The House of Wisdom (39 page)

51
. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, “Euclid and Medieval Architecture,”
Archaeological Journal
136 (1979): 141–44.

52
. Cooke MS, British Museum MS 23198, 145–47, quoted in Bulmer-Thomas, “Euclid and Medieval Architecture,” 145.

53
. Jean Gimpel,
The Cathedral Builders
, trans. Teresa Waugh (New York: Grove Press, 1983), 82–84.

54
. Cochrane,
Adelard of Bath
, 81.

55
. Raymond Mercier, “Astronomical Tables in the 12th Century,” in
Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century
, 87.

56
. Margaret Gibson, “Adelard of Bath,” in
Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century
, 14.

57
. Mercier, “Astronomical Tables,” 88.

58
. Ibid. See also Burnett,
Introduction of Arabic Learning
, 3.

59
. Burnett,
Introduction of Arabic Learning
, 2.

60
. Al-Andalusi,
Science
, 64 (see chap. 3, n. 24).

61
.
Adelard of Bath
, Burnett, 69.

62
. Ibid.

63
. Mercier, “Astronomical Tables,” 99–100.

64
. John of Worcester,
Chronicon Iohannis Wigornensis
, trans. and ed. Patrick McGurk (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 3: 259–60.

65
. John of Salisbury,
Policraticus
, 2, quoted in Gibson, “Adelard of Bath,” 16.

66
.
Adelard of Bath, Questions on Natural Science
, 99.

67
. Ibid., 225.

68
. Ibid., 227.

69
. Ibid., 91.

70
. Ibid., 227.

71
.
Adelard of Bath
, Burnett, xxxi–xxxii.

72
. Mercier, “Astronomical Tables,” 89.

73
. Charles Burnett has suggested that perhaps Adelard’s level of Arabic was very low or virtually nil and that he relied on Arab informants and teachers rather than Arabic texts. This is difficult to square with some of the translations ascribed to Adelard, which Burnett and others generally accept, although it might have been possible with the help of reliable intermediaries. Still, the case “against” Adelard relies heavily on the absence of written Arabic material in some of his surviving works. Adelard’s crucial role as a transmitter of Arabic learning, as well as his revolutionary stance on the importance of direct experience and reason over written authority, remains untouched by any debate over his level of linguistic skill. See Burnett, “Adelard of Bath and the Arabs,” in
Rencontres de cultures dans la philosophie medievale
(Louvain-la-Neuve: Cassino, 1990): 89–107. For the opposite view, see the classic work of Haskins,
Studies
, 5–42.

74
.
Adelard of Bath, Questions on Natural Science
, 105.

75
. Ibid., 83.

76
. Ibid.

77
. Ibid., 103.

78
. Adelard of Bath,
Questions on Natural Science
, quoted in Cochrane,
Adelard of Bath
, 45.

Chapter 6: “What Is Said of the Sphere …”

1
. Charles Homer Haskins, “The Reception of Arabic Science in England,”
English Historical Review
30, no. 117 (1915): 56–57.

2
. Richard W. Southern,
Medieval Humanism
(New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 167, n. 1.

3
. Walcher of Malvern, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auct. F. 1. 9, f. 90, quoted in Southern,
Medieval Humanism
, 167.

4
. Southern,
Medieval Humanism
, 163–64.

5
. Burnett,
Introduction of Arabic Learning
, 15–16 (see chap. 2, n. 18).

6
. Southern,
Medieval Humanism
, 169.

7
. Mercier, “Astronomical Tables,” 99–100.

8
. María Rosa Menocal,
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2002), 151.

9
. For example, see Bernard Septimus, “Petrus Alfonsi on the Cult at Mecca,”
Speculum
56, no. 3 (1981): 517–33.

10
. Paul Kunitzsch, “Al-Khwarizmi as a Source for the Sententie astrolabii,” in
From Deferent to Equant
, eds. David A. King and George Saliba (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1987), 227–36.

11
. Burnett,
Introduction of Arabic Learning
, 16.

12
. McCluskey,
Astronomies and Cultures
, 186–87 (see chap. 2, n. 7).

13
. Haskins, “Reception of Arabic Science,” 58.

14
. McCluskey,
Astronomies and Cultures
, 180.

15
. Ibid., 180–83.

16
. There has been considerable scholarly debate about the date of
On the Use of the Astrolabe
. Its apparent dedication to Prince Henry Plantagenet, the future Henry II, at “the age of discretion” would suggest Henry was around sixteen years old at the time. That would place the work around 1149 or 1150. For this view, see Dickey, “Adelard of Bath,” 64–70 (see chap. 2, n. 28). Charles Homer Haskins prefers somewhat earlier, 1142–1146. See Haskins,
Studies
, 28–29 (see chap. 5, n. 3). It was clearly one of Adelard’s later works, for it refers to several of his earlier texts and assumes the reader is familiar with them.

17
. Adelard of Bath,
On the Use of the Astrolabe
, quoted in Cochrane,
Adelard of Bath
, 98 (see chap.2, n. 4).

18
. Adelard of Bath,
On the Use of the Astrolabe
, quoted in Dickey, “Adelard of Bath,” 11–12.

19
. Dickey, “Adelard of Bath,” 8.

20
. Haskins,
Studies
, 28.

21
. Dickey, “Adelard of Bath,” 27.

22
. Ibid., 13.

23
. Cochrane,
Adelard of Bath
, 98.

