CHAPTER XXXIX
BERNARD SILVESTER: ASTROLOGY AND GEOMANCY
Problem of his identity—His works—Their influence—Disregard of Christian theology—The divine stars—Orders of spirits—The stars rule nature and reveal the future—Plot of the Mathematicus—Different interpretations put upon the Mathematicus—Hildebert’s Hermaphrodite’s horoscope—The art of geomancy—Prologue of the Experimentarius—Pictures of Bernard Silvester—Problem of a spying-tube and Hermann’s relation to the Experimentarius—Text of the Experimentarius—Two versions of the 28 Judges—Other modes of divination—Divination of the physician of King Amalricus—Prenostica Socratis Basilei—Further modes of divination—Experimental character of geomancy—Various other geomancies—Interest of statesmen and clergy in the art—Appendix I. Manuscripts of the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester.
“Nell’ ora che non può il calor diurno
Intrepidar più il freddo della luna,
Vinto da terra, o talor da Saturno
Quando i geomanti lor Maggior Fortuna
Veggiono in oriente, innanzi all’ alba,
Surger per via che poco le sta bruno.”
Purg. XIX, 1-6.
Problem of his identity.
Bernard Silvester, of whom this chapter will treat, is now generally recognized as a different person from the Bernard of Chartres whom William of Conches followed and on whose teaching John of Salisbury looked back.[261] From John’s account it is plain that Bernard of Chartres belonged to the generation before William of Conches, and Clerval has shown reason to believe that he was dead by 1130.[262] Bernard Silvester, on the other hand, wrote his De mundi universitate during the pontificate of Eugenius III, 1145-1153. Moreover, one of his pupils informs us that he taught at Tours.[263] This last fact also makes it difficult, although not impossible, to identify him with a Breton, named Bernard de Moelan, who, after serving as canon and chancellor at Chartres, became bishop of Quimper from 1159 to 1167.[264] At least they appear to have had somewhat similar interests, and Silvester seems to have had some connection with the school of Chartres, since he dedicated the De mundi universitate to Theodoric of Chartres.[265]
His works.
A number of works are extant under the name of Bernard Silvester. His interest in rhetoric and poetry is shown by a long Summa dictaminis (or, dictaminum) and by a Liber de metrificatura, in the Titulus of which he is called “a poet of the first rank” (optimi poetae).[266] He also wrote a commentary on the first books of the Aeneid.[267] Two other treatises are ascribed to him in which we are not here further interested, namely: De forma vitae honestae and De cura rei familiaris or Epistola ad Raimundum de modo rei familiaris gubernandae.[268] The three works of especial interest to us, while no one of them is exactly a treatise on astrology, all illustrate, albeit each in a different way, the dominance of astrological doctrine in the thought of the time. One is Experimentarius, an astrological geomancy translated into verse from the Arabic.[269] Another is a narrative poem whose plot hinges upon an astrologer’s prediction and whose very title is Mathematicus.[270] The third work, variously entitled De mundi universitate, Megacosmus et Microcosmus, and Cosmographia[271] has much to say of the stars and their rule over inferior creation.[272] It is written partly in prose and partly in verse,[273] and shows that Bernard laid as much stress on literary form in his scientific or pseudo-scientific works as in those on rhetoric and meter. Sandys says of it, “The rhythm of the hexameters is clearly that of Lucan, while the vocabulary is mainly that of Ovid”; but Dr. Poole believes that the hexameters are modelled upon Lucretius.[274] He would date it either in 1145 or about 1147-1148.[275]
Their influence.
The manuscripts of these three works are fairly numerous, indicating that they were widely read, and no contemporary objection appears to have been raised against their rather extreme astrological doctrines. As was well observed concerning the De mundi universitate over one hundred and fifty years ago, “These extravagances and some other similar ones did not prevent the book from achieving a very brilliant success from the moment of its first appearance,” as is shown by the contemporary testimony of Peter Cantor in the closing twelfth century and Eberhart de Bethune in the early thirteenth century, who says that the De mundi universitate was read in the schools. Gervaise of Tilbury and Vincent of Beauvais also cited it.[276] Indeed in our next chapter we shall find a Christian abbess, saint, and prophetess of Bernard’s own time charged—by a modern writer, it is true—with making use of it in her visions. Passages from Silvester are included in a thirteenth century collection of “Proverbs” from ancient and recent writers,[277] and more than one copy of the De mundi universitate is listed in such a medieval monastic library as St. Augustine’s, Canterbury.[278]
Disregard of Christian theology.
In the De mundi universitate we see the same influence of Platonism and astronomy, and of the Latin translation of the Timaeus in especial, as in the Philosophia of William of Conches. At the same time, its abstract personages and personified sciences, its Nous and Natura, its Urania and Physis with her two daughters, Theoretical and Practical, remind us of the pages of Martianus Capella and of Adelard of Bath’s De eodem et diverso. The characterization by Dr. Poole that the work “has an entirely pagan complexion,” and that Bernard’s scheme of cosmology is pantheistic and takes no account of Christian theology,[279] is essentially true, although occasionally some utterance indicates that the writer is acquainted with Christianity and no true pagan. Perhaps it is just because Bernard makes no pretense of being a theologian, that at a time when William of Conches was retracting in his Dragmaticon some of the views expressed in his Philosophia and the Sicilian translator was conscious of a bigoted theological opposition, Bernard should display neither fear nor consciousness of the existence of any such opposition. And yet it does not appear that the Sicilian translator engaged in theological discussion. Yet he complains of those who call astronomy idolatry; Bernard calmly calls the stars gods, and no one seems to have raised the least objection. At least Bernard’s fearless outspokenness and its subsequent popularity should prevent our laying too much stress upon the timidity of other writers in expressing new views, and should make us hesitate before interpreting their attitude as a sure sign of real danger to freedom of thought and speech, and to scientific investigation.
The divine stars.
