DOCSLIB.ORG

Elias Ashmole's Collections and Views About John

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Elias Ashmole's Collections and Views About John Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee Vittoria Feola Department and Collections, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringerstrasse 25, 1090 Vienna, Austria article info abstract Article history: In this paper I discuss Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee. I consider Dee as an object of Available online 20 January 2012 collection against the broader background of Ashmole’s collecting practices. I also look at the uses to which Ashmole put some of his collections relating to Dee, as well as those which he envisaged for pos- Keywords: terity. I argue that Ashmole’s interest in Dee stemmed from his ideas about the uses of antiquity in the Elias Ashmole reconstruction and transmission of knowledge. They partly reflected Ashmole’s interpretation of Francis Collections Bacon’s Advancement of learning as well as the influence of William Backhouse and William Oughtred’s Antiquarianism ideas about publishing natural philosophy in English. Natural history Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Ashmolean Museum Baconianism When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 1. Introduction to which Ashmole put his Dee-related collections reflected his be- lief that English should replace Latin as a scholarly language. Ash- In 1692, the Ashmolean Museum in the University of Oxford ac- mole viewed his collections of Dee material as useful sources for quired an oil portrait and forty-two volumes of material by and the pursuit of three projects to be carried out, either by himself about John Dee, which Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) had spent his or by posterity, in the vernacular. These were, first, the production life collecting.1 It was the largest collection of ‘Dee-ana’ since the of lives of English worthies; second, data for the history of the Eng- dispersal of the mathematician’s library following his death in lish weather; and third, magical experiments. Dee’s angelic manu- 1609. Of Ashmole’s original Dee collections, thirty-four volumes scripts had special significance for Ashmole because he regarded are kept today in the Bodleian Library.2 Eight volumes have mysteri- them both as evidence of the possibility for the elect to communi- ously found their way into the British Library: seven into the collec- cate with angels, and as sources for the history of magic. tions of Sir Hans Sloane and one among the Additional manuscripts.3 This article supports Mordechai Feingold’s observation (2005, pp. Even if more Dee material has resurfaced since the seventeenth cen- 555–558) that seventeenth-century antiquaries such as Ashmole, as tury, Ashmole’s collections continue to provide the basis for any re- well as his friends John Aubrey and Anthony Wood, were interested search into Dee to this day. Yet neither Ashmole’s collections nor his in Dee for his universal learning and not only for his ‘occult’ leanings. views about Dee have been properly assessed. Conversely, Dee as an Further, this article complements past scholarship on Dee’s library object of seventeenth-century collecting has not been considered. by considering him as the object of collecting practices (Roberts & This article aims to fill such gaps. Watson, 1990). Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John I will argue that Ashmole’s interest in Dee stemmed from his Dee offer a window into the mind of a seventeenth-century English ideas about antiquity and natural philosophy, which in turn re- antiquary, and thereby concern historians of science as well as flected his reading of Francis Bacon. Moreover, the printed uses intellectual historians, and historians of the book. E-mail address: [email protected] 1 In 1687 Ashmole wrote a catalogue of 23 of Dee’s manuscripts which he had collected thus far, now Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1790, Part III, item 13, fols. 52–53. 2 They are MSS Ashmole 1819, 1459, 424, 1486, 487, 423, 1423, 1442, 1492, 972, 356, 1788, 1789, 1440, 1488, 204, 1506, 488, 422, 1131, 242, 1790, 1446, 1451, 1457, 1142, 174, 440, 369, 1426, 580, 1492, 1471430–432. For full descriptions, see Black, 1845; also MSS Ashmole 133, 153, 580 (for full descriptions, there is an anonymous handlist of Ashmole’s printed books in the Bodleian Library). 3 They are London, British Library MSS Sloane 3822, 3188, 3189, 3191, 78, 2599, 3678; Add. MS 36674. 0039-3681/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2011.12.011 V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 531 2. Ashmole’s milieu of vernacular natural philosophy pursued experimental knowledge in all fields, putting their pride in being English to the service of vernacular scientific translations. Elias Ashmole was born on 23 May 1617 in Lichfield, Stafford- By entering Backhouse’s circle, Ashmole found himself among con- shire, the only son of an impoverished saddler.4 His mother became genial colleagues who gave him his first manuscripts to collect, a widower when Elias was just a child, and it was only thanks to the and stimulated him to cultivate, among other subjects, mathematics, help of a wealthy relative that Ashmole was able to study law at the astrology, alchemical medicine and natural magic. It was in this mili- Temple and become a barrister. His legal career was soon inter- eu of vernacular editions of natural philosophical texts that Ashmole rupted when the Civil War broke out. Ashmole fought for Charles I became a collector and an editor himself. at Worcester and Oxford, where he also began to study mathematics, astrology, botany, medicine and English history. 