chapter 5

, I, 191.

[91] That is, 78 and 77.

[92] _De eodem et diverso_, p. 32.

[93] _Ibid._, p. 10.

[94] _Ibid._, p. 13.

[95] _Quest. nat._, caps. 74-77.

[96] Cotton Titus D, iv, fols. 75-138v, opening “fiat ordinata parato quo facile amplectamur ...”, and closing “pars tercia tocius orbis terreni, unde reliqua duo spacia reliqua.”

[97] Cotton Titus D, iv, fol. 77r.

[98] _Ibid._, fol. 78r.

[99] _Ibid._, fol. 126v.

[100] _Ibid._, fols. 127-32.

[101] _Ibid._, fols. 113-4.

[102] _Ibid._ fol. 113v, “Et antiqui scripture arguunt et hodierni temporis experimentum probat”....

[103] _Ibid._, fols. 120v-124v.

APPENDIX I

THE PROBLEM OF DATING THE DE EODEM ET DIVERSO AND QUESTIONES NATURALES AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER

[Sidenote: Difficulty of the problem.]

It is a difficult matter to fix the date either of the _De eodem et diverso_ or of the _Questiones naturales_, and to account satisfactorily for the various allusions to contemporary events and to Adelard’s own movements which occur in either. It is not even entirely certain which treatise was written first, as neither contains an unmistakable allusion to the other. On general grounds the _De eodem et diverso_ would certainly seem the earlier work, but there are some reasons for thinking the contrary. It seems clear that not many years elapsed between the composition of the two works, but how many is uncertain. It is evident that the _De eodem et diverso_ must have been written by 1116 at the latest in order to dedicate it to William, bishop of Syracuse. But the _Questiones naturales_ apparently might have been dedicated to Richard, bishop of Bayeux, at almost any time during his pontificate from 1107 to 1133, although probably not long after 1116.

[Sidenote: Before what queen did Adelard play the _cithara_?]

Professor Haskins would narrow down the time during which the _De eodem et diverso_ could have been written to the years from about 1104 to 1109, with the single year 1116 as a further possibility. He says, “Adelard speaks of having played the _cithara_ before the queen in the course of his musical studies in France the preceding year, and as there was no queen of France between the death of Philip I and the marriage of Louis VI in 1115, the treatise, unless the bishop of Syracuse was still alive in 1116, would not be later than 1109.”[104] But may not the queen referred to have been Matilda, the wife of Henry I?[105] She was a patroness both of artists and of men of letters, and the Pipe Roll for 1130 and the treatise on the astrolabe have shown us that later, at least, it was the English royal family with which Adelard, himself an Englishman, was connected. It is of “Gaul,” not of “France” in the sense of territory subject to the French monarch, that Adelard writes,[106] and Normandy was of course under Henry’s rule after the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106.

[Sidenote: Circumstances under which the _De eodem et diverso_ was written.]

The _De eodem et diverso_ takes the form of a letter[107] from Adelard to his nephew, justifying his “laborious itinerary” in pursuit of learning against the reproach of “levity and inconstancy” made by the nephew, and stating “the cause of my travel among the learned men of various regions,” at which the nephew has time and again expressed his astonishment, and the reasons for which his uncle has kept concealed from him for two years.[108] This letter seems to have been written by Adelard in Sicily, since it is prefaced with a dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse, and since towards its close Adelard speaks of “coming from Salerno into Graecia maior”[109]--a phrase by which he presumably refers to the ancient Magna Graecia, or southern Italy, and perhaps also Sicily. In the preceding year, however, Adelard and his nephew had been together in Tours.[110] It thus appears that the _De eodem_ was written not very long after Adelard set out on his quest for foreign learning, while he was still in the Greek or semi-Greek learned society of southern Italy and Sicily, and presumably before he had come into contact with the science of the Saracens, which he does not mention in the _De eodem et diverso_, although traces of it undoubtedly lingered in Sicily. He writes as if the idea had only comparatively recently come to him “that he could much broaden his education, if he crossed the Alps and visited other teachers than those of Gaul.”

[Sidenote: Different situation depicted in the _Natural Questions_.]

