Vander Lug T 2009

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Printed from Literature Online, http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk woensdag 29 februari 2012 "ABOMINABLE MIXTURES": THE LIBER VACCAE IN THE MEDIEVAL WEST, OR THE DANGERS AND ATTRACTIONS OF NATURAL MAGIC Maaike Van der Lugt. Traditio. Bronx: 2009. Vol. 64 pg. 229, 49 pgs
Abstract (Summary)
During that period, magic underwent a profound transformation. [...] it had been an aggregate of definitions, recipes, and practices, devoid of a theoretical underpinning, and without much of a unifying structure or identity. According to the scholastics, this seemingly instantaneous and miraculous transformation relied on the artificial manipulation and acceleration of the purely natural process of spontaneous generation.8 The experiments of the Liber vaccae, the most important of which deal with artificial generation, clearly fit the definition of the preternatural.
Full Text
(22607 words) Copyright Traditio 2009 In his magnum opus on the history of magic, Lynn Thorndike devoted a few pioneering pages to the Liber vaccae or Rook of the Cow. He identified and described several of the manuscripts of this singular Arabic compilation of magical experiments, pointed out the many different titles under which it was known in the medieval West, and discussed its false attribution to Plato, Galen, and Hunayn ibn Ishq. By contrast, given his habit of paraphrasing the texts he examined at great length, Thorndike's account of the content of the work is uncharacteristically patchy. He hastily referred to "elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics," the aim of which was "to make a rational animal from a cow or ape or other beast, or to make bees." In his opinion, the experiments of the Liber vaccae were, in fact, "unmentionable," and "hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation."1 Among medieval readers, the Liber vaccae elicited no less outspoken reactions. The text clearly exerted a certain attraction among the learned, as indicated by the relatively large number of manuscripts and citations. Substantial parts of the Liber vaccae were also integrated into a Latin treatise on magic and wonders, the De mirabilibus mundi. Some scholars had no qualms about it. However, most readers dismissed the Liber vaccae as "abominable," "full of perversion," and accused it of "uprooting the laws of nature," and "violating her secrets." This article is an attempt to understand better the dubious reputation of the Liber vaccae, through a detailed study of its contents and the ways it was read and transmitted in the Latin Middle Ages. Since Thorndike, valuable scholarship has contributed to our knowledge of the Liber vaccae. The dismal quality of the extant Latin text - the Arabic original is almost entirely lost - seriously complicates any project to edit the text critically. In several erudite articles concerned with the place of the Liber vaccae within ancient and Near Eastern magical, religious, and philosophical traditions, the late David Pingree has nevertheless provided highly useful transcriptions and paraphrases of important parts of the work. He has also identified several more Latin manuscripts.2 A full transcription of one manuscript has, moreover, recently been made available by Paolo Scopelliti and Abessattar Chaouech.3
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In an important book, William Newman has provided a stimulating reading of the experiments on artificial generation, as part of a study on alchemy and pre-modern homunculus traditions.4 Sophie Page proposed a penetrating analysis of the structure and rationale of a larger sample of experiments.5 However, as we shall see, these various attempts at unravelling the magic of Liber vaccae differ on several important points and can be complemented on others. Moreover, no systematic study of its reception in the Latin West has yet been undertaken. The Liber vaccae contributed to the rise of learned magic during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. During that period, magic underwent a profound transformation. Until then, it had been an aggregate of definitions, recipes, and practices, devoid of a theoretical underpinning, and without much of a unifying structure or identity. Under the influence of new magical texts, translated from the Greek, and, especially, the Arabic, magic became something of an organized field, with a certain claim to scientific status.6 Although the Liber vaccae lacks an articulate description of its theoretical foundations, we shall see that the experiments, however extravagant, are partly based on concepts and notions that would have made them intelligible (if not necessarily acceptable) to scholastic readers. Magic, like alchemy and certain forms of astrology, never became a university discipline.7 Nevertheless, we find the most articulate students of the new magical texts, including the Liber vaccae, among university-trained clerics. Some of them recognized the existence of natural magic, which was supposedly based solely on the exploitation of the hidden forces of nature. Unlike ritual magic, which involved demons or other spirits, natural magic (magia naturalis) was, at least in theory, reconcilable with Christian doctrine. The case of the Liber vaccae illustrates, however, that the distinctions between the natural and the demonic, between the allowed and the forbidden, remained highly problematic and ambiguous. There was no doubt in medieval readers' minds that the Liber vaccae was a work on natural magic. Whether or not they believed its exorbitant claims, the Liber vaccae did not, in their view, call for the intervention of demons. At the same time, however, readers suggested that demons might well be its most articulate practitioners. As we shall see, the Liber vaccae participated in a scholastic debate which portrayed demons as working through, and linked to, nature. Hence, they came to be seen as experts in natural magic. This tendency undermined the distinction between demonic and natural magic from the moment it was forged. The natural character of the magic of the Liber vaccae, however, did not make the text any more innocuous in medieval readers' eyes. For example, William of Auvergne, who was the first to theorize the notion of natural magic and one of the first Western readers of the Liber vaccae, was among its most virulent critics. Behind most of these criticisms was the idea that the magic of the Liber vaccae, albeit natural, transgressed the order of nature itself. Magical wonders were, almost by definition, against the common course of nature. From the early decades of the thirteenth century onwards, they fell into the category of what scholastics called the preternatural (praeter naturam), distinct from true, supernatural miracles. The feats of the magicians of Pharaoh, who turned staves into snakes (Exod. 7:10-13), constituted the paradigmatic example of the preternatural. According to the scholastics, this seemingly instantaneous and miraculous transformation relied on the artificial manipulation and acceleration of the purely natural process of spontaneous generation.8 The experiments of the Liber vaccae, the most important of which deal with artificial generation, clearly fit the definition of the preternatural. However, in the medieval condemnations of the Liber vaccae, the order of nature has a different, moral, meaning. The reactions to the Liber vaccae are part of a debate about the legitimacy and the limits of the manipulation of nature by artificial means. We shall see that what most struck and troubled medieval readers was not so much the fact that the Liber vaccae proposed a method for artificially creating humanlike life. Indeed what seemed much worse was that this method involved "abominable mixtures":
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crossbreeding between humans and animals. As such, it gave rise to new kinds of creatures without a clear status. In what follows I shall give a detailed description of the Liber vaccae itself, paying attention to its idiosyncrasies and its proximity to other occult texts and traditions. Then I shall turn to the manuscript evidence. The manuscripts, both extant and lost, give information about the diffusion of the Liber vaccae in time and space, about its owners and readers, and the way they viewed and classified the text. Analysis of the manuscripts also shows the strong links between the Liber vaccae and another Arabic work on magic, the De proprietatibus of Ibn al-Jazzr, as well as the influence of the Liber vaccae on the Latin treatise the De mirabilibus mundi. It will be shown that the anonymous author of the De mirabilibus mundi borrowed extensively from the Liber vaccae, while avoiding the more questionable experiments. The last part of my discussion assesses the allusions to the Liber vaccae in the works of scholastic philosophers and theologians. A chronological overview of these citations is followed by a more thematic study to show the various ways in which the Liber vaccae exemplifies the ambivalent status of natural magic in medieval learning. A TREATISE ON "ORGANIC" MAGIC David Pingree has shown that the Arabic original of the Liber vaccae can be dated to the end of the ninth century.9 Only a short fragment of the Arabic text has survived.10 This Arabic version is referred to in several Arabic works on magic and alchemy, such as the the Picatrix (Ghdyat AlHakim) and the Kitdb al-tajmi in the corpus attributed to Jbir ibn Hayyn.11 The text is, however, essentially known through a cryptic Latin translation, which was probably executed in twelfth-century Spain.12 There also exists a Hebrew translation, which was made from the Latin version, and which is preserved in one manuscript now in Munich.13 As was often the case for books on magic, the anonymous author of the Liber vaccae hid behind an elaborate artifice. The text masquerades as a commentary by Galen of a work by Plato, which had then allegedly been translated into Arabic by Hunayn ibn Ishq. This great physician and translator, who flourished in Bagdad in the ninth century, was also supposedly the author of important parts of the introduction to the work - presenting and explaining Galen's alleged own introductory words - and responsible for the comments following some of the experiments.14 In the West, the Liber vaccae was known under several different titles (see Tables 1 and 2). Liber vaccae and Vacca Piatonis were clearly suggested by the first experiment, which involved a cow. Scribes and readers also called it Liber aneguemis (or Liber agregationum aneguemis) - which was sometimes corrupted into forms like Anequems, Anguemiz, Neumich, or Neumiz. We also find Leges Platonis or Liber institutionum activarum Platonis. Some manuscripts give several of these titles at the same time. All of these are Latin transliterations and translations of the original Arabic title Kitdb alNawdmis, that is, Book of Laws, just like the authentic work by Plato.15 The title Liber regimenti or Liber regiminis, which the author of the De mirabilibus mundi calls the Liber vaccae, would seem to have a similar sense.16 The Liber vaccae is divided into two sections (i.e., Major and Minor), each containing a little more than forty experiments.17 The Minor is mainly concerned with the construction of magical lamps and the creation of illusions. In the prologue, the author declares that this kind of magic is already quite well known and not in need of much introduction, an argument repeated at the beginning of the Minor itself. He advertises the magic of the Major as nobler and much less familiar. A detailed description of several experiments of this part of the Liber vaccae may help to get a feel for the work. The first four experiments of the Major are among those that the author rated highest and that medieval readers found most intriguing and repugnant. To make a "rational animal" (animal rationale), the Liber vaccae explains, the magician must take some of
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"his own water" (de aqua sua) when it is still warm, and mix it with an equal amount of the stone which is called the stone of the sun, a stone that shines at night like a lamp. The term "rational animal" must be understood as a human or at least humanlike being, or in other words, a homunculus, although the translator does not use this term. I will come back to this interpretation shortly. The magician's "water" refers to his sperm. With the mixture of sperm and sun stone, the magician inseminates a cow or a ewe. He then carefully plugs up its vagina with the sun stone and smears its genitals with the blood of the animal that was not chosen for insemination. Then the cow or the ewe must be placed in a dark house, in which the sun never shines. Its food must be mixed with the blood of the other animal. While awaiting the moment of birth, the magician prepares a powder made of ground sun stone, sulphur, magnet, and green tutia, stirred with the sap of a white willow. The unformed substance to which the ewe or the cow gives birth must be placed in this powder, whereupon it will instantly grow a human skin (vestietur statim cute humana). The newborn homunculus must be kept in a large glass or lead vessel for three days, until it is very hungry. Then it is fed on its decapitated mother's blood for seven days until it has developed into a complete animal. It can henceforth be used to perform certain feats. If it is placed on a white cloth, with a mirror in its hands, and suffumigated with a mixture of human blood and other ingrethents, the moon will appear to be full on the last day of the month. If it is decapitated, and its blood is given to a man to drink, the man will assume the form of a bovine or a sheep; but if he is anointed with it, he will have the form of an ape. If the homunculus is fed for forty days in a dark house, on a diet of blood and milk, and then its guts are extracted from its belly and rubbed onto someone's hands and feet, he may walk on water18 or travel around the world in the winking of an eye. Kept alive for a year and then placed in a bath of milk and rainwater, it will tell things that happen far away. The next two experiments are essentially the same, except for the fact that the womb is provided for by a female monkey in the second experiment and an unidentified female animal in the third. Other stones and ingrethents are used, and the incubation in the vessel is extended to forty days. A collyrium made from the eyes and brain of the homunculus birthed by the monkey enables one to see spirits and demons; drinking a concoction made from its tongue allows one to converse with them. Anointing one's hands with its liver makes trees bend over, and suffumigating a dead tree with a mixture of its brain, the brain of a fresh human corpse, and the seeds of a certain tree can make it start to flourish instantly. The guts of the third homunculus (birthed by the unidentified female animal) used as an ointment renders one insensitive to pain from blows, and blunts the edge of a sword with which one is struck; a suspension of its heart wrapped in the skin of its forehead makes one invisible. Burning powder made from its body can make rain fall at unseasonable times, and if buried in the ground for fourteen days, this powder will give rise to snakes that are extremely poisonous. The fourth experiment describes an elaborate procedure to generate bees from the corpse of a decapitated calf. This involves locking up the corpse in a dark house with fourteen closed windows on the East, blocking all its body orifices after having reattached the head, hitting it with a large dog's penis,19 extracting the flesh from the skinned corpse, grinding this with a certain herb, and leaving the mixture in a corner of the house, until it will be converted into worms. Every following day, a window must be opened and some powdered dead bees thrown upon the worms in order to convert them into bees. Beversing the modus operandi allows one to obtain the opposite effect and generate a cow from dead bees. The latter possibility is only referred to in passing here, but another recipe of the Liber vaccae Major describes a complex method for generating a small cow - with a human face, wings, and claws like a bird - from worms. The worms are first generated from the flesh of a certain fish, which must be ground with an equal amount of human blood and put into the brain of a bull, which is then put into a vessel and buried in the ground for forty days. The successive stages involve the addition of more animal and human substances, more incubatory vessels and burials, leading to the creation of other hybrid animals: a hairy, viperlike worm with two horns and two enormous eyes, big beelike worms, and a fish with a human face.