What especially concerns our investigation are the views concerning stars and spirits expressed by Silvester. Like William of Conches, he describes the world of spirits in a Platonic or Neo-Platonic, rather than patristic, style. He differs from William in hardly using the word “demon” at all and in according the stars, like Adelard of Bath, a much higher place in his hierarchy. “The heaven itself is full of God,” says Bernard, “and the sky has its own animals, sidereal fires,”[280] just as man, who is in part a spiritual being, inhabits the earth. Bernard does not hesitate to call the stars “gods who serve God in person,” or “who serve in God’s very presence.”[281] There in the region of purer ether which extends as far as the sun they enjoy the vision of bliss eternal, free from all care and distraction, and resting in the peace of God which passeth all understanding.[282] He also repeats the Platonic doctrine that the mind is from the sky and that the human soul, when at last it lays aside the body, “will return to its kindred stars, added as a god to the number of superior beings.”[283]
Orders of spirits.
Between heaven and earth, between God and man, comes the mediate and composite order of “angelic creation.” “With the divinity of the stars” the members of this order share the attribute of deathlessness; with man they have this in common, to be stirred by passion and impulse.[284] Between sun and moon are benevolent angels who act as mediums between God and man. Other spirits inhabit the air beneath the moon. Some of them display an affinity to the near-by ether and fire, and live in tranquillity and mental serenity, although dwelling in the air. A second variety are the genii who are associated each with some man from birth to warn and guide him. But in the lower atmosphere are disorderly and malignant spirits who often are divinely commissioned to torment evil-doers, or sometimes torment men of their own volition. Often they invisibly invade human minds and thoughts by silent suggestion; again they assume bodies and take on ghostly forms. These Bernard calls angelos desertores, or fallen angels. But there are still left to be noted the spirits who inhabit the earth, on mountains or in forests and by streams: Silvani, Pans, and Nerei. They are of harmless character (innocua conversatione) and, being composed of the elements in a pure state, are long-lived but in the process of time will dissolve again.[285] This classification of spirits seems to follow Martianus Capella.
The stars rule nature and reveal the future.
Bernard’s assertion that the stars are gods is accompanied, as one would naturally expect, by a belief in their control of nature and revelation of the future. From their proximity to God they receive from His mind the secrets of the future, which they “establish through the lower species of the universe by inevitable necessity.”[286] Life comes to the world of nature from the sky as if from God, and the creatures of the earth, air, and water could not move from their tracks, did they not absorb vivifying motions from the sky.[287] Nous or Intelligence says to Nature, “I would have you behold the sky, inscribed with a multiform variety of images, which, like a book with open pages, containing the future in cryptic letters, I have revealed to the eyes of the more learned.”[288] In another passage Bernard affirms that God writes in the stars of the sky what can come “from fatal law,” that the movements of the stars control all ages, that there already is latent in the stars a series of events which long time will unfold, and that all the events of history, even the birth of Christ, have been foreshadowed by the stars.
“Scribit enim caelum stellis totumque figurat
Quod de fatali lege venire potest,
Praesignat qualique modo qualique tenore
Omnia sidereus saecula motus agat.
Praejacet in stellis series quam longior aetas
Explicet et spatiis temporis ordo suis:
Sceptra Phoronei, fratrum discordia Thebae,
Flammae Phaëthonis, Deucalionis aquae.
In stellis Codri paupertas, copia Croesi,
Incestus Paridis, Hippolytique pudor;
In stellis Priami species, audacia Turni,
Sensus Ulixeus, Herculeusque vigor.
In stellis pugil est Pollux, et navita Typhis,
Et Cicero rhetor, et geometra Thales;
In stellis lepidus dictat Maro, Milo figurat,
Fulgurat in latia nobilitate Nero.
Astra notat Persis, Aegyptus parturit artes,
Graecia docta legit, praelia Roma gerit.
Exemplar specimenque Dei virguncula Christum
Parturit, et verum saecula numen habent.”[289]
Yet Bernard urges man to model his life after the stars,[290] and once speaks of “what is free in the will and what is of necessity.” He thus appears, like the author of the treatise on fate ascribed to Plutarch, like Boethius, and like a host of other theologians, philosophers, and astrologers, to believe in the co-existence of free will, inevitable fate, and “variable fortune.”[291]
Plot of the Mathematicus.
Bernard Silvester’s interest and faith in the art of astrology is further exemplified by his poem Mathematicus, a narrative which throughout assumes the truth of astrological prediction concerning human fortune. Hauréau showed that it had been incorrectly included among the works of Hildebert of Tours and Le Mans, and that the theme is suggested in the fourth Pseudo-Quintillian declamation, but that Bernard has added largely to the plot there briefly outlined. A Roman knight and lady were in every respect well endowed both by nature and fortune except that their marriage had up to the moment when the story opens been a childless one. At last the wife consulted an astrologer or mathematicus, “who could learn from the stars,” we are told, “the intentions of the gods, the mind of the fates, and the plan of Jove, and discover the hidden causes and secrets of nature.” He informed her that she would bear a son who would become a great genius and the ruler of Rome, but who would one day kill his father. When the wife told her husband of this prediction, he made her promise to kill the child in infancy. But when the time came, her mother love prevailed and she secretly sent the boy away to be reared, while she assured her husband that he was dead. She named her son Patricida in order that he might abhor the crime of patricide the more. The boy early gave signs of great intellectual capacity. Among other studies he learned “the orbits of the stars and how human fate is under the stars,” and he “clasped divine Aristotle to his breast.” Later on, when Rome was hard pressed by the Carthaginians and her king was in captivity, he rallied her defeated forces and ended the war in triumph.
“And because the fatal order demands it so shall be,
The fates gave him this path to dominion....
Blind chance sways the silly toiling of men;
Our world is the plaything and sport of the gods.”
The king thereupon abdicated in favor of Patricida, whom he addressed in these words, “O youth, on whose birth, if there is any power in the stars, a favorable horoscope looked down.”
The mother rejoiced to hear of her son’s success, and marveled at the correctness of the astrologer’s prediction, but was now the more troubled as to her husband’s fate. He noticed her distraction and at last induced her to tell him its cause. But then, instead of being angry at the deception which she had practiced upon him, and instead of being alarmed at the prospect of his own death, he, too, rejoiced in his son’s success, and said that he would die happy, if he could but see and embrace him. He accordingly made himself known to his son and told him how he had once ordered his death but had been thwarted by the eternal predestined order of events, and how some day his son would slay him, not of evil intent but compelled by the courses of the stars. “And manifest is the fault of the gods in that you cannot be kinder to your father.”
