ALBERTUS MAGNUS

Bibliography Concerning Albertus Magnus

In the following bibliography I include some works that I have not been able to examine and cannot vouch for, and omit others which I have seen but which seemed of doubtful value or treated sides of Albert’s personality and writings which have little connection with our investigation, such as accounts of Albert as a saint, or theologian, or metaphysician, or psychologist. Of recent years a bewildering underbrush of German monographs has sprung up concerning Albert as one of the few prominent persons that Germany could claim as its own among the many scholars of the medieval period.

A number of works that do not deal primarily with Albert will be cited in the course of the chapter rather than here, and mention of his individual works and of manuscripts of them will also be found in connection with the following text.

I. His Own Writings

II. His Life

III. His Relations to Natural Science

I. Life

At last we come to the consideration of the dominant figure in Latin learning and natural science of the thirteenth century, with whose course his lifetime was nearly coincident, the most prolific of its writers, the most influential of its teachers, the dean of its scholars, the one learned man of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to be called “the Great,”—Albertus Magnus. The length of his life and presumably also of his period of literary productivity makes it difficult to place him at any particular point in the century, and from the fact that Vincent of Beauvais and Peter of Spain cite him we might well have placed our account of his works before theirs. He appears, however, to have outlived them both. But it is mainly in order to bring our account of Albert into juxtaposition with our treatment of the other two great names of Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, to determine whether the Speculum astronomiae should be ascribed to Roger rather than Albert, and to treat of books of experiments and magic, that have been ascribed to Albert but are perhaps of somewhat later date, in connection with other similar experimental and occult literature, that we have postponed our consideration of Albertus Magnus until this point.

In 1253, the same year that Robert Grosseteste died, four years after William of Auvergne, opened the pontificate of Alexander IV, of which Ptolemy of Lucca wrote: “In his time flourished two great doctors in the Order of Preachers. Doubtless many others were famous during this same time both in life and doctrine. But these two transcended and deserve to be placed before all others.”[1692] The two Dominicans whom Ptolemy had in mind were, of course, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.[1693] It is customary and natural to couple their names. Besides being members of the same order, they were master and student; they were also the two scholars of their time who did most to adapt the natural philosophy of Aristotle to Christian use, a fact which in itself suggests their interest in natural science. It may seem strange to us today that two theologians, and even more so two members of an order vowed to asceticism, apostolic poverty, and the maintenance of strict orthodoxy against heresy, should play a leading part in interpreting the ideas of Greek and Arabic philosophers and should display such an interest in natural science. The fact, however, is indisputable. It is to the credit of the medieval church and its religious orders. But it is even more a tribute to the power that philosophy and natural science exercise upon every able mind that really studies them. As for the relations between Albert and Aquinas, it must be added that while the former outlived his pupil, he was born a full generation before him. It was thus Aquinas who profited by and built upon Albert’s work.

Ptolemy of Lucca states that Albertus Magnus was over eighty years old when he died in 1280, and that for about three years before his death he largely lost control of his intellectual faculties.[1694] That he outlived his pupil Aquinas by six years, and that his writings are cited by other contemporaries who died before he did—Vincent of Beauvais and Petrus Hispanus, are other indications of his longevity. There consequently seems little reason for questioning the traditional date of his birth, 1193, although Pouchet has suggested 1205[1695] and Father Mandonnet, more recently, 1206.[1696] The main argument for placing his birth about 1206 is that a fourteenth century chronicler[1697] states that he was only sixteen when he entered the Dominican Order, while in the fifteenth century Peter of Prussia asserts that Albert himself used to say that he had been in the Order “from his very boyhood.”[1698] His birthplace was at Lauingen in Swabia and he was the oldest son of the count of Bollstädt.

