Arabic-Latin Translations: Transmission and Transformation

chapter 18 Arabic-Latin Translations: Transmission and Transformation

Brian Long

Composed around 1135, book 6 of Henry of Huntington’s Anglicanus Ortus recounts an encounter with a wizened old man who describes a number of novel, exotic herbs. This mysterious figure explains that his botanical and medical knowledge had ancient origins but was transmitted to him by Arab, Indian, and Chinese informants. In this passage, the Anglicanus Ortus nicely encap- sulates the situation of Galenic medicine in the long twelfth century. In this period, from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, much of Galenic medicine did have ancient roots, but it had travelled long distances before reaching the Latin West via Arabic-Latin translations. Further, as Henry of Huntingdon’s poem suggests, these novel sources were eagerly taken up, but continued to appear exotic to the Latin West.1 Henry’s immediate source, Constantine the African, reveals similar ambiguities. On the surface, his works purported to convey the authentic teachings of Galen and Hippocrates, knowledge that – at least according to Constantine’s prefaces – he had painstakingly gleaned from classical medical works. Scholars, then as now, knew that Constantine’s texts had origins in the Islamic world, and his works occasionally hinted as much, with an Arabic loan word here or novel materia medica there, while competing stories about Constantine explained his North African origins and his deci- sion to render large numbers of Arabic works into Latin. But the mysteries that swirled around Constantine did not hinder his works’ popularity; the extensive circulation of his texts suggests that many of Constantine’s readers were con- vinced of their value. For much of the long twelfth century, then, many readers of medical texts encountered Galenic medicine as it was conveyed through the hazy, uncertain medium of these Arabic-Latin translations. A careful understanding of the way these texts mediated Galenic medicine is essential to our understanding of the development of learned medicine in the period.

1 For more on Henry of Huntington and Constantine the African, see Black (2012).

1 Constantine the African (d. before 1098/99)

When Latins in southern Italy gained territory at the expense of Byzantine and Muslim rulers, they became cognisant of the limitations of the Latin tradition: where these rivals had impressive artistic and cultural traditions, Latins held ancient Rome but few of its glories. Southern Italy boasted a vibrant tradition of medical practice, but a far more modest theoretical tradition. To remedy these deficiencies, Constantine the African produced an extensive collection of Arabic-Latin translations; these works gave readers access to a wealth of Galenic medicine (including, to a limited extent, texts by Galen himself), pack- aged in an accessible and systematic form. Although careful research has al- lowed us to discern some of his debts to his predecessors and collaborators, Constantine remains singularly important for the Latin medical tradition; and after his death, many of Constantine’s translations proved to be widely influ- ential, circulating in large numbers and among a surprising range of readers, giving decisive shape to both medical Latin and medical theory. Although Constantine’s importance is not in doubt, our evidence for his biography is tangled, leaving much unclear about his religious background, early career, and indeed his time at Monte Cassino.2 Considerations of space preclude a full discussion of these questions, but it is clear that in the middle of the eleventh century, Constantine travelled to southern Italy from North Africa, apparently bringing substantial numbers of Arabic medical manu- scripts with him. Once in southern Italy, Constantine garnered considerable support from prominent southern Italian clerics and laymen, dedicating works to both Desiderius, the abbot of Monte Cassino, and Alfanus, the archbishop of Salerno.3 With their support, Constantine embarked on a programme of translating a large number of medical texts from Arabic into Latin.4 Constantine’s produc- tions included translations of Arabic versions of authentically Galenic works,

2 We have, for example, three distinct sources of information for Constantine’s life, including two accounts from Monte Cassino, one appearing to originate in twelfth-century Salerno, and a third from Córdoba. For basic orientations on Constantine’s life, see Newton (1994) and Veit (2003a). Some scholars have supposed Constantine came from the Christian communi- ties in North Africa, while others have supposed he was a convert from Islam; conclusive evidence for either position has yet to surface. 3 Constantine’s dedications are discussed in Newton (2011). For more on Constantine’s career, see Green (Chapter 17) in this volume. 4 For a recent discussion about the way that enthusiasm for Arabic culture may have influ- enced Constantine’s patrons and his translations, see Newton (2011). It was long believed that Constantine knew and translated works from Greek as well; the modern consensus, however, is that he translated works exclusively from Arabic. His uncertainty about the meaning of