[544] Neither name, for example, despite the devotion of both to astrology, appears in the index of T. O. Wedel’s, The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology particularly in England, Yale University Press, 1920.
[545] For example, in the same MS with Daniel of Morley’s work, Arundel 377, fol. 86v, de altitudine Solis etc. apud Toletum et Herefordiam; Ibid., “Anni collecti omnium planetarum compositi a magistro Rogero super annos domini ad mediam noctem Herefordie anno ab incarnatione domini mclxxviii post eclipsim que contigit Hereford eodem anno” (13 September).
CHAPTER XLIII
ALEXANDER NECKAM ON THE NATURES OF THINGS
Birth and childhood—Education—The state of learning in his time—Popular science and mechanical arts—His works—De naturis rerum—Neckam’s citations—His knowledge of Aristotle—Use of recent authors—Contemporary opinion of Neckam—His attitude toward natural science—Science and the Bible—His own knowledge of science—Incredible stories of animals—A chapter on the cock—Effect of sin upon nature—Neckam on occult virtues—Fascination—His limited belief in astrology—Neckam’s farewell.
Birth and childhood.
In the year 1157 an Englishwoman was nursing two babies. One was a foster child; the other, her own son. During the next fifty years these two boys were to become prominent in different fields. The fame of the one was to be unsurpassed on the battlefield and in the world of popular music and poetry. He was to become king of England, lord of half of France, foremost of knights and crusaders, and the idol of the troubadours. He was Richard, Cœur de Lion. The other, in different fields and a humbler fashion, was none the less also to attain prominence; he was to be clerk and monk instead of king and crusader, and to win fame in the domain of Latin learning rather than Provençal literature. This was Alexander Neckam. Of his happy childhood at St. Albans he tells us himself in Latin verse somewhat suggestive of Gray’s lines on Eton:
Hic locus aetatis nostrae primordia novit
Annos felices laetitiaeque dies
Hic locus ingenuis pueriles imbuit annos