CHAPTER XLII

DANIEL OF MORLEY AND ROGER OF HEREFORD: OR ASTROLOGY IN ENGLAND IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

Daniel’s education--(Bibliographical note)--Defense of Arabian learning--A moderate treatment of moot points between science and religion--The four elements and fifth essence--Superiors and inferiors--Daniel’s astronomy--Astrological argument--Astrology and other sciences--Daniel and Greek: a misinterpretation--Daniel and the church: a misinterpretation--Daniel’s future influence--Roger of Hereford--An astrology in four parts--Another astrology in four parts--_Book of Three General Judgments_--Summary.

[Sidenote: Daniel’s education.]

In discussing Gerard of Cremona in a previous chapter we noticed the studies at Toledo of Daniel _de Merlai_ or of Morley, how he heard Gerard translate the _Almagest_ into Latin and defend the fatal influence of the stars, and Galippus, the Mozarab, teach concerning the universe in “the tongue of Toledo,”--presumably Spanish. Like Adelard of Bath, Daniel had long absented himself from England in the pursuit of learning, and had first spent some time at Paris, apparently engaged in the study of Roman law. He became disgusted, however, with the instruction there and in his preface[496] speaks sarcastically of “the brutes” (_bestiales_) who occupied professorial chairs “with grave authority” and read from codices too heavy to carry (_importabiles_) which reproduced in golden letters the traditions of Ulpian. Holding lead pencils in their hands, they marked these volumes reverently with obeli and asterisks. They wished to conceal their ignorance by maintaining a dignified and statuesque silence, “but when they tried to say something, I found them most childish.” Daniel accordingly made haste away to Spain to acquire the learning of the Arabs and to hear “wiser philosophers of the universe.” Finally, however, his friends summoned him back to England and he returned “with an abundant supply of precious volumes.” On his arrival he found that the interest in Roman law had almost completely eclipsed that in Greek philosophy, and that Aristotle and Plato were assigned to oblivion. Not wishing to remain the sole Greek among Romans, he prepared to withdraw again where the studies in which he was interested flourished. But on the way he met John, bishop of Norwich (1175-1200) who asked him many questions concerning his studies at Toledo and the marvels of that city, and concerning astronomy and the rule of the superior bodies over this sublunar world. Daniel’s present treatise gives a fuller reply to these inquiries than time then permitted him to make.

In the following bibliographical note the MSS will be listed first and then the printed works by or concerning Daniel of Morley.

Arundel 377, 13th century, well-written small quarto, fols. 88-103, “Philosophia magistri danielis de merlai ad iohannem Norwicensem episcopum ... / ... Explicit liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum.” Until very recently this was supposed to be the only MS of Daniel’s sole extant work. No other treatise has as yet been identified as his, but several other MSS may be noted of the whole or parts of the aforesaid “Philosophia” or “Liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum.”

Corpus Christi 95, 13th century, where, according to K. Sudhoff in the publication noted below, the first two or three books ascribed to William of Conches are really the work of Daniel of Morley.

Berlin Latin Quarto 387, 12th century, 51 fols. Attention was called to it by Birkenmajer in the publication noted below. It has many slips of copyists and is regarded by him as neither the original nor a direct copy thereof. For the MS to be written in the twelfth century this would require a very rapid multiplication and dissemination of Daniel’s treatise which was at the earliest not composed until after 1175.

The remaining MSS have not hitherto been noted by writers on Daniel:

CUL 1935 (Kk. I. 1), 13th century, small folio, fols. 98r-105r (and not to 115r, as stated in the MSS catalogue, which gives Daniel Morley as the author, but _De creatione mundi_ as the title). From rotographs of fols. 98r-v, 100r, and 105r, I judge that this copy is almost identical with Arundel 377 but somewhat less legible and accurate.

Oriel 7, 14th century folio, fols. 194v-196v (191-193, according to Coxe), extracts from _De philosophia Danielis_, opening, “Nos qui mistice.”... They are immediately preceded by extracts from “Adelardi Bathoniensis ... de decisionibus naturalibus.”

Corpus Christi 263, early 17thI’ll sp century, fols. 166v-67r, “Ex Daniele de Merlai” (or, “Merlac,” according to Coxe) “alias Morley in lib. de superioribus et inferioribus primo De creationis Mundi.” This MS is one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne, the Elizabethan antiquary, written in his own hand.

