He will live; but if he says ‘Ill,’ there is no hope of safety.”[2511]
Our poet not only thus associates with herbs the virtue of divination, but is guilty of sympathetic magic when he believes that the ancients learned by experience that Dragontea or snake-weed dispels poisons, wards off snakes, and is good for snake-bite from observing the similarity between the spotted rind of the herb and the skin of a snake.[2512] Odo or Macer repeats Galen’s story of curing an epileptic boy by suspending a root of peony about his neck,[2513] and later asserts the same virtue for the herb pyrethrum.[2514] Even more magical is the ceremony for curing toothache which he takes from Pliny and which consists in digging up the herb Senecion without use of iron, touching the aching tooth with it three times, and then replacing the plant in the place where it came from so that it will grow again.[2515] Pliny is also cited concerning the swallow’s restoring the sight of its young by swallow-wort.[2516] Our poet also repeats such beliefs as that the herb Buglossa preserves the memory,[2517] or that the smoke of Aristochia dispels demons and exhilarates infants.[2518] If the hives are anointed with the juice of the herb Barrocus, the bees will not desert them; while carrying that plant with one is a protection against the stings of bees, wasps, and spiders.[2519] Among the virtues most frequently attributed to herbs are expelling or killing worms, curing pestiferous bites or poisons, and provoking urine or vomiting. On the whole, “Macer” contains only a moderate amount of superstition, although rather more proportionally than Walafrid Strabo.
Experiments of Macer.
Although Odo or Macer seems to make no original contribution to botany, cites authorities frequently, and speaks often of the ancients or men of old, he also at least once cites “experts”[2520] and we have also seen his belief that the ancients had tested the virtues of plants by experience. This rather slight experimental character of the work is further emphasized in some manuscripts of it, where the title is “Experiments of Macer” and the matter seems to have been rearranged under diseases instead of by herbs.[2521]
CHAPTER XXVII
OTHER EARLY MEDIEVAL LEARNING: BOETHIUS, ISIDORE, BEDE, GREGORY THE GREAT
Aridity of early medieval learning—Historic importance of The Consolation of Philosophy—Medieval reading—Influence of the works of Boethius—His relation to antiquity and middle ages—Attitude to the stars—Fate and free will—Music of the stars and universe—Isidore of Seville—Method of the Etymologies—Its sources—Natural marvels—Isidore is rather less hospitable to superstition than Pliny—Portent—Words and numbers—History of magic—Definition of magic—Future influence of Isidore’s account of magic—Attitude to astrology—In the De natura rerum—Bede’s scanty science—Bede’s De natura rerum—Divination by thunder—Riddles of Aldhelm—Gregory’s Dialogues—Signs and wonders wrought by saints—More monkish miracles—A monastic snake-charmer—Basilius the magician—A demon salad—Incantations in Old Irish—The Fili.
Aridity of early medieval learning.
The erudite fortitude of students of the Merovingian period commands our admiration, but sometimes inclines us to wonder whether anyone without a somewhat dry-as-dust constitution could penetrate far or tarry long in the desert of early medieval Latin learning without perishing of intellectual thirst. As a rule the writings of the time show no originality whatever, and least of all any scientific investigation; they are of value merely as an indication of what past books men still read and what parts of past science they still possessed some interest in. Under the same category of condemnation may be placed most of the Carolingian period so far as our investigation is concerned. We shall therefore traverse rapidly this period of sparse scientific productivity and shall be doing it ample justice, if from its meager list of writers we select for consideration Boethius of Italy at the opening of the sixth century and Gregory the Great at its close, Isidore of Spain at the opening of the seventh century, and Bede in England at the beginning of the eighth century, with some brief allusion to the riddles of Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, and to Old Irish literature. We should gain little or nothing by adding to the list Alcuin at the close of the eighth century and Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century, although it may be noted now that later medieval writers cite Rabanus for statements which I have failed to find in his printed works. In general it may be said that the writers whom we shall consider are those during the period who are most cited by the later medieval authors.
Historic importance of The Consolation of Philosophy.
Of the distinguished family and political career of Boethius who lived from about 480 to 524 A. D., and his final exile, imprisonment, and execution by Theodoric the East Goth, we need scarcely speak here. Our concern is with his little book, The Consolation of Philosophy, one of those memorable writings which, like The City of God of Augustine, stand out as historical landmarks and seem to have been written on the right subject by the right man at the most dramatic moment. The timely appearance of such works, produced in both these cases not under the stimulus of triumphant victory but the sting of bitter defeat, is nevertheless perhaps less surprising than is their subsequent preservation and enormous influence. We often are alternately amused and amazed by the mistakes concerning historical and chronological detail found in medieval writers. Yet medieval readers showed considerable appreciation of the course of history, of its fundamental tendencies, and of its crucial moments by the works which they included in their meager libraries.