The son thereupon determines that he will evade the decree of the stars by committing suicide. He is represented as soliloquizing as follows:
“How is our mind akin to the ethereal stars,
If it suffers the sad necessity of harsh Lachesis?
In vain we possess a particle of the divine mind,
If our reason cannot make provision for itself.
God so made the elements, so made the fiery stars,
That man is not subject to the stars.”
Patricida accordingly summons all the Romans together, and, after inducing them by an eloquent rehearsal of his great services in their behalf to grant him any boon that he may ask, says that his wish is to die; and at this point the poem ends, leaving us uninformed whether the last part of the astrologer’s prediction remained unfulfilled, or whether Patricida’s suicide caused his father’s death, or whether possibly some solution was found in a play upon the word Patricida. Hauréau, however, believed that the poem is complete as it stands.
Different interpretations put upon the Mathematicus.
The purpose of the poet and his attitude towards astrology have been interpreted in diametrically opposite ways by different scholars. Before Hauréau it was customary to attribute the poem to Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, and to regard it as an attack upon astrology. The early editors of the Histoire Littéraire de la France supported their assertion that the most judicious men of letters in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had only a sovereign scorn for the widely current astrological superstition of their time by citing Hildebert as ridiculing the art in his Mathematicus.[292] A century later Charles Jourdain again represented Hildebert as turning to ridicule the vain speculations of the astrologers.[293] Bourassé, the editor of Hildebert’s works as they appear in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, seems to have felt that the poem was scarcely an outspoken attack upon astrology and tried to explain it as an academic exercise which was not to be taken seriously, but regarded as satire upon judicial astrology. Hauréau not only denied Archbishop Hildebert’s authorship, but took the common sense view that the poet believes fully in astrology. It would, indeed, be difficult to detect any suggestion of ridicule or satire about the poem. Its plot is a tragic one and it seems written in all seriousness. Even Patricida, despite his assertion that “man is not subject to the stars,” does not doubt that he will kill his father conformably to the learned astrologer’s prediction, if he himself continues to live. It is only by the tour de force of self-slaughter that he hopes to cheat fate.
Hildebert’s Hermaphrodite’s horoscope.
Even Archbishop Hildebert shows a tendency towards astrology in other poems attributed to him; for example, in his Nativity of Christ and in a short poem, The Hermaphrodite, which reads as follows, representing the fulfillment of a horoscope:
“While my pregnant mother bore me in the womb, ’tis said the gods deliberated what she should bring forth. Phoebus said, ‘It is a boy’; Mars, ‘A girl’; Juno, ‘Neither.’ So when I was born, I was a hermaphrodite. When I seek to die, the goddess says, ‘He shall be slain by a weapon’; Mars, ‘By crucifixion’; Phoebus, ‘By drowning.’ So it turned out. A tree shades the water; I climb it; the sword I carry by chance slips from its scabbard; I myself fall upon it; my trunk is impaled in the branches; my head falls into the river. Thus I, man, woman, and neither, suffered flood, sword, and cross.”[294]
This poem has always been greatly admired by students of Latin literature for its epigrammatic neatness and conciseness, and has been thought too good to be the work of a medieval writer, and has been even attributed to Petronius. Another version, by the medieval poet, Peter Riga, entitled De ortu et morte pueri monstruosi, is longer and far less elegant. Hauréau, however, regarded the Hermaphrodite as a medieval composition, since there are no manuscripts of it earlier than the twelfth century; but he was in doubt whether to ascribe it to Hildebert or to Matthew of Vendôme, who in listing his own poems mentions hic et haec hermaphroditus homo.[295]
The art of geomancy.
We turn to the association of the name of Bernard Silvester with the superstitious art of geomancy. It may be briefly defined as a method of divination in which, by marking down a number of points at random and then connecting or cancelling them by lines, a number or figure is obtained which is used as a key to sets of tables or to astrological constellations. The only reason for calling this geomancy, that is, divination by means of the element earth, would seem to be that at first the marks were made and figures drawn in the sand or dust, like those of Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse. But by the middle ages, at least, any kind of writing material would do as well. Although a somewhat more abstruse form of superstition than the ouija board, it seems to have been nearly as popular in the medieval period as the ouija board is now.
Prologue of the Experimentarius.
The name of Bernard Silvester is persistently associated in the manuscripts with a work bearing the title Experimentarius, which seems to consist of sets of geomantic tables translated from the Arabic. Its prologue is unmistakable, but it is less easy to make out what text should go with it and how the text should be arranged. Sometimes the prologue is found alone in the manuscripts,[296] and the text which accompanies it in others varies in amount and sometimes is more or less mixed up with other similar modes of divination. The prologue is sometimes headed, Evidencia operis subsequentis, and regularly subdivides into three brief sections. The first, opening with the words, Materia huius libelli, describes the subject-matter of the text as “the effect and efficacy of the moon and other planets and of the constellations, which they exert upon inferior things.” The writer’s opinion is that God permits mortals who make sane and sober inquiry to learn by subtle consideration of the constellations many things concerning the future and persons who are absent, and that astrology also gives information concerning human character, health and sickness, prosperity, fertility of the soil, the state of sea and air, business matters and journeys. In a second paragraph, opening, Utilitas autem huius libelli, the writer states that the use of his book is that one may avoid the perils of which the stars give warning by penitence and prayers and vows to God who, as the astrologer Albumasar admits, controls the stars. And through them the Creator reveals his will, as in the case of the three Magi who learned from a star that a great prophet had been born. Finally, in a paragraph of a single sentence, which opens with the words, Titulus vero talis est, we are informed that the title is the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester, “not because he was the original author but the faithful translator from Arabic into Latin.”
Pictures of Bernard Silvester.
In one manuscript which contains the Experimentarius there is twice depicted, although the second time in different colors, a seated human figure evidently intended to represent Bernard Silvester. He is bearded and sits in a chair writing, with a pen in one hand and a knife or scalpel in the other. Neither miniature is in juxtaposition to the prologue in which Bernard is named, but in both cases the figure is accompanied by five lines of text, written alternately in red and blue colors and proclaiming that Bernard Silvester is the translator and that the number seven is the basis in this infallible book of lot-casting.[297] It would not be safe, however, to accept this miniature as an accurate representation of Bernard, since the manuscript is not contemporary and it contains similar portraits of Socrates and Plato, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Cicero.
