrea vel in calceo dextro amantis, et calciet se et quamprimum foetorem sentiat, maleficium solvetur.” It is also stated that wearing the heart of a vulture makes one popular with all men and very wealthy, and that by vivisecting the bird hoopoe and eating its still palpitating heart one may learn the future and all secrets concealed in men’s minds.[1642]
De morbis oculorum.
Very similar to the remedies of the Thesaurus pauperum are those in Peter’s treatise on diseases of the eyes.[1643] The works are further alike in being compilations and yet experimental or empirical. Peter states that he has collected his material on eye diseases from many books at the urging of a disciple,[1644] and that it is based upon reason and experience. Of one recipe for removing ingrowing eyebrows he says, “I have tested this with my own hands”; and he cites as an experiment of Rasis the trite prescription of using the blood of a bat to prevent eyebrows or lashes which have been plucked out from growing again.[1645] Millot-Carpentier[1646] has already given a number of these eye-cures, bringing out chiefly the great use of parts of animals, which we have already remarked in the case of Gilbert of England. We may further note a bit of astrology. Peter first makes the general assertion that the human body is subject to the planets and signs,[1647] and later in describing the eye notes that it has seven tunics or humors covering it like the seven planets. There is also, as in the Thesaurus pauperum, some use of Christian incantations. To remove a fistula from the eye, besides using the blood from a cock’s crest and pulverized snakeskin one should bind the leaf of an herb about the patient’s foot and say, “As Christ descended from heaven into the Virgin’s womb, so may the fistula descend from the eye to the foot.”[1648] This is of course also an example of the magic transfer of disease.
Summa de conservanda sanitate.
A third treatise exists under Peter’s name in a British Museum manuscript and is called a “Summa concerning the preservation of health and those things which assist and harm it.”[1649] This work opens in a more self-confident and flamboyant style than the other treatises where Peter spoke of himself in a self-depreciatory manner. Now after a few lines of pious introduction we read, “Let the Jews blush, the Saracens be put to confusion, roving practitioners desist, old enchantresses be dumb, and empirics and methodics keep silence. Let rational physicians rejoice and those descendants of the medical art who employ both reason and experience. I, master Petrus Hispanus, a native of Compostella, have pursued my education (expertus ... alumpniam) in all Italy, Burgundy, Vienne, Provence, Gascony, and certain parts of Spain. Certain useful natural phenomena which are not found in the bosom of the art of medicine I have discovered by labor, vision, chance, experience, and genius to be both useful against diseases and the causes of diseases; and I have demonstrated certain instructive experiments for conserving the safety of the human mechanism, and I have experienced that all things from the eighth sphere to the earth’s center are governed by the law of reason (veridica ratione habentur).” At first, however, the treatise consists of general rules and precepts for guarding one’s health rather than experiments or recipes. Astrology comes in again in the statement that the motion of the superior bodies is one of the causes of the shortening of human life. Presently the author considers different parts of the body in turn, as the brain, eyes, ears, teeth, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, spleen, and feet, and lists things which are good and bad for each. Things which harm the brain,[1650] for example, are quicksilver, the cerebellum of all animals except the dog and the fox, fetid odors, gluttony and drunkenness, sleeping immediately after eating—if the brain is weak, bathing after eating, turbid air, worry over temporal affairs, eating with bent head, and eating a great deal of fish or milk, cheese, unripe fruit, and nuts. Among things beneficial for the eyes frequent washing of the feet is suggested.
A Marvelous Treatise on Waters.
A Marvelous Treatise on Waters which master Petrus Hispanus composed with natural industry guided by the intellect is found in a number of manuscripts. Sometimes it appears to be the closing part of his treatise on diseases of the eyes,[1651] and its first item is “a marvelous water to preserve and clarify the sight.” But it also is found as a separate treatise, in which directions are given for distilling various liquids, which in at least one manuscript are accompanied by two figures of chemical apparatus.[1652] In another manuscript the word philosophus is substituted for master Petrus Hispanus in the title given at the beginning of this paragraph, but the treatise is presumably the same.[1653] In this case, at least, it seems to include exactly twelve waters[1654] and so to conform to other medieval books Of twelve waters, of which we treat further in another chapter.[1655] Also its last two “waters” are an elixir of life and alcohol.[1656] If Peter of Spain came from Compostella, he may have had something to do with a Book of Compostella, which treats of many waters and of many oils and of many salts of great virtue. However, Brother Bonaventura, a Franciscan, is said to have composed the book in the convent of the Brothers of St. Mary in Venice.[1657]
Other works ascribed to him.
