Research on Alchemy: A Brief Historiographical Framework
In the past twenty to thirty years, the
historiography of alchemy has been changed without question and continued to be
enriched significantly with new perspectives and information. There has been a
positive re-evaluation of alchemy as research object and it is being studied
more extensively than before. In this chapter this re-evaluation is explained,
together with the historiographical aspects found in the current state of
research.
Alchemy as a discipline has long since
been the subject of prejudice, which apparently manifested itself so strong
that various present-day researchers still consider it necessary to attend to
the problem. Usually, the bias revolves around the terms rationality, experiment
and reasoning and their antonyms.
Alchemy has long been considered irrational, and alchemists were believed to be
poor scientific observers and experimenters, which identified the whole
discipline as the opposite of chemistry. This anachronistic assessment has been
complemented with equally anachronistic interpretations that became popular,
such as its association with Victorian occultism, ‘black arts’ and the Jungian
explanation of alchemical metaphors and allegories.[1]
In practise some researchers define their approach to alchemy with a reference
to these anachronistic and simplified misconceptions which permeate popular and
even academic conceptions through the imagery of, say, C.G. Jung and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Indeed much has been done to vitiate misconceptions and re-evaluate alchemy,
especially in the last two to three decades.[2]
Researchers have shown that alchemy is in fact on a par with other early modern
scientific disciplines and cannot be seen separate from and opposite to the
Scientific Revolution. In fact, it really is not opposite to some ‘modern’ and
‘experimental’ chemistry either. Instead, alchemy laid an important foundation
for what we now know as chemistry today. Strictly separating the two has become
untenable, and even the distinction with cookery was sometimes blurred.[3]
Hence the term chymistry has been
coined to refer to the whole of early modern alchemy/chemistry, in order to
avoid unwanted and anachronistic connotations.[4]
In recent historiography chymistry
has been investigated extensively within the scope of the Scientific Revolution
and early modern society by scholars, who permitted the discipline to speak
more for itself.[5]
Through this research, an image arises of a rational and experimental chymistry
that formed an important and inherent part of that Revolution. Research went
beyond the outmoded dichotomy, and this seems to have become the habit in
present-day scholarship. Hence recent historiography of the subject
acknowledges all of chymistry’s aspects and its influence on other fields, and
deals with the Philosopher’s Stone, alchemical metaphors, scientific
experiment, medicine and modern developments which are in debt with premodern
developments, without including Jungian and occult interpretations of
alchemical metaphors.[6]
Instead, scientific explanations are given for them.[7]
In line with this rehabilitation and
reassessment of chymistry, the discipline has not been treated as monolithic or
static.[8]
Instead researchers are well aware of the fact that words like alchemy and chemistry were, and are, umbrella terms, covering for example
natural philosophy, laboratory practice, technological developments and
medicine. Chymistry is studied in its diversity and with due observance of that
diversity. In early modernity there was a variety of natural-philosophical
theories on matter, substance composition and how to manipulate it,[9]
and approaches to the production of the Philosopher’s Stone were different as
well. This complicated subject will only briefly be illustrated below, in order
to introduce concepts which are relevant for this thesis.
‘Alchemy’ has been associated with
the Philosopher’s Stone since Antiquity. In theory this Stone could turn base
metals into noble metals, a process called transmutation.
There are many treatises that inform the reader on how to produce this Stone,
how to transmute base metals and thus produce silver and, far more frequently,
gold. In early modernity, these transmutational kinds of alchemy were also
known as argyropoeia and chrysopoeia, Greek for ‘silver making’
and ‘gold making’. These terms are also current in scholarship. Not all
chymistry, however, deals with transmutation.
In the sixteenth century a medical
reform was brought about with Paracelsus and his followers. They focused on the
application of alchemical theory and practice for medicine and pharmacy, with an
emphasis on medicines based on minerals, and less on (traditional) herbal
medicines. This approach is known as iatrochemistryor chemiatry, contemporaneous
concepts that are still used as denominations by academics.[10]
However, for Paracelsus it was embedded in a Neoplatonically inspired
philosophy and cosmology.[11]
Taken together, this thought is known as Paracelsianism,
which may include magic, astrology and unorthodox Christian ideas as well, on
which Paracelsus also wrote.[12]
However, not every iatrochemist would have called himself a Paracelsian, for
scientific, philosophical and theological reasons. Therefore in some cases it
is best to speak of an iatrochemist (or chemiatrist).