Problem of a spying-tube and Hermann’s relation to the Experimentarius.
Both in the manuscript which we have just been describing and another of older date[298] is a picture of two persons seated. In both manuscripts one is called Euclid, in the older manuscript only is the other named, and designated as Hermann. According to Black’s description Euclid “uplifts a sphere with his right hand, and with his left holds a telescope through which he is observing the stars; towards whom ‘Hermannus,’ on the other side, holds forth a circular instrument hanging from his fingers, which is superscribed ‘Astrolabium.’” The picture in the other manuscript is similar, but in view of the fact that they were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the rod along which, or tube through which ‘Euclid’ is squinting, can scarcely be regarded as a telescope without more definite proof of the invention of that instrument before the time of Galileo. Perhaps it is a dioptra[299] or spying-tube of the sort described by the ancients, Polybius and Hero, and used in surveying. But I mention the picture for the further reason that Clerval[300] asserted a connection between Hermann of Dalmatia, the twelfth century translator, and Bernard Silvester, affirming that Hermann sent Bernard his work on the uses of the astrolabe and that he really translated the Experimentarius from the Arabic and sent it to Bernard who merely versified it. But we have already proved that it was Hermann the Lame of the eleventh century who wrote on the astrolabe and that he did so a century before Bernard Silvester. The aforesaid picture is clearly of him and not of Hermann the Dalmatian. And whether the “B” at whose request Hermann wrote on the astrolabe be meant for Berengarius or Bernard, it certainly cannot be meant for Bernard Silvester, who was not born yet.
Text of the Experimentarius.
Apparently the text proper of the Experimentarius opens with the usual instructions of geomancies for the chance casting of points and drawing of lines. The number of points left over as a result of this procedure is used as a guide in finding the answer to the question which one has in mind. In a preliminary table are listed 28 subjects of inquiry such as life and death, marriage, imprisonment, enemies, gain. One turns to the topic in which one is interested and, according as the number of points obtained by chance is over or under seven, reckons forward or backward that many times from the number opposite his theme of inquiry, or, if exactly seven points were left over, takes the number of the theme of inquiry as he finds it. In one manuscript the new number thus obtained is that of the “Judge of the Fates” to whom one should next turn. There are 28 such judges, whose names are the Arabic designations for the 28 divisions of the circle of the zodiac or mansions of the moon, which spends a day in each of them.[301] A page is devoted to each judge, under whose name are twenty-eight lines containing as many responses to the twenty-eight subjects of inquiry. The inquirer selects a line corresponding to his number of points and the tables are so arranged that he thus always receives the answer which fits his inquiry. But most of the manuscripts, instead of at once referring the inquirer to his Judge as we have described, insert other preliminary tables in which he is first referred to a planet and then to a day of the moon. This unnecessarily indirect and complicated system is probably intended to mystify the reader and to emphasize further the supposedly astrological basis of the procedure, whereas it is in reality purely a matter of lot-casting.
Two versions of the 28 judges.
Now in most of the manuscripts which I have examined there are two versions of these twenty-eight pages of Judges of the Fates, worded differently, although the corresponding lines always seem to answer the same questions and apply to the same topics of inquiry as before. In the version which comes first, for example, the first line under the first Judge, Almazene or the belly of Aries, is
Tuum indumentum durabit tempore longo
while in the second version the same line reads,
Hoc ornamentum decus est et fama ferentum. [302]
Both versions seem to be regarded as the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester, for in the manuscripts where they occur together the first usually follows its prologue, while the second is preceded by his picture and the line, Translator Bernardus Silvester.[303] In one manuscript[304] the prologue is immediately followed by the second version and the first set of Judges does not occur. In some manuscripts,[305] however, the second version occurs without the first and without the prologue, in which cases, I think, there is nothing to indicate that it is by Bernard Silvester or a part of the Experimentarius. The first version ends in several manuscripts with the words, Explicit libellus de constellationibus[306] rather than some such phrase as Explicit Experimentarius. Furthermore in some manuscripts where it occurs alone this first set of Judges is called the book of Alchandiandus or Alkardianus.[307] He may, however, have been the Arabic author and Bernard his translator, and the liber alkardiani phylosophi opens in at least one manuscript with words appropriate to the title, Experimentarius, “Since everything that is tested by experience is experienced either for its own sake or on some other account.”[308]
Other modes of divination.
There are so many treatises of this type in medieval manuscripts and they are so frequently collected in one codex that they are liable to be confused with one another. Thus in two manuscripts a method of divination ascribed to the physician of King Amalricus[309] is in such juxtaposition to the Experimentarius that Macray takes it to be part of the Experimentarius, while the catalogue of the Sloane Manuscripts combines the two as “a compilation ‘concerning the art of Ptolemy.’” Macray also includes in the Experimentarius a Praenostica Socratis Basilei, which is of frequent occurrence in the manuscripts, and other treatises on divination which are either anonymous or ascribed to Pythagoras and, judging from the miniatures prefixed to them, to Anaxagoras and Cicero, who thus again is appropriately punished for having written a work against divination. I doubt if these other modes of divination are parts of the Experimentarius, which often is found without them, as are some of them without it. But they are so much like it in general form and procedure that we may consider them now, especially as they are of such dubious date and authorship that it would be difficult to place them more exactly.
Divination of the physician of King Amalricus.
The treatise which is assigned to the physician of King Amalricus and which is said to have been composed in memory of that monarch’s great victory over the Saracens and Turks in Egypt, obtains its key number by revolution of a wheel[310] rather than by the geomantic casting of points, and introduces a trifle more of astrological observance. If on first applying the inquirer receives an unfavorable reply, he may wait for thirty days and try again, but after the third failure he must desist entirely. “It is not allowed to inquire concerning one thing more than three times.” The twenty-eight subjects of inquiry are divided in groups of four among the seven planets, and the inquirer is told to return on the weekday named after the planet under which his query falls. On the day set the astrologer must further determine with the astrolabe when the hour of the same planet has arrived, and not until then may the divination by means of the wheel take place, as a result of which the inquirer is directed as before to one of 28 Judges who in this case, however, are said to be associated with mansions of the sun[311] rather than moon. At the close of the treatise of the physician of King Amalricus in both manuscripts[312] that I have examined is inserted some sceptical person’s opinion to the effect that these methods of divination are subtle trifles which are not utterly useless as a means of diversion, but that faith should not be placed in them. The more apparent the devil’s nets are, concludes the passage, the more wary the human bird will be.