A Rule of Health[1658] and a Rule of Safety through all the months,[1659] which are ascribed to Peter in still other manuscripts, very likely have some connection with the above-mentioned Summa de conservanda sanitate or with the Letter to Frederick on the Rule of Health which has also been mentioned earlier in this chapter. A treatise on anatomy is attributed to Peter in an Italian manuscript,[1660] and a Book of Life and Death and of the Causes of Longevity and Brevity of Life is listed as his in an Oxford manuscript.[1661] Perhaps the shortest work ascribed to him is one of seven verses on rain.[1662] Commentaries by him on one or more of the following works are contained in a manuscript at Paris:[1663] the Introduction of Johannitius (Honein or Hunain ibn Ishak) to the Ars parva of Galen, the Prognostics of Hippocrates, Philaretus concerning the pulse, Theophilus on urines, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, the Microtegni itself. A Liber naturalis de rebus principalibus naturarum is ascribed to Peter in a Vienna manuscript.[1664]
Commentaries on Isaac’s Diets: their scholastic method.
We come finally to Peter’s Commentaries upon the works of Isaac on Universal Diets and Particular Diets.[1665] They are as full as the Thesaurus pauperum was abbreviated and as scholastic and dialectical in form as it was empirical. Where Isaac’s text is clear Peter leaves its meaning to the reader’s industry,[1666] but it suggests to him over a thousand further questions which he takes up one after the other, listing authorities pro and con in each case and rebutting or reconciling them. Here we see the handiwork of the author of the favorite manual of logic of the later middle ages. The systematic, but abstract, sophistical, and jejune character of this method may be sufficiently illustrated by quotation of the closing passage of the “First Lecture” (Lectio prima).[1667]
“Next we proceed to the fourth point and inquire whether any food can be found of like nature to our bodies. And it would seem so, since when foods are called temperate and equal, they are not called equal except with respect to the body. But certain foods, such as chicken meat and the like, are called temperate and equal; therefore it is possible to find food of like nature to our bodies.”
“Against this three arguments are advanced. The first is that it is impossible to associate or join two different individuals; therefore a plant which grows in the earth and an animal cannot be joined and made one. The second argument is that nothing which is at first contrary and at last similar is of like nature to our bodies; but such is food, according to Aristotle, therefore no food is at all like. The third argument is that nothing far removed from human nature in constitution and composition and species is in any way like human nature. But all food is of this sort; therefore no food at all resembles the nature of our bodies, which we concede.”
“But it should be said anent these opposing arguments that ‘like’ may be understood in two senses. Either it means alike in all respects, and so no food is like. In the second sense, it means that it makes no manifest impression on the body, and in this sense some foods are called of like nature, such as chicken.”
“Next it is asked whether human flesh is nourishing, since nutriment goes by likeness. And it would seem so, for Isaac says that man is not nourished by the elements, since he is too far removed from them. Therefore that flesh which approaches closest to human nature should be the most nutritious. But this is human flesh; hence human flesh should be very nutritious. Here is another argument. Nutriment is from likeness, and from equal nutriment comes a well-balanced state of health; now the human constitution is especially temperate and well-balanced; therefore it requires temperate and equal food, and such, some agree, is human flesh. We, however, call it the worst sort of nutriment for two reasons: one, its corrruptibility; the other, its excessive unctuosity. For as the flesh of the body endures by virtue of the presence of the soul, so after the spirit’s departure the flesh becomes moist, vile, and fetid; and herein lies the solution of the difficulty, since if it is temperate, it has this property from the soul while it exists in the body.”
As to what the effect would be of eating men alive, Peter does not state. His argument may have possessed an additional interest for his own time from the possibility of applying it in theological as well as medical matters,—for example, the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Their questions concerning nature.
Many of the questions raised by Peter are concrete enough, however, and supply, not only some definite information on the history of domestic science and of the medieval table, but also interesting illustration of the scope of that medieval curiosity concerning nature to which we have more than once adverted. Such questions continue the type of natural science of which the Problems of Aristotle and the Natural Questions of Adelard of Bath are earlier instances. Those of Peter are the more impressive in that some of them are far removed from the subject of diet at all strictly interpreted. The following is a list of such representative questions picked out here and there throughout the commentaries on both the works of Isaac on diet.
Can natural death be retarded?
Is a well-balanced constitution the best preserved, or is it easily overcome by the causes of disease?
Is bad food more injurious than bad air?
Why do we employ foods hot in the fourth degree and not those cold in the same degree?
What should be the diet of those taking mental exercise, like students?
Why is man less hairy and of weaker constitution than the brutes?
Why does nature sustain a multitude of medicines, but not of foods?
Are medicines always contraries?
How can animals who eat poisons be food for men?
Why in some foods is the liquid substance of the same nature as the solid, and in others not?