The final example for the
differentiation within chymistry is the variety of views on how to produce the
Philosopher’s Stone. For this, chymists turned to a wide variety of materials.
Three of the more important ‘schools’, though, were the ones who defined
vitriol (usually iron sulphate), nitre (saltpetre) and mercury as the
respective prime ingredients for the Great Work.[13]
Although a full discussion of all
theories and approaches would cover many more pages, the three essential
examples indicate that early modern chymistry was made up of multiple approaches
and lacked uniformity. The cause of this, along with how individuals dealt with
this problem, has been discussed by scholars. It was ultimately due to the
absence of organisation of chymistry through guilds and universities,[14]
which meant the lack of regulated training, prescribed handbooks and official
consensus on theoretical matters and definitions. This entails sufficient room
for chymists to develop their own ideas.[15]
In order to establish a sound chymical discipline and secure chymical knowledge,
acceptance within the academic curriculum was important, which chymistry did
not have since it entered Europe in the Middle Ages. For some part, this had to
do with a lack of classical and therefore authoritative sources. It also
conflicted with traditional Aristotelian philosophy.[16]
According to Aristotle a metal, for instance, may change its colour, but this
aspect is only arbitrary and not essential;
the essence of the matter cannot be
altered.[17]
Furthermore, there has been a series of religious condemnations of chymistry
and producing gold from the late thirteenth century.[18]
This was due to the claim of some alchemists that art could match nature, and,
assuming that the produced gold is never true gold, its trade would be fraud.
Still, the condemnations may also be related to the contemporaneous obsession
with heterodox beliefs and temptations.[19]
Moreover, this hostile religious attitude is connected to education. The effort
of making chymistry acceptable for universities was, however, taken up by some
iatrochemists,[20]
and eventually it would be through medicine that chymistry found acceptance at
universities.[21]
Nonetheless chrysopoeia with the idea
of transmuting metals remained controversial throughout early modernity amongst
academics, its popularity notwithstanding.
Besides academic circumstances,
scholars in the history of science and literature have paid attention to the
private and artisanal circumstances, in relation to the increase of vernacular
informative texts and chymistry. Outside the universities, there were networks
of knowledge as well. As
literacy and the demand for it increased from the thirteenth century onwards
(particularly for the relatively urbanised Netherlands),[22]
there was a growing demand for theoretical and practical knowledge.[23]
Therefore texts on for instance medicine, surgery, husbandry and chymistry
became increasingly available.[24]
What texts on such subjects share is their informative, instructive purpose and
intention to convey theoretical and practical knowledge, and are known as artes literature, where artes refers to the medieval
disciplines. Artes texts were generally written down and copied for personal
use and the direct environment.[25] Chymistry
itself was sometimes classified as one of the artes mechanicae, because there was a strong practical aspect to
it.[26]
From the late Middle Ages onwards chymical literature appeared more frequently,
not only in Latin, but also in the vernaculars. This susceptibility for
vernacularisation is related to chymistry’s practical and useful aspects and
the idea that it is unlikely that artisans spoke Latin while operating a
furnace.[27] Many a person lacked the education and skills to read Latin, a situation
which gave rise to vernacular literature on ‘the arts’. Since the fourteenth
century vernacular alchemical texts were produced for the upper class (nobility
and bourgeoisie),[28]
and the tendency to vernacularisation appeared in Western Europe in particular,
but was comparatively strong in sixteenth-century Germany.[29]
In order to provide more people, such as the growing group of artisans, with
chymical theory and instructions, printed vernacular textbooks appeared in the
sixteenth century. Of all chymical books published between 1469 and 1536, texts
meant for artisans formed the most significant group, and many were in
vernacular.[30]
The history of the book, the role of
the printing press and the use of vernacular and their interaction has been
researched for some decades now. For example, focus has been put on the process
of translating and on the intrinsical relationship between text and the
physicality of the text.[31] Nonetheless,
hitherto the production, distribution, and readership of chymical books has
received less attention. Chymical books appeared in an early stage of the
printing era: first slowly in the 1470’s, but considerably more in the 1480’s,
notably in German-speaking areas.[32]
Pharmacopoeian material in German vernacular was comparatively well-presented
in the 1520’s.[33]
The amount of chymical material in Latin and vernaculars had become bewildering
around 1600.[34]
As the book business was internationally oriented, it can be assumed these
chymical books spread throughout Europe early on. The amount of publications
declined in the late seventeenth century, together with the position of transmutational
alchemy, a tendency which continued well into the 1720’s.[35]
Together, then, the printing press,
artisanal activities, the use of vernacular and the demand for knowledge
stimulated the circulation and development of chymical knowledge, but also blurred
the boundary between specialisms, between artisanal and natural-philosophical
knowledge.[36]
This borders on the earlier mentioned difficulty that chymistry is not
monolithic or static.