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The fat of the final animal, the cow, can be used as an ointment to transform permanently the shape of a person into a pig or an ape.20 Besides these methods to create rational and irrational animals artificially and to work wonders with their body parts, the Liber vaccae proposes other recipes for becoming invisible, conversing with spirits, rain making, making plants grow within an hour, or making trees bend over. Yet other experiments include methods to make armies, giants, and other forms appear in the sky; construct different kinds of magical houses in which people suffer epileptic fits, start to tremble, hallucinate, or die; understand the language of birds; or make lamps that cannot be extinguished. Some of these procedures are almost as complex as the methods for artificial generation, while others are more straightforward. For instance, the recipe for understanding bird language merely involves mixing body parts from three ravens - the liver from the first, the brain from the second, and the upper pallet from the third - and drinking the beverage made from this concoction in three separate gulps. With astral magic, the experiments of the Liber vaccae can be qualified as natural magic, because their supposed effectiveness does not rely on the intervention of demons or angels. Admittedly, the Picatrix interpreted the working of the magic of the Liber vaccae as involving the implantation of demonic powers into motionless substances, so that they become moving spiritual forms which produce marvellous effects.21 Following the Picatrix on this point, David Pingree qualified the Liber vaccae as the "most flagrantly demonic of Arabic books on magic,"22 and argued that the homunculus is, in reality, an artificial demon.23 This demonic interpretation is, however, not supported by the surviving text itself. Spirits are not altogether absent, but their role is limited. Several experiments allow the magician to see spirits and to converse with them.24 The pursuit of knowledge through access to spirits is, nevertheless, by no means the most prominent of the magician's goals. One might imagine that entering into contact with spirits is merely a first step, allowing the magician to use the spirits for other magical feats, but the fact remains that the text never says so. Moreover, despite the extensive use of suffumigations, there is no reference to invocations and incantations, magical formula, images or writing, circles, swords, altars, candles, or to other typical attributes of the necromancer. Spirits, either good or bad, are never called upon actually to perform magical feats, to "come down" into the substances used, or to speed up the natural processes involved. At the same time, the magic of the Liber vaccae also substantially differs from astral magic, even though a comment attributed to Hunayn qualifies star worshippers as experts in accomplishing the magical feats described in the book.25 This remark, together with several other indications,26 led David Pingree to suggest that the Liber vaccae originated in the Syrian city of Harrn, home to the Sabians and cradle of the astral magic which later found its way into the Picatrix.27 However, astral influences play no significant role in the procedures of the Liber vaccae. At most, some experiments must be performed at the full or new moon. Moreover, Hunayn's remark about star worshippers is hardly central within the overall structure of the Liber vaccae. It is not found in the prologue, but somewhere in the middle of the text, between an experiment about making eye ointments enabling one to see spirits and another about making an unextinguishable lamp. The alleged effectiveness of the experiments clearly depends first and foremost on the inherent properties of animal parts - mostly blood and organs - and, to a somewhat lesser extent, on those of herbs, plants, trees, and stones. In some cases, human blood and human body parts (e.g., brains, teeth, noses) are also necessary. With regard to its basic ingrethents, one may call the magic of the Liber vaccae "organic magic."28 With respect to its ingrethents, the magic of the Liber vaccae resembles the simpler medical magic of amulets and suspensions. However, the experiments of the Liber vaccae are rather more intricate and ambitious. As Sophie Page pointed out, many experiments proceed by several steps; at each successive stage, the result is more spectacular and the promised powers increase.29 Moreover, the purpose of the
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experiments is not medical but rather to allow the magician to assume superhuman, almost Godlike powers. In some cases, the aim is to inflict harm on others. Nor is the purpose of this magic only practical. There is a clear theatrical quality to many of the experiments. They suppose an authence, as shown by the repeated remarks by the author, that all who see it will marvel at the spectacle. As such, they correspond to what Richard Kieckhefer has called "illusionist experiments," as opposed to divination and "psychological" magic (fascination, love magic, etc.).30 As Kieckhefer himself acknowledged, the term "illusion" is equivocal, because the ontological status of the spectacles worked by magic is often ambiguous. This holds true for the magic in the Liber vaccae. For instance, it is not clear exactly how one is to understand the claim that a man can be "transformed into a cow or a sheep" (convertetur ad formam vacce aut ovis), or be made "to look like" (simulabitur) an ape.31 Because of its concern with transformations, generations, and the creation of illusions, the magic of the Liber vaccae is also, as suggested by David Pingree, related to alchemy.32 One is reminded of that branch of alchemy which did not restrict itself to the use of sulphur and mercury but prescribed organic substances as well. The frequent use of glass or metal vessels is another common feature between alchemy and the Liber vaccae. But of course, the aim of the Liber vaccae is not to produce artificial gold, and it cannot be qualified as an alchemical text stricto sensu. It would be wrong to read the whole text as symbolically representing the alchemical procedure.33 The Liber vaccae lacks an articulate explanation of its theoretical foundations. Nevertheless, its rationale can, up to a certain extent, be decoded. The general underlying idea is that the powers and virtues of organs and body parts used as ingrethents are imparted onto the magician or the tools he uses. For instance, it would seem that the concoction to understand the language of birds contains organs and body parts of a raven, because, in Galenic physiology, the brain and liver were considered the seat of the soul's functions; the upper pallet referring more specifically to the function of speech.34 In other cases, the organ to which the magical substance is applied also determines the effect of the magical procedure. This is the case for the collyrium to see spirits, or the ointment rubbed on one's feet in order to walk on water. Considerations of sympathy and analogy also explain why a method for rainmaking involves a whole series of liquids, obtained by boiling a black cow and a black dog and by squeezing the juice out of a certain tree. However, some experiments resist this line of interpretation. It is easy to understand why drinking the blood of the homunculus that is born from a cow or a sheep makes a person assume the form of one of those animals. It is, however, harder to see why one will look like an ape if one is anointed with it. Explanations in terms of sympathies and analogies are classic in magic. However, the magic of the Liber vaccae is also rooted in mainstream philosophy and medicine. The use of Galenic notions about the soul's functions has already been mentioned. Likewise, the experiments about artificial generation are clearly based on ancient and medieval theories of generation. These links would have made this magic, if not acceptable, at least understandable for medieval scholastic readers. Since antiquity, the possibility of the generation of life from dead matter, such as mud or putrified flesh, without the intervention of seed or sexual intercourse, was universally accepted by the learned. The warm spirit trapped in matter and the heat of the sun were thought sufficient for the generation of life. The nature of the material matrix was generally deemed to determine the kind of animal produced. It was also widely believed that man could easily mimic and manipulate this natural process, especially in the case of bees or other insects. As pointed out by William Newman, the experiment to make bees from a dead cow is reminiscent of the modus operandi for bee-making or bougonia described by Virgil.35 The experiment for making a homunculus is, in turn, clearly inspired by Aristotelian theories of sexual generation. Aristotle attributed great powers to sperm. The male semen - warm, foamy, and full of spirit constitutes the active principle of generation. Sperm confers a form to the embryo and allows it to become alive and animated. Women, by contrast, have no seed and their role is only passive. They provide
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menstrual blood that serves as the initial matter of the embryo and as food during gestation and converted into milk - after birth. Women are necessary for generation to occur and sperm needs the right matter to act. However, Aristotle clearly valued the male contribution most highly and minimized the role of the female.36 In the case of the Liber vaccae, the powers of the sperm are further enhanced by the fact that it is mixed with the phosphorescent sun stone. According to Aristotle, "man generates man with the sun" (Physics 194bl3), which means that the power of the sun is necessary for all generation on earth. In the case of the Liber vaccae, the sun stone would seem to stand in for the sun, which cannot exert its full power, since gestation takes place in a dark house. The recipe also refers to the use of female blood; if a cow is used to give birth, blood of an ewe is smeared on its vulva and mixed with her food. Once born, the homunculus is fed on its mother's blood. At the same time, the Liber vaccae outstretches mainstream opinion. The idea that cows can be generated from bees by reversing the procedure for bougonia and the elaborate recipe for spontaneously generating hybrid cowlike animals from worms go far beyond generally accepted belief. According to the latter, spontaneous generation was, in fact, strictly limited to lower life forms (insects, frogs, etc.). The generation of higher animals such as horses and cows, and, a fortiori, humans, always required seed.37 To be precise, the Liber vaccae does not claim that homunculi can be generated spontaneously. On the contrary, a comment in the prologue explicitly affirms the necessity of a rational animal to create another rational animal.38 Of course, the homunculus is generated without intercourse between man and woman. However, real, human semen and a real womb - though not a human one - are used (the dark house in which the cow is to be placed and the vessel serve symbolically as secondary wombs). Moreover, as we have seen, the recipe provides for the use of female blood. I would argue that this blood takes the place of, or supplements, menstrual blood. As noted above, according to Aristotelian doctrine, menstrual blood serves as initial matter of the embryo and as its food, both during gestation and, converted into milk, after birth. The supposition that generation takes place by artificial insemination would not be a cause for failure of the procedure, at least in the eyes of a scholastic reader. Scholastics believed that women could become pregnant from sperm spilled in a warm bath or on the bed linen. Moreover, they defended the idea that demons could, by stealing sperm from men, impregnate women (though because of the human origin of the sperm, the child thus conceived was fully human and could be saved). The only condition for success was that the sperm retained its warmth, lest its spirit evaporate.39 We have seen that the Liber vaccae shares this concern about the freshness of the "magician's water." However, it would have been much more problematic for a reader versed in Aristotelian thought to consider the supposition that the procedure for making homunculi involves crossbreeding between humans and animals. According to Aristotle, male seed needs the right kind of matter in order to act. For hybridization to succeed, the periods of gestation of species must also be similar. For these reasons, Aristotle limited crossbreeding to closely related species such as wolves and dogs. He explicitly refused the possibility of miscegenation involving humans and animals. These views were shared by scholastic philosophers and physicians. They rejected the common belief that monstrous births were the result of acts of bestiality, insisting that these monstrous children were, in fact, purely human and should be baptized.40 In the case of the first experiment of the Liber vaccae, the crossbreeding involves three different species: a human male, a cow, and a ewe. The use of the two female animals might spring from a wish to avoid that the offspring resemble either of these animals too closely, or, on the contrary, a desire to use the powers of both animals. Whatever the case, the homunculus is clearly not fully human. Generated from human and animal substances, it is endowed with superhuman powers but needs to be coated in a special
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powder in order to grow human skin. The homunculus which is made from a monkey is said to have only one foot, thereby assimilating it to a wellknown monstrous race, the one-legged Sciapods.41 The author of the Liber vaccae seems to acknowledge the special status of the homunculus by the consistent use of the expression "rational animal." By contrast, he uses "son of Adam" (filius Ade) when referring to ingrethents of human provenance. We may note that the latter (bones, noses, brains) are always to be taken from dead bodies. Likewise, whereas the decapitation of animals to collect their blood or body parts is routine, there is no indication that the use of human blood supposes killing or sacrificial practices. I agree with William Newman that it is precisely because the "rational animal" is not fully human that it can be killed and used as a tool to work other marvels. There is no need to suppose that the ease with which the magician kills the homunculus indicates that it is, in fact, a demon.42 Pingree linked the Liber vaccae to Neoplatonic ideas and claimed that the magician had recourse to demons to implant a rational soul into the homunculus. However, as we have already seen, the Liber vaccae never explicitly appeals to demons, nor does it qualify the "rational animal" as a demon. I can find no good reason to accept Pingree's claim that the magician needs demons to provide for the rational soul of the homunculus. Bather, Hunayn's remark that a rational animal is needed to create another rational animal would seem to refer to the idea that the homunculus cannot be generated spontaneously, but that human seed is called for. In any case, medieval readers would never have interpreted the text in the sense proposed by Pingree. The expression "rational animal" is the Aristotelian definition of man (Metaphysics 1037M3-14). Any scholastic would have readily recognized it as referring to humans. In their world-view, demons, although rational beings, could not be qualified as animals. Since the early twelfth century, scholastic theology had abandoned the Neoplatonic view of demons as living beings who were - like humans - composed of a body and a soul. From then on, demons were defined as pure, incorporeal spirits.43 However, as we shall see, scholastic readers did suggest that the artificially generated rational animal was an entirely new kind of living being. MANUSCRIPTS There are at least ten extant manuscripts of the Latin Liber vaccae, several of which are incomplete or contain fragments only.44 The earliest - incomplete - manuscript, now kept in Munich, dates from the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century;45 three other copies were made around the turn of the fourteenth century, one perhaps in the German lands,46 a second in northern Italy (most likely Bologna),47 the third possibly in Montpellier.48 Another manuscript can be dated and located in mid-fourteenth-century Italy.49 In the fifteenth century, five further copies of the text were made, in Italy and southern Germany; and possibly in England.50 Moreover, there are traces of four earlier copies that are now lost. In the 1240s, a manuscript that seems to have contained the text was kept in the library of Bichard of Fournival at Amiens.51 A century later, another famous bibliophile, bishop Bichard de Bury of Durham, probably also owned a copy.52 At the beginning of the fourteenth century, two copies - only one of which is extant - had already ended up in England in the library of the Abbey of Saint Augustine's of Canterbury.53 And finally, a late thirteenthcentury manuscript of unknown provenance probably once contained the Liber vaccae as well. A shelf mark indicates that, in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, it belonged to the college of Porta Coeli at Erfurt.54 The late thirteenth-century copy from northern Italy is found in a large, richly rubricated and decorated medical manuscript.55 Yet even here the Liber vaccae is devoid of illustrations. The other copies of the Liber vaccae are small, pocket formats. They are rather cheaply made and sometimes written on damaged or pierced parchment.56 The writing tends to be relatively untidy. All this seems to indicate that these manuscripts were copied not by professional scribes but by the owners themselves for private study, and
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perhaps even for practice. The little information we have about ownership also points in this direction. Belatively few of the manuscripts are known to have been kept in institutional libraries. Among those that were, some ended up there rather late, such as the Erfurt manuscript, which belonged to the college of Porta coeli that had been founded in 1412 for students of law. Others are known to have been donated by private owners, as was the case for the two copies in the Abbey of St. Augustine's of Canterbury. One of the manuscripts containing the Liber vaccae at St. Augustine's had formerly been owned by Thomas of Wyvelesberghe, probably a monk there, who had also donated other volumes to the abbey.57 This manuscript was previously owned by Thomas Sprott, another monk of St. Augustine's, whose books also ended up at the library and who had authored a lost history of the abbots of the abbey. The manuscript which contains the Liber vaccae (in addition to works on medicine, alchemy, and agriculture) is somewhat of an anomaly in the collections of both men. Wyvelesberghe's collection reflects a clear interest in all branches of natural philosophy, but contains no other manuscripts on the occult sciences. Sprott's collection was even more conventional.58 By contrast, the bequest of Michael of Northgate, the donor of the second manuscript of the Liber vaccae at St. Augustine's, included tracts on organic and astral magic, on astronomy, alchemy, and natural history (besides the standard devotional and theological works). Michael of Northgate may well have acquired his copy of the Liber vaccae in Paris or through a Parisian contact. Not only was Paris the hotspot for interest in the Liber vaccae during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but also, according to Wilbur Knorr, it was the venue for the tracts on astronomy in Northgate's collection.59 The library of St. Augustine's housed a large collection of books on science and even boasted a separate section on the occult. The mere existence of the latter indicates that the monks had few qualms about owning such works. However, it does not necessarily mean that that the abbey was a center of magical learning and study. St. Augustine's was very rich, with one of the largest libraries in all of England. Wilbur Knorr has analyzed the analogous genre of books on astrology, astronomy, and mathematics owned by St. Augustine's. He argues that taking vows marked the end, rather than the beginning of scientific pursuits. The collections of scientific works donated by a group of monks at the end of the thirteenth and the early decades of the fourteenth century seem to have been assembled before they entered into monastic life. Significantly, these books elicited no interest afterwards: they contain no other marginal notes than the ones made by the donors themselves, in sharp contrast with works on theology and logic.60 In nine out of the ten extant manuscripts,61 the Liber vaccae was accompanied by a short text on organic magic translated from the Arabic, the De proprietatibus (Kitdb al-khawdss) of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn al-Jazzr of Qayrawn (died 1004).62 In all the manuscripts I have seen, the De proprietatibus (sometimes called Epistola Ameti) is placed just before the Liber vaccae and is written in the same hand without any clear transition. In several manuscripts there is a single title for both texts.63 Moreover, there are no extant manuscripts of the De proprietatibus without the Liber vaccae.64 Hence, the Liber vaccae and the De proprietatibus were presented and regarded as a single work in the manuscripts. This indicates that the two texts were translated together or became associated in an early Latin manuscript. Whichever the case, the association was not fortuitous. Ibn al-Jazzr's De proprietatibus is a work about animal, plant, and mineral substances utilized in magical amulets, suspensions, and ligatures to cure disease or to influence women's fertility. In the prologue to his work, Ibn al-Jazzr defended the usefulness of magic in medicine against the criticisms of one of his relatives and advanced the traditional argument that both ancient authorities and experience confirm the existence of properties that the intellect cannot account for. To back up this claim, Ibn al-Jazzr cited, among other examples, the power of the magnet.65 Whoever decided to combine the De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae must have thought that Ibn al-Jazzr's defense of hidden virtues provided a suitable introduction to the more complicated magic of the Liber vaccae, which lacked a theoretical justification.