Prenostica Socratis Basilei.
In the Prenostica or Prenosticon Socratis Basilei—Prognostic of Socrates the King—a number from one to nine is obtained by chance either by geomancy or by revolving a wheel on which an image of “King Socrates” points his finger. The inquirer then consults a table where sixteen questions are so arranged in compartments designated by letters of the alphabet that each question is found in two compartments. Say that the inquirer finds his question in A and E. He then consults another table where 144 names of birds, beasts, fish, stones, herbs, flowers, cities, and other “species” are arranged in nine rows opposite the numbers from one to nine and in sixteen columns headed by the sixteen possible pairs of letters such as the AE of our inquirer. Looking in the row corresponding to his number and the column AE he obtains a name. He must then find this name in a series of twelve circular tables where the aforesaid names are listed under their proper species, each table containing twelve names. He now is referred on to one of sixteen kings of the Turks, India, Spain, Francia, Babylonia, the Saracens, Romania, etc. Under each king nine answers are listed and here at last under his original number obtained by lot he finds the appropriate answer.[313]
Further modes of divination.
In the Prenostica Pitagorice we are assured that we may rest easy as to the integrity of the Catholic Faith being observed, “for that does not happen of necessity which human caution forewarned, can avoid.” It answers any one of a list of thirty-six questions by means of a number obtained by chance between one and twelve. The inquirer is referred to one of 36 birds whose pictures are drawn in the margins with twelve lines of answers opposite each bird. Other schemes of divination found with the Experimentarius in some manuscripts differ from the foregoing only in the number of questions concerning which inquiry can be made, the number of Judges and the names given them, the number of lines under each Judge, and the number of intermediate directory tables that have to be consulted before the final Judge is reached. As Judges we meet the twelve sons of Jacob, the thirty-six decans or thirds of the twelve signs, and another astrological group of twenty made up of the twelve signs, seven planets, and the dragon.[314]
Experimental character of geomancy.
In one manuscript[315] the directions for consulting this last group of Judges are given under the heading, Documentum experimenti retrogradi, which like Bernard’s Experimentarius suggests the experimental character of the art of geomancy or the arts of divination in general. Later we shall hear Albertus Magnus in the Speculum astronomiae call treatises of aerimancy,[316] pyromancy, and hydromancy, as well as of geomancy “experimental books.”
Various other geomancies.
Geomancies are of frequent occurrence in libraries of medieval manuscripts.[317] Many are anonymous[318] but others bear the names of noted men of learning. The art must have had great currency among the Arabs,[319] for not only are treatises current in Latin under such names as Abdallah,[320] Albedatus,[321] Alcherius,[322] Alkindi,[323] and Alpharinus,[324] but almost every prominent translator of the time seems to have tried his hand at a geomancy. In the manuscripts we find geomancies attributed to Gerard of Cremona,[325] Plato of Tivoli,[326] Michael Scot,[327] Hugo Sanctelliensis,[328] William of Moerbeke,[329] William de Saliceto of Piacenza,[330] and Peter of Abano,[331] and even to their medical confrère and contemporary, Bernard Gordon, who is not usually classed as a translator.[332] Some of these, however, were translators from the Greek or the Hebrew rather than Arabic, and some of the geomantic treatises in the manuscripts claim an origin from India.[333] But a Robert or Roger Scriptoris who compiled a geomancy towards the close of the medieval period thinks first among his sources of “the Arabs of antiquity and the wise moderns, William of Moerbeke, Bartholomew of Parma, Gerard of Cremona, and many others.”[334] These other geomancies are not necessarily like the Experimentarius of Bernard Silvester[335] and we shall describe another sort when we come to speak of Bartholomew of Parma in a later chapter.
Interest of statesmen and clergy in the art.
In the fifteenth century such intellectual statesmen as Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry VII of England displayed an interest in geomancy, judging from a manuscript de luxe of Guido Bonatti’s work on astrology which was made for Henry VII and contains a picture of him, and also Plato’s translation of the geomancy of Alpharinus and geomantic “tables of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.”[336] The interest of the clergy in this superstitious art is attested not only by the translation of such a person as William of Moerbeke, who was papal penitentiary and later archbishop of Corinth, but by a geomancy which we find in two fifteenth century manuscripts written by Martin, an abbot of Burgos, at the request of another abbot of Paris.[337] Treatises on geomancy continue to be found in the manuscripts as late as the eighteenth century, that of Gerard of Cremona especially.
[261] Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres, Paris, 1895, pp. 158-63. The point was for a time contested by Ch. V. Langlois, “Maître Bernard,” in Bibl. de l’École des Chartes, LIV (1893) and by Hauréau. The two Bernards are still identified in EB, 11th edition, while Steinschneider (1905), p. 8, still identified Bernard of Chartres with the author of De mundi universitate.
[262] Dr. R. L. Poole, EHR (1920), p. 327, does not regard this as absolutely certain but agrees at p. 331 “that the evidence of place and time make it impossible to identify Bernard Silvester with Bernard of Chartres,” as he had done earlier in Illustrations of Medieval Thought (1884), pp. 113-26.
[263] B. Hauréau, Le Mathematicus de Bernard Silvestris, Paris, 1895, p. 11.
[264] Clerval (1895), pp. 158, 173.
[265] BN 6415, fol. 74v, “Terrico veris scientiarum titulis doctori famosissimo bernardus silvestris opus suum.”
[266] Clerval (1895), pp. 173-4.
[267] BN 16246, 15th century. Extracts from it are printed by Cousin, Fragments philosophiques, II, 348-52. John of Salisbury in 1159 used it in the Polycraticus, ed. Webb (1909) I, xxx, xlii-xliii.
[268] Many MSS at Paris, BN 3195, 5698, 6395, 6477, 6480, 7054, 8299, 8513, and probably others. MSS catalogues often ascribe it to St. Bernard.