Book production and distribution is one thing, reading habits another,
and its research is still a young discipline.[37]
It still is not always clear what readers did with chymical texts: how were
certain texts precisely intended, and how did people read them? A distinction can be made between
pragmatic and recreational reading,[38]
and reading does range from hasty to slow and studious, from progressive to
to-and-fro. Moreover, the same text may appear in different contexts (e.g.
composite manuscripts), and readers probably read different types of texts in
different ways.[39]
This notion seems to have been barely connected to chymical treatises or
scientific genres in general, yet certain genres have been connected to certain
recipients. Textbooks, for example, were connected to students; essays and
dialogues to nonspecialists and uneducated people.[40]
More generally, scholarship has also realised that early modern readers,
including scholars, were not merely passive readers, but were actively trying
to explain and use texts,[41]
which allowed for possibly dozens of interpretations or foci. Whatever this may
mean, it still seems likely that scholars read for a purpose and were
goal-oriented readers,[42]
although this assumption has been recently nuanced for husbandry books, a
practical genre of texts.[43]
As was stated earlier, book production
as well as the use of vernacular in chymical texts were comparatively well
present in the early modern Holy Roman Empire. There were many chymical
activities which included the trade in chymical texts and techniques, for which
there was a constant supply and demand.[44]
Chymistry’s scientific and technological benefit did not remain unnoticed by
princes either, and their patronage as a political and social factor has also
been investigated. For prestige and in particular economical and technological
benefit patrons were willing to take chymists into service, particularly in the
German lands at princely courts.[45]
Paracelsians or iatrochemists too were put into service at courts, and houses
of distillation were founded for the production of medicinal waters at princely
and royal courts throughout Europe.[46]
The interaction of
patrons and chymists would stimulate chymical activities and would have a
lasting effect on scientific developments.[47]
Naturally, scholars have made
efforts to disclose chymical material through catalogues and enhance the
availability of texts through editions. In the Netherlands and Flanders in
particular, the literary study of artes texts only manifested itself roughly
twenty-five years ago, and some studies on Dutch alchemists and chymical texts,
together with editions, did appear fairly recent there.[48]
Moreover, parts of some collections of manuscripts, incunabula, and early
modern prints have been digitised and made available through the
internet. On the whole, however, many texts remain unedited still and (online)
library catalogues are sometimes unclear as to what chymical material is
exactly present in manuscript collections of libraries.
By now the broad outline of the
modern perspective on chymistry and the approaches towards the subject are
understood.
[1] Principe & Newman, in Secrets of Nature. Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe.
Edited by W.R. Newman & A. Grafton, 1-38. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001, 385-431.
[2] See the Isis Focus section 2011, vol. 102, no. 2. In there, especially: Newman
2011, 313-314; Principe 2011, 307. Also M. Martinón-Torres, ‘Some Recent
Developments in the Historiography of Alchemy’, Ambix, 2011, vol. 58, no. 3: 215-237. For alchemy, chemistry and
medicine, see A. Debus, ‘Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the
Scientific Revolution’, Isis, 1998,
vol. 89, no. 1: 66-81.