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Apart from the De proprietatibus, the Liber vaccae was also associated with other texts, albeit in a less exclusive way (see Table 1). The nature of these texts changed over time. Until the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Liber vaccae was mainly found in medical manuscripts. In the oldest extant manuscript, it is sandwiched between several texts from the Articella corpus or commentaries thereon. The lost manuscript in Richard of Fournival's library contained works by Galen: it was classed in the medical section and not with the secret books on the occult sciences which Fournival claimed to have kept in a separate and securely locked room. Similarly, the two early copies of the Liber vacccae at St. Augustine's in Canterbury are found in manuscripts that contain works on natural magic, but also on medicine and surgery. Both copies were kept in the medical section of the library and not in the section on the occult.66 The expensive, late thirteenth-century manuscript from Northern Italy is also almost exclusively medical, even though the Liber vaccae and the De proprietatibus are preceded by a text on alchemy. In late medieval manuscripts, the Liber vaccae acquired different company. It became increasingly associated with other texts on the occult sciences, magic, alchemy, and astrology. The reasons for this codicological shift are not entirely clear. Medieval scholars may have become more aware of the content of the Liber vaccae and started to doubt its attribution to Galen, Plato, and Hunayn.67 But the new classification of the Liber vaccae and the De proprietatibus may also have larger significance and reflect the progressive separation of magic and scholastic medicine within the framework of medieval learning.68 The manuscript evidence points to feelings of unease about the Liber vaccae among scribes and owners. The late thirteenth-century manuscript that was probably made in Germany lacks the prologue of the Liber vaccae and only contains a small selection of experiments. More importantly, it skips the first three experiments on the generation of rational animals and starts with the artificial production of bees from cows, a less ambitious and more innocuous procedure.69 The earliest extant manuscript does contain the prologue but omits the first experiments; it breaks off abruptly in the middle of the second of the two experiments it contains. Here again the arrangement looks like a deliberate selection.70 Finally, the sixteenth-century index in the Erfurt manuscript qualifies the Liber vaccae as nigromanticus. The text itself has since been ripped out.71 The feelings of unease reflected in the manuscripts were shared to a large extent by the scholastic authors who cited the work. Before turning to the uses of the Liber vaccae by theologians and philosophers, I will look at the influence the Liber vaccae on a Latin work on magic, the De mirabilibus mundi of pseudoAlbert. THE LIBER VACCAE AND THE DE MIRABILIBUS MUNDI The De mirabilibus mundi is a work on natural magic and marvels falsely attributed to Albert the Great. Its real author, place of origin, and date are unknown, but the earliest manuscript seems to date from the fourteenth century.72 The attribution to Albert appears only in fifteenth-century copies. The work was printed several times with another pseudo-Albertian work, the De virtutibus herbarum, lapidum et animalium, under the title Liber aggregationis, and translated into several vernacular languages.73 Medieval manuscripts of the De mirabilibus mundi are, however, relatively rare.74 Although not a scholastic text, the De mirabilibus is a work of some learning. Written in Latin, it can probably be connected to the milieu of "middle brow" clerics responsible for much of later medieval learned magic and for other pseudo-Albertian works such as the Secreta mulier um. The experiments and recipes of the De mirabilibus mundi are preceded by a long, more or less theoretical prologue which describes the goal of the book as "making marvels cease." According to the author, natural marvels and magic work according to the laws of sympathies and similarities. In order to
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understand both nature and the works of the philosophers, a combined training in dialectic, natural philosophy, astrology, and necromancy is necessary. "Plato's Liber regimenti," that is, the Liber vaccae, is cited to back up this idea of the complementarity of different kinds of knowledge.75 Citing the Liber vaccae again and (in a sense) contradicting his suggestion that the laws of sympathies underlying natural magic can be discovered through learning, the author goes on to justify the existence of occult properties that can only be established by experience. He cites a host of marvellous and magical observations reported in authoritative works. These "authoritative recipes"76 form the transition from the more theoretical part of the work to the actual recipes. The justification of hidden properties, including the authoritative recipes, is taken almost literally from the De proprietatibus. Moreover, more than thirty of the actual recipes (of a total of approximately seventy) are paraphrased from the Liber vaccae Minor and copied in the same order. They include recipes to become insensitive to fire, to create optical illusions, and to make lamps with marvellous properties. Of note, experiments from the Liber vaccae Major, including the most spectacular experiments on artificial generation, do not occur in the De mirabilibus mundi. This selection may well be another instance of self-censure, unless, of course, the author used an already truncated manuscript of the Liber vaccae. Whatever the case, the author of the De mirabilibus mundi ostensibly regarded the De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae as a single work. About a third of this combination found its way into the De mirabilibus mundi. The De mirabilibus mundi is essentially a compilation, a sort of patchwork, and the Liber vaccae is not its only source. It also borrows extensively from Marcus Graecus's treatise on fireworks, lamps, and gunpowder.77 However, its indebtedness to the Liber vaccae and the De proprietatibus runs deepest. Because of the similarities in overall structure and argument and the large number of copied experiments, the De mirabilibus mundi can be considered as a Western adaptation of the Liber vaccae. SCHOLASTIC BEADERS OF THE LIBER VACCAE Despite the absence of the experiments on artificial generation, the De mirabilibus mundi reflects a real effort to create something similar to the Liber vaccae. As such, it constitutes an isolated case. The other citations of the Liber vaccae I have been able to identify are much briefer. They are found in the works of well-known and respected scholastic authors, mostly theologians. The Parisian university milieu stands out in particular. The earliest citations of the Liber vaccae are roughly contemporary with the earliest manuscripts. They are located in the works of two leading theologians: William of Auvergne, master of theology and later bishop of Paris, and Boland of Cremona, the first Dominican to lecture in the Parisian Studium who later became a fanatical inquisitor against the Cathars. William cited the Liber vaccae twice in his De legibus, a treatise on the religious laws and practices of Christians, Jews, and Muslims written between 1228 and 1231,78 and probably again in his De universo (1231-36).79 Boland mentioned the Liber vaccae on two occasions in his theological Summa of the late 1230s or early 1240s.80 William and Boland must have known each other, but since they cite the Liber vaccae under different titles and refer to different magical feats, these citations must be considered independent (see Table 2). Both theologians shared a certain fascination for marvels and the occult sciences. They displayed knowledge of specific magical works and, especially William, referred to a great number of newly translated texts, many of which he was the first Westerner to cite. William admitted to having read much about magic in his youth.81 One senses his lingering fascination for the forbidden fruit, even though he severely condemned most forms of magic and repeatedly warned his readers about its dangers. Roland had a more relaxed attitude towards magic. He justified his interest in the subject by saying that there was nothing bad in magical knowledge, only in putting it into practice; and he claimed to have read a book on black magic which contained not only many bad but also many good things.82 In contrast to William of Auvergne, Roland had no ostensible misgivings about the Liber vaccae which he cited in a perfectly neutral manner, while also accepting its efficaciousness. Besides his interest in magic, Roland was very
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well read in medicine. So, he could also have happened upon the Liber vaccae while consulting a medical manuscript.83 Among William's and Roland's contemporaries and immediate successors at Paris, only the Franciscan John of La Rochelle (d. 1245) cited the Liber vaccae in his De legibus et praeceptis which was integrated into Alexander of Hales's Summa.H4 However, this citation is clearly indirect, by way of William of Auvergne's own De legibus. Perhaps surprisingly, we find no references to the Liber vaccae in the works of Roger Bacon and Albert the Great, both of whom were otherwise well-read in magic and whose work contains extensive discussions about the subject. The Liber vaccae does not figure in the Speculum astronomiae either, but then of course it has next to nothing to do with astrology.85 Peter of Abano, one of the most ardent medieval defenders of astrology, saw the Liber vaccae as a work on non-astrological magic. In his Lucidator dubitabilium astronomiae, finished at Padua in 1310 and most likely derived from an earlier draft made during his stay at Paris,86 he contrasted magic - of which he distinguished five different types - unfavorably with the real science of the stars. The Liber vaccae is, together with alchemy and other works on natural magic, like the Kyranides (a Hellenistic work on the occult virtues of animals, birds, plants, and stones), classed in the category of prestigium. As such, it is disqualified as mere trickery and sleight of hand.87 Interestingly, Peter considered the magical feats of the magicians of Pharaoh also as pure illusions, contrary to mainstream theological opinion which saw these as real transformations worked by demons, but inside the possibilities of nature. While magnifying the power of the stars, Peter of Abano minimized the effectiveness of organic magic. Around the same time, the Liber vaccae is possibly cited in a somewhat mysterious treatise on natural philosophy and alchemy entitled De essentiis essentiarum, which probably originated at the court of the two Sicilies. Because of its uncertainty, discussion about this possible link will be provided in the Appendix.88 With our next citation we move to firmer ground. We have already seen that the Liber vaccae had made its way to England by the turn of the fourteenth century from the two manuscripts at the monastery of St. Augustine's in Canterbury. Further evidence for the British reception of the Liber vaccae is provided by the work of the theologian, logician, and mathematician Thomas Bradwardine, who cited it at least twice in his De causa Dei contra Pelagium. Bradwardine began this work at Oxford by 1335 and finished it in 1344, five years before his appointment to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury and death shortly thereafter.89 As indicated by the title, De causa Dei is a work against the Pelagian heresy. According to Bradwardine, Pelagianism flourished among Oxford philosophers and theologians who attributed too much scope to free will. Bradwardine's aim was to make God and divine grace central again. Preliminary to the definition and defense of grace, the first part of the work is a long refutation of other traditional errors and attacks on the Christian faith by Jews, pretentious philosophers, and Muslims. Bradwardine cites a tremendous range of scientific texts and displays quite detailed knowledge of hermetic philosophy, magic, and astrology.90 For Bradwardine, all knowledge, even pagan knowledge, is of divine origin, since pre-Christian sages already possessed the germ of truth in that they had foretold and prefigured the coming of Christ. According to this idea of prisca scientia, developed a century earlier by Boger Bacon one of Bradwardine's main sources of inspiration - science, intimately related to religion, had been initially revealed to the ancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets and then passed on from civilization to civilization.91 Notwithstanding this generally positive appraisal of pagan knowledge, Bradwardine had harsh words for the Liber vaccae. He qualified it as full of perversion and superstition, while also casting some doubt on its effectiveness.92 Nevertheless, as we will see later on, to his mind, even so questionable a book had polemical value on the intellectual battlefield against the enemies of faith. Many of the texts cited by Bradwardine already appeared in Bacon's work and some of these references
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may be indirect. However, this is not the case for the Liber vaccae which was ignored by Bacon. And it is apparent that Bradwardine did not derive his knowledge of the text from other authors we have already encountered since he referred to a magical feat that had not been described before (see Table 2). It is highly unlikely that Bradwardine consulted the Liber vaccae at the library of St. Augustine's as his nomination to the archepiscopal see of Canterbury took place years after the completion of the De causa Dei. Moreover, Bradwardine died very shortly after his arrival there. He may have encountered the Liber vaccae during his stay at Oxford, where hermetic and magical texts (such as the Asclepius and the Liber XXIV philosophorum) had circulated at least from the middle of the thirteenth century.93 However, it seems most likely that Bradwardine consulted the Liber vaccae, and many of the other works he cited, in the library of his patron, the colorful and eccentric bishop Bichard de Bury of Durham, whose household he had joined after leaving Oxford in 1335 and where he wrote most of the De causa Dei?4 Bichard de Bury was a fanatical book collector, whose love of books bordered on the pathological.95 He owned somewhere in the vicinity of 1500 volumes, which made his library one of the most substantial ones in the British Isles. Unfortunately, there is no extant catalogue of the collection, which was dispersed soon after de Bury 's death.96 Later in the fourteenth century, the Liber vaccae was cited by Nicole Oresme in his treatise On the Configuration of Qualities (1355-64), which he wrote as a master at the Parisian college of Navarre.97 It is hard to tell whether this citation is direct or indirect. We will see later on that his comments on the Liber vaccae echo those of William of Auvergne, but this does not necessarily preclude the possibility that Oresme consulted the Liber vaccae himself. Indeed, the fact that Oresme cited the work under a different title than William pleads in favor of this possibility (see Table 2). Oresme's citation of the Liber vaccae was itself copied almost literally by Henry of Langenstein (1325-97) in his De reductione effectuum, written before 1373, when Henry was still in Paris.98 Both Oresme and Henry of Langenstein were fervent critics of the occult sciences. As put forward in the De configur alione and the De reductione effectuum, all natural phenomena - even those defying the common course of nature - must be explained in terms of the combination of primary qualities without recourse to occult properties, demons, or the stars. This too is the case for the magical feats of the Liber vaccae. Even though Oresme claimed that much of magic relies on sensory illusion, he classed the magic of Liber vaccae in the category of "true alterations." Insofar as they can be identified, all references to the Liber vaccae in scholastic works concern the first experiments. In some cases, medieval readers referred specifically to the procedure to generate rational animals artificially (e.g., William of Auvergne, Jean de La Bochelle, Oresme, and Langenstein). In other cases they referred to the magical feats that could supposedly be worked with its body parts, such as becoming invulnerable (e.g., Boland of Cremona), walking on water, or making men appear as animals (e.g., Bradwardine). The references to the Liber vaccae in scholastic works form part of several broader arguments that will now be analyzed in more detail. MAGIC, NATURE, AND THE LAW The Liber vaccae made its first appearance in a theological debate about the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. It is cited in relation to the prohibition against the crossbreeding of cattle (Lev. 19:19). According to William of Auvergne, one of the reasons for the prohibition against crossbreeding was to repress the nefarious actions and magical evils which are procured with the offspring generated by such mixtures. These actions are described in the book that is called Neumich or Neumuch and that is called the Laws of Plato by another name. This book is all about such mixtures and it is called the Laws of Plato because it is contrary to the laws of nature.99
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Here, William of Auvergne was clearly referring to the first experiments of the Liber vaccae. He seems not to have read beyond these. According to Christian doctrine, the ceremonial laws, mostly defined in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, had, in contrast to the Ten Commandments, been cancelled by the coming of Christ. These included the obligation to circumcise all male children, the prohibition of impure foodstuffs, and a series of prohibitions associated with different kinds of mixtures: crossbreeding, yoking an ox and a donkey together, sowing with mixed seeds, wearing clothing made from animal and vegetable fabrics (linen and wool), and cross-dressing. On the whole, medieval theologians did not display great interest in the ceremonial laws. They often favored allegorical interpretations or simply dismissed the precepts as absurd errors of the Jews, now fortunately abandoned. Even so, for a rather brief period of time - the 1220s to the 1240s - several theologians attempted a more serious approach, and even dedicated separate treatises to the subject.100 Among them, William of Auvergne and John of La Bochelle claimed that the ceremonial laws made perfect sense in a specific historical context, i.e., the primitive times when the Jews were living in Exile.101 God proclaimed the laws to lead his people away from the idolatrous, superstitious, and immoral practices of the Gentiles in whose company they lived. John of La Rochelle, who had systematized and refined William's discussion, understood there to be universal laws, such as the Gospels, and laws that are not intrinsically good but are created for a certain reason at a specific moment in time and for certain people, e.g., the ceremonial laws.102 This historicizing, almost anthropological, approach to the laws is not without its precedents in twelfth-century theology.103 However, William's main source of inspiration for understanding the laws was Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed.104 This great Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician (1135-1204) had established a strong link between the prohibitions involving mixtures and magic. He cited many magical texts and practices in detail, although the Liber vaccae was not among them. Cross-dressing, sowing with mixed seeds, and wearing clothes of mixed fabrics are all prohibited because they were, according to Maimonides, practiced in the course of the magical rituals and fertility rites of the Egyptians who had taken them over from the star-gazing Sabians. God issued the ceremonial laws to avoid the Jews' being contaminated by idolatry. Magic is dangerous because it is a form of idolatry, and it is idolatrous because it appeals to powers other than the true and only God, e.g., especially the stars. However, Maimonides did not class crossbreeding in the category of the laws meant to fight magic but in another category of laws having to do with illicit sexual unions. This group also includes prostitution, incest, bestiality, and homosexuality, that is, laws integrated into the Christian moral system. In his discussion of the prohibition of crossbreeding, William combined Maimonides' arguments about these two categories of laws and adapted them to his own frame of reference. It must be stressed that in contrast to other magical rites or pagan cults he cited in this context (the cult of Venus and Priapus; plowing with different animals under certain constellations), William did not qualify the magic of the Liber vaccae as idolatrous. He clearly accepted its status as a work on magic that does not appeal to demons or the stars. What is offensive about this magic is rather that it goes against the laws of nature. As such, it is both natural and unnatural. Playing on the classic opposition between the artificial and the natural, William explains that crossbreeding, and a fortiori the magical crossbreeding of the Liber vaccae, perverts the order of nature. It does so, because crossbreeding does not happen spontaneously. Moreover, man's necessary involvement may cause him to be aroused and lead him to engage in unnatural sexual practices like bestiality and also sodomy. The argument about the unnaturalness of crossbreeding thus spills over into a condemnation of sexual deviancy in general. As is clear from William's arguments, the laws of nature are to be understood in a moral and normative sense, as the Godgiven order of the universe, as natural law. Elements of this demonstration come from Maimonides, who argued that fertility rites and magical practices are wrong not only because they are idolatrous, but also because they imply illicit sexual acts.