[269] Attention was first called to it by Langlois, Maître Bernard, 1893. It has not been printed. A description of some of the MSS of it will be found in Appendix I at the close of this chapter.
[270] B. Hauréau, Le Mathematicus de Bernard Silvestris, Paris, 1895, contains the text and lists the following MSS: BN 3718, 5129, 6415; Tours 300; Cambrai 875; Bodleian A-44; Vatican 344, 370, 1440 de la Reine; Berlin Cod. Theol. Octavo 94. Printed in Migne PL 171, 1365-80, among the poems of Hildebert of Tours.
[271] Ed. by Wrobel and Barach, in Bibl. Philos. mediae aetatis, Innsbruck, 1876, from two MSS, Vienna 526 and CLM 23434. HL XII (1763), p. 261 et seq., had already listed six MSS in the then Royal Library at Paris (now there are at least eight, BN 3245, 6415, 6752A, 7994, 8320, 8751C, 8808A, and 15009, 12-13th century, fol. 187), four at the Vatican, and many others elsewhere. The following may be added:
Cotton Titus D-XX, fols. 110v-115r, Bernardi Sylvestris de utroque mundo, majore et minore.
Cotton Cleopatra A-XIV, fols. 1-26, Bernardi Sylvestris cosmographia proso-metrice in qua de multis rebus physicis agitur.
Additional 35112, Liber de mundi philosophia, author not named.
Sloane 2477 and Royal 15-A-XXXII.
CU Trinity 1335, early 13th century, fols. 1-25v, Bernardi Silvestris Cosmographia.
CU Trinity 1368 (II), late 12th century, 50 leaves, Bernardi Silvestris Megacosmus et Microcosmus.
[272] Clerval’s (1895) pp. 259-61, “Le système de Bernard Silvester,” is limited to the De mundi universitate and says nothing of his obvious astrological doctrine, although at p. 240 Clerval briefly states that in that work Bernard takes over many figures from pagan astrology.
[273] HL XII (1763) p. 261 et seq., besides the De mundi universitate mentioned “two poems in elegiacs written expressly in defense of the influence of the constellations.” These were very probably the Mathematicus and Experimentarius, or the two parts or versions of the latter.
[274] History of Classical Scholarship (1903) I, 515; Illustrations of Medieval Thought (1884) p. 118.
[275] EHR (1920) p. 331.
[276] HL XII (1763) p. 261 et seq.
[277] Berlin 193 (Phillips 1827), fol. 25v, “Proverbia.”
[278] Indeed, the 15th century catalogue of that abbey lists one MS, 1482, which contains both the Megacosmus and Mathematicus, with the treatise of Valerius to Rufinus on not getting married sandwiched in between.
[279] Poole (1884) pp. 117-18.
[280] De mundi universitate, II, 6, 10, “Caelum ipsum Deo plenum est.... Sua caelo animalia ignes siderei....”
[281] Ibid., I, 3, 6-7,
“Motus circuitus numina turba deum
Dico deos quorum ante Deum praesentia servit.”
Also II, 4, 39, “deos caelumque.”
[282] Ibid., II, 6, 49, “Qui quia aeternae beatitudinis visione perfruuntur, ab omni distrahentis curae sollicitudine feriati in pace Dei quae omnem sensum superat conquiescunt.”
[283] De mundi universitate, II, 4, 49-50.
“Corpore iam posito cognata reibit ad astra
Additus in numero superumdeus.”
[284] Ibid., II, 6, 36-, “Participatenim angelicae creationis numerus cum siderum divinitate quod non moritur; cum homine, quod passionum affectibus incitatur.”
[285] Ibid., II, 6, 92 et seq.
[286] De mundi universitate, II, 6, 47-.
[287] Ibid., I, 4, 5-.
[288] Ibid., II, 1, 23-.
[289] Ibid., I, 3, 33 et seq.
[290] De mundi universitate, II, 4, 31-50; and II, 1, 30-32.
[291] Ibid., II, 1, 33-35.
“Parcarum leges et ineluctabile fatum
Fortunaeque vices variabilis
Quae sit in arbitrio res libera quidve necesse.”
[292] HL VII (1746) p. 137.
[293] C. Jourdain, Dissertation sur l’état de la philosophie naturelle etc., Paris, 1838, p. 116, note.
[294] Migne, PL 171, 1446. Juno here stands for the planet Venus: see Hyginus II, 42, “Stella Veneris, Lucifer nomine, quam nonnulli Junonis esse dixerunt”; and other passages cited by Bouché-Leclercq, L’Astrologie grecque, 1899, p. 99, note 2.
[295] J. B. Hauréau, Les mélanges poétiques d’Hildebert, 1882, pp. 138-47. In Digby 53, a poetical miscellany of the end of the 12th century, no author is named for the “De Ermaphrodito” nor for some other items which appear in the printed edition of Hildebert’s poems, although Hildebert’s name is attached to a few pieces in the MS.
[296] Ashmole 345, late 14th century, fol. 64. Bodleian Auct. F. 3. 13, fol. 104v. For a summary of the MSS see Appendix I at the close of this chapter.
[297] Digby 46, 14th century, fol. 1v, the first line is blue, the next red, etc.
An sors instabilis melius ferat ars docet eius
In septem stabis minus una petens numerabis
Post septem sursum numerando perfice cursum
Translator Bernardus Silvester
Hic infallibilis liber incipit autem peius.
At fol. 25v, the same five lines except that the last line is put first, where it would seem to belong, and is accordingly colored red instead of blue as before, the colors of the other four lines remaining the same as before.
[298] Ashmole 304, 13th century, fol. 2v.
[299] In this connection the following MS might prove of interest: CU Trinity 1352, 17th century, neatly written, Dioptrica Practica. Fol. 1 is missing and with it the full title. Cap 1, de Telescopiorum ac Microscopium Inventione, diversitate, et varietati. Quaestio I, Quid sunt Telescopia et quomodo ac quando inventa. After fol. 90 is a single leaf of diagrams.
[300] Clerval (1895), pp. 169, 190-91.
[301] These 28 Judges, or mansions of the moon, are seldom spelled twice alike in the MSS, but are somewhat as follows: Almazene, Anatha, Albathon, Arthura, Adoran, Almusan, Atha, Arian, Anathia, Althare, Albuza, Alcoreten, Arpha, Alana, Asionet, Algaphar, Azavenu, Alakyal, Alcalu, Aleum, Avaadh, Avelde, Cathateue, Eadabula, Eadatauht, Eadalana, Algafalmar, Algagafalui.