3. Early collections and views about Dee: the Fasciculus In the early 1640s, Ashmole began to attend public lectures at chemicus Gresham College, following the advice of his tutor William Ough- tred (1674–1660).5 It was through Oughtred’s contacts at the College Ashmole became interested in Dee at the end of the 1640s, that Ashmole become a member of the Society of Astrologers of Lon- while he was beginning to collect manuscripts about alchemy don by the end of the 1640s.6 Two of the Fellows of the College were and heraldry, and studying mathematics and alchemy with Ough- Oughtred’s former pupils: the mathematician Jonas Moore (1617– tred and Backhouse. During this period Ashmole acquired all the 1679) and Charles Scarborough (1616–1694), editor of Oughtred’s papers that now comprise MS Ashmole 1459. This manuscript con- Opuscula mathematica (London, 1634). Ashmole, Moore and Scarbor- tains his earliest alchemical collections, including Thomas Tym- ough participated in the meetings at Wadham College, Oxford, to- me’s preface to his English translation of John Dee’s Monas gether with Seth Ward (1617–1689), John Wallis (1616–1703), and hieroglyphica, which Ashmole used to extract information about several other former students of Oughtred’s, that eventually led to the alchemist Geber (MS Ashmole 1440, fols. 170–171). Ashmole the foundation of the Royal Society (Hunter, 1995, passim). acquired it in 1648 from a ‘chirurgeon from Reading’, probably The late 1640s marked a significant period in Ashmole’s life. 8 an acquaintance of Oughtred’s. In 1649, Ashmole came across an July 1648 marks his earliest recorded acquisition of an alchemi- anonymous Latin collection of alchemical aphorisms entitled Fas- co-medical manuscript (MS Ashmole 1459, fols. 3v–26v). His first ciculus chemicus, and the Latin text of the anonymous Arcanum Her- recorded attendance at the annual dinner of the Society of Astrol- meticae philosophiae (actually written by the French lawyer and ogers was on 1 August 1649, and he attended his first anatomical amateur natural philosopher, Jean d’Espagnet).10 He translated dissection later in the same year (MS Ashmole 1136, fol. 22). It ap- both into English, and was about to publish them when he learned pears that Ashmole’s mathematical and medical interests were that the author of the Fasciculus was Arthur Dee, the son of John developing in a congenial milieu. Dee. Hastily Ashmole wrote to him to ask for permission to print Around this time Ashmole also acquired Francis Bacon’s his work, adding: Advancement of learning in the Oxford English translation of My search into the Mathematicks first brought me to vnder- 1640, which would shape much of his thinking, as well as his col- stand, the worth of Doctor John Dee, by his Preface to Euclid, lecting practices. In 1649 he married the wealthy Lady Mary For- &c; & you would much pleasure me, might I also know what ster, twenty years his senior. The marriage granted Ashmole the relation you had to him, or what else you think fitt for me to leisure to pursue his two main interests: English antiquity and nat- say. (MS Ashmole 1790, fol. 68r) ural philosophy. Following his move to Swallowfield, Berkshire, in 1650, he joined the circle of his new neighbour, the Oxford-edu- Arthur Dee obliged Ashmole with a polite letter full of biographical cated antiquary and natural philosopher, William Backhouse information about his father, in addition to a (1593–1662).7 Backhouse organised a workshop in his house, where Ashmole Catalogue of the bookes he wrot, I have sent you herein and other members of the Society of Astrologers, including Nicho- enclosed, whereof I was totally depriued hee dying at his house las Fiske, Richard Saunders and George Wharton, translated Latin at Mortlak when I was beyond sea Ao. 1609.11 and French texts into English, and then published them in London.8 Backhouse’s circle was also linked to Gresham College and Samuel This is the earliest evidence of Ashmole’s interest in Dee, though at Hartlib’s network, and shared their goal of propagating useful exper- this stage he had not yet conceived of actively researching him.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Architecture of Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843) and Sir John Soane (1753-1837): an Exploration Into the Masonic and Occult Imagination of the Late Enlightenment
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2003 The Architecture of Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843) and Sir John Soane (1753-1837): An Exploration Into the Masonic and Occult Imagination of the Late Enlightenment Terrance Gerard Galvin University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Architecture Commons, European History Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, and the Theory and Criticism Commons Recommended Citation Galvin, Terrance Gerard, "The Architecture of Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843) and Sir John Soane (1753-1837): An Exploration Into the Masonic and Occult Imagination of the Late Enlightenment" (2003). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 996. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/996 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/996 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Architecture of Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843) and Sir John Soane (1753-1837): An Exploration Into the Masonic and Occult Imagination of the Late Enlightenment Abstract In examining select works of English architects Joseph Michael Gandy and Sir John Soane, this dissertation is intended to bring to light several important parallels between architectural theory and freemasonry during the late Enlightenment. Both architects developed architectural theories regarding the universal origins of architecture in an attempt to establish order as well as transcend the emerging historicism of the early nineteenth century. There are strong parallels between Soane's use of architectural narrative and his discussion of architectural 'model' in relation to Gandy's understanding of 'trans-historical' architecture. The primary textual sources discussed in this thesis include Soane's Lectures on Architecture, delivered at the Royal Academy from 1809 to 1836, and Gandy's unpublished treatise entitled the Art, Philosophy, and Science of Architecture, circa 1826.