If the spleen causes laughter by purifying the blood, why isn’t love caused by the gall-bladder?
Why are the droppings of birds of prey white, of others not?
Does the blood alone nourish us?
How do sweet things sour on the stomach?
Should wine be drunk before or after eating, and immediately following or long afterwards?
Is water of more aid than wine in the process of assimilating food?
Which satiety is sooner removed, that from fats or from sweets?
How do salts possess the virtue of laxatives?
Why are fish not given in acute fevers?
Why are compound foods more often injurious than compound medicines?
Why are some plants cold and wet when young, hot and sharp when old?
Is humidity the formal principle of tastes?
Is fruit wholesome?
Why do some plants bear fruit twice a year?
Why does a branch cut from a plant and placed in earth live, while the severed limb of an animal will not live?
Why are animals soft in infancy, and fruits hard?
What part of water is more truly water: top, bottom, or middle?
Is cow meat better eating than ox meat?
Is the flesh of female animals moister?
Why in hot regions are the brutes large but the men small, and in cold countries the contrary?
Is pork better in summer?
Is meat cooked in a pie good?[1668]
Why are the ears of all animals save men and apes in continual motion?
Why do sparrows cure epilepsy when they are subject to the disease themselves?
Why are pigs’ intestines the best of animals that walk and geese’s intestines of those that fly?
Why a small hen lays more eggs than a large one?
Are eggs or meat better for convalescents?
Why is white of egg used for wounds?
Is goats’ milk the best?
Is human milk subtler than asses’ milk?
Why do these things go together:—having large flanks and belly, ruminating, lack of teeth in the upper jaw, coagulation of the milk, having horns?
Is butter of a hotter nature than oil?
Why salt water fish do not have salt flesh?
Why the dolphin and whale have true blood, albeit they are fish?
Why there are larger fish in salt water than fresh?
Are fish fried in meal better than those not?
Should paralytics eat fried fish?
Why should one not eat eggs raw like milk?
Why the flame of fire takes the figure of a pyramid?
Why are springs hot in winter and cold in summer?
Should an interval elapse between the courses of a meal?
Should drink be taken along with one’s food?
Should the heartier meal be at mid-day or in the evening?
Why are other animals than man content with one form of food?
Why does human urine enrich vines?
Should fruit be plucked ripe or green?
Are apples good in fevers?
Why is wine (cider) made from apples?
Why does melancholy especially excite the appetite?
Why do the boxwood, white-fir, and laurel trees retain their foliage a longer time than others?
Why in the boxwood, laurel, and olive are the leaves pointed, in the poplar and other trees wide?
Is it beneficial to strew myrtle leaves in the sick-room?
Why is oil best at the top, honey at the bottom, wine in the middle of the cask?
Are fungi plants or something between earth and plants?
Why the weasel seeks rue and rubs itself with it when it intends to fight a snake?
Why pepper is good for dimmed eyes?
Why the water in the sea does not grow less?
Why the horse, mule, and ass neither nourish man nor harm him, if he eats them?[1669]
Why castration improves the conduct of beasts, makes men worse?[1670]
Is raw cheese better than cooked, and solid cheese or cheese with holes in it?
Why are fools so fond of cheese?
Why have birds but two feet and no teeth?
Which is more nourishing, the white or the yolk of an egg?
Why travelers should eschew fish?
Whether the water that we drink is the element?[1671]
Which is better, standing or running water?
Why wine affects the tongue more than the other members?
Absence of astrology and occult virtue.
Some of the questions which Peter raises one might expect him to solve by an appeal to occult virtue, sympathy and antipathy existing between things in nature, or the superior influence of the stars. This, however, he almost never does; his reasoning is based rather on the prevalence of the four qualities, hot and cold, dry and moist, in natural objects. Thus the property of dove’s blood of removing spots from the eye is attributed to its heat and humidity, not to any occult power.[1672] And sparrows, although epileptics themselves, are said to cure epilepsy because they are very hot and dry and consume the humors or vapors which cause epilepsy, not by antipathy or because like cures like.[1673] Even less does one note any instances of ligatures and suspensions, characters and incantations. One or two passages show, however, that Peter believes in occult virtue and the rule of the stars. He states that in addition to the four simple elements “there is another simplicity ... namely, from qualities, and it is not in the elements but in the celestial bodies.”[1674] And in his prologue to the Particular Diets he affirms that celestials are the cause of inferiors and quotes the words addressed by God to the stars in Plato’s Timaeus, “O gods of gods, whose father and creator I am, by your nature you are dissoluble but by my will indissoluble,” to prove how much more corruptible inferior bodies are.[1675]
Incorrect ideas about Nature.