[302] In the MSS, which are very carelessly and often slovenly written, the wording of these lines varies a good deal, for instance, in Digby 46, fol. 11r, “Sum (sic) monumentum durabit tempore longo,” and in CU Trinity 1404 (II), fol. 2r, “Hoc ornamentum est et fama parentum.”
[303] Digby 46, fol. 25v; in Ashmole 304 the corresponding leaf has been cut out, probably for the sake of the miniature; Sloane 3857, fol. 181v, omits the picture but has the phrase, “Translator Bernardus Silvester.”
[304] Sloane 3554, fol. 13v-.
[305] Ashmole 342, early 14th century, #2.
Ashmole 399, late 13th century, fols. 54-8.
Royal 12-C-XII, fols. 108-23.
CU Trinity 1404 (II), 14-15th century, fols. 2-16.
Some of these MSS I have not seen.
[306] Digby 46, fol. 24v; Ashmole 304, fol. 16v; Sloane 3857, fol. 180v.
[307] Additional 15236, English hand of 13-14th century, fols. 130-52r, “libellus Alchandiandi”; BN 7486, 14th century, fol. 30v, “Incipit liber alkardiani phylosophi. Cum omne quod experitur sit experiendum propter se vel propter aliud....” And see above, the latter pages of Chapter 30.
[308] See the preceding note.
[309] Sloane 3554, fol. 1-; Digby 46, fols. 3r-5v, and fol. 90r. But in both MSS it precedes the prologue of the Experimentarius. Macray was probably induced to regard everything in Digby 46 up to fol. 92r as Experimentarius by the picture of Bernard Silvester which occurs at fol. 1v with the accompanying five lines stating that he is the translator of “this infallible book.” But the picture is probably misplaced, since it occurs again at fol. 25v before the second version of the 28 Judges.
[310] Inset inside the thick cover of Digby 46 are two interlocking wooden cogwheels for this purpose, with 28 and 13 teeth respectively.
[311] In Digby 46 diagrams showing the number of stars in each are given.
[312] Digby 46, fol. 5v; Sloane 3554, fol. 12r.
[313] I have described the Prenostica as it is found in Digby 46, fol. 40r-, with a picture at fol. 41v of Socrates seated and Plato standing behind him and pointing. Ashmole 304 has the same text and picture; and the text is practically the same in Sloane 3857, fols. 196-207, “Documentum subsequentis considerationis quae Socratica dicitur.” In Additional 15236, 13-14th century, fols. 95r-108r, the inquirer is first directed to implore divine aid and repeat a Paternoster and Ave Maria, and some details are slightly different, but the general method is identical. The final answers are given in French. In BN 7420A, 14th century, fol. 126r- (or clxxxxvi, or col. 451), “Liber magni solacii socratis philosophi” is also essentially the same; indeed, its opening words are, “Pronosticis Socratis basilii.” Preceding it are similar methods of divination, beginning at fol. 121v (or clxxxxii or col. 440), “Si vis operare de geomancia debes facere quatuor lineas....” Evidently the following is also our treatise: CU Trinity 1404 (IV), 14-15th century, Iste liber dicitur Rota fortune in qua sunt 16 questiones determinate in pronosticis sententiat’. (sic) basilici que sub sequentibus inscribuntur et sunt 12 spere et 16 Reges pro iudicibus constituti et habent determinare veritatem de questionibus antedictis cum auxilio sortium. James (III, 423) adds, “The questions, tables, spheres, and Kings follow....” Our treatise is also listed in John Whytefeld’s 1389 catalogue of MSS in Dover Priory, No. 409, fol. 192v, Pronostica socratis phi.
[314] These tracts of divination are found in Digby 46, fols. 52r-92r, and partially in Ashmole 304, Sloane 3857, and Sloane 2472.
[315] Sloane 2472, fol. 22r.
[316] The word seems to be regularly so spelled in the middle ages, although modern dictionaries give only aeromancy.
[317] For instance, at Munich the following MSS are devoted to works of geomancy: CLM 192, 196, 240, 242, 276, 392, 398, 421, 436, 456, 458, 483, 489, 541, 547, 588, 671, 677, 905, 11998, 24940, 26061, 26062.
[318] For instance, Amplon. Quarto 174, 14th century, fol. 120, Geomancia parva; Qu. 345, 14th century, fols. 47-50, geomancia cum theorica sua; Qu. 361, 14th century, fols. 62-79, five treatises; Qu. 365, fol. 83; Qu. 368, 14th century, fol. 30; Qu. 374, 14th century, fols. 1-60; Qu. 377, 14th century, fols. 70-76; Amplon. Octavo 88, 14th century, fols. 5-10; Amplon. Duodecimo 17, 14th century, fols. 27-35. Harleian 671; 4166, 15th century; Royal 12-C-XVI, 15th century; Sloane 887, 16th century, fols. 3-59; 1437, 16th century; 2186, 17th century; 3281, 13-14th century, fols. 25-34, “Liber 28 iudicum” or “Liber parcarum sive fatorum.”
[319] Additional 9600 is a geomancy in Arabic, and Addit. 8790, La Geomantia del S. Christoforo Cattaneo, Genonese, l’inventore di detta Almadel Arabico.
[320] Vatic. Urbin. Lat. 262, 14-15th century, Abdallah geomantiae fragmenta. Amplon. Folio 389, 14th century, fols. 56-99, Geomantia Abdalla astrologi cum figuris; perhaps the same as Math. 47, Geomancia cum egregiis tabulis Abdana astrologi, in the 1412 catalogue.
Amplon. Quarto 380, early 14th century, fols. 1-47, geomancia optima Abdallah filii Ali.
Magliabech. XX-13, 15th century, fols. 208-10, “Il libro di Zaccheria ebrio il quale compuose le tavole de giudici. Disse il famiglio di Abdalla....”
[321] Amplon. Octavo 88, early 14th century, fols. 1-5, geomancia Albedato attributa, fols. 107-10, Albedatii de sortilegiis.