In the _Natural Questions_, on the other hand, he returns to England after seven years, instead of a single year, of separation from his nephew, after a visit to the principality of Antioch,[111] and after a considerable period of study among the Saracens or Arabs. It is rather natural, however, to conclude that the same absence abroad is referred to in both treatises, and that Adelard wrote _De eodem et diverso_ to his nephew after he had been absent a year, while the _Natural Questions_ was composed after his return at the end of seven years. Thus six years would separate the two treatises. But the _Natural Questions_ depicts a different last parting of uncle and nephew from that of _De eodem et diverso_. It does not allude to their having been together in Tours seven years ago, but reminds the nephew how, when his uncle took leave of him and his other pupils at Laon seven years since, it was agreed between them that while Adelard investigated Arabian learning, his nephew should continue his studies in Gaul.[112] In the _De eodem et diverso_, on the contrary, neither Laon nor the Arabs nor any such agreement between uncle and nephew is mentioned. Rather, the uncle seems to have at first kept secret the motives for his crossing the Alps. It therefore may be that Adelard had returned from Sicily to Gaul and had taught at Laon for a short time before setting out on a longer period of travel in quest of Arabian science. This would agree well enough with his allusion to his nephew in the _De eodem et diverso_ as “still a boy,”[113] and the statement in the _Natural Questions_ that his nephew was “little more than a boy”[114] when he parted from him seven years before. In this case the _Natural Questions_ would have been written more than seven years after the _De eodem et diverso_. This is, I think, the most tenable and plausible hypothesis.

[Sidenote: Some apparent indications that the _De eodem et diverso_ was written after the _Natural Questions_.]

There are, it is true, one or two circumstances which might be taken to indicate that the _De eodem et diverso_ was written after the _Questiones naturales_. In the sole manuscript of the _De eodem_ thus far known[115] it follows that treatise, and its title _Of the same and different_ might be taken as a continuation with variations of the general line of thought of the other treatise. But it is perhaps just because some copyist has so interpreted its title that it is put after the _Natural Questions_ in this manuscript. At any rate in the text itself Adelard gives another explanation of its title, stating that it has reference to the allegorical figures, Philosophia and Philocosmia, who address him in his vision, and who, he says, are designated as _eadem_ and _diversa_ “by the prince of philosophers,”--an allusion perhaps to some of Aristotle’s pronouns.[116] Another curious circumstance is that the problem, How far would a stone of great weight fall, if dropped in a hole extending through the earth at the center? occurs in both the _De eodem_ and _Natural Questions_.[117] In the latter the nephew puts the query to his uncle: in the former a Grecian philosopher whom Adelard has been questioning concerning the properties of the magnet in attracting iron, in his turn asks Adelard this question. Now in the _Natural Questions_ Adelard’s answer is given, as if the nephew had never heard it before, but in the _De eodem et diverso_ it is simply stated that the Greek “listened to my explanation of this,” as if the nephew had already heard the explanation from his uncle.[118]

[Sidenote: How long had Henry I been reigning?]

In opening the _Natural Questions_ Adelard states that Henry I was reigning when he returned to England recently. This statement, in Professor Haskins’ opinion, “would seem to imply that he originally left England for his studies in France before Henry’s accession.” I am not quite sure that this inference follows, but if it does, may one not go a step further and argue that Henry I had come to the throne since Adelard parted from his nephew at Laon to investigate the learning of the Arabs? Had Henry become king of England while Adelard was still studying or teaching in northern Gaul, he would almost certainly have heard of it, and it would have been no news to him on his return from his studies among the Arabs. If we accept this view, Adelard’s return to England would be not later than 1107. But it could scarcely be earlier, if he wrote and dedicated the _Natural Questions_ promptly after his arrival, of which he speaks as a recent event in that work, since the dedicatee did not become Bishop of Bayeux until 1107. And if the _De eodem et diverso_ was written more than seven years before the _Natural Questions_, we should have to date it back into the eleventh century, which would perhaps be too early for its dedication to William, bishop of Syracuse. And to put these two works so early is to leave a gap between them and the other known dates of Adelard’s career, 1126, 1130, and 1142-1146, and make the period of his literary productivity quite a long one. He would have been quite a graybeard when he wrote on the astrolabe for the juvenile Henry Plantagenet. On the whole, therefore, I am inclined to think that Henry I had been reigning for some time when Adelard wrote the _Natural Questions_.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Haskins (1911) pp. 492-3.

