98 IX. DUCTION ing into England. We find the Commentary of Aver- CHAP. roes on Aristotle actually lectured upon, near Cambridge, about the close of the twelfth century; and INTROabout the same period, among the books of Benedict OF THE the abbot of Peterborough, we perceive Almanzor, an Arabian book on the virtues of plants." At the close of the next age, we read of an archbishop giving to his church at Peterborough the works of Avicenna.100 But it is in the compositions of Friar Bacon, who was born in 1214, and who learnt the Oriental languages, that we discover the most extensive acquaintance with the Arabian authors. He quotes Albumazar, Averroes, Avicenna, Alpharabius, Thabeti ben Corah, Hali, Alhacen, Alkindi, Alfraganus, and Arzachel and seems to have been as familiar with them as with the Greek and Latin classics, especially with Avicenna, whom he calls the chieftain and prince of philosophy.101 Bishop Greathead, the friend of Bacon, the spirited assertor of the liberties of the English church against the papal encroachments, also quotes Albumazar, Averroes, and Avicenna.102 Thus that the stream of mind from Arabia into England, and of new intellectual excellence thence arising, commenced the true improvement of our country in its scientific pursuits, cannot be doubted. We cannot now ascertain the precise causes which at that peculiar period inclined the English mind to make Mohamedan science and Mohamedan authors 98 Pet. Bles. contin. Ingulf, 1 Gale Script. p. 114. "Hugo Candidus, ed. Speake, p. 39. 100 Walt. Whytleseye, ed. Sp. p. 170. 101 See his Opus Majus, edited by Jebb; and his other tracts in various places. 102 In his treatise de Art. Liberal, and his Commentary upon Aristotle, printed in Venice 1514, with Gwalter Burley's Commentary, who died 1337. ARABIAN BOOK a favorite study. It was more natural and far easier VI. for our ancestors to have obtained and enjoyed the LITERARY Grecian originals and the beautiful classics of the HISTORY OF Athenian genius, after they had become familiar with the Roman imitations and competitors of these masterly effusions of human taste and talent. ENGLAND. Yet they left this rich and new harvest untouched, and even unexplored, tho its language had such kinship with their well-known Latin, and could therefore have been attained and its manuscripts procured with far less labor and expense than Arabic knowlege and tuition. In considering what circumstances then existing operated on the disposition and curiosity of the day, to direct the studious intellect in England to those Mussulman teachers, whose religion and manners they abhorred and reprobated, we may recollect that the Crusades, by the negotiations, wars, dealings, and captivities which they occasioned, produced continual intercourse; that Becket's father had been for some time a prisoner with a Saracen emir, and that the Arab's daughter became the mother, and therefore the first instructor of the saint; 103 that the emperor Frederic the Second's patronage of Mahometans in his court, administration, and army, especially in Sicily104 which the English so much frequented after the visit of Richard 1.105 for commerce, curiosity, and crusading, could not but cause a frequent mixture of Mussulman and English society; that the knights templars and hospitallers, who were charged in that day with secret connexions and mysterious congenialities with the Saracen chiefs and 103 See the 1st volume of this History, p. 221. 106 DUCTION system which they had been established to oppose, СНАР. had all the influence of great landed property in IX. England and other parts of Europe; 107 that John INTROhad projected alliance with the Mussulman sovereign of Morocco; 10% that his son Henry III. corresponded ARABIAN with the sultan of Damascus,109 and was applied to by the Saracen caliph for his help against the Tartars.110 These facts are the indications that the incidents of the times were frequently bringing the English and Mussulman minds into business and acquaintance with each other, which gradually lessened their mutual antipathies and stimulated the curiosity of the inquisitive. In addition to these notices we may remark, that the position and new tastes and studies of the JEWS, may have also been among the still earlier means of drawing the two opposing classes into an approximation towards each other, and of being a kind of bridge to lead many, both in England and Europe, into a degree of mental fraternization with Islam studies and most celebrated works. From this possibility, a few facts and observations 106 Van Hanmer's work upon the Knights Templars gives many proofs of this fact. The letter of the emperor Frederic II. to the earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. charges the templars with a treacherous association with the soldans of Damascus and Cracey. He adds, 'It was shewn manifestly to us by some religious men, that these soldans and their followers were received within the cloisters of the mansions of the temple, cum alacritate pomposa.'-The emperor even charges them with the 'invocatione Mahometi.' Ep. Ap. Matt. Paris, p. 619. 