Despite the almost complete absence of superstitious practices and of astrological and magical doctrine from the Commentaries on Isaac it is of course true that Peter harbors many incorrect notions such as that fish lack bones and that hot water freezes harder and quicker than cold.[1676] This last, however, he supports by the authority and arguments of Aristotle and Avicenna. Peter also throughout the work displays faith in the validity of compound medicines, although he raises the suggestive question, why compound foods are more often injurious than compound medicines. He also accepts various stories of animal remedies and sagacity for which he finds support in Aristotle’s History of Animals, such as that the serpent eats fennel to restore or sharpen its sight,[1677] and that the bone in the heart of the stag is especially beneficial for heart disease because “the stag is very ingenious and astute and so eats potent herbs which especially affect the heart like parsley and origanum,” and from these the bone forms.[1678] In explaining why deer shed their horns and hide them, Peter incorrectly makes Aristotle say that they secrete the right horn with more care, whereas the History of Animals states, “It is said that no one has ever seen the left horn, for he conceals it as if it had some medicinal (or, magic) power.”[1679]
Reason and experience.
Finally, despite the scholastic form of Peter’s Commentary, it contains a long passage on the importance of experimental method or “the way of experience” (via experimenti),[1680] f which it couples with “the path of reason” (via rationis) as the two methods by which dietary science may be investigated. First Peter distinguishes between the two, then shows the necessity of the way of experience, and third that it can and should be confirmed by reason. Galen says that experience is weak without reason, and so is reason when not joined to experience. Some say that reason should precede experience, that first we should seek rationally, then test by experience. In any case the way of experience proceeds through effects, the way of reason through causes. The one method is inductive; the other, syllogistic; the one based on immediate effects, the other on mediate effects. “Experimental method pays no attention to causes; rational method considers causes and principles; experience makes use of the senses; reason, of the intellect” and arguments.
Via experimenti.
After listing various arguments pro and con as to whether the via experiment “is of art and in art, or precedes art,” Peter gives his solution to the effect that experimentum is threefold. As a method of attaining knowledge it antecedes all arts and sciences. As a method of making known the objects of scientific inquiry, it is a part of science. As an application of scientific doctrine to practical life and industry, it follows science. Furthermore, experience “may proceed regularly through science and doctrine and in this way it can be rational.” Or it may be irregular and not syllogistic in method. The experimental discoveries of brutes, as when the serpent restores its sight with fennel, come to them from nature, but ours are acquired by art and confirmed by reason, although man too possesses the experimental instinct. Peter further distinguishes the experiences of rustics, which are unregulated by reason, from the experiments of skilled men which are regulated by reason. Moreover, “experiences are not without their reasons, and idle is the experiment which does not rest on reason.” Finally, Peter gives six conditions requisite in medical experimentation which are somewhat similar to the seven conditions stated by his contemporary, John of St. Amand. First, the medicine administered should be free from all foreign substance.[1681] Second, the patient taking it should have the disease for which it is especially intended. Third, it should be given alone without admixture of other medicine. Fourth, it should be of the opposite degree to the disease. Fifth, “we should test it not once only but many times.” Sixth, “the experiments should be with the proper body, as on the body of a man and not of an ass.”
Question of Peter’s relation to Roger Bacon and Galen.
Peter’s discussion of the via experimenti is in several respects similar to Roger Bacon’s discussion of experimental science, but is probably quite independent of it. Peter died before Roger in 1277, and his Commentary on Isaac was probably composed before the works which Bacon addressed to the pope in and around the year 1267. The influence of Galen, who had discussed the part played by reason and experience in his own work on food values, upon Peter is fairly evident.
John of St. Amand on medical experimentation.