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This is the case, for example, in a grafting ritual during which a woman must copulate with a man in a non-reproductive fashion, meanwhile inserting the branch of one tree into the other. However, Maimonides did not qualify either grafting or crossbreeding as unnatural. The insistence on the order of nature, the repeated evocation of its norms and limits, and the use of juridical terminology are all William's. The prohibition of crossbreeding (but also of crossdressing and of sowing with mixed seeds) are not only, as in Maimonides, a reasonable moral precept and a prohibition against magic. It is also a point where God's law and the law of nature coincide. As such, it would seem that William's discussion reflects a shift in the concept of natural law in the course of the Middle Ages, from its original sense as historically anterior to other laws, towards its progressive identification with the order of nature. At the same time, William's Une of reasoning has paradoxical implications. If crossbreeding does, indeed, offend the universal laws of nature, it would seem that at least part of the ceremonial laws of the Jews should still hold for Christians, especially since the latter have access to books as dangerous as the Liber vaccae. MAGIC AND THE SECRETS OF NATURE The idea of human law as conforming to the order of nature, with the "abominable mixtures" of the Liber vaccae as the prime example of the perversion of this order, is also taken up by Nicole Oresme. Oresme did not mention William of Auvergne, but clearly used William's De legibus when formulating this idea.105 However, Oresme's condemnation of the Liber vaccae also linked up with a related, more classic, theme: that of the secrets of nature. Appealing to a cluster of age-old metaphors and personifications, Oresme compared nature to a chaste and modest mother who does not want her secrets revealed. The magic of the Liber vaccae and similar books is qualified as a violation, inspired by vain curiosity. Oresme warned would-be practitioners of the consequences of their actions: cursed by nature, they would be doomed to a miserable end.106 These images of the chastity of nature and of nature's secrets were often linked to the idea that certain kinds of knowledge should be reserved for the wise.107 However, Oresme went much further, wanting to ban the magic of the Liber vaccae and similar books once and for all. Of course, he did not condemn all inquiries into the hidden powers of nature. He had distanced himself from a strong anti-scientific and anti-technological tradition that can be traced back to Greek and Roman antiquity and that was embraced, and even reinforced, by many Christian writers.108 According to Oresme, man should seek to know and use the hidden powers of stones, herbs, seeds, and other natural things insofar as these are necessary and suitable to human needs. As such, medicine, surgery, and the art of the goldsmith are licit enterprises. Magic, such as that professed by the Liber vaccae, is not. Its experiments are, rather, to be qualified as acts of "poisoning or bewitchment" (veneficia seu maleficia).109 Franck Collard recently demonstrated that the association between veneficia and maleficia has a long history, and that the two terms could sometimes be used interchangeably. However, their use by Oresme to condemn magic also seems to reflect the particular convergence of poisoning and witchcraft in later medieval society, and the growing fear and persecution of both crimes. The common denominator of veneficia and maleficia was their secretiveness.110 The way Oresme saw it, magicians who put the Liber vaccae into practice not only violated nature and stole her secrets, but graver still, they used these secrets to perpetrate particularly heinous crimes, made so because of their secretiveness. As noted earlier, Oresme neither questioned the efficaciousness of the experiments of the Liber vaccae nor ridiculed its pretensions. Moreover, despite the association with witchcraft, Oresme did not seem to doubt its natural character. In his view, the fundamental distinction between magic, on the one hand, and medicine, surgery, and the art of the goldsmith,111 on the other, is a moral, not a causal one. Ultimately, the powers of the substances used for the magic of the Liber vaccae and other books are not really hidden. They can, at least in theory, be shown to rely on the multifarious configurations of the four qualities and
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on the principle of sympathy.112 The fact that Oresme called them more secret (secretiora) than those underlying other branches of technology is to be understood in a normative sense. They must remain hidden from view. MAGIC, DEMONS, AND THE POWERS OF NATURE From the beginning, there was a strong tendency among scholastic readers of the Liber vaccae to link its magic with demonic activity. In medieval conceptions, the frontier between natural and demonic magic was far from clear-cut. This was not only the case because many medieval theologians were unwilling to admit that magic could ever work without the intervention of demons, but also because of an intellectual tradition that tied demons to the powers of nature. The notion that demons work through nature ultimately harked back to Augustine. However, its implications became much more precise from the thirteenth century on, as the idea of the order of nature and the distinction between the natural and the supernatural took shape. From then on, demons became increasingly, and somewhat paradoxically, to be seen as experts in scientific and technological pursuits, including natural magic. William of Auvergne, Boland of Cremona, and Henry of Langenstein are all representative of these tendencies. In his De legibus, William of Auvergne cited the Liber vaccae in a chapter on different forms of idolatry (e.g., worship of the stars, demons, statues). He claimed idolatry of demons is based on the erroneous idea that demons are almighty. Even if the wonders they work (the standard example being, since Augustine, the feats of the magicians of Pharaoh) are not necessarily illusions of the senses, they are not miracles either. Demons cannot overturn or exceed nature. As Augustine had already noted, they merely use and manipulate the inherent powers of nature, as man also can. Demons are merely particularly adroit at this game because of their speed and experience. However, in the final analysis, they are not creators, because God created the inherent powers of nature. The transformation of staves into snakes and the rains of frogs are based on the acceleration of the purely natural process of spontaneous generation. However, William of Auvergne went beyond these standard examples and explanations. He suggested that demons are able not only to accelerate spontaneous generation, but also to produce completely new kinds of animals (nova ammalia et necdum visa). They can do this by mixing and manipulating different kinds of seeds and other substances, as taught by the Liber vaccae.113 William referred, of course, to the strange "rational animals" of mixed parentage. A hundred and fifty years later, Henry of Langenstein cited the Liber vaccae to the same effect. He shared William's idea that man and demons can produce new effects that are contrary to the common course of nature without being supernatural. In order to do so, they manipulate and combine the manifold inherent powers of nature.114 With both these authors, art is not limited to the mere imitation of nature. In his De universo, William of Auvergne again securely tied the powers of demons to those of art and nature. He argued from the powers of natural magic to those of demons. The context here is the theological debate about the belief that incubi can sleep with women and father children.115 According to William, demons, as pure spirits, lack a seed of their own. They can, nevertheless, impregnate women by inseminating them with either artificial seed or animal sperm. To back up this theory, William referred to legends about hybrids between humans and bears, and to "books of experiments" (libri experimentorum) that claim that generation "can be procured in another than the normal way."116 Effectively, the argument is that if men can do this by using natural magic (although William remains somewhat sceptical as to the claims of the books of magic), so can, a fortiori, demons. Their knowledge of nature is "greater than that of all physicians and scientists combined." The reference to the books of experiments remains rather vague. It is in the plural, and one cannot be sure if it points to the Liber vaccae. Furthermore, the practices described in the Liber vaccae promise generation without a human female while discussions about incubi center on generation without a human male.
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The fact remains that, yet again, William claimed more for art than most of his contemporaries. Though his fellow theologians agreed with him that demons had no seed of their own, they thought demons used stolen human seed to generate offspring. Born from human sperm, these children were not hybrids, but purely human. Beferring to contemporary theories, theologians remarked that even if demons could produce a substance that contained all the elements of sperm in the right proportions, it would be infertile. It would lack the power emanating from a human soul, enabling the generation of same from same. The use of animal seed was no option either. In line with Aristotle, hybridization, and especially crossbreeding between man and animals, was deemed impossible. As William's theory clashed with established principles in natural philosophy and medicine, it would seem precisely for this reason that William used as evidence both legends and books of magic, perhaps including the Liber vaccae.117 Roland of Cremona's use of the Liber vaccae also reflects the idea that the powers of demons are linked to nature, and are, as such, analogous to those of magicians or scientists. In the section on demonology in his theological Summa, Boland refers to the "popular belief" (vulgus dicif) that on the witches' sabbath some men and women fly by night (enabled by a certain ointment) and engage in orgies and acts of bestiality. The reality of nocturnal flight and the witches' sabbath only became standard doctrine in the course of the fifteenth century and therefore as yet, during Roland's lifetime, it was still considered a superstition. Nevertheless, contrary to mainstream opinion, Roland of Cremona was not prepared to reject the belief outright. He concluded that he could neither affirm nor exclude the existence and possibility of nocturnal flight. Significantly, he only cited arguments in favor of "those that want to believe in that flight." On the one hand, it was too widespread (not only among Christians, but also among Jews and Muslims) to be wholly false. This appeal to common consent as a sign of truth was not unusual in scholastic works and counterbalanced the general disdain for popular belief among the learned. On the other hand, and more to the point for our purposes, nocturnal flight also seemed feasible on a purely technical level. Why would it be impossible for demons, as the witches' accomplices, to concoct an ointment which would enable people to fly? After all, there are stones that render one invisible, and "demons or philosophers" have also invented ointments, as we learn from the Liber vaccae, that make one invulnerable to blows. Roland saw no reason to doubt that such an ointment could be made. In his view, since the magnet attracts iron, the existence of a substance that makes iron bounce off seems quite logical. After all, in nature, things generally exist in opposite pairs.118 MAGIC AND MIRACLES It may seem remarkable that Roland of Cremona did not refer to ointments described in the Liber vaccae that provided an even closer analogy with nocturnal flight, such as those which supposedly allowed one to cover the earth in the blinking of an eye or to walk on water. Does this omission indicate that Roland had only superficial knowledge of the text? Or was it the result of a deliberate choice, motivated by an uneasiness that such spells had too close a proximity to Christ's miracles? It would seem that Roland's rationalistic mind was hardly prone to such fears. Elsewhere in his Summa, he came very close to proposing natural causes for Christ's walking on water and the lvitation of certain female saints.119 Likewise, in order to explain the immortality of man in paradise, he alluded a second time to the ointment described in the Liber vaccae for invulnerability. Thereby, he almost suggested that the primitive state of humankind could be restored through magic.120 Nevertheless, the disturbing resemblance between magic and miracles was a classic preoccupation for Christian theologians. It led to various efforts to distinguish the two. At the same time, a polemical tradition going back to the church fathers justified the reality of Christian miracles (such as the Virgin Birth or the Besurrection at the end of time) against external criticism by pointing to analogous natural marvels. Thomas Bradwardine's citations of the Liber vaccae reflect both of these somewhat contradictory tendencies. The first citation comes up in a defense of Christ's miracles against attacks by the "Jews and their
