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Confabulatory Life

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Confabulatory Life chapter 2 Confabulatory Life Mordechai Feingold 1 The ‘Intangibles’ of Early-Modern Lives In his 1691 biography of Henry Briggs, Anthony Wood included an intriguing anecdote, which originated with the mathematician William Oughtred. As the story goes, upon returning to Scotland from Denmark, the mathematician John Craig paid a visit to John Napier. He “told him among other discourses of a new invention in Denmark (by Longomontanus as ’tis said) to save the tedious multiplication and division in astronomical calculations. Neper being solicitous to know farther of him concerning this matter, he could give no other account of it, than that it was by proportionable numbers. Which hint Neper taking, he desired him at his return to call upon him again. Craig, after some weeks had passed, did so, and Neper then shew’d him a rude draught of what he called, Canon mirabilis Logarithmorum.”1 I cite Wood’s account not because I wish to revive the debate over the nature and extent of Napier’s indebtedness to others in the invention of logarithms, but in order to draw attention to a neglected aspect of the anecdote – the dif- fusion of scientific knowledge via oral discourse. Historians rarely integrate this dimension into their work, accustomed instead to utilize written records and shunt aside – or at least not engage creatively – information mostly beyond the evidentiary record. Thus, for example, in attempts to evaluate the intellec- tual formation of early modern scholars and scientists, and the venues through which their ideas disseminated, historians rely predominantly on formal uni- versity statutes and records of formal teaching, on the availability of books (or manuscripts), and on surviving epistolary exchanges. Missing for the recon- struction, I believe, is sustained attention to the intangible, yet crucial, domain of gossip: not in the sense of idle talk – though this, too, is not inconsequential – but of learned conversation among friends and acquaintances, both at home and abroad. And it is this topic I wish to address in this essay, as the career of the indi- vidual we celebrate in this volume offers ample scope for contemplating what I dub the ‘confabulatory life.’ After all, Duncan Liddel left for the Continent in 1 Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, vol. 2, 491–492. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/97890043�0667_003 <UN> Confabulatory Life 23 1579, age 18, not to return permanently to Scotland until 28 years later. His trav- els led him from Frankfurt on Oder – where he studied mathematics and natu- ral philosophy with John Craig before turning to medicine – to Breslau, where he spent nearly a year in the company of Andreas Dudith and Paul Wittich, and then back to Frankfurt. In 1585 he left for Rostock, where Heinrich Brucaeus deepened his understanding of modern astronomy; he visited Tycho Brahe on two successive summers, in 1587 and 1588; and he finally settled in Helmstedt, where he taught mathematics and medicine until returning in 1607 to Aberdeen. Liddel’s few publications, his habit of annotating his books, and Johannes Caselius’ memoir of Liddel, have enabled scholars to begin recon- structing the contours of Liddel’s career and intellectual milieu. However, we know nothing of Liddel’s occasional visits to Scotland during the nearly three decades he lived on the Continent, nor of the last six years of his life at Aberdeen, save for the details of his generous benefaction. Whom did he meet? What information did he impart to local scholars? Whom might he have encouraged to pursue scientific studies? We shall know much more about these and related issues in the coming years, thanks to the essays of this vol- ume and additional research. And since I can’t pretend to be an expert on Duncan Liddel, I hope that by broadening the discussion to include certain near and later contemporaries, a shared ‘problematique’ may emerge, which will help draw more focused attention to seeming ‘intangibles,’ and thereby contribute to a better understanding of the individuals we study, in particular, and the workings of the Republic of Letters more generally. 2 Peregrinations of British Scholars in the Continent Historians are yet to ponder seriously the ramifications for British culture of the massive wandering of thousands of its inhabitants throughout Europe during the early modern period. Just as Humanism was imported into England by scholars returning from Italy – including John Tiptoft, William Grocin, John Colet and John Fisher – so it was the peregrination of numerous mathe- maticians, physicians, and naturalists that transformed the British scientific landscape.2 John Dee, for example, crisscrossed the Continent extensively and often. As a newly created Master of Arts he spent the years 1548–1551 in Louvain and Paris, studying and conversing with such luminaries as Gemma Frisius, Gerhard Mercator, Pedro Nunes, Antoine Mizauld, Petrus Ramus and Oronce Fine. During 1563–1564 he was on the Continent again visiting, among 2 Woolfson, Padua and the Tudors, 1485–1603. <UN>.
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