John of St. Amand, to whose similar conditions for medical experimentation we just alluded, was a canon of Tournai who seems to have written a little later than Peter, since he describes the death from vomiting of a bishop of Tournai which took place in 1261.[1682] It is in his commentary on the Antidotarium of Nicolaus that John gives his seven conditions for medical experimentation. After having said that on account of the scarcity and incompleteness of experience, we should sometimes learn the virtues of simple medicines “through doctrine,” John for a page or two discusses other matters, but then reverts to the subject of experimentation. A medicinal simple, he says, may be known by two methods, “the way of experience and the way of reason.” “And because the principles of experience are better known to us than the principles of reason, let us first inquire concerning the knowledge of medicinal simples by the way of experience.” He goes on to say that experience is twofold as it is supported or not supported by reason. If unsupported by reason experience or experiment is timorous and fallacious. As for experience supported by reason, it should conform to these seven requirements.[1683] First, “the medicinal simple which is being tested should be pure and free from every extraneous quality, lest by such extraneous quality the proper operation of the medicine be impeded, and in consequence experimental knowledge.”[1684] Here the use of the adjective, “experimental” is interesting. Second, the experimentation should be with a simple and not a complicated disease.[1685] Third, the simple should be tested in two contrary types of disease, because sometimes a medicine cures one disease by its “complexion” or elemental properties and another by its occult virtue. Thus scammony cures both quotidian and tertian fever; the first because scammony is of a hot nature; but the second by its occult virtue and not because scammony is of a cold nature, for it is not.[1686] Fourth, the virtue of the medicine should correspond to the quality of the patient. Fifth, essence and accident should not be confused; water, for example, may be heated, but is not of a hot nature.[1687] Sixth, the experiment should be often repeated. For if a medicine is tested in the cases of five men and has a heating effect upon them all, still that is not adequate proof that it will always have a heating effect, for they may have all been of a cold or temperate constitution, whereas a man of hot nature would not be heated by the simple in question. Seventh, the test should be on the human body and in varying states of health. Trying the medicine upon a lion may not prove anything as to its effect upon a man.[1688] John seems to have taken his conditions directly from Galen rather than from Petrus Hispanus, since only three of them are identical with Peter’s, whereas all but one occur in his own Concordances from Galen’s works.[1689] John of St. Amand repeats the experiment with the hazel rod which we have already encountered in William of Auvergne. According to John the two split halves tend to reunite because it is natural for them to be together, but he adds that some old women make use of it with utterance of a useless incantation as a matrimonial charm, asserting that if the halves unite, the marriage will be a happy one.[1690]
Natural and occult science in John of St. Amand.
It was not my intention to speak of John of St. Amand further than to compare his remarks on experimental method with those of Petrus Hispanus, but the Histoire Littéraire has already presented some specimens of his views, which it will be worth repeating to show that his experimental tendency has the same accompaniment of mingled credulity and scepticism and of occult science and signs of magic as we have noted in other cases. Thus he rejects the story that the beaver castrates itself to escape the pursuit of hunters on the ground that the animal has not that much sense, but believes that beavers enslave one another. From the fact that herons are subject to diarrhoea he argues that men with long necks and legs should not resort to purgatives, and he states that pearls comfort the heart by similarity, since they are hard like the heart. He enters into long and obscure explanations how it is that application of the flesh of a snake extracts the venom from its bite, and “is not exempt from astrological ideas.”[1691] But the writings of John of St. Amand have carried us well along into the second half of the thirteenth century; in the next chapter we must turn back to a man whose literary activity began in the Erst half of that century, Albertus Magnus.
[1614] Ptolemaei Lucensis Historia Ecclesiastica. Liber XXIII, cap. xxi, in Muratori, XI, 1176. For the life of John XXI see also HL XIX (1838) 322-34; J. T. Koehler, Vollständige Nachricht von Pabst Johann XXI, Göttingen, 1760; L. Zdekauer, in Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria, VI (1898-1899); Richard Stapper, Papst Johannes XXI, Münster, 1898, in Kirchengesch. Studien herausg. v. Dr. Knöpfler, Band IV, Heft iv.
[1615] Millot-Carpentier (1901). G. Porro, in his catalogue of Trivulzian MSS at Milan, Turin, 1884, calls Peter “Petrus Julianus Ulissiponensis.”
[1616] Royal 13-A-VII, 15th century, fol. 149r.
[1617] Stapper (1898), p. 4, “In illis namque laribus ab annis teneris diutius observati variis scientiis inibi studiose vacavimus et per annos plurimos....”
[1618] See too, C. von Prantl, Michael Psellus und Petrus Hispanus, 1867.
[1619] HL XIX, 330.
[1620] Harleian 5218, fols. 1r-3r, Epistola Magistri Petri Hyspani missa ad Imperatorem Fridericum super regimen sanitatis. It seems strange, however, that Peter should call himself, as he does in this work, “senex artis medicinae professor,” before 1250, when he would have been rather less than forty years of age. Other MSS. are: CLM 615, 13-14th century, fols. 41-68; BN 7446, 15th century.
[1621] “Hic generalis clericus fuit et praecipue in medicinis.”
[1622] HL XIX, 327-8; namely, the Thesaurus pauperum, and the commentaries on Isaac on Diets and Urines.
[1623] Sloane 1214, 15th century, fols. 38r-46, De morbis oculorum. Other MSS of his work or works on eye diseases are: Sloane 2268, 14th century, fols. 52-59; CLM 161, 13th century, fols. 55v-57, de aegritudinibus oculorum; CLM 40, 14th century, fols. 112-15, Breviarium de aegritudinibus oculorum; CLM 381, 14th century, fol. 78-, Curae ... de passionibus oculorum, vel Secretum pro amico ad oculos; CLM 438, 14th century, fol. 108, de passionibus oculorum; Wolfenbüttel, 2794, 15th century, fols. 183-8, Petri Hispani liber oculorum, fol. 188v, Secretum magistri Petri Hispani; BN 6957, 15th century, #1, Secretum de oculis.