Albert studied at Padua, where he tells us that in his youth he saw a well which exhaled a deadly vapor,[1699] while at Venice he beheld a royal figure painted by nature upon marble.[1700] He perhaps entered the Dominican Order in 1222 or 1223. According to Peter of Prussia,[1701] a few years later he was made reader or lecturer of the friars at Cologne and “twice gloriously lectured on the Sentences.” Then he was successively Lector at Hildesheim in 1233, at Freiburg, for two years in Ratisbon, and at Strasburg. Albert alludes in his works to a comet which he saw in Saxony in 1240.[1702]

Although Ptolemy of Lucca mentions Albert and Aquinas as flourishing during the pontificate of Alexander IV, 1253-1261, much of the former’s writing as well as teaching probably antedates this. Presumably he was already famous when young Aquinas came all the way from Italy to Cologne or Paris to study with him about 1244 or 1245. If the Speculum naturale of Vincent of Beauvais was written by 1250, many of Albert’s writings which it freely cites must have appeared before that date, for instance, the De anima (III, 41), De sensu et sensato (V. 108), De somno et vigilia (XXVI, 23), De animalibus (XVII, 71). The treatise on sleep and waking is found in a manuscript written in a French hand in 1258.[1703] Even in the treatise on minerals,[1704] which has been regarded as written after 1250 because Vincent of Beauvais does not cite it, and in which Albert speaks of having been in Paris as well as Cologne, he also speaks of one of his associates who saw in the possession of the emperor, Frederick II, 1212-1250, a magnet which instead of attracting iron was drawn to that metal.[1705] On the other hand, in his work on animals Albert cites the emperor Frederick’s book on falcons, so that Albert’s treatise on animals was probably not finished until at least the latter part of that monarch’s reign.[1706] But even Mandonnet who delays Albert’s birth to 1206 believes that his first writings date back to 1240 and that his great philosophical works began to appear about 1245. I should be inclined to push these dates back ten or twenty years. Albert was probably teaching at Paris from about 1245 to 1248, in which year he signed the condemnation of the Talmud in that city and then became regent of the new school at Cologne established by the Dominicans.[1707]

The two chief ecclesiastical offices held by Albert were those of provincial of his order in Germany from 1254 to 1257, and of bishop of Ratisbon, 1260-1262. He resigned from both positions, apparently preferring the scholar’s life. Ptolemy of Lucca explains that German bishops had to use the sword too much for Albert’s taste. In his work on animals Albert alludes in one passage to his villa on the Danube.[1708] In 1256 he went to Rome to defend the friars against the attacks of William of St. Amour, and while in Italy discovered the De motibus animalium of Aristotle. In his theological Summa he speaks of having collected the material for his treatise On the Unity of the Intellect against Averroes, when he was “in the curia at the command of Lord Alexander the Pope.”[1709] In 1259, when the general chapter of the Dominicans met at Valenciennes, he was appointed upon a committee to draw up a course of study for the Order along with Aquinas and Pietro di Tarantasia, who in 1276 became Pope Innocent V. After resigning the bishopric of Ratisbon in 1262, Albert returned to teaching at Cologne, but in 1263 he preached the crusade in Germany and Bohemia, and his name appears in documents at Würzburg in that year and those immediately following.[1710] In his Politics he speaks of having been papal nuncius in Saxony and Poland, where he found the barbaric custom still observed of killing the old men of the tribe when they had outlived their period of usefulness.[1711] We are told that in 1270 he despatched a treatise to Paris to help Aquinas in connection with the affair of Siger de Brabant, and in 1277 visited that city again in person to defend his own Aristotelian teaching and the memory of Aquinas in connection with the condemnation by Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, and other doctors of 219 opinions ascribed to the same Siger de Brabant and others,[1712]—an affair of which we shall have more to say later. The Catholic Encyclopedia and Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique repeat the assertion of fifteenth century biographers that Albert attended the Council of Lyons in 1274, but the Histoire Littéraire de la France eighty years ago assured us that his name is not mentioned in the records of that assembly.[1713]

This brief account of Albert’s life has made it evident that he stayed in no one place for long at a time, and his own works show that he had traveled widely. He seems, however, to have returned repeatedly to Cologne, and to have passed more time there than at any other one place. There he saw ruined remains of Roman buildings excavated;[1714] there he says that he wrote his De natura locorum;[1715] and there other of his writings, partly in his own hand, were still treasured when Peter of Prussia wrote his life near the close of the fifteenth century.[1716]