    [Show full text]
  • The Knowledge Bank at the Ohio State University Ohio State Engineer
    The Knowledge Bank at The Ohio State University Ohio State Engineer Title: A History of the Slide Rule Creators: Derrenberger, Robert Graf Issue Date: Apr-1939 Publisher: Ohio State University, College of Engineering Citation: Ohio State Engineer, vol. 22, no. 5 (April, 1939), 8-9. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35603 Appears in Collections: Ohio State Engineer: Volume 22, no. 5 (April, 1939) A HISTORY OF THE SLIDE RULE By ROBERT GRAF DERRENBERGER HE slide rule, contrary to popular belief, is not in 1815 made a rule with scales specially adapted for a modern invention but in its earliest form is the calculations involved in chemistry. T several hundred years old. As a matter of fact A very important improvement was made by Sir the slide rule is not an invention, but an outgrowth of Isaac Newton when he devised a method of solving certain ideas in mathematics. cubic equations by laying three movable slide rule scales Leading up to the invention of the slide rule was the side by side 'and bringing them together or in line by- invention of logarithms, in 1614, by John Napier. laying a separate straight edge across them. This is Probably the first device having any relation to the now known as a runner. It was first definitely attached slide rule was a logarithmic scale made by Edmund to the slide rule by John Robertson in 1775. Gunter, Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, About 1780 William Nicholson, publisher and editor in London, in 1620. This scale was used for multi- of "Nicholson's Journal", a kind of technical journal, plication and division by measuring the sum or differ- began to devote most of his time to the study and im- ence of certain scale lengths.
    [Show full text]
  • Medicine, Astrology, and Written Records
    Casebooks in Early Modern England: Medicine, Astrology, and Written Records Lauren Kassell Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Volume 88, Number 4, Winter 2014, pp. 595-625 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2014.0066 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/564670 [ Access provided at 5 Oct 2021 13:50 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] Casebooks in Early Modern England: Medicine, Astrology, and Written Records LAUREN KASSELL Summary: Casebooks are the richest sources that we have for encounters between early modern medical practitioners and their patients. This article compares astrological and medical records across two centuries, focused on England, and charts developments in the ways in which practitioners kept records and reflected on their practices. Astrologers had a long history of working from particular moments, stellar configurations, and events to general rules. These practices required systematic notation. Physicians increasingly modeled themselves on Hip- pocrates, recording details of cases as the basis for reasoned expositions of the histories of disease. Medical records, as other scholars have demonstrated, shaped the production of medical knowledge. Instead, this article focuses on the nature of casebooks as artifacts of the medical encounter. It establishes that casebooks were serial records of practice, akin to diaries, testimonials, and registers; identi- fies extant English casebooks and the practices that led to their production and preservation; and concludes that the processes of writing, ordering, and preserv- ing medical records are as important for understanding the medical encounter as the records themselves. Keywords: casebooks, medical records, astrology, paper technologies, cases, patients, Simon Forman, Richard Napier This research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, through an Enhancement Award 2004–9 and a Strategic Award 2009–14 on “Generation to Reproduction” (grants 074298 and 088708).