[1624] Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden, 1912, p. 183, says that Peter had been Gregory’s physician.
[1625] Millot-Carpentier (1900), p. 180.
[1626] Printed at Antwerp in 1476 and 1497, at Lyons in 1525, at Frankfurt perhaps in 1567, 1575, 1576, and certainly in 1578, at Paris in 1577. I have used the 1497 edition,—Summa Experimentorum sive thesaurus pauperum magistri Petri yspani, Antwerpiae, Theodoricus Martini, 1497 (die 22 Mai). A letter lying loose in the copy (numbered IB. 50018) which I read at the British Museum, stated that the copy at Liège is (was) the same. I also consulted the edition printed at Frankfurt in 1578 but it seemed faulty compared with the 1497 edition. For a list of MSS see Appendix I at the close of this chapter.
[1627] Stapper (1898), p. 23.
[1628] Sloane 284, Harleian 5218, Additional 25,000 contain the sentence; Sloane 521 and 2479, and Royal 12 B III do not have it. The entire preface is missing in Addit. 22,636 and in the early MS, Sloane 477, but it also has no Incipit and a first sheet may well be missing which contained the preface.
[1629] The sentence as Stapper gives it (p. 24), reads: “Litteras autem quas aliquando ponunt physici superstitiose positas nemo credat, sed quia immediatius operantur vel magis assidue, sicut dextrum dextro vel sinistrum sinistro membro et masculo apponitur.” In the 1497 edition and Sloane 284 the sentence reads more correctly: “Ligaturas autem quas aliquando posuerunt philosophi nemo credat superstitiose positas, sed immo quod (ideo quia) immediatius operantur vel magis assidue si (vel aliter) numquam deponuntur vel a simili sicut si ad (aliud) dextrum dextro membro vel sinistrum sinistro vel masculinum masculino apponatur.” In the 1578 edition the sentence has been completely changed and begins: “Characteres vero et de collo suspendenda quorum interdum a Philosophis sit mentio nemo arbitretur superstitiose tradita esse sed ideo quia immediate operantur vel magis per ἀντιπάθειαν ...” etc.
[1630] For instance, among remedies for sore throat an herb “divinely revealed to good bishop Boniface” and “a good prayer” were detailed in the 1497 edition, but I failed to find them in Sloane 477, Sloane 2479, Additional 32,622, or Royal 12-B-III. The next remedy after the good prayer was given in Sloane 477 only in the margin, but in Additional 32,622 appeared in the body of the text. In the chapter on toothache, too, a remedy written in the margin in a different ink from the text of Sloane 477 is embodied in the text of Sloane 521 and 2479 as well as in the 1497 edition.
[1631] Gilbert of England’s Compendium adopted essentially that order.
[1632] See also CLM 457, 15th century, fol. 112-, De febribus. Sunt aliqua capitula ex thesauro pauperum Hispani Petri.
[1633] Sloane 521 and Addit. 32,622 omit “occult.”
[1634] Even in an early MS like Sloane 477 we find the first person used a great deal and experience or “experiments” often mentioned.
[1635] Sloane 2479, fol. 37v, fol. 14r, fol. 13v; and in other MSS.
[1636] These remedies for toothache will all be found in Sloane 477 and 2479, Addit. 32,622, and Royal 12-B-III, as well as in the 1497 edition.
[1637] 28, 49 and 30, 8.
[1638] Sloane 477, fol. 9r.
[1639] Sloane 2479, fol. 14v; Addit. 25,000, fol. 79v; Addit. 32,622, under the heading “De spasmo.”
[1640] Sloane 477, fol. 10r does not cite Constantine and Walter, but other MSS do.
[1641] Sloane 2479, fol. 14v; Royal 12-B-III, fol. 19v; Addit. 25,000, fol. 79v; Harleian 5218.
[1642] All the items mentioned in this paragraph are found in the early MS Sloane 477 as well as in other MSS. In a fifteenth century MS at Florence (Ashburnham 143, fols. 113-14), this chapter appears separately as, “Capitulum pulcrum pro maleficiis malis” and under the further sub-titles, “De hiis qui maleficiis impediti cum uxoribus cohire non possunt. Pro maleficiis destruendis secundum magistrum Petrum Yspanum.”
[1643] For the De morbis oculorum I have used two MSS. in the British Museum; Sloane 1214, 15th century, fols. 38-46, and Sloane 2268, 14th century, fols. 52-59. I presume that Gonville and Caius 379, 13th century, fols. 142-49, “Secreta mag. Petri yspani ad oculos. In nomine summi opificii/acceptis de pectine matris,” is the same work.