We have seen that Albert was already cited as an authority during his lifetime by such writers as Petrus Hispanus and Vincent of Beauvais. Roger Bacon in 1267 mentioned “Brother Albert of the Order of Friars Preachers” and William of Shyrwood as two of the foremost scholars of the time, although he seems rather jealous of Albert and inclined to rank William of Shyrwood and of course himself above him.[1717] Such envy only proves the great reputation that Albert had. In the Summa philosophiae ascribed to Grosseteste but which we have seen was apparently written some years after his death, following a long list of ancient and Arabian philosophers and some comparatively modern Christian writers such as Gundissalinus, Constantinus, and Alfred of England, the author mentions as even “more modern” Alexander minor, presumably Alexander of Hales the Franciscan who died in 1245, and Albert of Cologne of the Order of Preachers. He regards them as distinguished philosophers but not to be held for authorities. However, he later prefers Albert’s explanation of the virtues of gems to those of Democritus, Pythagoras, Plato, Hermes, and Avicenna. He also calls Albert “the most famous of modern theologians,” and gives his arguments against vision being by extramission.[1718] Ulrich Engelbert of Strasburg, a contemporary and pupil of Albert, in the fourth book of his Summa theologiae described “my lord Albert, once bishop of Ratisbon,” as “a man in every science so divine that he may well be called the wonder and miracle of our time.”[1719] Thomas of Cantimpré, in his moralizing Bonum universale de apibus, a farrago of monkish gossip and incredible tales, written apparently in 1276 or shortly after, emphasizes the saintly character of Albert who is apparently well along in years when Thomas writes.[1720] He represents Albert as having told him that at Paris a demon appeared to him in the likeness of a certain friar in an attempt to keep him from his studies but departed at the sign of the cross.[1721] Or again Thomas assures us that as Albert’s auditor for a considerable time when he occupied the chair of theology he had seen for himself and “most certainly tested” how Albert for many years almost daily participated in the prayers by day and night and read the psalter of David and often sweated in religious contemplation and meditation. “What wonder,” piously ejaculates Thomas, “that a man of such whole-hearted devotion and piety should show superhuman attainments in science!”[1722]

II. As a Scientist

It may be well at the start to indicate the scope and character of Albert’s works in the field of science. In general they follow the plan of the natural philosophy of Aristotle and parallel the titles of the works then attributed, in some cases incorrectly, to Aristotle. We have eight books of physics, psychological treatises such as the De anima and De somno et vigilia, both in three books, and works dealing with celestial phenomena, such as the De meteoris and De coelo et mundo in four books each, and with the universe and life in general, such as the De causis et procreatione universi, De causis et proprietatibus elementorum et planetarum, and the De generatione et corruptione. Geography is represented by the De natura locorum, zoology by the twenty-six books on animals, botany by the seven books on vegetables and plants, and mineralogy by the five books on minerals. Björnbo called attention to a work on mirrors or catoptric ascribed to “Albert the Preacher” in several manuscripts but which is not included in the editions of Albert’s works and which has never been printed.[1723] I do not know if this is the same treatise as a treatise on Perspective attributed to Albertus Magnus in a manuscript which Björnbo did not mention.[1724] A work on the planting of trees and preserving of wine is sometimes ascribed to Albert in the manuscripts, but is probably rather by Petrus de Crescentiis or Galfridus de Vino Salvo.[1725] I think that I have encountered only once in the manuscripts the attribution to Albert of an epitome of the Almagest of Ptolemy[1726] and of a Summa astrologiae.[1727] Fairly frequently one meets with some brief compendium of all natural philosophy ascribed to Albert, of which perhaps the most common is the Philosophia pauperum or “Introduction to the books of Aristotle on physics, sky and universe, generation and corruption, meteorology, and the soul.”[1728] These are either spurious, or, if based on Albert’s writings, add nothing of importance to them. Finally we may note a group of works lying on the border of natural and occult science and which have been regarded as spurious: treatises on alchemy and chiromancy, the Speculum astronomiae, the De secretis mulierum, the Liber aggregationis, and the De mirabilibus mundi. Of some of these we shall treat in separate chapters.