CLM 398, 14th century, fols. 106-14, “Belio regi Persarum vates Albedatus salutem.”
BN 7486, 14th century, fol. 46r-, Albedaci philosophi ars punctorum; here the work is addressed to “Delyo regi Persarum” and is said to be translated by “Euclid, king and philosopher.” It immediately follows another geomancy by Alkardianus, of whom we have spoken elsewhere.
Berlin 965, 16th century, fol. 64-, “Incipit liber Albedachi vatis Arabici de sortilegiis ad Delium regem Persarum / Finis adest libri Algabri Arabis de sortilegiis”; similarly Amplonius in 1412 listed Math, 8, “liber subtilis valde Algabre geomanticus ad futurorum negociaciones.”
[322] Vienna 5508, 14-15th century, fols. 200-201v, “Ego Alcherius inter multa prodigia / nudus postea quolibet subhumetur.” Is this the Alcherius mentioned by Mrs. Merrifield (1849) I, 54-6 as copying in 1409 “Experiments with Color,” from a MS which he had borrowed?
[323] CLM 489, 16th century, fols. 207-22, Alchindi libellus de geomantia; also in CLM 392, 15th century.
[324] Arundel 66, 15th century, fols. 269-77, “Liber sciencie arienalis de judicis geomansie ab Alpharino filio Abrahe Judeo editus et a Platone de Hebreico sermone in Latinum translatus.”
CLM 11998, anno 1741, fol. 209-, Alfakini Arabici filii quaestiones geomantiae a Platone in Latinum translatae anno 1535 (which cannot be right).
CU Magdalene College 27 (F. 4. 27, Haenel 23) late 14th century, fols. 120-125v, “Incipit liber arenalis sciencie ab alfarino abizarch editus et a Platone Tiburtino de Arabico in latinum translatus.”
[325] Bologna University Library 449, 14th century, “Geomantia ex Arabico translata per Magistrum Gerardum de Cremona. Si quis partem geomanticam / multum bonum signi.”
Magliabech XX-13, fol. 61.
Digby 74, 15-16th century, fols. 1-52.
Sloane 310, 15th century.
Amplon. Quarto 373, 14th century, fols. 1-31, with notes at 32-37.
CLM 276, 14th century, fols. 69-75, Geomantia mag. Gerardi Cremonensis ab auctoribus via astronomice conposita.
Also printed under the title Geomantia astronomica in H. C. Agrippa, Opera, 1600, pp. 540-53.
[327] CLM 489, 16th century, fol. 174-, Michaelis Scoti geomantia.
[328] MSS of Hugo’s geomancy have already been listed in chapter 38, p. 86.
[329] CLM 588, 14th century, fols. 6-58, “Incipit geomantia a fratre gilberto (?) de morbeca domini pape penitentionario compilata quam magistro arnulfo nepoti suo commendavit.”
CLM 905, 15th century, fols. 1-64, Wilhelmi de Morbeca Geomantia.
Wolfenbüttel 2725, 14th century, “Geomantia fratris Guilhelmi de Marbeta penitenciarii domini pape dedicata Arnulpho nepoti. Anno domini millesimo ducentesimo octuagesimo octavo. Hoc opus est scientie geomancie.”
Vienna 5508, 14-15th century, fol. 1-, “Liber geomancie editus a fratre Wilhelmo de Morbeta. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus / querenti vel in brevi.”
Amplon. Quarto 373, 14th century, fols. 39-118; Qu. 377, 62-67; Qu. 384.
For MSS in Paris see HL 21; 146.
Magliabech. XX-13, 15th century, fol. 101-, in Italian.
CU Trinity 1447, 14th century, fols. 1-112r, a French translation made by Walter the Breton in 1347. He states that Moerbeke’s Latin version was translated from the Greek.
[330] Magliabech, XX-13, 15th century, fol. 210-, “del detto Çacheria Albiçarich,” translated from Hebrew into Latin by “maestro Saliceto.”
[331] CLM 392, 15th century; 489, 16th century, fol. 222, Petri de Abano Patavini modus iudicandi quaestiones; in both MSS accompanied by the geomancy ascribed to Alkindi. Printed in Italian translation, 1542.
[332] BN 15353, 13-14th century, fol. 87-, Archanum magni Dei revelatum Tholomeo regi Arabum de reductione geomancie ad orbem, tr. de Bernard de Gordon, datée de 1295.
[333] Harleian 2404, English hand, two geomancies (Indeana).
Sloane 314, 15th century, fols. 2-64, Latin and French, “Et est Gremmgi Indyana, que vocatur filia astronomie quam fecit unus sapientum Indie.”
With the opinions of Siger of Brabant in 1277 was condemned a book of geomancy which opened “Estimaverunt Indi”; Chart. Univ. Paris, I, 543.
CU Magdalene College 27 (F. 4. 27), late 14th century, fols. 72-88, “Hec est geomantia Indiana.”
[334] Sloane 3487, 15th century, fols. 2-193, Geomantia Ro. Scriptoris, fol. 2r, “... arabes antiquissimi et sapientes moderni Guillelmus de morbeca, Bartholomeus de Parma, Gerardus Cremonensis, et alii plures.”
[335] A geomancy by Ralph of Toulouse, however, preserved in a 14th century MS, has, like Bernard’s, the four pages of key followed by the twenty-eight pages of “judges of the fates,” from “Almatene” to “Algagalauro.” Berlin 969, fol. 282-, “Divinaciones magistri Radulfi de Tolosa.”
[336] Arundel 66 (see above, p. 119, note 5); the portrait of Henry is at fol. 201, at fols. 277v-87, “Tabulae Humfridi Ducis Glowcestriae in judiciis artis geomansie.”
[337] Corpus Christi 190, fols. 11-52, “Explicit liber Geomancie compilatus per magistrum Martinum Hispanum phisicum abbatem de Cernatis in ecclesia Vurgensi quam composuit ad preces nobilis et discreti viri domini Archimbaldi abbatis sancti Asteensis ac canonici Parisiensis.”
Ashmole 360-II, fols. 15-44, Explicit as above except “Burgensi,” “Archibaldi,” and “Astern.”
Also by the listing of geomancies in the medieval catalogues of monastic libraries. See James, Libraries of Canterbury and Dover.