Twyne perhaps made his extracts from Arundel 377, for immediately after them he gives extracts “from William of Conches who is together with Daniel Merlai in our library,” and in Arundel 377 Daniel’s work is immediately followed by that of William of Conches. Moreover, of the Selden MSS which are now in the Bodleian, Supra 72 was once owned by Lord “William Howarde” who died in 1640, while Supra 77 is marked “Arundel,” referring presumably to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who died in 1646, and Supra 79 consists of astronomical and astrological treatises copied by Brian Twyne. If MSS which once belonged to the Arundel collection and to Twyne have thus passed somehow into the Selden collection and are found listed there in close proximity to one another, it is at least tempting to conjecture that the MS containing Daniel’s treatise, followed by that of William of Conches, which Twyne says was once “in our library,” somehow became Arundel 377.

BN 6415 does not contain _De philosophia Danielis_, as stated by C. Jourdain (1838) p. 101; Jourdain, however, regarded Adelard of Bath as the author of _De philosophia Danielis_, and BN 6415 does contain Adelard’s _Questiones naturales_.

Balliol 96, 15th century, a commentary upon Aristotle’s eight books of Physics in the form of questions and preceded by a prologue, “Expliciunt questiones super 8 libros phisicorum compilate a domino Marlo magistro in artibus Tholose ac canonico de Timsey.” This does not seem to be a work by Daniel of Morley; a cursory examination revealed no reason for thinking that _domino Marlo_ should read _Daniele Merlai_, or that _Tholose_ should be _Tholeto_.

I have not examined two MSS at Queen’s College, Oxford, Reg. lxxi; lxxiv, 4) containing pedigrees of the Morlay or Morley family which may possibly throw some light upon Daniel’s identity.

All the printing that has been done of Daniel’s treatise has been based upon Arundel 377. J. O. Halliwell, _Rara Mathematica_, 1839, and Thomas Wright, _Biographia Literaria_, London, 1846, II, 227-30, printed the preface and other brief extracts for the first time.

Valentin Rose reprinted the preface and also published the conclusion in his article, “Ptolemaeus und die Schule von Toledo,” _Hermes_ VIII (1874) 327-49. Rose also gave a list of the authorities cited by Daniel which makes a very large number of omissions: for example, fol. 89r, “sicut in trismegisto repperitur” and “isidori”; fol. 90v, Aristotle, “philosophus,” “Adultimus” (?), “Platonitus”; fol. 91r, “Esiodus autem naturalis scientie professor omnia dixit esse ex terra,” and so on for “tales milesius,” Democritus, and other Greek philosophers; fol. 91v, “sicut ab inexpugnabili sententia magni hermetis”; fol. 92r, “audiat ysidori in libro differentiarum”; fol. 92v, “unde astrologus ille poeta de creatione mundi ait,” and “magnus mercurius” and “trismegistus mercurius” and “trismegistus mercurius praedicti mercurii nepos”; fol. 97r, “Aristotelis in libro de sensu et sensato,” “Albumaxar,” “Aristotelis in libro de auditu naturali”; fol. 98v, “in libro de celi et mundo”; fol. 99v, Almagest, and “Ypocrati et galieno”; fol. 100v, “liber veneris ... quem edidit thoz grecus,” and “aristoteles ... in libro de speculo adurenti.”

Karl Sudhoff, _Daniels von Morley Liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum nach der Handschrift Cod. Arundel 377 des Britischen Museums zum Abdruck gebracht_, in _Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik_, Band 8, 1917 (but not received at the New York Public Library until July 8, 1921). Here is printed for the first time the full text of Daniel’s treatise as contained in Arundel 377, but from photographs taken years before and apparently without further reference to the MS itself. Also according to the following article by Birkenmajer, Sudhoff sometimes renders the contractions and abbreviations incorrectly. As Sudhoff’s text comes late to my hand, I leave my references to the folios of Arundel 377 as they are. These folios (with the exception of 88v) are marked in Sudhoff’s text.

Alexander Birkenmajer, _Eine neue Handschrift des Liber de naturis inferiorum et superiorum des Daniel von Merlai_, in the same _Archiv_, December, 1920, pp. 45-51, gives some variant readings from Berlin 387.

Dr. Charles Singer has published a brief account of Daniel of Morley in a recent issue of _Isis_.

The article on Daniel in DNB XXXIX (1894) by A. F. Pollard is criticized by Sudhoff for failing to mention “Roses wichtigste Vorarbeit;” but I observe that Sudhoff himself similarly fails to mention the publications by Halliwell and Thomas Wright which preceded both Rose’s and his own.

[Sidenote: Defense of Arabian learning.]

