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The |How Alchemy changed the World #3 Episode
Listen Part Three: Al-kimia transformed into Alchemie. As one star of Alchemy was fading another rose to the sky during Europe's High Middle Ages. Fuelled by incoming Greek texts not seen since Roman times, and astounded by advanced Islamic texts, the Renaissance of the 12th century had begun. Kick started at the end of the Early Middle Ages by a Frenchman called Gerbert d'Aurillac, who under Roman Catholic monastic orders went to study mathematics in Spain. Once there, he was introduced to not only to the new Arabic mathematics but a far larger tree of knowledge of which mathematics was but a single branch, that of Alchemy itself.When Gerbert arrived in 967CE, Spain was well into its Reconquista or Christian re-conquest of Islamic territories that would eventually become the Spanish Empire. Under the tutelage of Atto the Bishop of Vich, just north of Barcelona, Gerbert began his studies. Shortly afterwards Atto became embroiled in a political assignment that would take him away and return him a changed man. Sent by Borrell II of Barcelona, to negotiate a critical Andalusian ceasefire, Atto travelled to Cordoba one of the largest cities in the world for a time and a center for the Islamic world and Mediterranean Basin. Once there he met the Caliph of Cordoba, Al-Hakam II. In whom Atto found a learned scholar-prince, who talked more competently about a vast range of subjects from astronomy to mathematics, than most of Atto's Spanish intellectual peers. Al-Hakam II also summed up all these subjects in an overall discipline called al-kimia. When Atto returned and told Gerbert of this new and yet very old science of Alchemy, they both vowed to learn more and soon became Alchemy initiates, learning under numerous respected Arab teachers, imported into Spain with the help of Al-Hakam II. Gerbert once started could not get enough, at only 21 years old he was learning new ideas, concepts and methodologies everyday, which the rest of Medieval Europe had never even heard about. Certainly, Gerbert was not the first European to study and assimilate the new Islamic/Greek/Egyptian Alchemy. What makes Gerbert unique in the formation and rise of European Alchemy, is that he went on to extensively tutor Emperor Otto II & III, and at the cathedral school of Rheims. Never hesitating to teach his newfound knowledge and relay his respect for Islamic Alchemists. Gerbert became a huge proponent in the integration of I.G.E. Alchemy into the Roman Catholic Church's body of knowledge. Much like it had absorbed knowledge of amongst others, medicine, astronomy, and metallurgy from Pagan priests, rites, and rituals. Nevertheless, what truly cemented Alchemy into the books was the day Gerbert became head of the Roman Catholic Church, as Pope Sylvester II in 1003CE. It also serves to mention that although he became Pope, since his exposure to and experimentation with Alchemy as a young lad, he was dogged by the title of Sorcerer. During and after his life several legends arose around him, the most persistent being that he and the Devil had long chats. And more interestingly a kickback all the way to Jabir and his quest to create artificial life. The prophetic Brazen Head with which it was legend, Gerbert questioned, and the bronze/brass cast head always responded accurately, no mater the question. Giving rise to perhaps the first European science fiction story, the artificial robot, an idea that would sound across the ages.Although absorbed, assimilated and even added to by the likes of Adelard of Bath (1122CE) and especially the extensive translation of the original Greek and Arabic texts into Latin of Robert Grosseteste (1230CE), and his resulting important commentaries and treatises like the astronomic, De sphere. Alchemy was to remain mostly unstudied until the Bavarian born, Albertus Magnus and his student Thomas Aquinas a fellow Dominican Monk, brought it into prominence. Inextricably linked from the time Thomas went to his first lecture in the Cologne Dominican School by Albertus on philosophy, which incorporated strong Aristotelian concepts in 1244CE. Thomas became an avid student and Albertus, who was already well beyond just studying Aristotle, began to share his knowledge of Alchemy. A year later, they both went to the famed University of Paris, Albertus for a Doctorate and Thomas a Bachelors in Theology. (It was in Paris that the word al-kimia was to become the French Alkemie, and later the English Alchemy, in Latin it was named Solve et Coagula-Separate and Join Together.) They remained in Paris for three years and achieved both their academic goals and much more. However, there was another important character lecturing at the University of Paris at the same time, though not directly linked to Albertus and Thomas, he too would have a profound effect on Alchemy, a 31 year-old, soon to be Franciscan Friar, Roger Bacon. After Paris, Albertus and Thomas in 1248CE moved back to Cologne and continued their studies and both lectured for another four years. It was during this period that Albertus began producing numerous treatises like Alchemy: Metals and Materials, all collected in a volume entitled, Theatrum Chemicum. This also included many references to The Philosophers Stone and Albertus did believe in the mystical side of alchemy. Moreover, whilst Albertus preferred the philosophic side of alchemy, he was not above getting dirty and was the