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philosophers." According to Bradwardine these detractors, hostile to Christ and the Christian faith, say that Christ made not true, but counterfeit miracles, by the magical art and by the power of evil spirits. Also some magicians, in justification of their infamous art, say that Christ used teachings written there, as appears from the book that is called Plato's Cow.121 Bradwardine did not specify which experiments he had in mind. However, it seems clear that he meant the ointment made from the guts of the homunculus, which, when rubbed on hands and feet, supposedly enabled one to walk on water. But who were the enemies of faith who accused Christ of using magic? Bradwardine, following a common literary strategy, is partly creating his own straw man here. A substantial part of medieval polemical treatises against Jews, Muslims, or pagan philosophers were, in reality, intended for Christian authences. Their aim was not so much to teach Christians how to defend their beliefs against external attacks as to confirm and reinforce their own faith.122 The first book of Bradwardine's De causa Dei fits into this pattern. At the same time, even though the Liber vaccae never mentioned Christ, it did promise feats that were very similar to Christ's miracles. A Christian reader could easily interpret these claims as an implicit onslaught on his faith. Bradwardine advanced several arguments to refute the claim that Christ's miracles were, in fact, magical tricks. They are corroborated by all four evangelists, who wrote independently, in different times and places: Christ did not behave like a necromancer who relied on lengthy rituals to perform his magical tricks but acted without delay; he did not address himself to a demon, but only prayed sometimes to his Father; finally, he always aimed at doing good, and not evil, as a necromancer would have done.123 Interestingly, the evidence is largely circumstantial. Although Bradwardine voiced some doubt as to the efficaciousness of the practices described in the Liber vaccae in his second citation (to which we shall turn shortly) he did not do so here. He certainly did not propose it as a general criterion to distinguish magic from miracles. He did not relate the distinction to different causalities and to the order of nature either. This is probably because the distinction between the preternatural and the supernatural had fairly little practical value.124 Bradwardine had a second occasion to cite the Liber vaccae in defending Christian miracles against a different threat: the scepticism of pagan philosophers who deemed them impossible.125 In defending the miracle of the bodily resurrection against pagan sceptics, he followed a line of reasoning developed in late antiquity, when Christianity was not yet the majority religion. Of course, in Bradwardine's own time, this threat was largely imaginary.126 It would seem that the real danger came, rather, from naturalistic Christian authors such as Boland of Cremona, who suggested that miracles had natural causes, as well as from books of magic such as the Liber vaccae. The argument in defense of Christian miracles that Bradwardine borrowed from the church fathers is that since pagans do not recognize sacred authority, they must be confronted by profane arguments. Christian apologists must point to natural marvels that bear a resemblance to miracles. If pagans and unbelievers accept these phenomena, why would they then doubt Christian miracles? Bradwardine's contribution to this argument lay in the choice of his examples and his recourse to magic as a polemical tool. Apart from a traditional reference to spontaneous generation as a natural analogy of the bodily resurrection, Bradwardine referred to different traditions about transformations and metamorphosis. These ranged from common beliefs and stories about werewolves and witches to the classical fables of Ovid and Apuleius. In this context, he also mentioned the "art of transformation and reconstitution" (ars transformationum et reformationum) of the Liber vaccae.127 This is most likely a reference to the experiments about turning people into animals. Bradwardine did voice some doubt as to the efficaciousness of the procedures. His reservations may well reflect the contemporary debates among
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theologians about witchcraft and the possibility that demons could bring about substantial changes.128 However, Bradwardine did not go into the matter. In a polemical context such as this, one's own convictions are of little importance. What matters is what the adversary believes. Still, Bradwardine could not keep himself from sneering at all the "vile and superstitious" things described in the Liber vaccae. CONCLUSION The philosopher and physician Peter of Abano lapidarily dismissed the magic of the Liber vaccae as nothing but tricks and sleight of hand. By contrast, the scholastic theologians who read and cited the Liber vaccae seem largely to have accepted its effectiveness. They also severely condemned the work. Boland of Cremona is the exception to the latter rule. He is also alone in offering a partial rationalization of the magic of the Liber vaccae, although his argument for the possible existence of an ointment for invulnerability did not amount to much more than a feeble analogy (the magnet attracts iron; in nature, things exist in opposite pairs; hence, there also exists something that deflects iron). The Liber vaccae did not give rise to serious discussions about the reasons why its magic would or would not work. Befuting its claims would, however, have been facile. The procedure for the generation of synthetic rational animals, in particular, could not have stood up against a serious confrontation with scholastic thought for very long. Despite its appeal to concepts and theories shared by the scholastics, it clashed with central tenets of mainstream natural philosophy and medicine. Yet the theologians who cited the Liber vaccae did not walk this path. Instead, they rejected the work on moral grounds, qualifying it as vile, against the laws of nature, and accusing it of violating nature's secrets. There would seem to have been several reasons for this attitude. Bradwardine (who did voice some doubt) cited the work in a polemical context. He needed his imagined adversaries to accept the claims of the Liber vaccae. As for William of Auvergne, Nicole Oresme, and Henri of Langenstein, they tended, like Boland of Cremona, to ascribe greater powers to nature, and to the capacities of man to manipulate these forces, than was customary. Of course, this was the case also of Peter of Abano. However, Peter of Abano probably saw the organic magic of the Liber vaccae as inefficacious, because it did not rely on astral causes. By contrast, in the eyes of "astro-sceptics" such as Nicole Oresme and Henri of Langenstein, the Liber vaccae would, for the very same reason, have gained in authority. As for William of Auvergne, he believed, as we have seen, against the scholastic consensus, in the fertility of crossbreeding between man and animals and in the possibility of synthetic sperm. To such minds, the Liber vaccae will have been both fascinating and particularly dangerous. The Liber vaccae did, indeed, contain much to trouble the medieval reader. It promised the magician almost Godlike powers of control over the elements and the planets, generation and growth, the bodies and minds of others, and over one's own body by freeing it from pain and the constraints of gravity. The Liber vaccae dangerously blurred the line between magic and miracles, implicitly intimating that Christ's miracles could be accomplished by magic. It also proposed methods to harm and even kill. Both the scholastics' remarks and the manuscript evidence suggest that what disturbed medieval readers most was the artificial generation of humanlike beings.129 It is these experiments that are omitted in several manuscripts and that are accused of transgressing the laws of nature and violating nature's secrets. Scholastic theologians qualified these experiments in this manner, because they involved crossbreeding between man and animals, giving rise to strange new creatures of mixed parentage. As such, the Liber vaccae breached the natural and God-given boundaries between human nature and other species. The fact that the Liber vaccae described the procedure in such lurid detail can only have made it seem more abominable. The experiments for artificial generation in the Liber vaccae are unique in the literature of the medieval West.130 It is true that the recourse to spontaneous generation in the course of magical operations can be
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found in at least one other medieval text on magic: the Liber Theysolius appended to the Liber Razielis, which is associated with the court of Alfonso the Wise.131 The Liber Theysolius, which survives in one complete and one partial copy, describes the creation of worms from the bodies of animals as part of an elaborate procedure to make an eye ointment that allows one to see spirits or demons. However, the work is not concerned with the generation of higher animals or homunculi. Bather, one of its principal aims is the vivification of dead bodies, by persuading or compelling spirits to enter them as a familiar spirit, which is under the operator's power and will provide him with knowledge of anything he wants. And even though the magic of the Liber Theysolius makes proficient use of animal substances, ritual elements, and the invocation of spirits in order to access and direct natural powers are far more prominent here than in the Liber vaccae. In learned Latin sources, two isolated experiments for the artificial generation of homunculi can be found. The first is described in the De essentiis essentiarum, an anonymous work on natural philosophy and alchemy, and is there attributed to the Arabic physician Basis. In the fifteenth century, the Spanish theologian Alonso Tostado reported a similar experiment, attributing it to Arnold of Villanova.132 However, neither of these cases involves animals. Male semen is simply placed in a glass or lead vessel with some other ingredients. There are concerns about the human status of the beings thus generated and worries that such an experiment would tempt God to infuse a rational soul. Interestingly, however, these experiments are not qualified as against the laws and order of nature and the tone is not particularly aggressive. This seems to confirm that it was, indeed, the crossbreeding in the Liber vaccae that scholastic readers found most objectionable. The artificial generation of homunculi remained a marginal topic in medieval learned discussions. Scholastic debates about artificial generation focused, rather, on the possibility of generation without a human male or without any seed at all, as in spontaneous generation. Demons played an important role in these debates, which were inspired by common beliefs about incubi and by exegetical traditions that presented demons as the real actors behind the works of the magicians of Pharaoh. However, as we have seen, scholastics did not claim that the transformation of staves into snakes, or the organic generation-magic of the Liber vaccae, could not work without demons. What these debates were about was defining the scope of the powers of demons by tying them to nature. This line of reasoning obscured, however, the distinction between natural and demonic magic. The only real difference lay in the necessary semiological step: the need for a sign, a ritual, which demons would interpret in order to act, subsequently, through natural causes. Several of our authors associated the Liber vaccae not only with demonic action, but also explicitly with witchcraft. Boland of Cremona, in particular, did not want to exclude that demons prepared the ointment that enabled witches to fly and participate in the sabbath. However, he did not develop the idea further. He, too, was less interested in the relationship between demons and magicians or witches, than in their relationship to God and nature. The fact remains, however, that Roland proposed a rationalization of the witches' nocturnal flight long before its acceptance by mainstream theology. His discussion suggests that rationalism and a tendency to privilege natural causes are not necessarily a parapet against delusions. They may, on the contrary, have contributed to the rise of the witch craze at the end of the Middle Ages. Moving into the Renaissance, we find at least two further citations of the Liber vaccae. They are contained in the works of two Neoplatonizing philosophers and advocates of a new high magic. Their judgement of the Liber vaccae does not differ substantially from that of the scholastics. In his posthumously published polemic against astrology, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola would seem to be the first to explicitly reject the attribution of the work to his hero Plato. Interested in a magic that would enhance man's dignity and strengthen his will, Pico had neither time for the determinism of the stars nor for the Liber vaccae. He disqualified the latter as filled with "execrable dreams and figments," without, however, refuting its claims in any detail.133
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By contrast, several decades later, Henry Agrippa, in his own work on natural magic, apparently did not doubt that the magic of the Liber vaccae would actually work. In a discussion on the role of the stars in spontaneous generation, he called the experiments of the Liber vaccae "monstrous" and "against the laws of nature," deliberately misspelling its title as the Laws of Pluto.134 On the other hand, he also cited the Liber vaccae as an authority on magical lamps.135 Finally, without saying so, Agrippa drew extensively on the pseudoAlbertian De mirabilibus mundi.136 As we have seen, the latter treatise was, in turn, deeply influenced by both Ibn al-Jazzr's De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae. This circumstance lends a paradoxical quality to the early modern reception of the Liber vaccae. Despite the fact that John Dee owned two copies,137 the work itself increasingly sank into oblivion. At the same time, through its partial incorporation into the De mirabilibus mundi, which was translated into several vernacular languages and printed more than once alongside other pseudo-Albertian works, it reached a much wider audience than in the Middle Ages. This, however, came at the price of being stripped of its more characteristic and questionable elements. Universit Paris Diderot - Paris 7/ Institut universitaire de France [Footnote] Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York, 1923-58), 2 (1923): 778-82, 809-10. Thorndike's account is partly indebted to M. Steinschneider, Zur pseudoepigraphischen Literatur, insbesondere der geheimen Wissenschaften des Mittelalters. Aus Hebrischen und Arabischen Quellen (Berlin, 1862), 52-64. [Footnote] 2 David Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book of the Cow," in Il neoplatonismo nel Rinascimento, ed. Pietro Pini (Rome, 1993), 133-45; "Artificial Demons and Miracles," Res orientales 13 (2001): 109-22 (with a summary of the Latin text and English translation of the first book); "From Hermes to Jbir and the Book of the Cow," in Magic and die Classical Tradition, ed. C. Burnett and W. F. Ryan (London and Turin, 2006), 19-28. See also Pingree, "The Diffusion of Arabic Magical Texts in Western Europe," in La diffusione delle scienze islamiche nel medio evo europeo (Roma, 2-4 ottobre 1984) (Rome, 1987), 57-102, at 71-72, 80, 95-96. David Pingree prepared an edition of the Liber vaccae, but at the time of his death in 2005 this project was still in a fairly early stage. When writing this article, I had no access to his papers, which are to be deposited at the American Philosophical Society. 3 Liber aneguemis: Un antico testo ermetico tra alchimia pratica, esoterismo e magia nera, ed. P. Scopelliti and A. Chaouech (Milan, 2006), henceforth cited as Liber aneguemis. The transcription is based on Florence, Bibl. Nazionale 2.3.214. Transcription of the extant fragment in Arabic, ibid., 161-62. 4 William R. Newman, Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Chicago, 2004), 177-81, 190-91. 5 Sophie Page, "Magic at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, in the Late Middle Ages" (Ph.D. diss., The Warburg Institute, University of London, 2000), chap. 3-1, and Sophie Page, "Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom: The Familiar Spirit in the Liber Theysolius," La cornica 36 (2007): 41-70, esp. 51-55. 6 See Jean-Patrice Boudet, Entre science et nigromance: Astrologie, divination et magie dans l'Occident mdival (XIIe-XVe sicle) (Paris, 2006), esp. chap. 3; Nicolas Weill-Parot, Les 'images astrologiques' en Occident au Moyen ge et la Renaissance: Spculations intellectuelles et pratiques magiques (XIIe-XVe sicle) (Paris, 2002); Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), esp. chap. 6. [Footnote] 7 On astrology in the university setting, cf. Boudet, Entre science et nigromance, 283-95. Boudet notes (290) that medieval masters of astrology neglected elections and interrogations, forms of astrology that were the most suspect in the eyes of the Church authorities.