[105] It is true that after 1109, “The queen herself, who had for a time accompanied the movements of her husband, now resided mostly at Westminster” (G. B. Adams in Hunt and Poole, _Political History of England_, II, 151), so that Adelard would not have had many opportunities to play before her in the English possessions across the channel after that date.

[106] _De eodem et diverso_, pp. 25-6, Philosophy addresses Adelard, “... cum praeterito anno in eadem musica Gallicis studiis totus sudares adessetque in serotino tempore magister artis una cum discipulis cum eorum reginaeque rogatu citharam tangeres.”

[107] P. 3, line 16, “Quoniam autem in epistola hac ...”; line 25, “Hanc autem epistolam ‘De eodem et diverso’ intitulavi”; p. 34, line 7, “Vale; et utrum recte disputaverim, tecum dijudica.”

[108] P. 3, line 9, “Nam et ego, cum idem metuens iniustae cuidam nepotis mei accusationi rescribere vererer, in hanc demum sententiam animum compuli, ut reprehensionis metum patienter ferrem, accusationi iniustae pro posse meo responderem.”

P. 4, line 6, “Saepenumero admirari soles, nepos, laboriosi itineris mei causam et aliquando acrius sub nomine levitatis et inconstantiae propositum accusare ...”; line 17, “Et ego, si tibi idem videtur, causam erroris mei--ita enim vocare soles--paucis edisseram et multiplicem labyrinthum ad unum honesti exitum vocabo ...”; line 22, “Ego rem, quam per biennium celavi, ut tibi morem geram aperiam....”

P. 34, line 3, “Hactenus, carissime nepos, tibi causam itineris mei per diversarum regionum doctores flexi satagens explicavi, ut et me injustae accusationis tuae onere alleviarem et tibi eorundem studiorum affectum applicarem....”

[109] P. 33, line 13, “... a Salerno veniens in Graecia maiore ...”; also p. 32, line 27, “Quod enim Gallica studia nesciunt, transalpina reserabunt; quod apud Latinos non addisces, Graecia facunda docebit.”

[110] P. 4, line 25, “Erat praeterito in anno vir quidam apud Turonium ... et te eius probitas non lateat, qui una ibi mecum adesses.”

[111] _Quest. nat._, cap. 51, “Cum semel in partibus Antiochenis pontem civitatis Manistre transires, ipsam pontem simul etiam totam ipsam regionem terre motu contremuisse.” It is true that this remark is put into the nephew’s mouth, but it is probably meant to refer to an incident of Adelard’s recent trip abroad and not to some previous one.

[112] _Quest. nat._, _proemium_, “Meministi, nepos, septennio iam transacto, cum te in gallicis studiis pene puerum iuxta laudisdunum una cum ceteris auditoribus meis dimiserim, id inter nos convenisse ut arabum studia pro posse meo scrutarer, te vero gallicarum sententiarum in constantiam non minus acquireres?

(Nepos) Memini eo quoque magis quod tu discedens philosophie attentum futurum me fidei promissione astringeres.”

[113] _De eodem_, p. 4, line 10, “cum in pueritia adhuc detinearis.” In this treatise, too, Adelard himself is regularly spoken of as _iuvenis_, which is, however, an exceedingly vague word.

[114] “pene puerum.”

[115] Latin MS 2389, a twelfth century parchment, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The _Questiones naturales_ end at fol. 82v, whence the _De eodem et diverso_ continues to fol. 91v. The manuscript is described by Willner at p. 37 of his edition of the _De eodem et diverso_.

[116] P. 3, line 25ff. “Hanc autem epistolam ‘De eodem et diverso’ intitulavi, quoniam videlicet maximam orationis partem duabus personis, philosophiae scilicet atque philocosmiae attribui, una quarum eadem, alter vero diversa a principe philosophorum appellatur.” Adelard fails to explain why the title is not _De eadem et diversa_, as his explanation might seem to require.

[117] _Quest. nat._, cap. 49; _De eodem et diverso_, p. 33.

[118] In both treatises Adelard regards the stars as divine animals, as we have seen, and refers to the same partition of the head among the mental faculties in both (_Quest. nat._, cap. 18; _De eodem_, p. 32) but there is nothing to indicate which passage is prior.

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