Medieval Natural Science
"Truly the sun goes by God's command between heaven and earth, by day above and by night under the earth. She is ever running about the earth, and so light…
From: 500 C.E. To: 1500 C.E.
Location: Paris, France
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Readings in European History: A Collection of Extracts from the Sources by James Harvey Robinson, 1906.
I. Mediaeval Natural Science
Mediaeval books on science differ greatly, as might be expected, from the scientific manuals of our own age. In the first place, they are usually devoted to things in general and are called On the Nature of Things, On the Properties of Things, Things that can be Known, Mirror of the World, etc. A writer did not hesitate to huddle together into a short treatise matters which we should regard as properly belonging to a dozen distinct sciences, such as zoology, mineralogy, botany, chemistry, physics, meteorology, anatomy, physiology, ethics, theology, law, and medicine. In the second place, important scientific observations are mixed with what seem to us the most preposterous legends and irrelevant anecdotes. Lastly, writers were rarely satisfied when they had described a particular kind of bird, fish, or mineral unless they could add a moral, or illustrate the truths of Scripture.
Among the more worthy and serious of these mediaeval writers is Alexander Neckam in his work entitled On the Natures of Things, He was an Englishman, a contemporary of Richard the Lion-Hearted, and for a time a professor in the University of Paris. In a single fair-sized volume he takes up in turn the world and the heavenly bodies; fire, air, and the various birds; water and the fishes; the earth, metals, gems, plants, and animals, with their respective virtues and properties; man, the vanity of his pursuits, his domesticated animals,—the dog, horse, sheep, mule, silkworm; scholastic learning, the universities, Virgil's necromancy, court life, dice, chess, and the vices of envy and arrogance.
The eagle, [Neckam tells us] on account of its great heat, mixeth very cold stones with its eggs when it sitteth on them, so that the heat shall not destroy them. In the same way our words, when we speak with undue heat, should later be tempered with discretion, so that we may conciliate in the end those whom we offended by the beginning of our speech.
The wren is but a little bird, yet it glories in the number of its progeny. Who has not wondered to hear a note of such volume proceeding from so trifling a body? The smaller the body, indeed, the greater the sound, it would seem. By such things we are taught that the virtues of little things should not be scorned….They say, moreover, that when the body of the wren is put upon the spit and placed before the fire it need not be turned, for the wren will turn itself, not forgetful of its royal dignity.
The stratagem by which, according to a fabulous story, it gained the royal power among birds is well known. The birds had agreed among themselves that the glory of the supreme power should be allotted to the one who should excel all others by flying highest. The wren seized its opportunity and hid itself under the eagle's wing. When the eagle, who attains nearest to Jove's gates, would have claimed the supremacy among its fellows, the little wren sallied forth and perching on the eagle's head declared itself the victor. And so it obtained its name of Regulus (i.e. "ruler").
This fable touches those who enter upon the works of others and presumptuously appropriate the credit due elsewhere. As the philosopher says, "We are all like dwarfs standing upon giants' shoulders." We should therefore be careful to ascribe to our predecessors those things which we ought not to claim for our own glory, and not follow the example of that wren which, with little or no effort of its own, claimed to have outdone the eagle.
In contrast with these tales and moralizings, Neckam gives many true and useful facts. For example, the habits and cultivation of the silkworm are clearly and correctly described, and the use of the compass is explained.
The sailors, as they sail over the sea, when in cloudy weather they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, or when the world is wrapped in the darkness of night, and they are ignorant whither the ship's course is directed, touch a needle to the magnet; the needle will then whirl around in a circle until, when its motion ceases, its point is directed to the north.
A little Anglo-Saxon manual of the tenth century thus describes the heavenly bodies.
On the second day God made the heaven, which is called the firmament, which is visible and corporeal; and yet we may never see it, on account of its great elevation and the thickness of the clouds, and on account of the weakness of our eyes. The heaven incloses in its bosom all the world, and it ever turns about us, swifter than any mill-wheel, all as deep under this earth as it is above. It is all round and entire and studded with stars.
Truly the sun goes by God's command between heaven and earth, by day above and by night under the earth. She is ever running about the earth, and so light shines under the earth by night as it does above our heads by day….The sun is very great: as broad she is, from what books say, as the whole compass of the earth; but she appears to us very small, because she is very far from our sight. Everything, the further it is, the less it seems….The moon and all the stars receive light from the great sun. The sun is typical of our Saviour, Christ, who is the sun of righteousness, as the bright stars are typical of the believers in God's congregation, who shine in good converse….No one of us has any light of goodness except by the grace of Christ, who is called the sun of true righteousness….
Truly the moon's orb is always whole and perfect, although it does not always shine quite equally. Every day the moon's light is waxing or waning four points through the sun's light….We speak of new moon according to the custom of men, but the moon is always the same, though its light often varies....It happens sometimes when the moon runs on the same track that the sun runs, that its orb intercepts the sun's, so that the sun is all darkened and the stars appear as by night. This happens seldom, and never but at new moons. By this it is clear that the moon is very large, since it thus darkens the sun.
Some men say stars fall from heaven, but it is not stars that fall, but it is fire from the sky, which flies down from the heavenly bodies as sparks do from fire. Certainly there are still as many stars in the heavens as there were at the beginning, when God made them. They are almost all fixed in the firmament, and will not fall thence while this world endures. The sun, and the moon, and the evening star, and morning star, and three other stars are not fast in the firmament, but they have their own course severally. These seven stars are called planets.
Those stars are called comets which appear suddenly and unusually, and which are rayed so that the ray goes from them like a sunbeam. They are not seen for any long time, and as oft as they appear they foreshadow something new toward the people over whom they shine.
A writer of the thirteenth century, Bartholomew Anglicus, in his treatise on The Properties of Things gives the following brief and pertinent description of the domestic cat.
The cat is a full lecherous beast in youth, swift, pliant, and merry, and leapeth and runneth on everything that is to fore him: and is led by a straw, and playeth therewith: and is a right heavy beast in age and full sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait for mice: and is aware where they be, more by smell than by sight, and hunteth and runneth on them in privy places; and when he taketh a mouse, he playeth therewith, and eateth him after the play. In time of love is hard fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and rendeth the other grievously with biting and with claws. And he maketh a ruthful noise and ghastful, when one proffereth to fight with another: nor is he hurt when he is thrown down off an high place. And when he hath a fair skin, he is, as it were, proud thereof, and goeth fast about; and when his skin is burnt, then he bideth at home; and he is oft, for his fair skin, taken of the skinner, and slain and flayed.
Robinson, James Harvey. Readings in European History: A Collection of Extracts from the Sources. Vol. 1. Ginn and Co. 1906.
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