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[Footnote] 8 On the notion of the preternatural and the medieval interpretation of the passage from Exodus, see Maaike van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge: Les thories mdivales de la gnration extraordinaire (Paris, 2004), 16-19, 223-30, 521-25. In line with Augustine, the scholastics held that demons were behind the works of the magicians of Pharaoh. However, in the commentaries on this passage they defended the idea that demons are bound to nature. See also the discussion below. 9 This date is based on the attribution of the Liber vaccae to Hunayn ibn Ishq (cf. below), who translated before 856 (probably around 840) a work to which the Liber vaccae seems to refer, and the citation of the Liber vaccae in the Jabirian Kildb al-lajmi, which was composed in the early tenth century. Cf. Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book," 136, 138-39, and Pingree, "Artificial Demons," 110. [Footnote] 10 Transcription of the extant fragment in Liber aneguemis, 161-62. 11 Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book," 135-38. See also n. 21 and n. 130 below. 12 The terminus ante quern is given by the oldest extant manuscript of the Liber vaccae, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 22292, which dates from the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. The first citation occurs in William of Auvergne's work of the 1220s (see below). David Pingree proposed Spain as the place where the work was translated, because the author of the Ghdyat Al-Hakim (Picatrix) quoted from the Liber vaccae, and since the Picatrix was written in Spain, the Arabic original of the Liber vaccae must have circulated there as well. Cf. Pingree, "The Diffusion," 71-72, and "Plato's Hermetic Book," 134-36. 13 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Hebr. 214. The index that precedes the De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae in this manuscript has been described by Steinschneider, Zur pseudoepigraphischen Literatur (?. 1 above), 55. It seems to indicate that the Hebrew version skips the experiments for making rational animals and starts with the one on making bees. On the other contents of the manuscript, see ibid., and Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book" (n. 2 above), 135, and "The Diffusion" (n. 2 above), 71-72, who notes that it contains a Hebrew version of the Picatrix as well. The Hebrew translation of the Liber vaccae and the De proprietatibus is based on the Latin version: see M. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893): 706-7, 849, 1008 (cited by Pingree, "The Diffusion," 71 n. 48). 14 However, according to Marwan Rashed, the anonymous author of the Arabic original of the Liber vaccae may well have used the prologue of a real work by Galen to construct the artifice. The prologue of the Liber vaccae states that Galen first wanted to write an abridgement of Plato's Laws, but finally decided to compose a full-fledged commentary on that work. Marwan Rashed argues that this part of the introduction is based on the now lost prologue of Galen's abridgement, not of Plato's Laws, but of the Timaeus. I wish to express my gratitude to Marwan Rashed for sharing with me this exciting hypothesis and the preliminary results of his analysis of the prologue of the Liber vaccae ("Le prologue perdu de l'Abrg du Time de Galien dans un texte de magie noire?", to be published in Antiquorum philosophorum 3 [2009]). The scattered Dixit Hunayn passages and the division of the work into two sections (e.g., Major and Minor, see below) also make one wonder whether the pseudo-Hunayn might not have compiled the Liber vaccae from different recipe collections, adding comments on the way. [Footnote] 15 According to Pingree, "From Hermes," 22-23, and "Artificial Demons" (n. 2 above), 110, the word ndmds in the Arabic title Kitb al-nawdms is a transliteration of the Syriac word namdsd and not of the Greek nomos. Namdsd means "secrets" and was also used in the title of a Syriac book on Harrnian magic written by Thbit ibn Qurra and translated into Arabic by his son. Pingree used this argument to back up his theory that the Liber vaccae was written by a Syrian, in the Syrian city of Harrn. Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book," 134, 142. The explicit references to Plato and the likelihood that the author of the Liber vaccae attributed it to Hunayn because the latter wrote a summary of Plato's Laws (cf. Pingree, "Artifical Demons," 110), suggest that a Syrian meaning of ndmds can at most be secondary. It supposes rather than
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proves that the author of the Liber vaccae was a Syrian. 16 However, one manuscript (Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, 120 [olim C. V. 15], fifteenth century) and several printed versions of the De mirabilibus read tegimenti rather than regimenti. I thank Antonella Sannino for this information (for a list of manuscripts of the De mirabilibus mundi, see n. 74 below). The variant tegimenti is most likely a corruption, but may have been suggested by the following comment attributed to Hunayn: "Inquit Hunayn: Galienus dixit quod iste phylosophus scilicet Plato non nominat librum suum hunc librum aneguemis, nisi (ms. non) propter eam quam ego narrabo post horam hanc et rememorabor eius in loco suo. Dico ergo quod plato non intendit per id nisi (ms. non) tegumentum" (Liber aneguemis, 60). 17 In the manuscript transcribed in Liber aneguemis, Florence, Bibl. Nazionale 2.3.214, the Major and Minor comprise forty-five and forty-one experiments, respectively. According to Pingree, "Artificial Demons," 110 n. 12, Montpellier, facult de mdecine, MS 277 is, however, the most complete. [Footnote] 18 The manuscript transcribed in Liber aneguemis omits this, but it is found in others, such as London, BL, Arundel 342 and Montpellier, facult de mdecine, MS 277. [Footnote] 19 The manuscript transcribed in Liber aneguemis reads "bone." In practical terms this would seem to make more sense, but grammatically it is not satisfactory either. As suggested by Newman, Promethean Ambitions (n. 4 above), 178, something has probably been mistranslated here. 20 Liber aneguemis, 1.28. For this experiment, see also Page, "Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom" (n. 5 above), 52-53. [Footnote] 21 Picatrix 2.12.59 (ed. David Pingree, Picatrix: The Latin Version of the Ghdyat AlHakim [London, 1986], 88-89): "Et omnia predicta que diximus fiunt potenciis et virtutibus figurarum et propter attractionem fortitudinum spirituum ut nobis sint obethentes et propter eorum composicionem fortitudinum cum figuris corporum matriel istius inferioris mundi compositorum. Ideo ex istis erunt spirituales motus omnia corpora moventes, quibus motibus effectue mirabiles fiunt necnon et opera que non sunt hominibus usitata, sed quasi de miraculorum genere apparencia." Jbir ibn-Hayyn disapproved of the Liber vaccae, and may also have considered it as demonic; cf. Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book," 138. 22 Pingree, "Artificial Demons," 109. 23 Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book," 138, 141, and especially "Artificial Demons," 115. Sophie Page casts doubt on some aspects of Pingree's argumentation, but in "Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom," she accepts the idea that the magic of the Liber vaccae relies on both natural and demonic powers and that the homunculus is inhabited by a demon. William Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 179 n. 16, rejects the demonic interpretation of the homunculus outright. See also below. 24 For instance Liber aneguemis 1.1 and 1.37. Sophie Page, "Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom," 52 n. 35, notes that the Picatrix (2.12.59 [ed. David Pingree, 89]) mentions conversing with the dead as one of the goals of the Liber vaccae. However, as she points out as well, no experiments on this topic are present in the surviving copies of the work. [Footnote] 25 Liber aneguemis, after experiment 1.33 (82). 26 See n. 15 above. 27 Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book" (n. 2 above), 142-43. 28 The ingrethents prescribed by the Liber vaccae also include precious stones. However, in medieval cosmology there is no sharp distinction between the organic and the inorganic realm. Plants, animals, stones, and metals are all considered products of generation.
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[Footnote] 29 Page, "Magic at St. Augustine's" (n. 5 above), chap. 3. 30 See Richard Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century (Phoenix, 1997), 42-44. 31 Liber aneguemis 1.1 (63). However, in 1.28 (77-78), the transformation is explicitly presented as permanent: "Si volueris convertere formam hominis ad formam symii aut porch aut aliarum ex formis bestiarum et remaneat secundum habitudinem suam tempore toto." See also 1.29 (78-79). 32 Pingree, "The Diffusion" (n. 2 above), 72. 33 Such an alchemical interpretation has been proposed by Paolo Scopelliti, Liber Aneguemis (n. 3 above), 40-54. [Footnote] 34 David Pingree termed the magic of the Liber vaccae "psychic magic" because of this reliance on the transmission of functions of the soul. 35 Newman, Promethean Ambitions (n. 4 above), 168-69, 178. [Footnote] 36 On Aristotle's theory of generation and the role of male and female, see Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Age: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge, 1993), 21-26, and Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge (?. 8 above), 44-46. 37 Avicenna claimed that all life forms can be generated spontaneously, thanks to the influence of the stars and the dalor formarum. This theory was rejected by Averroes and by the vast majority of scholars in the Latin West. On this debate, and on the importance of the distinctions between higher and lower animals, and between generation with and without seed, see Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge, 131-87. 38 Liber aneguemis, 61. [Footnote] 39 See Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge. 40 See Maaike van der Lugt, "L'humanit des monstres et leur accs aux sacrements dans la pense mdivale," in Monstres et imaginaire social: Approches historiques, d. A. Caiozzo et A.-E Demartini (Paris, 2008), 135-62. Fuller text at http://halshs.archivesouvertes.fr/halshs-00175497/. 41 Sophie Page, "Magic at Saint Augustine's" (n. 5 above), pointed out this similarity. Cf. Pliny Naturalis Historia 8.23. Admittedly, the Liber vaccae speaks of one foot (pes), rather than one leg. [Footnote] 42 Sophie Page also criticized this aspect of Pingree's argumentation in "Magic at Saint Augustine's." 43 However, scholastics believed that demons and angels could temporarily associate themselves with bodies made out of air, or with a human corpse, apparently vivifying it. Significantly, they never link this theory with the Liber vaccae. On scholastic demonology, see Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge. 44 See Diagram 1. All these manuscripts are mentioned by Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book" (n. 2 above), 144 n. 57. Pingree added two further manuscripts to the list: Prague, National Library X.H.20 and Florence, Biblioteca nazionale Pal. 945. However, neither of these contain the Liber vaccae. In the Prague manuscript, its last item, on fols. 230-38 erroneously bears the title Liber vaccae. I wish to express my gratitude to Joseph Ziegler and Charles Burnett, respectively, for examining the Prague and the Florence manuscripts for me. [Footnote]
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45 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 22292. It bears the shelf mark "Windberg 92," indicating that it formerly belonged to the Bavarian monastery of Windberg of the Order of Prmontr. Several manuscripts and early prints from this monastery ended up in the CLM collection in 1803. It is not clear when Windberg acquired the manuscript. 46 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 615. The Liber vaccae is part of a self-contained unit. The manuscript contains several texts that are distinctly German, such as two different lists of Latin plant names with German translations and a treatise on agriculture with many references to Germany. 47 New Haven, Yale, Medical Library, Codex Fritz Paneth. See Karl Sudhoff, "Codex Fritz Paneth," Archiv fr Geschichte der Mathematik, der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik 12 (1929): 1-32. 48 Oxford, Corpus Christi college, 125. Pingree associated the manuscript with Montpellier because its first item is the Latin translation from the Hebrew of Maimonides' De medicinis contra venena. This translation was made by Ermengaud Blasius, Arnau of Villanova's nephew, at Barcelona in 1305, a few years before the manuscript was copied. Cf. Pingree, "The Diffusion" (n. 2 above), 95. 49 London, British Library, Arundel 342. 50 Montpellier, facult de mdecine, MS 277; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, 2.3.124; Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 132; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 71; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pai. lat. 1892. See Table 1 for provenances. 51 Cf. the catalogue of Richard of Fournival's library edited by Leopold Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la bibliothque impriale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1868-81), 2 (1874): 521, no. 142: "Epystola Ameti filii Abraham filii Macellani de proprietate, et est extracta de libro Galieni qui dicitur Anguemiz, et est ex dictis Humayni." However, as suggested by Benedek Lang (private conversation), the word "extracta" seems to indicate that Richard's manuscript contained the De proprielalibus only (on the relationship between this text and the Liber vaccae, see below). Richard left his library to Gerald of Abbeville, who in turn left it to the Sorbonne, but the manuscript containing the Liber vaccae was not found among the bequest. 52 For indications that Richard de Bury owned a copy, see further below. 53 The medieval catalogue of St. Augustine's, which was drawn up at the end of the fifteenth century, probably between 1491 and 1497, classed these manuscripts as numbers 1275 and 1277. No. 1275 is lost. No. 1277 is now Oxford, Corpus Christi, 125. Cf. Montague Bhodes James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover. The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Priory and St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury and of St Martin's Priory at Dover. Now first Collected and Published with an Introduction and Identifications of the Extant Remains (Cambridge, 1903): 348-49. For the date of the catalogue, ibid., lviii. [Footnote] 54 Erfurt, Amplon, 4. 188. See also below. 55 New Haven, Yale Medical Library, Codex Fritz Paneth. It is described in detail by Karl Sudhoff, "Codex Fritz Paneth." As early as 1326, the manuscript had made its way to Bohemia, cf. Sudhoff, "Codex Fritz Paneth," 3, 24. 56 As is the case in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 125. In addition, the sheets in this manuscript are of different sizes. 57 Oxford, Corpus Christi, 125 (1277 in the library of St. Augustine's). 58 Cf. James (who does not mention no. 1277), The Ancient Libraries, 348-49, and A. B. Emden, Donors of Books to Sl. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Occasional Publications 4 (Oxford, 1968), 16, 19. Did Wyvelesberghe receive his copy from Sprott when they were both monks at St Augustine's? If so, it would appear that at St. Augustine's books were considered part of the daily necessities monks could privately own. [Footnote]
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59 Wilbur Knorr, "Two Medieval Monks and Their Astronomy Books: Mss Bodley 464 and Rawlinson C. 117," Bodleian Library Record 14 (1993): 269-84, at 277 n. 19. David Pingree ("The Diffusion," 95-98) has observed that many of Michael of Northgate's titles in magic and alchemy were issued from Montpellier and suggested a possible direct link between studies in Montpellier and Canterbury, by way of Henri of Mondeville. Knorr criticizes this hypothesis, on the basis of the pattern of transmission of the kind of astronomical tracts owned by Michael of Northgate. 60 Knorr, "Two Medieval Monks," 279-80. Knorr demonstrated that the technical works on astronomy were donated by only four people, including Michael of Northgate. No book was donated after 1325. Once published, Sophie Page's research on the magical manuscripts at St. Augustine's will tell whether it is possible to extrapolate from astrology and astronomy to magic. 61 The association between the De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae was already pointed out by Pingree, "The Diffusion" (n. 2 above), 71-72. According to Pingree, only eight manuscripts contain the De proprietatibus, but he gave no further information. [Footnote] 62 These nine manuscripts include the earliest one, and also Richard of Fournival's early lost copy, or, more likely, its Vorlage (see Table 1). London, BL, Arundel 342 does not contain the De proprietatibus. On Ibn al-Jazzr, see Pingree, "The Diffusion," 70-71. 63 For instance Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 615. Pingree ("The Diffusion," 71) pointed out that the order is the same in the Hebrew translation made from the Latin. Cf. also Steinschneider, Zur epigraphischen Literatur (n. 1 above), 51-64. StemSchneider's descriptions suggest that the two works are presented as a single one. 64 The manuscript in Richard de Fournival's library may have contained the De proprietatibus only (see n. 51 above). If so, the term extrada indicates that it was copied, directly or indirectly, from a manuscript which contained both the De proprietatibus and the Liber vaccae. 65 Ibn al-Jazzr, De proprietatibus, MS Oxford, BL, Digby 71, fol. 36r-v. [Footnote] 66 Cf. James, The Ancient Libraries (n. 53 above), 348-49, and Pingree, "The Diffusion," 95-96. 67 At the end of the fifteenth century, Pico della Mirandola rejected the attribution to Plato. See below. According to Thorndike (History of Magic [n. 1 above], 4:531) Pierre d'Ailly already recognized the artifice. Unfortunately, Thorndike did not provide a reference, and I have not been able to locate this idea in Pierre d'Ailly's works. 68 Of course this separation was never complete. Although rational medicine eliminated recourse to charms and blessings and inscribed its pharmacology into the general theory of qualities and complexional balance, there was room in mainstream medical theory for medical properties for which the theory of qualities could not account, and that were ascribed to the "specific form" or to "hidden qualities." Since these forms and qualities could only be discovered by experience, their justification strongly resembled the justification of the kind of medical magic found in the De proprietatibus. 69 Munich, CLM 615. 70 Munich, CLM 22292. After the prologue of the Liber vaccae, the scribe left several lines blank and then added two experiments of the Liber vaccae Major. The first (Liber aneguemis, 1.15) proposes a procedure to make rain cease; the second (Liber aneguemis, 1.16) describes the construction of a magical house in which people faint or die. This morally charged experiment breaks off at the end of the page. [Footnote] 71 The index cites the Liber vacce nigromanticus as the last item. A modern hand erroneously inscribed the title Liber vacce at the beginning of a series of natural questions which are now the last item in the manuscript and not accounted for by the medieval index. This series of natural questions breaks off in the middle of a sentence. Of course, it is difficult to pinpoint the motivations of the person responsible for the disappearance of the Liber vaccae. It cannot be excluded that the text was stolen by someone who was
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attracted, rather than repelled, by the adjective nigromanticus. 72 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, lat. Z. 539 (= 1594). The thirteenth-century manuscript referred to by Thorndike contains, in reality, the De imagine mundi of Honorius Augustudonensis. Cf. Antonella Sannino, "Facer cessare mirabilia rerum. Magia e scienza naturale nel De mirabilibus mundi," Studi Filosofici 30 (2007 [2009]): 37-52, esp. 40. 73 Cf. Sannino, "Facer cessare mirabilia rerum," 38-39. 74 Paris, Bibliothque Nationale de France, lat. 7287 (fifteenth century); Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1248 (1470-1511, incomplete); Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, lat. Z. 539 (= 1594) (fourteenth century); Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Pai. lat. 719 (fifteenth century); Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, 120 (olim C. V. 15) (fifteenth century); Wolfenbttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 62.4 Aug. 8 (1495, incomplete); Los Angeles, University of California Libraries, Biomedical Library, Benjamin 1 (after 1488). I am grateful to Antonella Sannino for this list: her critical edition of the text will soon be published in the series Micrologus' Library. [Footnote] 75 This citation seems to be a reference to a rather obscure passage in the prologue of the Liber vaccae (Liber aneguemis, 60). 76 I borrow this formulation from Emilie Guilhen who speaks of recettes-autorits in her Master's thesis "Secrets et merveilles. Les experimenta et le De mirabilibus mundi. Deux traits apocryphes d'Albert le Grand," Universit Paris 10, 2002, 32. 77 On the Liber ignium, see J. B. Partington, A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder (Cambridge, 1960). Emilie Guilhen has identified around thirty experiments taken from the Liber ignium ("Secrets et merveilles," Annexe 2). [Footnote] 78 William of Auvergne, De legibus, 12 (MS Paris, BNF lat. 15755, fol. 44vb; Opera omnia [Paris/Orlans, 1674], 1:43B), and 24 (MS, fol. 72ra; Opera omnia, 1:70A). On several points the manuscript reading is better than the edition. However, the chapter numbering differs between manuscripts. Therefore, for practical reasons I adopt the numbers of the edition. 79 William of Auvergne, De universo 2.3.25, Opera omnia (Paris/Orlans, 1674), 1:1071. 80 Boland of Cremona, Summa (MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticano, Barb. lat. 729, fols. 43vb and 55^; MS Paris, Bibliothque Mazarine, 795, fol. 29rb). I have not seen Florence, Bibl. naz, conventi soppresi, da ord. Vallombrosa, 27, indicated by Gorge K. Hasselhoff, 'Dicit Rabbi Moyses:' Stuthen zum Bild von Moses Maimonides im lateinischen Westen vom 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert (Wrzburg, 2004), 62 n. 10. 81 William of Auvergne, De legibus, cap. 25 (Opera omnia, 78): "Et haec omnia in libris judicorum astronomiae et in libris magorum atque maleficorum tempore adolecentiae nostrae nos meminimus inspexisse." [Footnote] 82 Roland of Cremona, Commentary on Job (cited by Antoine Dondaine, "Un commentaire scripturaire de Roland de Crmone: le livre de Job," Archivum fratrum praedicalorum 11 [1941]: 109-37, at 129): "dicit Ptolemeus, quod quidam sunt nigromantici, qui occulta et secreta quedam sciunt, per que faciunt mortuos loqui, spiritus malignos de loco ad locum transir; cuiusmodi scientiam dicit se Eliphaz habuisse. . . . Fateor me vidisse librum illum et ibi legisse. Verba ibi sunt obscura, sed multa mala ibi dicuntur, que possunt fieri ex illa scientia, et similiter multa bona. . . . Nec malum est scire, quamvis malum sit operari secundum illam. Scire quidem malum non est malum, et tarnen facer, malum est." 83 It seems most likely that Roland discovered the Liber vaccae at Paris. We cannot exclude, however, that he read it in northern Italy, before or after his stay in Paris, or even in Toulouse, where he acted for a short time as an inquisitor against the Cathars. His Summa may, in fact, have been written after his departure from Paris.