Daniel warns his readers at the start not to scorn the simple language and lucid style in which the doctrines of the Arabs are set forth, or to mistake the laborious circumlocutions and ambiguous obscurities of contemporary Latins for signs of profound learning. Nor should anyone be alarmed because he presents the opinions of Gentile philosophers instead of church fathers in treating of the creation of the world. They may not have been Christians, but where their opinions seem sound, Daniel believes in taking spoils of learning even from pagans and infidels, as God instructed the Hebrews to do in the case of the golden and silver vessels of the Egyptians. Thus he borrows the theory of a triple universe from an Arabic work. The first universe exists only in the divine mind and is neither visible nor corporeal, but is eternal. The second universe is in work and is visible, corporeal, and in that state not eternal. It was created simultaneously with time. The third universe is imitative. It is the microcosm and was formed in time and is visible and corporeal, but is in part eternal.[497] In a later passage[498] Daniel again defends his use of Arabian authorities, contending that it is only just that one who is already informed concerning the opinions about things supercelestial of the philosophers in use among the Latins should also not disdain to listen attentively to the views of the Arabs which cannot be impugned. It may be perilous to imitate them in some respects, but one should be informed even on such points in order to be able to refute and avoid the errors to which they lead.

[Sidenote: A moderate treatment of moot points between science and religion.]

In general plan, tone, and content, as well as in the title, _Philosophia_, Daniel’s treatise roughly resembles that of William of Conches. As Daniel says in his preface, the first part deals with the inferior portion of the universe, and the second part with the superior part. The work proper opens with a discussion of the creation, in which Daniel expresses some rather original ideas, although he treats of such time-worn topics as God’s creation of the angels, of the universe, and of man in His own image, and then of man’s fall through concupiscence, virtue and vice, and like matters. Later he argues against those who hold that the world is eternal, but he is not quite ready to accept the Mosaic account of creation entire. He argues that in the beginning God created heaven and earth and cites Augustine, Isidore, and Bede to show that the meaning is that heaven and earth were created simultaneously. He then adds that philosophers are loath to accept the division of the works of creation over six days; in human works it is true that one thing must be done before another, but God could dispense everything with “one eternal word.”[499]

[Sidenote: The four elements and fifth essence.]

The four elements are discussed a good deal and it is explained that fire is hot and dry, air is hot and wet, and so on.[500] To fire correspond cholera, the light of the eyes, and curiosity; to air, blood, words, and loquacity; to water, phlegm, abundance of natural humors, and lust; to earth, melancholy, corpulence, and cruelty.[501] Daniel, like Adelard of Bath and William of Conches, repeats the doctrine that the four elements are not found in a pure state in any bodies perceptible to our sense, that no one has ever touched earth or water, or seen pure air or fire, and that the four elements are perceptible only to the intellect. Daniel differs from Adelard and William, however, in denying that the stars are made merely out of the purer parts of the four elements. He declares that the Arabs will not agree to this, but that the higher authorities in astrology assert that the stars are composed of a fifth essence.[502] Daniel furthermore speaks of three bonds existing between the four elements, stating that scientists call the relation between fire and air, obedience; that between air and water, harmony; and that between water and earth, necessity.[503] This faintly reminds one of the three relationships between the four principles of things which were associated with the names of the three fates in the essay on fate ascribed to Plutarch.

[Sidenote: Superiors and inferiors.]

But the greatest bond in nature is that existing between the superior and inferior worlds. An oft-repeated and fundamental principle of Daniel’s philosophy, and one which explains the division of his work into two parts, is the doctrine that superiors conquer inferiors, that the world of the sky controls the world of the four elements, and that the science of the stars is superior to all other disciplines.[504] “The sages of this world have divided the world into two parts, of which the superior one which extends from the circle of the moon even to the immovable heaven is the agent. The other, from the lunar globe downwards, is the patient.”[505] Much depends, however, not only upon the force emitted by the agent but upon the readiness of the patient to receive the celestial influence.

[Sidenote: Daniel’s astronomy.]

Daniel of course believed in a spherical earth and a geocentric universe. Influenced probably by the _Almagest_, he explains the eccentrics of the five planets in a way which he regards as superior to what he calls the errors of Martianus Capella and almost all Latins, and to the obscure traditions which the Arabs have handed down but scarcely understood themselves.[506] He affirms that there are not ten heavens or spheres, as some have said, but only eight, as Alphraganus truly teaches.[507]

[Sidenote: Astrological argument.]

There are some men who deny any efficacy to the motions of the stars, but Daniel charges that they for the most part condemn the science without knowing anything about it, “and hold astronomy in hatred from its name alone.”[508] He replies that it is useful to foreknow the future and defends astrology in much the usual manner. He details the qualities of the seven planets[509] whom the Arabs call “lords of nativities.”[510] Also he takes up the properties and attributes of the signs of the zodiac and how the Arabs divide the parts of the human body among them.[511]

[Sidenote: Astrology and other sciences.]