[1644] Sloane 1214, fol. 38r; Sloane 2268, fol. 52.
[1645] Sloane 2268, fol. 54v.
[1646] Op. cit. (1901).
[1647] Sloane 1214, fol. 38r.
[1648] Sloane 2268, fol. 54v. Millot-Carpentier presumably has this passage in mind when he says, “Il connaissait la fistule lacrymale qu’il soignait ... par les exorcisms.”
[1649] Royal MS. 13-A-VII, 15th century, fols. 149r-153v. “Explicit summa magistri p. de conservanda sanitate et de his quae conferunt et nocent. Finito libro reddetur gratia Christo amen. Rogatis deum pro anima magistro qui hunc librum composuit. Explicit liber.” See also CLM 14574, 15th century, fol. 117. Magistri Petri liber de conservanda sanitate, “Erubescant Judei confundantur Sarraceni.”
[1650] Cap. 1, fols. 150r-v.
[1651] Sloane 2268, 14th century, fol. 52-, De morbis oculorum; fol. 56r, “Tractatus mirabilis aquarum quod composuit m. p. hyspanus cum naturali industria secundum intellectum”; fol. 59r, “Explicit secretum magistri P. hys. quod fecit pro amico suo ad oculos.”
BN 6957, 15th century, #2, Tractatus mirabilis aquarum quem composuit Petrus Hispanus cum naturali industria secundum intellectum. Explicit secretum magistri Petri Hispani de oculis, (as described by Renzi, V, 122).
BN 7349, 15th century, #2, is the same treatise.
[1652] Additional 32,622, early 14th century, fol. 95r, “Actus mirabilis aquarum quas composuit Petrus Hispanus cum naturali industria.”
Egerton 2852, 14th century, fols. 1-5, “de aquis,” is very similar in contents to Addit. 32622.
[1653] Digby 147, 14th century, fols. 104r-105v, “Tractatus mirabilis aquarum quem composuit philosophus naturali industria secundum intellectum.” It opens, “Aqua mirabilis valet ad visum conservandum.”
[1654] Namely: 1 aqua mirabilis ad visum conservandum et clarificandum, 2 aqua preciosa de radicibus, 3 aqua preciosa de seminibus, 4 aqua mirabilis per quam facit mistica sive mirabilia medicus, 5 aqua salicis, 6 aqua aromatica, 7 aqua qui dicitur lac virginis, 8 aqua tartari, 9 aqua de sale gemme, 10 aqua copose, 11 aqua vite, 12 aqua ardens.
[1655] See below, pp. 797-8.
[1656] I regret that I have not been able to examine and compare this and the other MSS of the treatise more closely in order to ascertain how far their texts are identical or vary. Some further MSS are:
CU Trinity 1411, early 16th century, fol. 131, Aqua mirabilis Petri Hispani.
Harleian 1887, 16th century (?), Petrus Hispanus, mirab. aquar.
[1657] Assisi 292, 15th century, 75 fols.
[1658] BN 7446, 15th century, Regimen sanitatis.
[1659] Harleian 2258, fols. 224v-225v, regimen salutis per omnes menses.
[1660] Bibl. Palat. Parma 1065, 15th century, fols. 147-53.
[1661] Corpus Christi 243, 1423 A. D., fols. 15v-28, “Sicut igitur in negotio nostro de anima ... / ... Explicit liber de morte et vita et de causis longitudinis ac brevitate vite magistri Petri Hispani.”
[1662] Sloane 568, late 14th century, fol. 15v.
[1663] BN 6956, 14th century.
[1664] Vienna 4751, 15th century, fols. 274-80, excerptus et in fine mutilus.
[1665] Printed in the Lyons, 1515 edition of Isaac’s works: fol. xir, Commentarium singulare doctissimi viri Petri hispani olim pontificis maximi Johannis vicesimiprimi super librum dietarum universalium Isaac Incipit; fol. ciii, Apollinee artis monarche Ysaac filii adoptivi Salomonis regis Arabum diete particulares cum uberrimis excellentissimi viri Petri hispani commentariis.
[1666] Ibid., fol. 12r.
[1667] Ibid., fol. 14v.
[1668] “An caro coda in pasta sit bona?” Peter thinks that it is pessima, because the pastry prevents the noxious fumes and humors of the meat from escaping, but he adds, “Contrarium facit vulgus.”
[1669] An interesting passage, which seems to indicate that despite frequent famines the medieval poor were seldom reduced to horse meat. Peter’s explanation is that these animals are not poisonous, but that nature designed them for man’s service, not his nutriment.