24
. Dickey, “Adelard of Bath,” 19–20.

25
. Plato,
Timaeus, in The Dialogues of Plato
, trans. and ed. Benjamin Jowett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), 3: 719.

26
. Thomas S. Kuhn,
The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 29–38.

27
. Ibid., 45–48.

28
. Ibid., 55–59.

29
. Ibid., 70.

30
. Tester,
Western Astrology
, 153 (see chap. 5, n. 14).

31
. Emmanuel Poulle, “Le Traite de l’Astrolabe d’Adelard de Bath,” in
Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist
, 121.

32
.
Chartularium universitatis Paresiensis
, quoted in Lynn Thorndike,
University Records and Life in the Middle Ages
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 26–27.

33
. Ibid., 78–79.

34
. Etienne Gilson,
Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 17.

35
. Fernand van Steenberghen,
Aristotle in the West: The Origins of Latin Aristotelianism
, trans. Leonard Johnston (Louvain, Belgium: E. Nauwelaerts, 1955), 32–39.

36
. For a discussion of the limited impact of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in the early twelfth century, see John Marenbon,
Later Medieval Philosophy (1150–1350)
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), 54–56.

37
. Roger Bacon,
Opus Majus
, 63 (see Prologue, n. 9).

38
. Van Steenberghen,
Aristotle in the West
, 109.

39
. Burnett, “Antioch as a Link,” 3–4 (see chap. 5, n. 2).

40
. Abu Mashar,
The Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology: Together with the Medieval Translation of Adelard of Bath
, trans. and ed. Charles Burnett, Keiji Yamamoto, and Michio Yano (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1994), 13.

41
. Richard Joseph Lemay, Abu
Mashar and Latin Aristotelianism in the 12th Century
(Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 1962), xxxvii.

42
. Albertus Magnus,
De vegetabilis et plantis
, quoted in Thorndike, “True Place of Astrology,” 275 (see chap. 3, n. 40).

43
. Thorndike, “True Place of Astrology,” 277.

44
. Adelard of Bath, quoted in
Abbreviation of the Introduction
, 15.

45
. Ibid.

46
. Lemay,
Abu Mashar
, 3–4.

47
. Lemay, “True Place of Astrology,” 68 (see chap. 5, n. 8).

48
.
Abu Mashar on Historical Astrology: The Book of Religions and Dynasties (On the Great Conjunctions)
, trans. and ed. Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2000), 3.

49
. Lemay, “True Place of Astrology,” 57.

50
. Ibid., 58–59.

51
. Edward Grant,
God and Reason in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 89.

52
. Lemay, “True Place of Astrology,” 58–59.

53
. Tester,
Western Astrology
, 153.

54
. J. D. Lipton, “The Rational Evaluation of Astrology in the Period of the Arabo-Latin Translations, ca.1126–1187 A.D.” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, LosAngeles, 1978), 211–17. See also J. D. North, “Some Norman Horoscopes,” in
Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century
, 149.

55
. For a detailed analysis of the horoscopes and estimates of their dates and locales, see North, “Some Norman Horoscopes” (147–61), on which this account is based. North proposes Robert of Ketton, the prominent translator and scientist, as the only other possible candidate but quickly dismisses him for his lack of known connections to the throne.

56
. Burnett,
Introduction of Arabic Learning
, 46.

Chapter 7: “The Wisest Philosophers of the World”

1
. Edward Grant,
The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 24.

2
. Anthony Pym,
Negotiating the Frontier: Translators and Intercultures in Hispanic History
(Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing, 2000), 48.

3
. Abd al-Rahman, “The Palm Tree,” trans. in D. Fairchild Ruggles,
Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 42.

4
. Ibn Khaldun,
The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History
, trans. and ed. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 1: 303.

5
. Andrew M. Watson,
Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World: The Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques, 700–1100
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 92.

6
. Ibid., 80–84.

7
. Ibid., 70–71.

8
. The respective terms are
asdad, saqiya, naura
, and
saniya
. See Expiración García Sánchez, “Agriculture in Muslim Spain,” in
The Legacy of Muslim Spain
, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1994), 996.

9
. J. Vernet, “Natural and Technical Sciences in al-Andalus,” in
Legacy of Muslim Spain
, 939.

10
. Alvaro, quoted in Robert Hillenbrand, “The Ornament of the World: Medieval Cordoba as a Cultural Center,” in
Legacy of Muslim Spain
, 115.

11
. Menocal,
Ornament of the World
, 42–43 (see chap. 6, n. 8).

12
. Al-Jahiz, “Epistle on Singing Girls,” quoted in Roger Boase, “Arab Influences on European Love Poetry,” in
Legacy of Muslim Spain
, 466.

13
. Menocal,
Ornament of the World
, 124–25.

14
. Roger Boase, “Arab Influences,” 466–73. For a detailed analysis of the extent of Arab influence on the troubadours, which remains controversial in scholarly circles, see also María Rosa Menocal,
The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).

15
. Ibn Hawqal, quoted in Richard Fletcher,
Moorish Spain
(New York: Henry Holt, 1992), 65.

16
. Luce López-Baralt, “The Legacy of Islam in Spanish Literature,” in
Legacy of Muslim Spain
, 511–12.

17
. Miquel Forcada, “Books of Anwa in al-Andalus,” trans. Michael Kennedy, in
The Formation
of
al~Andalus: Language, Religion, Culture and the Sciences
, ed. Maribel Fierro and Julio Samsó (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), 311.