first European alchemist to isolate Arsenic. It was because of Albertus's abundant lifetime treatise output on a vast range of subjects, some thirty-eight volumes in total. All of which up held as their base, empiric Aristotelian concepts of logic and observation, pillar stones of alchemy. Which was fine until these concepts and a hoard more, promoted by Albertus amongst others, began cause the questioning of current church doctrine. Chief among the questioners was Thomas Aquinas, who so near to that ancient flame relit, would become a reagent for cataclysmic change, and forever alter the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, that was still to come and in the meantime, while Thomas went back to Paris to attain his Masters in Theology and two years later Albertus joined him as the newly elected Dominican Provincial Superior. This began a mutual leap into church politics that would for Thomas, only end in condemnation and death.Meanwhile by 1256CE Roger Bacon had taken his Franciscan vows and thrown off the mantle of a teaching professor. Perhaps to devote more his time to the study and understanding of alchemy, with especial reference to Aristotle and the new (to him) influx of translated (into Latin) Arabic Alchemical texts. Now although the Franciscan order was one of the strictest, it was only in 1260CE that they forbade their friars from publically publishing their own manuscripts without specific approval. However Roger had a good friend, one who was rather well connected.Cardinal Guy le Gros de Foulques and Roger Bacon became friends previous to this new edict, and though he could not help Roger at that time. Just five years later when he became Pope Clement IV, he was in a position to do so. So in 1265CE Roger Bacon was issued a papal mandate, ordering him to write to the Pope on the place of Philosophy within Theology. Three years later Roger sent the Pope his Opus Majus-the great work, which was a massive treatise for the time containing 840 pages and divided into seven sections. But it was parts four, five and six, that would echo down the ages and help transform alchemy, and indeed the world, forever. These three parts of the Opus Majus, titled respectively under Mathematics, Optics and Experimental Science, covered a vast range of subjects from alchemy to celestial bodies. Included among them was; a gunpowder recipe, a detailed study of the anatomy of the eye, understanding eyesight, properties of light, and in particular the use of refraction/reflection in mirrors and lenses. Many of the studies foreshadowed or rather laid the ground work for, the invention of telescopes, microscopes, steam ships, flying machines, spectacles and hydraulics. Now, as marvellous as Opus Majus was, it would only be mass printed and become available outside the Vatican, some 630 years later. Why? Well just one year after the Pope received the Opus Majus, he died. The death of Pope Clement IV marked a downward spiral not only for Roger Bacon, but for Thomas Aquinas, Albert Magus, the whole of Alchemy and Europe itself.For three years the Papal throne remained vacant while its Cardinals argued about who should attain succession. During this time the Bishop of Paris (perhaps taking advantage of the Papal vacuum, in order to support the French Cardinals in some way) started a campaign against the influx of new ideas he stated were threatening the foundations of the church and university. Chief to this campaign was the outlawing of the enormously popular teachings of the new (to Europe) fandangled philosophers, Aristotle and his Arabic counterparts. For Thomas Aquinas it spelled the beginning of the end, Aristotle and Co. being central and indispensable to his life, work, lectures and treatises. The Dominican order quickly rushed him away from Paris to Florence, Italy where he was commissioned to build a Stadium Generale-a type of medieval university. The sudden change in the direction of European church politics took Thomas by surprise, and he was thoroughly undermined. The vision of a future he glimpsed through the teachings of his ancient and modern peers, a vision that he had tirelessly promoted his entire adult life, had been crushed in the jaws of European church dogma and indecision. Thomas died just four years after the Paris edict, and his long time friend and confidant Albertus Magnus would follow him eight years later. In 1277CE the Bishop of Paris issued a new revised edict, even harsher than the first, it became known as The Condemnations, and through it Thomas's Aquinas would be posthumously excommunicated and all his works banned. It was this edict that also saw Roger Bacon placed under house arrest, and all his works published books and treatises banned. He was eventually sent to prison for the last fourteen years of his life, where he died around 1294CE. After Roger Bacon, Alchemy goes below the radar for obvious reasons, related to imprisonment and death. And in so doing it begins to reaffirm and backward slide into one of it oldest aspects, that of being an occult practice. But there is one who name stands out in these dark years, that of the 14th Century Pseudo Geber, who taking the name of the original Geber started to light a path in the darkness.Previously... Part Two: The Spagyric Arts reborn as Al-kimia.Next...?How Alchemy changed the World was written by Ivor W. Hartmann.
[ Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:04:08 PST ]
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