The order in which Albert’s numerous works were written is a matter difficult to determine but of some interest, although not of very great importance, for our investigation. The statement of Peter of Prussia that the translation of Aristotle “which we now use in the schools” was made by Thomas of Cantimpré at the suggestion of Aquinas, “for in Albert’s time all commonly used the old translation,”[1729] would, if true, suggest that Albert wrote his Aristotelian treatises early in life, since he actually outlived Aquinas. But not much reliance is to be placed in this statement of Peter, since it is reasonably certain that Thomas of Cantimpré at least did not translate Aristotle. I have been impressed by differing and almost inconsistent attitudes in different treatises by Albert, for instance in his attitude towards magic, which seem to hint that his opinions changed with the years, although it may be attributable, as in some other authors, to the fact that in different works he reflects the attitude of different authorities, or approaches different subjects with a different view-point, writing of theology as a theologian, but of Aristotle as a philosopher. However, Baeumker and Schneider, pursuing in connection with Albert’s writings a different line of investigation from mine, have been struck with the same thing and have concluded that Albert underwent a gradual intellectual development. They note that in his Commentaries on the Sentences he is still glued to the Augustinian tradition, while in his Summa he is strongly influenced by Aristotle and working for a synthesis of Aristotle and Augustine. Finally, in his philosophical and scientific works, related to the genuine and spurious works of Aristotle, “he goes very far with this Arabian-trimmed Neo-Platonism, often so far that he finally feels compelled to explain such exposition as mere citation, and in the strife of conflicting masses of thought surging within him refers for his own personal interpretation to his theological writings.”[1730] From this it would seem that most of Albert’s theological treatises were written before his scientific works, based upon Aristotle and spurious Arabic and other additions. But we have seen that many of his Aristotelian treatises were completed before the Speculum naturale of Vincent of Beauvais, whereas his Sentences name 1246 and 1249 as current dates.[1731]

But while Albert may sometimes refer to his theological works for his own personal views, he does not do so in those passages which will especially concern us, and it is in his works on natural science that he seems to the modern reader more original. Indeed Jessen declared that repeated perusal of Albert’s many writings in the field of natural history had convinced him that he was “original everywhere, even where he seems to copy.”[1732] Jessen, indeed, held that Albert would have been even more original and outspoken than he is, but for fear of the charge of heresy; but in my opinion there is little to support such a view. Be that as it may, in his works on natural science Albert does not merely repeat past ideas whether of Aristotle or others, but adds chapters of his own drawn in large measure from his own observation, experience, and classification. It is in his scientific works that he is as superior to Aquinas as the latter is generally considered to surpass him in the purely metaphysical and theological field. Since writing the foregoing sentences I have found that Peter of Prussia expressed much the same view in his life of Albert written toward the close of the fifteenth century. Peter says, “Moreover, this should be understood, that after Aristotle faith is to be put in Albert above all who have written in philosophy, because he has himself illuminated the writings of almost all philosophers and has seen wherein they spoke truly or falsely, nay more, since he himself was experienced above all others in natural phenomena. It may be that some, relying on their metaphysics or logic, can impugn him by certain arguments, but I think that no matter of great concern, since Albert himself says that faith is to be put in anyone who is expert in his art.”[1733]