    [Show full text]
  • The Book As Instrument: Craft and Technique in Early Modern Practical Mathematics
    BJHS Themes (2020), 5, 111–129 doi:10.1017/bjt.2020.8 RESEARCH ARTICLE The book as instrument: craft and technique in early modern practical mathematics Boris Jardine* Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, CB2 3RH, UK *Email: [email protected] Abstract Early modern books about mathematical instruments are typically well illustrated and contain detailed instructions on how to make and use the tools they describe. Readers approached these texts with a desire to extract information – and sometimes even to extract illustrations which could be repurposed as working instruments. To focus on practical approaches to these texts is to bring the category of ‘making’ to the fore. But here care needs to be taken about who could make what, about the rhetoric of craft, and about the technique of working with diagrams and images. I argue that we should read claims about making instruments cautiously, but that, con- versely, we should be inquisitive and open-minded when it comes to the potential uses of printed diagrams in acquiring skill and knowledge: these could be worked on directly, or cut out or copied and turned into working instruments. Books were sites of mathematical practice, and in certain disciplines this was central to learning through doing. One of the more surprising things a sixteenth-century owner of an expensive folio volume might do was to take a sharp knife and cut it to pieces. John Blagrave’s 1585 The Mathematical Jewel, in fact, demands nothing less. This book, which introduced an elaborate instrument of Blagrave’s design for performing astronomical calculations, included wood- cuts that were specifically intended to be cut out and used as surrogates for the brass original: ‘get very fine pastboord … and then spred your paste very fine thereon, & quickly laying on this picture & clappe it streight into a presse’.1 ‘This picture’ refers to the full- page diagram printed near the front of the book, which can, as Blagrave says, be compiled with other diagrams to make a functioning instrument.
    [Show full text]
  • Alchemical Reference in Antony and Cleopatra
    SYDNEY STUDIES Alchemical Reference in Antony and Cleopatra LYNDALL ABRAHAM Lepidus: Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile. (II.vii.26-7) The phrase "the operation of your sun" is a distinctly alchemical term. It refers to the opus alchymicum as a whole and is first known to occur in one of the oldest and most famous alchemical documents, the Emerald Table: "What I have said concerning the operation of the Sun is finished."1 The Tabula Smaragdina or Emerald Table, ascribed to Hermes Tris­ megistus or the Egyptian Thoth, was not only one of the most important sources of medieval alchemy, but continued to be considered as the basis of alI alchemical law by alchemists right through to the seventeenth cen­ tury. The earliest known version was discovered by E. J. Holmyard in an eighth-century Arabic text, and it was translated into Latin around the time of the thirteenth century. The first English translation appears as a part of Roger Bacon's The Mirror of Alchimy (London 1597). The con­ tents of the influential Table occur repeatedly in both Renaissance and seventeenth-century alchemical treatises, including John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica (1564: reprinted in 1591 and included in the alchemical anthology Theatrum Chemicum in 1602), the De Alchemia (1541-Table included in full), George Ripley's The Compound of Alchymie (1591), William Bloomfield's Bloomfield's Blossoms, Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy (1477), and Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617).2 In Euphrates or The Waters
    [Show full text]
  • Alchemy, the Ancient Science
    Alchemy, the Ancient Science by Neil Powell For centuries a number of men of science and Alchemy, learning spent their lives in the practice of the Ancient alchemy, searching for a way to change ordinary metals into gold. Why did they try? Science Did any of them succeed? We know that alchemists today continue the old tradition and the age-old quest. Will they succeed? Contents 1 The Meaning of Alchemy The basic ideas and processes of the traditional alchemists. 2 The Principles of Alchemy 24 The theoretical background to the work that the alchemists carried out. 3 Two Mysterious Frenchmen 40 Flamel, a medieval alchemist, and Fulcanelli, a modern writer on alchemy. 4 The Medieval Masters 54 Mysterious figures, half-veiled in legend, of alchemy's great period. 5 The Wandering Alchemists 80 The masters who traveled from city to city contacting other adepts. 6 What Happened to Alchemy? 96 The changes that occurred in alchemy as the infant sciences developed. 7 Sex and Symbolism 118 The course of Eastern alchemy, and how it influenced alchemy in the West. 8 Alchemy Lives On 130 The practice of alchemy in the 20th century. The Meaning of Alchemy It is late at night. In a room hidden away Absorbed in the long labor of a dual search—for the secret that from prying eyes, an old man bends over a will enable him to transmute base flask of bubbling colored liquid. All around metal into gold and to achieve spiritual perfection—the alchemist is a clutter of jars, bottles, and apparatus pursued his involved experiments, laying the foundations for the that looks somewhat like the equipment in a science, then still unborn, that modern school chemistry laboratory.