107 M. Paris asserts, that in 1244 the templars had 9000 manors, and the hospitallers 19,000 manors in Christendom, besides various emoluments and incomes, arising from their fraternities and preachings, and accruing from their privileges.' p. 615. As a parallel to this, we may recollect the conduct of John's contemnporary Sancho VI. king of Navarre. He sought in marriage the daughter of the sovereign of Morocco, and even entered into his service, and brought Saracens into his Navarrese territory, whom the Christians at last drove out. 108 See this History, v. 1. p. 427. 109 Rym. Fed. v. 1. p. 289. 110 Matt. Paris, 471. Taxter MS. Chron. 36-42. OF THE SCIENCES. VI. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Jewish BOOK concerning this singular people in England, and their literature in the middle ages, may make the view of LITERARY Our own intellectual advancement more complete. Coming into this island from Rouen, under William the Conqueror, the Jews remained here above Literature. two centuries, until they were expelled by Edward I. in 1290. They were favored by Henry II. more than the prejudices of many thought right," 112 and having spread into various parts of the country, became every where the wealthy dealers in bullion and money. We find them mentioned at Lincoln, Northampton, Rumsey, Marlbro, Andover, Derby, and Oxford. They were also at Norwich, York, and Stamford, as well as in various parts of London. 114 The king exercised the right of granting their chief priesthood in London, 115 as well as of taking it away.' They had been so rich in France in the twelfth century, as to be the owners of half the city of Paris," before they were expelled from it, at first in 1182,' See our preceding note on the Jews, v. 2. p. 121. 116 118 112 This king Judeos fenerantes, plus justo favit.' Chron. 1 Gale, p. 513. He gave leave to the Jews to have a burying-ground in every city without the walls. Before this, all dead Jews were taken to London, to be buried there.' Hoveden, p. 568. 113 Cal. Rot. pp. 28. 37. 35. 38. 49. 32. 46. 114 1 Gale Script. 28. 34. Cal. Rot. 90. 92. 116 In the Tower rolls is a record, by which Henry III. for three marcs of gold restored to the bishop of the Jews at London his sacerdotium, of which, for certain transgressions, he had been adjudicatus before the king's justice: it directs also, on the election of this priest, the presentation of him to the king, and obtaining the royal assent. Cal. Rot. p. 29. The English barons made it a part of the provisions, which in 1244 they obtained from Henry III. that besides adding two justices to the king's bench and two barons to the exchequer, there should be also appointed a justiciarius for the Jews; a most important civil privilege and benefaction, which ensured them legal justice. 117 Rigordus, p. 164–7. 118 Ib. Their synagogues were then purified and turned into churches. By this means Orleans got its church, and so Etampes. Ib. They had been exterminated from France before, in the reign of Dagobert. Ib. p. 167. Greg. Tours, 368. IX. and finally in 1252.11 Their great wealth in Eng- CHAR land, occasioned them to be perpetually attacked and persecuted. 120 That they prohibited their children from learning Greek, we read in their own venerated authorities,' and that they abhorred the language and literature of their Roman destroyers, we need not doubt, from the still greater stimulus of their national hatred of those who had driven them from their beloved and sacred land. Indeed their extravagant idea of their own-in our estimation most barren and sapless-teachers, would be sufficient to preclude them from all improvement from the other source of knowlege which sur. rounded them.121 But yet, bigotted as they were to their own scanty produce, and prejudiced as they long continued to be against all that was better, yet in the twelfth century, their students began to relax so far as to think at last that Arabian knowlege and Mus sulman teachers were not unworthy of their attention, nor degrading to their pride to learn from, Hence, while they despised or hated Greek and Ro man and Christian literature, we find them at that time, and for some time afterwards, translating the works of the Mohamedans from the Arabic into 119 Mat. Paris, 861. M.West. 252. 120 The Mishna mentions, that in the wars of Titus they decreed that no Jew should teach his son Greek ;' Sett. c. 9. s. 14.; and a commentator on this, says, Cursed is he who breeds swine, and who teaches his son Greek,' which they call Javanith. Bartol. Bib. Rab. v. 1. p. 2. 121 Thus of their Rabbi Eliezer, whom they call the Great, not contented with asserting-what other nations might allow-If all the wise men of Israel were put into one scale and Rabbi Eliezer in the other, he would outweigh them all;' they chose also to declare, with all the sublimity of rhetorical nonsense,' If the heavens were to become parchment, and all the trees of Lebanon to be made into pens, and all the waters of the ocean were to be ink, they would not suffice to describe His wisdom.' Bartol. Bib. Rab, 185. INTRO- ! OF THE ARABIAN SCIENCES. |