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 a Europe just starting to emerge from the scientific ‘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 quickly 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.

There were two main paths for the survival of these Greek texts, either directly in Greek in the Byzantine Empire and awaiting translation into Latin, or through Islamic translations, such as those of Averroes (1126-1198), Avicenna (980-1037), and Alpharabius (870-950). Books from both these traditions came to the attention of Westerners following the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the foundation of the Crusader States in the Holy Land.

The text here is the so-called ‘translatio Vetus’ (or ‘oldest translation’) of James of Venice – an Italian clergyman who was active in Constantinople in the first half of the twelfth century, and worked directly from the ‘pure’ text source of Greek copies of the works of Aristotle. To him we owe the foundational translations of the Physica, the Metaphysica, parts of the Parva Naturalia as well as the present work – those that 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 was 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 by medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as “The Philosopher”, while the poet Dante called him “the master of those who know”.

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 in the Latin translation of James of Venice, 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 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 TRANSLATION OF JAMES OF VENICE, 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.