Daniel interprets the scope of astrology very broadly, asserting that it has eight parts: the science of judgments, or what we should call judicial astrology; medicine; nigromancy according to physics; agriculture; illusions or magic (_de praestigiis_); alchemy, “which is the science of the transmutation of metals into other species; the science of images, which Thoz Grecus set forth in the great and universal book of Venus; and the science of mirrors, which is of broader scope and aim than the rest, as Aristotle shows in the treatise on the burning glass.”[512] Except that magic illusions have replaced navigation, this list of eight branches of learning is the same as that which Gundissalinus repeated from Al-Farabi, but which they called branches of natural science rather than of astrology. At any rate we see again the close association of natural science and useful arts with astrology and magic, and necromancy and alchemy, and with pseudo-writings of Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus. In other passages Daniel cites genuine Aristotelian treatises[513] and speaks of “the great Mercury” and of the other “Mercury Trismegistus, the nephew of the aforesaid.”[514] Despite his subordination of alchemy to astrology in the above passage, Daniel does not seem to have it in mind when he remarks that there are “some who assign diverse colors of metals to the planets,” as lead to Saturn, silver to Jupiter, white to Venus, and black to Mercury.[515] He goes on to deny that the stars are really colored any more than the sky is.

[Sidenote: Daniel and Greek: a misinterpretation.]

Some modern scholars have drawn inferences from Daniel’s treatise with which I am unable to agree. Mr. S. A. Hirsch in his edition of Roger Bacon’s Greek Grammar follows Cardinal Gasquet[516] in observing concerning Daniel’s preface, “There can be no clearer testimony than this to the complete oblivion into which Greek had in those days fallen in western Europe, including England.” It may be granted that there was and had been little knowledge of Greek grammar and the Greek language in twelfth century England, but that is not what Daniel is talking about: indeed, there seems to be no reason for believing Daniel himself proficient in either Greek grammar or Greek literature, although he was shrewd enough to question whether Chalcidius always interpreted Plato aright.[517] When he calls himself “the only Greek among Romans,” he means the only one interested in Greek philosophy and astronomy and in translations of the same made largely from the Arabic. But earlier in the same century we have seen Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, and Bernard Silvester interested either in Platonism or Arabic science, and the anonymous Sicilian translator of the Almagest from the Greek, and before him Burgundio of Pisa and other translators from the Greek. Therefore all that Daniel’s remarks seems to indicate is that there was less interest in Greek philosophy in England after his return than before he went away, owing to the temporary popularity of the study of Roman law. But he knew where the studies in which he was interested still flourished.

[Sidenote: Daniel and the church: a misinterpretation.]

A more serious misinterpretation of Daniel’s relation to his age is Valentin Rose’s assertion that, because of Daniel’s addiction to Arabian and astrological doctrines, “his book found no favor in the eyes of the church and was shunned like poison. It has left no traces in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.”[518] Rose spoke on the assumption that only one copy of Daniel’s treatise had reached us, whereas now we know of several manuscripts of it. If it did not become so widely known as some works, the more probable reason for this may well be that his brief résumé of Arabic and astrological doctrines appeared too late, when the fuller works of Ptolemy and of the Arabic astrologers were already becoming known through complete Latin translations. Brief pioneer treatises, like those of Adelard of Bath and William of Conches, which had appeared earlier in the century, had had time to become widely known during a period when there was perhaps nothing fuller and better available. But Daniel’s little trickle of learning from Toledo, which does not represent any very considerable advance over Adelard and William, might well be engulfed in the great stream of translations that now poured from Spain into Christian western Europe.[519] It is unreasonable to conjecture that Daniel’s book, which is rather mild anyway in its astrological doctrine, and which was called forth by the favoring questions of a bishop, was then crushed by bitter ecclesiastical opposition; when we know that William’s book, which actually encountered an ecclesiastical opposition of which we have no evidence in Daniel’s case, nevertheless continued in circulation and was much cited in the next century; and when we know that both Arabic and astrological doctrines and books were widespread in Christian western Europe both in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Treatises with more poison of astrology in them than his were read and cited and seem to have weathered successfully, if not to have escaped unscathed, whatever ecclesiastical censure may have been directed against them. If Daniel’s own composition did not secure a wide circle of readers, the chances are that “the multitude of precious volumes” which he imported from Spain to England did. And if the work of the pupil remained little cited, the translations of the master, Gerard of Cremona, who had taught him astrology at Toledo, became known throughout western Europe. Thus, while Daniel’s personal influence may not have been vast, he reflects for us the progress of a great movement of which he was but a part.