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84 John of La Rochelle, De legibus et praeceptis = Alexander of Hales, Summa, 3, pars 2, inq. 3, tract. 2, sect. 3, q. 2, 518 (6 vols. [Quaracchi, 1924-79], 4:771-72). Many parts of the Summa, including the De legibus el praeceptis, were conceived under the editorial supervision of John of La Rochelle. The Summa was completed in 1246, shortly after Alexander's death, but it contains older material. 85 The Speculum Astronomiae does not refer to other works on "organic" magic either, such as Costa ben Luca's De physicis ligaturis or Albert the Great's De lapidibus. Cf. David Pingree, "Learned Magic in the Time of Frederick II," Micrologus 2 (1994): 39-56, at 53. [Footnote] 86 See the introduction of Graziella Federici Vesocivini to her edition of the work (n. 87 below), 27. For some important corrections to the chronology of Peter's career as presented by Federici Vescovini, see Pieter De Leemans, "Was Peter of Abano the Translator of pseudo-Aristotle's Problemata physical" Bulletin de philosophie mdivale 49 (2007): 103-18, and Maaike van der Lugt, "Gense et postrit du commentaire de Pietro d'Abano sur les Problmes d'Aristote: Le succs d'un hapax," in Mdecine, astrologie et magie au Moyen ge: autour de Pietro d'Abano, ed. Jean-Patrice Boudet, Franck Collard, and Nicolas Weill-Parot, Micrologus' Libary, forthcoming. 87 Peter of Abano, Lucidator dubitabilium astronomie, dif. 1, propter primum (ed. G. Federici Vescovini, Pietro d'Abano, Trattali di astronomia: Lucidator dubitabilium astronomiae, De motu octavae sphaerae e altre opere [Padua, 1992], 121-22): "Est et quarta [type of magic], prestigium, sensuum illusio, quo festuca trax apparet et ungula serpens, lapisque aurum, ceu de magis legitur Pharaonis. ... In quo siquidem Zoroastres, quem aliqui dicunt fuisse Cham, filium Noe, Hermesve sive Enoch, vel Mercurius, fuerunt famosiores, Arthefius, ambe Vace platonice ac Kyranides. Ad quod apparentia agilitatis reducitur manuum." As indicated by the critical apparatus, the reference to the Liber vaccae is corrupt in all three extant manuscripts. The best manuscript reads vace instead of vacce, the second vace polonice, and the third vate polonice. Paolo Scopelliti has the merit of having identified the reference. Contrary to his suggestion (Liber aneguemis, 37), Graziella Federici Vescovini does not present the passage as an interpolation in Peter of Abano's original text, but as too corrupt a passage to emendate. 88 On the homunculus in De essentiis essentiarum, see Newman, Promethean Ambitions (n. 4 above), 188-90, who avoids the question of authorship and sources. [Footnote] 89 Gordon Leff, Bradwardine and the Pelagians: A Study of His De causa Dei and Its Opponents (Cambridge, 1957), and Heiko Oberman, Thomas Bradwardine, a Fourteenth Century Augustinian: A Study of His Theology in Its Historical Context (Utrecht, 1957). 90 For Bradwardine's knowledge and use of hermetic philosophy, see Antonella Sannino, "La tradizione ermetica a Oxford nei secoli XIII e XIV: Ruggero Bacon e Tommaso Bradwardine," Studi filosofici 18 (1995): 23-56. 91 Cf. G. Molland, "Addressing Ancient Authority: Thomas Bradwardine and Prisca Sapientia," Annals of Science 53 (1996): 213-33. 92 Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei, 1.1.37 (ed. H. Savile [London, 1618], 90C): "Nonne etiam ars transformationum et reformationum huiusmodi traditur in Vacca Plalonis, seu fingitur ibi trad, in quo et multa alia turpia, superstitiosa et Magica continentur." The other citation of the Liber vaccae is in De causa Dei, 1.1.32 (ed. Savile, 47A). Many thanks to Lodi Nauta for pointing out Bradwardine's citations of the Liber vaccae to me. [Footnote] 93 Sannino, "La tradizione ermetica," 41-42. Sannino does not discuss the Liber vaccae. Bradwardine would not have found the Liber vaccae in the library of Merton College, which was relatively small and did not cover works on the occult sciences. Cf. F. M. Powicke, The Medieval Books of Merton College (Oxford, 1931).
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94 Molland, "Addressing Ancient Authority," 213-14. Antonella Sannino does not take this fact into account in her analysis of the use of hermetic texts by Bradwardine. 95 On de Bury, his library, and his circle, see Frank T. Brechka, "Bichard de Bury: The Books He Cherished," Libri. International Library Review 33 (1983): 302-15; Neal W. Gilbert, "Bichard de Bury and the 'Quires of Yesterday's Sophism,'" in Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. E. P. Mahoney (Leiden, 1976), 229-57; Christopher B. Cheney, "Bichard de Bury, Borrower of Books," Speculum 48 (1973): 325-28.; W. J. Courtenay, Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton, 1987), 135-36. These studies offer some complements and corrections to two excellent older studies, i.e., those of J. de Ghellinck, "Un vque bibliophile au XIVe sicle: Bichard Aungerville de Bury (1345): Contribution l'histoire de la littrature et des bibliothques mdivales," Revue d'histoire ecclsiastique 18 (1922): 271-313, 482-508, and 19 (1923): 157-200, and N. Denholm- Young, "Bichard de Bury (1287-1345)," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ser. 4, 20 (1937): 135-68. 96 Only a handful of manuscripts have been traced back to it. Denholm- Young, "Bichard de Bury," 162, and Cheney, "Bichard de Bury." The Liber vaccae is not among them. 97 Nicole Oresme, Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum 2.31 (ed. M. CIagett [Madison, Milwaukee, and London, 1968], 358-60). The reference to the Liber vaccae is probably an addition because it is not in all of the manuscripts. If so, it is an early addition, likely by Oresme himself, because the passage is cited with the reference to the Liber vaccae by Henry of Langenstein. [Footnote] 98 Henry of Langenstein, De reductione effectuum, cap. 23 (MS Paris, BNF lat. 14887, fol. 85r-v). 99 William of Auvergne, De legibus, cap. 12: "Ut nefanda opera et maleficia, que de fetibus ex huiusmodi commixtione procreatis fiebant declinarentur. Et hec opera leguntur in libro qui dicitur Neumich, sive Neumuch, et alio nomine vocatur leges Piatonis; qui liber totus est de huiusmodi commixtionibus et vocatur leges Platonis, quia contra leges nature est" (MS Paris, BNF lat. 15755, fol. 44v(b); see also Opera omnia, 1:43B). The edition and another manuscript (Paris, BNF lat. 14311, fol. 2v(b)) read "fecibus" instead of "fetibus." However, "fetibus" makes better sense and is confirmed by John of La Rochelle. Moreover, on many other occasions, lat. 15755 is of better quality than lat. 14311. [Footnote] 100 Robert Grosseteste, De cessatione legalium (ed. E. B. King and R. Dales [London, 1985]). 101 See B. Smalley, "William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law," in 5/. Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974: Commemorative Studies, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1974), 2:11-71. 102 John of La Rochelle, De legibus et praeceptis (n. 84 above), 4:768: "Dicendum quod aliquid dicitur faciendum simpliciter ex ratione, quod secundum se bonum est et semper et apud omnes, secundum quem modum praecepta evangelica sunt ex ratione facienda .... Faciendum vero ex ratione secundum quid est quod secundum se bonum non est, sed tarnen ex causa et pro tempore sive aliquibus bonum est, hoc est, utile vel expethens, secundum quem modum caeremonialia legis ad litteram facienda erant, quia causa revocations ad latriam Conditoris tempore, quo vigebat idolatria, Ili populo, qui ad idolatriam pronus erat, utilia et expethentia erant." [Footnote] 103 For example, Peter Comestor, Historia scholastica, ad Lev. 18-23 (PL 198:1212-13). 104 As first shown by Wolfgang Kluxen, William of Auvergne used a Latin translation of a small section of the Guide, not the full text. Cf. Kluxen, "Literargeschichtliches zum lateinischen Moses Maimonides," Recherches de thologie ancienne et mdivale 21 (1954): 23-50, at 41-45. This fragment, entitled Liber de parabola, was not attributed to Maimonides, which explains why neither William nor John of La Bochelle mentioned his name. For a recent account of the reception of Maimonides in the Latin Middle Ages and further bibliography, see Hasselhoff, 'Ut dicit Rabbi Moses' (n. 80 above). Smalley ("William of Auvergne") did not take Kluxen's findings into account.
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[Footnote] 105 See n. 109 below. 106 See n. 109 below. [Footnote] 107 See Pierre Hadot, Le voile a"Isis: Essai sur histoire de l'ide de Nature (Paris, 2004), 77-78. 108 Hadot, Le voile dlsis, 150-54. 109 Nicole Oresme, Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum 2.31: "Et quoniam multi appetunt scire et uti aut admirantur utentes ista radice quantum ad duo prima membra eo quod est naturalis, ideo prudenter animadvertendum est quod de occultis efficatiis lapidum, plantarum, seminum, et aliarum rerum naturalium illa dumtaxat expedit scire que humane necesitati aut utilitati seu ad bene vivere sunt acommodata. Et cognitione talium contentan debemus cuiusmodi sunt ea que sciunt medici, cyrurgici, aurifabri et alii. Alia enim secretiora ipsa natura ut ita dicam veluti mater pudica non vult detegi; sed propter inhonestatem vitandam et ad cavendum abusum celanda sunt, sicut sunt vires vel activitates quas haberent spermata, venena, et quedam alia in aliquibus mixtionibus abhominandis et applicationibus abusivis; hec namque potius dicenda sunt veneficia seu malificia quam bona experimenta, ut sunt quedam posita in libro qui dicitur vacca Platonis et in pluribus aliis. Propter quod leges humane que sunt nature conformes iuste talia prohibent tanquam periculosa et que nimis possent obesse sed prodesse parum vel nichil. Quedam enim istorum propter latentiam et difficultatem plus habent curiositatis quam afferant utilitatis. . . . Omnes quoque qui se de hoc intromittunt sine instantia male finiunt dies suos, quoniam fine perverso tanquam filii inverecundi nituntur caste parentis nature violare secreta. Ideoque digne maledicti sunt ab auctore nature" (ed. Clagett, 358-60). 110 Franck Collard, " Veneficiis vel maleficiis: Rflexions sur les relations entre le crime de poison et la sorcellerie dans l'Occident mdival," Le Moyen Age 109 (2003): 9-57. Collard does not mention Oresme. See also Collard, The Crime of Poison in the Middle Ages (Westport, CT, 2008), translation of Le crime de poison au Moyen Age (Paris, 2003). [Footnote] 111 Oresme does not mention alchemy. One may suppose that it is not subsumed under the "art of the goldsmith" but classed, rather, with magic. 112 In this respect, Nicolas Weill-Parot proposes a distinction between the category of the "secret" and the "occult." Secret causes can be discovered and understood, the truly occult can only be known by experience. Cf. N. Weill-Parot, "Encadrement et dvoilement: l'occulte et le secret dans la nature chez Albert le Grand et Boger Bacon," Micrologus 14 (2006): 151-70. [Footnote] 113 William of Auvergne, De legibus, cap. 24: "Non enim dubitandum est in novis seminum commixtionibus et ipsorum adiutoriis nova animalia et necdum visa posse gigni sicut aperte docetur in libro Nezimich de quo superius fecimus mentionem" (MS Paris, BNF lat. 15755, fol. 72ra. In MS Paris, BNF, lat. 14311, fol. 36rb, the title is Liber Nezmuch. In the edition [Opera omnia, 1:70A]) it is less recognizable: Liber Emuth.) 114 Henry of Langenstein, De reductione effectuum, cap. 23: "Non omnes dictarum virtutum conbinaciones naturali cursui sunt possibiles vel convenientes. Probatur quia multa tales possunt fieri ingenio et subtilitate spiritum vel hominum que secundum regularitatem cursus instituti naturalium non possunt fieri nec unquam firent, quarum quedam sunt mixtiones abhominande et applicationes abusive occultarum virium que sunt in spermatibus et ven < en > is, de quibus habetur in libro qui dicitur Vacca Piatonis" (MS Paris, BNF lat. 14887, fol. 85r-v). 115 For a detailed discussion of this debate see Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge (n. 8 above), 189-364. For William of Auvergne, ibid., 252-63.
