Some modern scholars have drawn inferences from Daniel’s treatise with which I am unable to agree. Mr. S. A. Hirsch in his edition of Roger Bacon’s Greek Grammar follows Cardinal Gasquet[516] in observing concerning Daniel’s preface, “There can be no clearer testimony than this to the complete oblivion into which Greek had in those days fallen in western Europe, including England.” It may be granted that there was and had been little knowledge of Greek grammar and the Greek language in twelfth century England, but that is not what Daniel is talking about: indeed, there seems to be no reason for believing Daniel himself proficient in either Greek grammar or Greek literature, although he was shrewd enough to question whether Chalcidius always interpreted Plato aright.[517] When he calls himself “the only Greek among Romans,” he means the only one interested in Greek philosophy and astronomy and in translations of the same made largely from the Arabic. But earlier in the same century we have seen Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, and Bernard Silvester interested either in Platonism or Arabic science, and the anonymous Sicilian translator of the Almagest from the Greek, and before him Burgundio of Pisa and other translators from the Greek. Therefore all that Daniel’s remarks seems to indicate is that there was less interest in Greek philosophy in England after his return than before he went away, owing to the temporary popularity of the study of Roman law. But he knew where the studies in which he was interested still flourished.
Daniel and the church: a misinterpretation.
A more serious misinterpretation of Daniel’s relation to his age is Valentin Rose’s assertion that, because of Daniel’s addiction to Arabian and astrological doctrines, “his book found no favor in the eyes of the church and was shunned like poison. It has left no traces in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.”[518] Rose spoke on the assumption that only one copy of Daniel’s treatise had reached us, whereas now we know of several manuscripts of it. If it did not become so widely known as some works, the more probable reason for this may well be that his brief résumé of Arabic and astrological doctrines appeared too late, when the fuller works of Ptolemy and of the Arabic astrologers were already becoming known through complete Latin translations. Brief pioneer treatises, like those of Adelard of Bath and William of Conches, which had appeared earlier in the century, had had time to become widely known during a period when there was perhaps nothing fuller and better available. But Daniel’s little trickle of learning from Toledo, which does not represent any very considerable advance over Adelard and William, might well be engulfed in the great stream of translations that now poured from Spain into Christian western Europe.[519] It is unreasonable to conjecture that Daniel’s book, which is rather mild anyway in its astrological doctrine, and which was called forth by the favoring questions of a bishop, was then crushed by bitter ecclesiastical opposition; when we know that William’s book, which actually encountered an ecclesiastical opposition of which we have no evidence in Daniel’s case, nevertheless continued in circulation and was much cited in the next century; and when we know that both Arabic and astrological doctrines and books were widespread in Christian western Europe both in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Treatises with more poison of astrology in them than his were read and cited and seem to have weathered successfully, if not to have escaped unscathed, whatever ecclesiastical censure may have been directed against them. If Daniel’s own composition did not secure a wide circle of readers, the chances are that “the multitude of precious volumes” which he imported from Spain to England did. And if the work of the pupil remained little cited, the translations of the master, Gerard of Cremona, who had taught him astrology at Toledo, became known throughout western Europe. Thus, while Daniel’s personal influence may not have been vast, he reflects for us the progress of a great movement of which he was but a part.
Daniel’s future influence.
But Rose was further mistaken in his assertion that Daniel’s De philosophia “has left no trace in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.” Not only is the work found complete in three manuscripts of which Rose did not know, and of which one appears to be twice removed from the original. In a manuscript of the fourteenth century at Oriel College, Oxford,[520] in the fitting company of excerpts from Adelard of Bath and Gundissalinus, are over three double column folio pages of extracts drawn from various portions of the Philosophia. These begin with Daniel’s excuse for borrowing the eloquence and wisdom of the infidels and with some of his utterances anent the creation of the world. They include a number of his citations of other writers, his story of the two fountains outside the walls of Toledo which varied in fulness with the moon’s phases and contained salt water although remote six days journey from the sea, and other bits of his astrological doctrine. A similar, although not identical, selection of pearls from Daniel’s philosophy is found in one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne,[521] the Elizabethan antiquary, who gives the title of Daniel’s work as De superioribus et inferioribus and makes extracts both from its first and second books. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript’s writer seem to have been particularly impressed with Daniel’s views concerning the creation, rather than his retailing of astrological doctrine. Twyne first repeats his statement that the quantity of the universe reveals the power of its Maker; its quality, His wisdom; and its marvelous beauty, His unbounded good will. Twyne also notes Daniel’s phrase, “court of the world,” for the universe. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript note the passage concerning the triple universe, and another in which Daniel tells how the three human qualities, reason, irascibility, and desire, may be either used to discern and resist evil, or perverted to evil courses. Both also notice his contention that the chaos preceding creation was not hyle or matter but a certain contrariety present in matter.
