The European Rediscovery of Aristotle: Oxford, 13th Century

Almost certainly used by a scholar at Oxford University in England

 

“The parts of the soul, if the powers that divide and separate (and are very many), are vegetable, sensible, appetitive, intellectual, deliberate, and also desirable. These differ very much, but to one another are very desirable and deliberative.”

The long history of scholarship plays out on precious fragments from a thirteenth century English manuscript. These two half-leaves present the story of the transmission of knowledge from Ancient Greece, to the Middle East, to a Europe just starting to emerge from the Dark Ages

In the 1330s, the Italian poet, Francesco Petrarch, coined a term for the period of time from the Fall of Rome to the era he was living through— the Dark Ages. The term has stuck in history which has painted the Middle Ages as a time of violence, ignorance, and tribalism, without the ability to foster a global transmission of information. What Petrarch did was effectively set up a dichotomy between the Middle Ages— dark, dirty, backwards— and the Renaissance— a rebirth of the Greco-Roman Classical period of intellectualism and exploration.

But the reality is different; the Dark Ages were not so dark and even areas as far flung as the British Isles were benefitting from a sophisticated international exchange of ideas.

In the same way that the Latin language has faded from our common education, Greek eventually faded to a “dead” language in the educated classes of Medieval scholars. While Greek philosophy was still influential throughout the Middle Ages, from about 600 to 1100, it was available only indirectly in Western Europe. Though well-known today, the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) were ‘lost’ to Western European scholarship. The last prominent scholar to read Greek before the revival in the twelfth and thirteen centuries was Boethius, who is most known for On the Consolation of Philosophy, a complex reflection on free will, death, and good vs. evil, written during his incarceration before execution in 524. Through Boethius, the Latin-reading and -speaking Western Europe was able to access a translation of Organon, a selection of Aristotelian works dealing with logic and dialects.

But the primary avenue of transmission comes from the diligence of the Islamic scholars, such as Averroes (1126-1198), Avicenna (980-1037), and Alpharabius (870-950), who preserved the works of Aristotle by translating them into Arabic and providing commentary. It was from these Arabic translations that the Latinate West was able to translate the works back from Arabic into Latin.

The internationally educated Michael Scot (1175-1232), born in Northern England or Scotland, studied in Durham, Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, Palermo, and Toledo. Michael Scot’s education, spanning the British Isles, France, Italy, and Spain, speaks to the emergence of the modern university system. His translations in many ways opened the doors on these classical authors for the Medieval European world.

The university system developed in fits and starts, commencing in the eleventh century. Oxford became a center for learning in England, beginning at the end of the eleventh century. In 1167, King Henry II banned English students from studying at the recently founded University of Paris; however, it was not until 1248, under King Henry III that the University of Oxford was granted a charter.

Aristotle is one of the great Ancient Greek thinkers, whose works we today take for granted and and whose views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as “The First Teacher”, and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply “The Philosopher”, while the poet Dante called him “the master of those who know”.

But it was not only this period and the work of Scot and men like him, like James of Venice, that the Western world rediscovered this great thinker. This period coincided with the flowering of University life and the growth of information sharing in England; also with the founding of Oxford, which was the center of such learning at the time in the British Isles.

On the Soul, or De Anima in Latin, is a major treatise written by Aristotle c. 350 BC. His discussion centers on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations.

Medieval manuscript, early 1200s, a leaf, in two, from Aristotle’s De Anima, England, early 1200s, almost certainly Oxford University, with extensive commentary by the scholar in the margins. Aristotle discusses the imagination and the appetite being moved by a “progressive movement.”

“The parts of the soul, if the powers that divide and separate (and are very many), are vegetable, sensible, appetitive, intellectual, deliberate, and also desirable. These differ very much, but to one another are very desirable and deliberative.”

The main text of De anima is heavily annotated, with the reader having written between the lines and around the margins. A 17th century ownership mark, “Smythe est huius libri possesor huius… Possibly Matthew Smythe due to another formulation which includes “Smythe Ma. est huius libri possessor.” The same hand has written out a quotation from the the Aenid, “Si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma” (If the human race and mortal arms are shunned).

The text of this folio mentions several of Aristotle’s other works, such as De somnolent et vigil and De inspiration et expiratione. Interlinear notation points to related texts (“in libro quinto huius”, “In the fifth book of this book”)

Leafs or writings from Oxford this early, and those from that era relating to Aristotle, are great rarities. This one is the first we have had.

More details

ARISTOTLE, DE ANIMA, BOOK III, IN LATIN, TWO PARTIAL LEAVES FROM A MANUSCRIPT, HEAVILY ANNOTATED BY CONTEMPORARY HAND AND 17TH CENTURY OWNER. [England, almost certainly Oxford, first half of the thirteenth century]

Two partial leaves from the same book, 105 x 160mm, main text written space, between 6 to 20 lines on each fragment of main text, in black ink in a hand with English features and substantial marginal and interlinear comments contemporary with the text, recovered from an Early Modern binding with discoloration indicating the pasted-down side, and slight rust mark from historic use of paperclip. 17th century owner’s mark written perpendicular to the original text.