Albert’s scientific fame perhaps reached its zenith shortly before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. In 1836 and 1837 Ernst Meyer published in Linnaea[1734] his “Albertus Magnus, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Botanik im XIII Jahrhundert,” and later in his History of Botany[1735] ranked Albert as the greatest botanist during the long period between Aristotle and Theophrastus on the one hand and Andrea Cesalpini on the other. “Yes, more than that. From Aristotle, the creator of scientific botany, until his time this science sank deeper and deeper with time. With him it arose like the Phoenix from its ashes. That, I think, is praise enough, and this crown shall no one snatch away from him.”[1736] In the meantime, at Paris in 1853, Pouchet had published his History of the Natural Sciences in the Middle Ages with the sub-title, Or Albertus Magnus and his age considered as the point of departure of the experimental school.[1737] But the extreme praise of Albert had occurred a little earlier in lectures on the history of science delivered by De Blainville at the Sorbonne in 1839-1841 and published a few years later.[1738] De Blainville too centered his discussion of medieval science about Albert, to whom alone he devoted some ninety pages, extolling him for affirming the permanence of species and for “broadening” Aristotle to fit the requirements of theology. In ten theses in which De Blainville undertook to sum up briefly the chief legacies of Albert to science, he held that he completed and terminated the circle of human knowledge, adding to Aristotle the scientific demonstration of the relations of man with God; that he extended the scope of observation to every scientific field except anatomy; that he created the description of natural bodies, a thing unknown to the ancients; and that in filling in the gaps in Aristotle’s writings he was the first to embrace all the natural sciences in a complete plan, logical and perfectly followed. “In accepting therefore with the Christian Aristotle,” concluded De Blainville, “the first verse of Genesis, ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth,’ and the consequences which follow it, we have, in my opinion, reached the apogée of the encyclopedia of human knowledge, which can now only extend itself in respect to the number and the deeper knowledge of material objects.”

This passage from De Blainville, who seems to have been a Roman Catholic, is very interesting as showing how the progress of modern science in his own time and the centuries just preceding could be almost completely miscomprehended by a professed historian of science. We must not, however, suppose that such misconceptions of the progress of science were universal or even general in the first half of the nineteenth century. The article on Albertus Magnus in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, which was published in 1838, recognizes that Albert did not extend the bounds of the sciences as much as had been supposed, and that progress had been made since the sixteenth century which rendered that part of his works “almost useless.”[1739] The passage from De Blainville is interesting also as showing the same intimate connection presupposed between Christian theology, natural science, and Aristotelianism as in the days of the great Dominicans themselves. Again, it reveals the extent to which natural science, since the appearance of The Origin of Species, has tended to the opposite extreme.

As for historians of science, they have been rather scarcer of late than in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, when the subject seems to have had a great vogue in France. Or at least the historians of science have been less sympathetic with the distant past. Perhaps the inclination has been to go almost as far toward the other pole of neglect as De Blainville went toward that of extollation. But the modern eulogies of the scientific attainments of Roger Bacon, supposed to be a thorn in the side of the medieval church and falsely regarded as its victim, and as the one lone scientific spirit of the middle ages, have been rather more absurd than the earlier praises of Albert, who was represented both as a strong pillar in the church and the backbone of medieval and Christian science. Indeed, the Histoire Littéraire, in the same passage which we a moment ago quoted against De Blainville, also states with probable justification that Albert did “more than any other doctor of his day” to introduce the natural sciences into the course of public and private studies, and that it was his taste for those subjects which won him his popular renown and the homage of scholars until the end of the seventeenth century. At no period, however, has Albert been entirely without defenders. Jessen in 1867 regarded him as an original natural scientist. Stadler in 1906 recognized that “he made many independent observations, perhaps even carried out experiments,” and showed great interest in biology.[1740]

Coming back from the opinions of others concerning Albert to his own attitude towards natural science, it is to be noted that, while he may make all sorts of mistakes judged by modern standards, he does show unmistakable signs of the scientific spirit. This will become more apparent as we proceed, but for the present we may cite two examples of it, and these from a work based upon a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise and one which at first sight might seem quite superstitious and unscientific to the modern reader, since it is full of astrology, the De causis et proprietatibus elementorum et planetarum.[1741] In the first passage Albert repeats the justification of natural science against a narrow religious attitude which we heard from the lips of William of Conches in the previous century. When Albert finds that some men attribute the deluge simply to the divine will and believe that no other cause for it should be sought, he replies that he too ascribes it ultimately to the divine will, but that he believes that God acts through natural causes in the case of natural phenomena, and that, while he would not presume to search the causes of the divine will, he does feel free to investigate those natural causes which were the divine instruments. A little further on in the same chapter Albert declares that “it is not enough to know in terms of universals, but we seek to know each object’s own peculiar characteristics, for this is the best and perfect kind of science.”[1742]