Roger of Hereford.
In the same manuscript with Daniel’s treatise is a work by another Englishman, Roger of Hereford,[522] who was contemporary with him, who wrote treatises both in astronomy and astrology, and who, again like Daniel, was encouraged by a bishop. We are not, I believe, directly informed whether any of his works were translations from the Arabic or whether he was ever in Spain, but some of them sound as if they might be at least adaptations from the Arabic. At any rate Alfred of England dedicated to Roger the translation which he made from the Arabic of the pseudo-Aristotelian De vegetabilibus. Astronomical tables which Roger calculated for the meridian of Hereford in 1178 are based upon tables for Marseilles and Toledo, and the manuscript of one of his works is said by the copyist of 1476 to have been taken by him from an ancient codex written in Toledo in the year 1247.[523] Other astronomical treatises attributed to Roger are a Theory of the Planets, a Treatise concerning the rising and setting of the Signs, and a Compotus which dates itself in 1176 and is addressed to a Gilbert[524] who seems to be no other than Foliot, bishop of Hereford until 1163 and thereafter bishop of London. The signature of Roger of Hereford attests one of his documents in 1173-1174. In 1176 in the preface to the Compotus[525] Roger speaks of himself as iuvenis, and the heading in the manuscript even calls him “Child Roger” or “Roger Child,”[526] but he also says that he has devoted many years to learning, so that we need not regard him as especially youthful at that time. The definite dates in his career seem to fall in the decade from 1170 to 1180, although his association with Alfred of England may well have been later.
An astrology in four parts.
Professor Haskins ascribes one or more astrological works to Roger of Hereford and lists a number of manuscripts with three different Incipits.[527] Some of these manuscripts I have examined. One at Paris has the Titulus, “In the name of God the pious and merciful, here opens the book of the division of astronomy and its four parts composed by the famous astrologer Roger of Hereford.”[528] Roger explains that the first part is general and concerned with such matters as “peoples, events, and states, changes of weather, famine, and mortality.” The second is special and deals with the fate of the individual from birth to life’s close. The third deals with interrogations and the fourth with elections. The first chapter of the first part is entitled, “Of the properties of the signs and planets in any country,” and opens with the statement that it has been proved by experience that the signs Aries and Jupiter have dominion in the land “baldac and babel and herach,” Libra and Saturn in the land of the Christians, Scorpion and Venus in the land of the Arabs, Capricorn and Mercury in India, Leo and Mars over the Turks, Aquarius and the Sun in Babylonia, Virgo and the Moon in Spain. The other five signs seem to be left without a country.[529] Chapter two tells how to find what sign dominates in any villa; three, of the powers of the planets in universal events; four, of the science of the annual significance of the planets; five, knowledge of rains for the four seasons; six, knowledge of winds in any villa;[530] nine, the twenty-eight mansions of the moon. After the tenth chapter distinguishing these mansions as dry and wet and temperate, the second part on nativities opens with the retrospective statement, “Now we have treated of the first part of this art, omitting what many astrologers have said without experience and without reason.”[531] After a dozen chapters on the significance of the twelve houses in nativities, the author again asserts that in his discussion of that subject he has said nothing except what learned men agree upon and experience has tested.[532] After devoting three chapters to the familiar astrological theme of the revolution of years, he takes up in the third and fourth books[533] interrogations according to the twelve houses and elections, which are made in two ways according as the nativity is or is not known. The invocation of God the pious and compassionate in the Titulus and the list of countries and peoples in the first chapter have a Mohammedan and oriental flavor and suggest that the work is a translation.
Another astrology in four parts.