A
HISTORY OF MAGIC AND
EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
VOLUME II

BOOK IV. THE TWELFTH CENTURY

Chapter 35.The Early Scholastics: Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor.
Chapter 36.Adelard of Bath.
Chapter 37.William of Conches.
Chapter 38.Some Twelfth Century Translators, chiefly of Astrology from the Arabic in Spain.
Chapter 39.Bernard Silvester: Astrology and Geomancy.
Chapter 40.St. Hildegard of Bingen.
Chapter 41.John of Salisbury.
Chapter 42.Daniel of Morley and Roger of Hereford; or, Astrology in England in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century.
Chapter 43.Alexander Neckam on the Natures of Things.
Chapter 44.Moses Maimonides.
Chapter 45.Hermetic Books in the Middle Ages.
Chapter 46.Kiranides.
Chapter 47.Prester John and the Marvels of India.
Chapter 48.The Pseudo-Aristotle.
Chapter 49.Solomon and the Ars Notoria.
Chapter 50.Ancient and Medieval Dream-Books.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS: PETER ABELARD AND HUGH OF ST. VICTOR

Relation of scholastic theology to our theme—Character of Abelard’s learning—Incorrect statements of his views—The nature of the stars—Prediction of natural and contingent events—The Magi and the star—Demons and forces in nature—Magic and natural science—Hugh of St. Victor—Character of the Didascalicon—Meaning of Physica—The study of history—The two mathematics: astrology, natural and superstitious—The superlunar and sublunar worlds—Discussion of magic—Five sub-divisions of magic—De bestiis et aliis rebus.

Relation of scholastic theology to our theme.

The names of Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, and Hugh or Hugo of St. Victor, 1096-1141, have been coupled as those of the two men who perhaps more than any others were the founders of scholastic theology. Our investigation is not very closely or directly concerned with scholastic theology, which I hope to show did not so exclusively absorb the intellectual energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as has sometimes been asserted. Our attention will be mainly devoted as heretofore to the pursuit of natural science during that period and the prominence both of experimental method and of magic in the same. But our investigation deals not only with magic and experimental science, but with their relation to Christian thought. It is therefore with interest that we turn to the works of these two early representatives of scholastic theology, and inquire what cognizance, if any, they take of the subjects in which we are especially interested. As we proceed into the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries in subsequent chapters, we shall also take occasion to note the utterances of other leading men of learning who speak largely from the theological standpoint, like John of Salisbury and Thomas Aquinas. Let us hasten to admit also that the scholastic method of instruction and writing made itself felt in natural science and medicine as well as in theology, as a number of our subsequent chapters will illustrate. In the present chapter we shall furthermore be brought again into contact with the topic of the Physiologus and Latin Bestiaries, owing to the fact that a treatise of this sort has been ascribed, although probably incorrectly, to Hugh of St. Victor.

Character of Abelard’s learning.

There is no more familiar, and possibly no more important, figure in the history of Latin learning during the twelfth century than Peter Abelard who flourished at its beginning. His career, as set forth in his own words, illustrates educational conditions in Gaul at that time. His brilliant success as a lecturer on logic and theology at Paris reveals the great medieval university of that city in embryo. His pioneer work, Sic et Non, set the fashion for the standard method of presentation employed in scholasticism. He was not, however, the only daring and original spirit of his time; his learned writings were almost entirely in those fields known as patristic and scholastic; and, as in the case of Sic et Non, consist chiefly in a repetition of the utterances of the fathers. This is especially true of his statements concerning astrology, the magi, and demons. To natural science he gave little or no attention. Nevertheless his intellectual prominence and future influence make it advisable to note what position he took upon these points.