[1670] On this point Peter does not seem to be in agreement with some modern sociologists.
[1671] Peter of course answers in the negative.
[1672] fol. 145v.
[1673] fol. 78.
[1674] fol. 150v.
[1675] fol. 103r.
[1676] fol. 149r; fols. 150v-151r.
[1677] fol. 127r.
[1678] fol. 136r.
[1679] fol. 135v, and De animal. hist. ed. Dittmeyer (1907), p. 362, lines 29-30. λέγεταιδ’ ὡς ἀριστερὸν κέρας οὐδείς πω ἑώρακεν ἀποκρύπτειν γὰρ αὐτὸ ὡς ἔχον τινὰ φαρμακίαν. The last word, of course, suggests either a drug or poison, medicine or charm.
[1680] fols. 19v-20v; see also fol. 11v.
[1681] “... medicina sit tuta ab omni qualitate complexionali.”
[1682] On Jean de Saint-Amand see HL XXI, 254-66; J. L. Pagel, Die Concordanciae des Johannes de Sancto Amando, Berlin, 1894, and Nachträge zu den Concordanciae des Johannes de Sancto Amando, Berlin, 1896. For the Expositio in Antidotarium Nicolai, I have followed the text in Mesuae medici clarissimi opera, Venice, 1568; but there are earlier editions, such as Venice, 1497, and Lyons, 1533.
[1683] Expositio in Antidotarium Nicolai (1568), fol. 231, “Sed medicina simplex duplici via cognoscitur scilicet via experimenti et via rationis.... Et quia principia experimenti sunt nobis magis nota quam principia rationis, ideo prius inquiramus cognitionem simplicium medicinarum via experimenti ... duplex est experimentum ... vallatum et non vallatum ratione, tunc ipsum est timorosum et fallax si non sit vallatum ratione....”
[1684] Ibid., “Oportet ut medicina simplex quae experiatur sit pura et munda ab omni extranea qualitate, ne per illam extraneam qualitatem impediatur propria operatio medicinae, et per consequens cognitio experimentalis.” This is the same as Peter’s first condition. Also as the passage from Galen’s Medicinal Simples, II, 5, quoted in John’s Concordances, “Oportet quod res quae experitur sit pura et denudata ab omni qualitate accidentali....”
[1685] I do not note this condition among Peter’s nor in the Concordances.
[1686] “Oportet quod medicina simplex experiatur in duabus contrariis aegritudinibus diversis, sicut scamonea in quotidiana et tertiana, ipsa enim curat quotidianam ex sua complexione, tertianam ex proprietate sua, tamen non sequitur, scamonea curat tertianam, ergo est frigida; sed sequitur, ipsa ex sua complexione curat quotidianam, ergo est calida.”
The use of the word “proprietas” for occult virtue is found also in Arnald of Villanova and other medieval writers.
[1687] John’s third, fourth and fifth conditions do not exactly correspond to any of Peter’s, but are contained in the following quotation from Galen (simpl. med. I, 2) in the Concordances. “Ad hoc ut res recte experiatur, tria requiruntur: 1m est ut experiatur in re ad quam comparatur, ut helleborus in coturnice non in homine; 2m requiritur ut distinguamus inter opus quod facit res per se et quod facit per accidens; 3m oportet cavere ne complexio actualis obnubilet potentialem et de omnibus his exempla ponit.”
[1688] “experimentum in corpore humano et primo in temperato, postea in lapso, et postea in aegro.” These last two conditions correspond to Peter’s last two and are also duplicated in John’s Concordances from Galen: “Si videris 5 vel 6 homines qualibet medicina mobiles, experimento solo non potuisti certiorare ilia medicina omnes homines posse moveri.... Oportet cum res experitur ut primo experiatur in corpore temperato et postea in intemperate.”
[1689] See the foregoing footnotes and Pagel’s text (1894), pp. 102-4.
[1690] Expositio in Antidotarium Nicolai, fol. 268, “... et hoc patet per experimentum accipiatur virga coryli recens et scindatur per medium medullae et ponatur frustum unum in manu una et aliud in alia manu, adinvicem coniungentur et hoc est quia unam alteri natum est conjungi naturaliter quia ex eis fiebat naturaliter unum conjunctum, et ideo unum natum est alteri conjungi excitatum per virtutem alterius. Et per illud faciunt vetulae carmen suum in matrimonium: dicunt enim quod quando aliquis desponsat aliquam, quod illae virgae coryli si conjungantur matrimonium erit ad bonum, si non, non: sed dicunt carmen aliquid operari ad hoc quod nisi dicerent, conjungerentur tarnen sive ad bonum sive ad malum.”
[1691] HL XXI, 263-5.