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[Footnote] 116 William of Auvergne, De universo 2.3.25: "Nec mirum cum iam attenta tum sit ab hominibus et creditum ab eis homines per aliam viam efficere quam per viam consuetae generationis sicut in libris experimentorum poteris invenire. ... si tarnen eis de talibus creditor" (Opera omnia, 1:1071). 117 A closer parallel for William's reference to books of experiments seems to be provided by the Picalrix 2.5.2 (ed. Pingree, 46). According to this passage, Indian magicians "mirabilia operantur circa mulieres quas concipere faciunt absque coniunctione virili et hoc motibus, operibus et medicinis." However, according to Pingree, the earliest direct citations of Picalrix date from the end of the fifteenth century, although the Latin text seems to have been present in Montpellier by 1300. Cf. Pingree, "The Diffusion" (n. 2 above), 91, 93, 98. 118 Roland of Cremona, Summa, 2, dist. 8: "Et etiam de cursu, quem vocat sic vulgus, non possum credere. Vulgatum est quod currit per mundum et de nocte currunt et homines et mulieres et ungunt se unguento quodam per quod volant et invicem coeunt et cum bestiis, sicut narrant suis confessoribus, sicut a religiosis viris audivi, qui (MS quod) habuerunt tales in confessione. Et confitentes amare flebant et pro ilio peccato et pro aliis parati erant satisfacere. Ista opinio magis est famosa quam quod incubi infestent mulieres et Aristoteles docet facer argumentum ab auctoritate omnium. Et Beatus Petrus in libro Clementis dicit quod opinio vulgi locum prophtie tenet, asserens quod opinio communis non dbat (!) esse falsa. Credo enim quod in gente Sarracenorum et Iudeorum et Christianorum sit ista opinio. Sed hoc maxime videtur impossibile, quod dicunt qui vadunt in ilio cursu quod quam cito inunguntur unguento ilio quod volant velociter. Nec hoc videri debet incongrue illis qui volunt hoc credere quia arte demonum vel ingenio philosophorum inventum est unguentum, de quo si quis ungitur ferrum non potest ilium incidere, sicut habetur in libro Vacce. Quia si invenitur aliquid quod attrahat ferrum ut adamas, quare et aliqua non inveniuntur que rfugiant ferrum, que non latent demones. Unum enim contra unum dicit Ecclesiasticus XLII g [42:25] et omnia duplicia; quare ergo et aliqua genera rerum non sunt ex quibus possit confici huiusmodi unguentum quod suspendit (!) peruncta corpora in aere et moveat ea velociter ad quamcumque partem voluerit homo? Nonne et lapides sunt qui faciunt homines invisibiles? Quare et illud non posset fieri? Dicimus quod si aliquid est talis cursus arte demonum inventum est propter luxuriam, sicut dicunt illi qui vadunt. Unde demones incorporati sunt qui ducunt homines ad illam ludificationem. Quod ergo sit iste cursus, non assero; et quod non posset esse et quod huiusmodi unguentum possit fieri, similiter negare non possum omnino, quoniam scio quod multe sunt insidie dolosi ut dicit Ecclesiasticus XI f [11:31]" (MS BAV, Barb. lat. 729, fol. 43vb). [Footnote] 119 Roland of Cremona, Summa (MS Paris, Mazarine, 795, fol. 99r). Cf. also E. Filthaut, Roland von Cremona OP und die Anfnge der Scholastik im Predigerorden: Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte der alleren Dominikaner (Vechta, 1936), 17. 120 Roland of Cremona, Summa: "Item omnes dicunt quod gladius non potuisset lesisse primos homines ante peccatum . . . Nec mirum, si gladius non potuisset eos incidisse cum Liber Vacce doceat facer unguentum ut dicitur quod tale est quod si homo fuit ipso inunctus non potest incidere eum ferrum" (MS BAV, Barb. lat. 729, fol. 55vb). 121 Robert Bradwardine, De causa Dei, 1.1.32: "Iudaei autem et eorum Philosophi inimici Christi et fidei Christianae dicunt Christum fecisse miracula, non vera, sed ficta, per artem Magicam et per potentiam spirituum malignorum. Quidam etiam magici in approbationem artis suae infamis dicunt Christum vsum fuisse quibusdam magisteriis ibi scriptis, sicut patet in libro quid dicitur Vacca Platonis" (ed. Savile, 47A). Translation by Molland, "Addressing Ancient Authority" (n. 91 above), 219, with slight modifications. [Footnote] 122 Gilbert Dahan, Les intellectuels chrtiens et les juifs au Moyen ge (Paris, 1990), 367, 423, 426. 123 Bradwardine, De causa Dei 1.1.32 (ed. Savile), 47, 51. See also Molland, "Addressing Ancient Authority," 219-20.
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124 On this distinction and its limits, see Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge, 229-30. Bradwardine did, however, use this kind of distinction in order to defend the miraculous character of Christ's healing miracles and his resuscitation of the dead (De causa Dei, 1.1.32 [ed. Savile], 41-42). 125 Bradwardine, De causa Dei 1.1.37 (ed. Savile), 88-92. [Footnote] 126 Cf. Van der Lugt, Le ver, le dmon et la vierge (n. 8 above), 487-504. 127 Bradwardine, De causa Dei 1.1.37 (ed. Savile), 9OC: "Nonne etiam ars transformationum et reformationum huiusmodi traditur in Vacca Platonis, seu fingitur ibi tradi, in quo et multa alia turpia, superstitiosa et Magica continentur." 128 See Newman, Promethean Ambitions (n. 4 above), 54-62. [Footnote] 129 Roland of Cremona's neutral attitude may partly stem from the fact that he did not hint at, or did not remember, that the ointment for invulnerability was obtained from the corpse of the rational animal. [Footnote] 130 The theme of the generation of artificial life, including homunculi, is found in the Kildb al-lajmi in the Jabirian corpus, a work which was unavailable in Latin translation. Jbir ibn Hayyn knew and cited the Liber vaccae, but disapproved of it and may have considered it to be demonic. On Jbir's opinion on the generation of artificial life, see Paul Kraus, Jdbir ibn Hayydn: Contribution l'histoire des ides scientifiques dans ? Islam: Jabir el la science grecque (Cairo, 1942; repr. Paris, 1986), 97-134, and the summary of this excellent study provided by Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 181-83. On Jbir's condemnation of the Liber vaccae, cf. Pingree, "Plato's Hermetic Book" (n. 2 above), 138. The theme of artificial human life is also found in the tale of Salmn and Absal. See Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 173-77. 131 On the Liber Theysolius and its link to the Liber Razielis, see Page, "Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom" (n. 5 above), and the bibliography cited there. The following paragraph is based on Page's description of the content of the Liber Theysolius. 132 These attributions are baseless. For a more detailed description of these experiments, see the Appendix below and Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 188-94. [Footnote] 133 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatriciam (1494), 1 (ed. Eugenio Garin [Florence, 1946], 64): "sicut libros Piatonis de vacca magi circumferunt et quos vocant inslilutionum execrabilibus somniis figmentisque refertos et a Platone non minus alienos quam ista sint mendicabula a Platonis procul et probitate et sapientia." 134 Henry Agrippa, De occulta philosophia 1.36 (ed. V. Perrone Compagni [Leiden, 1992], 152): "Virtus praeterea coelestis alibi quidem sopita iacet, ceu sulphur a fiamma remotum; in viventibus autem corporibus saepe flagrat, sicut sulphur accensum, tum vapore suo proxima omnia complet: sic miranda quaedam opera procreantur, qualia leguntur in libro Nemith, qui et Legum Plulonis inscribitur, quia eiusmodi generationes monstrosae sunt, neque secundum leges naturae producuntur." 135 Henry Agrippa, ibid., 1.49 (ed. Perrone Compagni, 179). 136 See Perrone Compagni's introduction to her edition of the De occulta philosophia, 19. 137 Oxford, Corpus Christi, 125; Oxford, Bodleian, Digby 71. [Footnote] 138 I have not been able to find confirmation for the existence of a Dominican chaplain called Thomas at the court of Bobert the Wise. However, unlike Lynn Thorndike, I do not believe he is necessarily a fictitious character. Contrary to what is suggested by Thorndike (A History of Magic [n. 1 above], 3:136), the author of the De essentiis essentiarum did not claim to be Thomas Aquinas. This attribution is of later
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date and has been added in later manuscripts (as, for instance, in Oxford, Bodleian, Digby 71, a manuscript from the fourteenth century). Modern scholars have identified the author with a lecturer at the Dominican sludium of Naples evicted in 1344 for his anti-Thomist positions, but promoted to doctor of theology by Pope Clement VI. Cf. T. Kaeppeli and E. Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols. (Borne, 1970-93): 4 (1993): 355-56, and 1 (1970): 344. On the question of substantial forms, the author of De essentiis essentiarum adopted, indeed, a pluralist, anti-Thomistic view (see below). However, the early date of De essentiis essentiarum seems to plead against the identification. 139 There are at least a dozen manuscripts. Parts of the treatise were printed several times in the early modern period. I have used Venice, 1488 (unnumbered) and MS London, BL, Sloane 2156. For manuscripts and editions of the De essentiis essentiarum, see Kaepelli and Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, 4:355-56. In at least one manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian, Digby 71), the De essentiis essentiarum, the De proprietatibus, and the Liber vaccae are found together. 140 De essentiis essentiarum, 8 (London, BL, Sloane 2156, fol. 143ra; Venice, 1488, unnumbered): "Basis de proprietatibus membrorum animalium ponit unum experimentum .... Dicit ergo quod si accipiatur semen hominis et imponatur in vase mundo sub caliditate fimi quod ad XXX dies erit inde generatus homo, habens omnia membra hominis et eius sanguis valet ad multas infirmitates secundum quod ibi ponit." [Footnote] 141 See also Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayydn, 122 n. 4. 142 Alonso Tostado, Paradoxa de Christi, matrisque eius misteriis, animarum receptaculis posthumis, iucundissimae disputationes, 1.5 (Douai, 1621), 21. For Tostado's discussion, see Newman, Promethean Ambitions (n. 4 above), 191-95. [Appendix] APPENDIX: THE LIBER VACCAE AND THE DE ESSENTIIS ESSENTIARUM The De essentiis essentiarum is a treatise on natural philosophy and alchemy. According to the prologue, it was written by a Dominican called Thomas, chaplain of Bobert of Anjou, duke of Calabria and future King Bobert the Wise (d. 1343), to whom the work is also dedicated. If this authorship is to be accepted, the dates of Hubert's elevation to the rank of duke and his royal coronation several years later indicate that the De essentiis essentiarum was written between 1297 and 1309. The work was later erroneously ascribed to Thomas Aquinas,138 which may partly explain its relative success.139 The De essentiis essentiarum roughly follows the "great chain of being," from God and the angels down to animals, plants, and minerals. The first possible citation of the Liber vaccae occurs in the chapter on animals. Thomas defends the idea that the essence of the human species resides in the male, via his seed, and not in the female. Like most of his contemporaries, he adhered to Aristotle's theory of generation. However, far more unusually, to prove the redundancy of female seed, chaplain Thomas describes an experiment to artificially create a human being from sperm alone, without the intervention of a woman. Sperm is to be placed in a glass vessel with horse manure for thirty days, at the end of which a homunculus will have formed, whose blood can be used to cure many diseases. For this experiment, Thomas cites a book by Basis entitled De proprietatibus membrorum animalium.140 Bevealing a certain uneasiness about the compatibility of this experiment with Christian faith, he adds that he is not sure whether the experiment is true, and that if it is, the homunculus would surely lack a rational soul. On the other hand, the testimony of so great a man as Basis cannot be scorned. A bit further on, the author of De essentiis essentiarum uses his idea that the homunculus lacks a rational soul, as part of a long argument against the Thomistic theory of the unicity of substantial forms. According to Aquinas, the intellectual soul structures the whole of the human body. Since the homunculus lacks a soul, it is clear that in ordinary humans the complex organization of the body, with all its different tissues and organs, does not derive from one substantial form. The Thomistic view must be rejected. [Appendix]
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The question is whether the De proprietatibus membrorum animalium can be identified with the Liber vaccae. First of all, it must be said that at the present state of research, there seems to be no better candidate. I have found no indication of the existence of a genuine or pseudepigraphic treatise by Basis describing the artificial generation of humans.141 In the fifteenth century, the Spanish theologian Alonso Tostado alludes to an experiment similar to the one described by chaplain Thomas, attributed, this time, to Arnold of Villanova. There again, the precise source is unclear.142 However, several arguments plead against a link between De essentiis essentiarum and the Liber vaccae. The author of De essentiis essentiarum attributed the De proprietatibus memborum animalium to Basis, and not to Galen, Plato, or Hunayn ibn Ishq. More importantly, the experiment described by chaplain Thomas differs from the much more elaborate and extravagant ones in the Liber vaccae. According to De essentiis essentiarum, the male seed is to be put in a glass vessel and not into the uterus of a cow or an ewe. The use of female animals is an essential aspect of the experiment in the Liber vaccae. Moreover, the blood of the homunculus serves to cure diseases rather than effect magical feats. And yet, some of these divergences are not as great as they may seem. According to the Liber vaccae, the homunculus, once born, must be kept in in a glass or metal vessel for ten or forty days. Glass vessels are also used in several other experiments. The title of the work cited by Thomas resembles Ibn al-Jazzr's De proprietatibus. The De proprietatibus preceded, as we have seen, the Liber vaccae in almost all manuscripts, to the point of being easily confounded with it. Moreoever, the attribution to Basis does not necessarily preclude a link with the Liber vaccae. Thomas may have confused Ibn al-Jazzr's De proprietatibus with other treatises with similar titles attributed to Basis. For example, according to the medieval catalogue of the library of St. Augustine's of Canterbury, the lost manuscript of the Liber vaccae kept there, contained a Liber Rasis et Diascorides de naturis animalium. Moreover, another Arabic treatise about medical magic by Costa ben Luca, also called De proprietatibus, is attributed to Basis in at least one manuscript. This manuscript - Montpellier, Facult de Mdecine, MS 277 - which also contains Ibn al-Jazzr's De proprietatibus followed by the Liber vaccae, dates from the fifteenth century. However, the attribution may have occurred in earlier manuscripts. [Appendix] Unfortunately, none of the arguments above is conclusive in one way or another. This leaves us with the frustrating conclusion that a link between De essentiis essentiarum and the Liber vaccae can neither be excluded nor affirmed.
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Author(s): Document types: Document features: Publication title: Source type: ISSN: Maaike Van der Lugt Feature References, Tables Traditio. Bronx: 2009. Vol. 64 pg. 229, 49 pgs Periodical 03621529
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