A.D. 1266.—It is shown by Th. Torffæus (Latin for Thormodr Torfason), an Icelandic scholar (b. 1636, d. 1719), who published “Historia Rerum Norvegicarum” (Hafniæ, 1711, IV. c. 4, p. 345), that at this date the northern nations were acquainted with the mariner’s compass. In the “History of Norway” here alluded to, he mentions the fact that the poem of the Icelandic historian, Jarl Sturla (Snorri Sturlason) written in 1213, on the death of the Swedish Count Byerges, was rewarded with a box containing a mariner’s compass.
References.—Suhm, “In effigien Torfæi, una cum Torfænis”; “Nouv. Biogr. Générale de Hœfer,” Vol. XLV. p. 495; “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. XII. p. 263; Jessen, “Norge,” pp. 83–99; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 312; Michaud, “Biog. Univ.,” Vol. XLI. p. 683.
A.D. 1269.—Peregrinus (Petrus), Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, Méhéricourt—Magister Petrus de Maharnecuria, Picardus—doubtless a Crusader, was, as Roger Bacon tells us (“Opus Tertium,” cap. xi) the only one, besides Master John of London, who, at this period, could be deemed a thoroughly accomplished, perfect mathematician, and was one who understood the business of experimenting in natural philosophy, alchemy and medicine better than any one else in Western Europe.
Peregrinus is the author of a letter or epistle, “Written in camp at the Siege of Lucera (delle Puglie—Nucerræ) in the year of our Lord 1269, on the 8th day of August,” addressed to his Amicorum intime, a soldier, by the name of Sygerus de Fontancourt—Foucaucourt—Foucancort.
Of this epistle, which is the earliest known work of experimental science, there are but few reliable complete manuscript copies. Most of these have been very ably analyzed by P. D. Timoteo Bertelli Barnabita in the exhaustive Memoirs published by him in Rome during 1868, and still better detailed by Dr. Silvanus P. Thompson in his several valuable printed researches and lectures on the subject, but there has been of it only one printed issue in book form, that of the Lindau physician, A. P. Gasser, which appeared at Augsburg during 1558.
Several attempts at translation have been made, notably by Guillaume Libri (“Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques ...” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. p. 487) who admitted that, with the aid of several paleographers, he could not decipher many of the abbreviated faint characters existing in the Bibliothèque Nationale manuscript (No. 7378A in quarto, at folio 67), and by Tiberius Cavallo, who does scarcely better with the Leyden copy (Fol. Cod. No. 227) which was discovered by him, and but a portion of which he transcribes in the supplement to his “Treatise on Magnetism,” London, 1800, pp. 299–320. A translation was also made by Brother Arnold, of the La Salle Institute in Troy, N.Y., and published during 1904, but the most meritorious version now existing is the one entitled “Done into English by Silvanus P. Thompson from the printed Latin versions of Gasser 1558, Bertelli 1868, and Hellmann 1898, and amended by reference to the manuscript copy in his possession, formerly amongst the Phillipps’ manuscripts, dated 1391.” This translation, “printed in the year 1902, in the Caxton type, to the number of 250 copies,” reflects very great credit upon Prof. Thompson, who has given us such a faithful interpretation of the original work as would naturally be expected at his hands, and who has, besides, rubricated this right royal little volume and caused it to be issued in one of the most attractive typographical fashions of the Chiswick Press.
The Hellmann 1898 Berlin version just alluded to, which appeared in “Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten ...” No. 10 (Rara Magnetica), contains a photographic reproduction of the Augsburg 1558 title-page, and, it may be added, the volume of Phillipps’ manuscripts, of which Prof. Thompson became the fortunate possessor, includes one of Chaucer’s treatises on the Astrolabe, besides the Peregrinus’ manuscript in question.
During the year 1562 much of the original epistle was pilfered by Joannes Taisnier Hannonius, who badly condensed and deformed it and incorporated it as new matter, conjointly with some papers of his own, in a book entitled “Oposculum ... de Natura Magnetis et ejus effectibus ...” Coloniæ, 1562; and that much was translated “into Englishe” by Richarde Eden, London, about 1579, under title of “A very necessarie and profitable booke concerning navigation.”
Much has been said at different times regarding the contents of the above-named epistle, the full title of the Paris MS. No. 7378 of which reads
“Epistola Petri Peregrini de Maricourt ad Sygerum de Foucaucourt militem de magnete,”