This desire for concrete, specific, detailed, accurate knowledge concerning everything in nature is felt by Albert in other of his writings to be scarcely in the spirit of the Aristotelian natural philosophy which he follows and sets forth in his parallel treatises. In his work on animals a cleavage may be observed between those parts where Albert discusses the general natures and common characteristics of animals and seems to follow Aristotle rather closely, and those books where he lists and describes particular animals with numerous allusions to recent experience and considerable criticism of past authorities. At the beginning of his twenty-second book he apologizes for listing particular animals in alphabetical order, which is “not appropriate to philosophy,” by saying that “we know we are debtors both to the wise and to the unlearned, and those things which are told in particular terms better instruct a rustic intelligence.” But while this desire to describe particular objects precisely is felt by Albert to be not in accord with traditional philosophic methods of presentation, it is a desire which many of his contemporaries share with him. At the beginning of his sixth book on vegetables and plants, where particular herbs and trees are listed, he explains, “In this sixth book of vegetables we satisfy the curiosity of our students rather than philosophy, for philosophy cannot deal with particulars.”

This healthy interest in nature and commendable curiosity concerning real things was not confined to Albert’s students nor to “rustic intelligences.” One has only to examine the sculpture of the great thirteenth century cathedrals to see that the craftsmen of the towns were close observers of the world of nature and that every artist was a naturalist too. In the foliage that twines about the capitals of the columns in French Gothic cathedrals it is easy to recognize, says M. Mâle, a large number of plants: “the plantain, arum, ranunculus, fern, clover, coladine, hepatica, columbine, cress, parsley, strawberry-plant, ivy, snapdragon, the flower of the broom and the leaf of the oak, a typically French collection of flowers loved from childhood.”[1743] Mutatis mutandis, the same statement could be made concerning the carved vegetation that runs riot in Lincoln cathedral. “The thirteenth century sculptors sang their chant de mai. All the spring delights of the Middle Ages live again in their work—the exhilaration of Palm Sunday, the garlands of flowers, the bouquets fastened on the doors, the strewing of fresh herbs in the chapels, the magical flowers of the feast of Saint John—all the fleeting charm of those old-time springs and summers. The Middle Ages, so often said to have little love for nature, in point of fact gazed at every blade of grass with reverence.”[1744] But it is not merely love of nature but scientific interest and accuracy that we see revealed in the sculptures of the cathedrals and in the note-book of the thirteenth century architect, Villard de Honnecourt,[1745] with its sketches of insect as well as animal life, of a lobster, two parroquets on a perch, the spirals of a snail’s shell, a fly, a dragonfly, and a grasshopper, as well as a bear and a lion from life, and more familiar animals such as the cat and swan. The sculptors of gargoyles and chimeras were not content to reproduce existing animals but showed their command of animal anatomy by creating strange compound and hybrid monsters—one might almost say, evolving new species—which nevertheless have all the verisimilitude of copies from living forms. It was these breeders in stone, these Burbanks of the pencil, these Darwins with the chisel, who knew nature and had studied botany and zoology in a way superior to the scholar who simply pored over the works of Aristotle and Pliny. No wonder that Albert’s students were curious about particular things.

But one is inclined to wonder whether the passage from the De causis et proprietatibus elementorum et planetarum, which we quoted first, may not have been written after the passages which we have quoted from his works on plants and animals, and whether Albert had come, thanks possibly to that same stimulating scientific curiosity of his students, to cease to apologize for the detailed description of particular objects as unphilosophical and to praise it as “the best and perfect kind of science.” At any rate it is those portions of his works on animals, plants, and minerals which he devotes to such description of particular objects which possess most independent value, and it is perhaps also worth noting that Ptolemy of Lucca in looking back upon Albert’s work seems not only to distinguish his writings on logic and theology from those on nature, but also to imply a distinction between Aristotle’s natural philosophy and his “very well-known and most excellent contribution to the experimental knowledge of things of nature.”[1746] Ptolemy seems to say Aristotle’s contribution, but the credit really belongs largely to Albert and his students.