[3] Moran 2005, 62-64.
[5] Notable examples are the following books: D.
Kahn, Alchimie et Paracelsisme en France
à la fin de la Renaissance (1567-1625), 2007; B. Moran, Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry and
the Scientific Revolution, 2005; W. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the
Scientific Revolution, 2006; W. Newman & L. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle,
and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry, 2002; T. Nummedal, Alchemy and authority in the Holy Roman
Empire, 2007; L. Principe, The
Secrets of Alchemy, 2013.
[6] In particular Principe 2013 and Newman 2006. Of
particular interest for anachronistic interpretations of chymistry is Principe
& Newman 2001 (note 3).
[7] See also C. Priesner & K. Figala 1998. They
edited Alchemie: Lexikon einer
hermetischen Wissenschaft, thus providing a sound, academic chymical lexicon
for the first time, at least in German.
[8] Principe 2011, 310; Martinó-Torres
2011, 226.
[9] See C. Lüthy, J.E. Murdoch & W.
Newman (ed.), Late Medieval and Early
Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, 2001.
[11] Hannaway 1975, 27.
[12] For a discussion of the denomination
and its difficulties (in relation to recent scholarship), see B.T. Moran, in
Hanegraaff 2006, 915-922.
[13] Newman 2006, 513.
[14] Nummendal 2007, 18-19.
[17] Fraeters 1999, 35-36.
[18] Newman 1989, 439-440.
[19] Newman 1989, 441.
[20] Moran 2005, 104.
[21] Newman 2006, 510.
[22] Huizenga et al. 2001, 17. Fudge
2007, 22.
[23] Moran 2005, 57.
[24] Pettegree 2011, 300. E. Huizenga
signals the rise of Middle Dutch medical artes literature in prose in the fourteenth
century. Huizenga 2003, 36.
[25] Huizenga et al. 2011, 31.
[26] Newman 1989, 426.
[27] Pereira 1999, 337.
[28] Pereira 1999, 338.
[29] Pereira 1999, 347. Hirsch 1950, 118.
[30] In Moran 2005, 47.
[31] Allen et al. 2011. Goyens et al. 2008.
[32] Hirsch 1950, 119.
[33] Fudge 2007, 27-28.
[34] Nummendal 2007, 18-19.
[35] Principe 2013, 83-90.
[36] Martinón-Torres 2011, 224.
[37] Blair 2004, 421.
[38] Schurink 2010, 455.
[39] Blair 2004, 426.
[44] Nummedal 2007, 12.
[45] Principe 2013, 189.
[46] Principe 2013, 190. Despite this,
however, the De denario medico of the
Paracelsian Penot was put on the index of forbidden books, issued by the
Spanish king. It is unclear why. See the discussion of source material, §2.2.
[47] Nummedal 2007, 10.
[48] Notable are the dissertations
Fraeters 2001 and Van Gijsen 2004. R. Jansen-Siebens’ Repertorium van de Middelnederlandse artesliteratuur, 1989, has an
entry for alchemy, under which twenty Middle Dutch manuscripts and eight prints
are summarised. Three editions are mentioned
there, by Braekman (one in cooperation with Devolder). W.L. Braekman published
in 2003 on a series of short alchemical texts in Londen, British Library,
Sloane 1416. In 2004 an edition by E. Huizenga appeared of Hs. Wenen,
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 2818, which contains alchemical material
(not mentioned in the Repertorium). In
2008, A. van Gijsen published on an alchemical part of the Gentse Boethius, and in 2010 on the alchemist Isaac Hollandus. Again
in 2010, the Werkgroep Middelnederlandse Artesliteratuur started a project to digitise and edit Handschrift Hattem C 5, which
contains alchemical material.
[49] Van Gijsen, forthcoming.
[50] See e.g. Calames online catalogue of archives
and manuscripts in French university and research libraries; Wellcome Library;
Parker Library; Leiden university library; Libris National Library of Sweden;
Worldcat.org. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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