[Sidenote: Daniel’s future influence.]

But Rose was further mistaken in his assertion that Daniel’s _De philosophia_ “has left no trace in subsequent literature; no one has read it and no one cites it.” Not only is the work found complete in three manuscripts of which Rose did not know, and of which one appears to be twice removed from the original. In a manuscript of the fourteenth century at Oriel College, Oxford,[520] in the fitting company of excerpts from Adelard of Bath and Gundissalinus, are over three double column folio pages of extracts drawn from various portions of the _Philosophia_. These begin with Daniel’s excuse for borrowing the eloquence and wisdom of the infidels and with some of his utterances anent the creation of the world. They include a number of his citations of other writers, his story of the two fountains outside the walls of Toledo which varied in fulness with the moon’s phases and contained salt water although remote six days journey from the sea, and other bits of his astrological doctrine. A similar, although not identical, selection of pearls from Daniel’s philosophy is found in one of the notebooks of Brian Twyne,[521] the Elizabethan antiquary, who gives the title of Daniel’s work as _De superioribus et inferioribus_ and makes extracts both from its first and second books. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript’s writer seem to have been particularly impressed with Daniel’s views concerning the creation, rather than his retailing of astrological doctrine. Twyne first repeats his statement that the quantity of the universe reveals the power of its Maker; its quality, His wisdom; and its marvelous beauty, His unbounded good will. Twyne also notes Daniel’s phrase, “court of the world,” for the universe. Both Twyne and the Oriel manuscript note the passage concerning the triple universe, and another in which Daniel tells how the three human qualities, reason, irascibility, and desire, may be either used to discern and resist evil, or perverted to evil courses. Both also notice his contention that the chaos preceding creation was not _hyle_ or matter but a certain contrariety present in matter.

[Sidenote: Roger of Hereford.]

In the same manuscript with Daniel’s treatise is a work by another Englishman, Roger of Hereford,[522] who was contemporary with him, who wrote treatises both in astronomy and astrology, and who, again like Daniel, was encouraged by a bishop. We are not, I believe, directly informed whether any of his works were translations from the Arabic or whether he was ever in Spain, but some of them sound as if they might be at least adaptations from the Arabic. At any rate Alfred of England dedicated to Roger the translation which he made from the Arabic of the pseudo-Aristotelian _De vegetabilibus_. Astronomical tables which Roger calculated for the meridian of Hereford in 1178 are based upon tables for Marseilles and Toledo, and the manuscript of one of his works is said by the copyist of 1476 to have been taken by him from an ancient codex written in Toledo in the year 1247.[523] Other astronomical treatises attributed to Roger are a _Theory of the Planets, a Treatise concerning the rising and setting of the Signs_, and a _Compotus_ which dates itself in 1176 and is addressed to a Gilbert[524] who seems to be no other than Foliot, bishop of Hereford until 1163 and thereafter bishop of London. The signature of Roger of Hereford attests one of his documents in 1173-1174. In 1176 in the preface to the _Compotus_[525] Roger speaks of himself as _iuvenis_, and the heading in the manuscript even calls him “Child Roger” or “Roger Child,”[526] but he also says that he has devoted many years to learning, so that we need not regard him as especially youthful at that time. The definite dates in his career seem to fall in the decade from 1170 to 1180, although his association with Alfred of England may well have been later.

[Sidenote: An astrology in four parts.]

Professor Haskins ascribes one or more astrological works to Roger of Hereford and lists a number of manuscripts with three different _Incipits_.[527] Some of these manuscripts I have examined. One at Paris has the _Titulus_, “In the name of God the pious and merciful, here opens the book of the division of astronomy and its four parts composed by the famous astrologer Roger of Hereford.”[528] Roger explains that the first part is general and concerned with such matters as “peoples, events, and states, changes of weather, famine, and mortality.” The second is special and deals with the fate of the individual from birth to life’s close. The third deals with interrogations and the fourth with elections. The first chapter of the first part is entitled, “Of the properties of the signs and planets in any country,” and opens with the statement that it has been proved by experience that the signs Aries and Jupiter have dominion in the land “baldac and babel and herach,” Libra and Saturn in the land of the Christians, Scorpion and Venus in the land of the Arabs, Capricorn and Mercury in India, Leo and Mars over the Turks, Aquarius and the Sun in Babylonia, Virgo and the Moon in Spain. The other five signs seem to be left without a country.[529]