    [Show full text]
  • Biographical Notes on Henry Briggs (1561 - 1630)
    Biographical Notes 1 Biographical Notes on Henry Briggs (1561 - 1630). 1. Introduction. This introduction is related mainly to the professional life of Henry Briggs, and in particular to his work in table production. Briggs was the inaugural Professor of Geometry for many years at Gresham College, London. These notes are based partially on the chapter devoted to Briggs in J. Ward's : Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, (1740). In addition, the earlier work by T. Smith (1707), A Memoir of the Life and Work ..... Mr. Henry Briggs1 has been consulted and quoted from, and other sources, including letters. There is a fair amount of overlap of the material presented in these two sources, and we will mainly use the first reference, though it appeared later, as Ward's narrative holds the interest. Ward himself was professor of Rhetoric at the college at a later time, and he had available more contemporary material than we can readily muster to-day, so we must trust to his good judgement as to his selection - although according to Dr. Smith, most of Briggs' material had disappeared by the time he wrote his book. However, Ward was not a mathematician, and there were certain things to which he was oblivious, and there we must augment his presentation; and occasionally he got his dates wrong, and these we correct without further ado. This chapter has little to say about the actual mechanisms Briggs used to create his tables, instead it sets the stage historically on which this development was played out. Inevitably, the works of John Napier (1550 - 1617) are examined in addition to those of Briggs, in the remarkable unfolding of the story of the development of logarithms in the British Isles over the ten year period from the first appearance of Napier's tables in 1614 to those of Briggs in 1624.
    [Show full text]
  • Napier's Ideal Construction of the Logarithms
    Napier’s ideal construction of the logarithms Denis Roegel To cite this version: Denis Roegel. Napier’s ideal construction of the logarithms. [Research Report] 2010. inria-00543934 HAL Id: inria-00543934 https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00543934 Submitted on 6 Dec 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Napier’s ideal construction of the logarithms∗ Denis Roegel 6 December 2010 1 Introduction Today John Napier (1550–1617) is most renowned as the inventor of loga- rithms.1 He had conceived the general principles of logarithms in 1594 or be- fore and he spent the next twenty years in developing their theory [108, p. 63], [33, pp. 103–104]. His description of logarithms, Mirifici Logarithmorum Ca- nonis Descriptio, was published in Latin in Edinburgh in 1614 [131, 161] and was considered “one of the very greatest scientific discoveries that the world has seen” [83]. Several mathematicians had anticipated properties of the correspondence between an arithmetic and a geometric progression, but only Napier and Jost Bürgi (1552–1632) constructed tables for the purpose of simplifying the calculations. Bürgi’s work was however only published in incomplete form in 1620, six years after Napier published the Descriptio [26].2 Napier’s work was quickly translated in English by the mathematician and cartographer Edward Wright3 (1561–1615) [145, 179] and published posthu- mously in 1616 [132, 162].
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Influence of the Rosicrucian Fraternity on Freemasonry
    Historical Influence of the Rosicrucian Fraternity on Freemasonry Introduction Freemasonry has a public image that sometimes includes notions that we practice some sort of occultism, alchemy, magic rituals, that sort of thing. As Masons we know that we do no such thing. Since 1717 we have been a modern, rational, scientifically minded craft, practicing moral and theological virtues. But there is a background of occult science in Freemasonry, and it is related to the secret fraternity of the Rosicrucians. The Renaissance Heritage1 During the Italian renaissance of the 15th century, scholars rediscovered and translated classical texts of Plato, Pythagoras, and the Hermetic writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, thought to be from ancient Egypt. Over the next two centuries there was a widespread growth in Europe of various magical and spiritual practices – magic, alchemy, astrology -- based on those texts. The mysticism and magic of Jewish Cabbala was also studied from texts brought from Spain and the Muslim world. All of these magical practices had a religious aspect, in the quest for knowledge of the divine order of the universe, and Man’s place in it. The Hermetic vision of Man was of a divine soul, akin to the angels, within a material, animal body. By the 16th century every royal court in Europe had its own astrologer and some patronized alchemical studies. In England, Queen Elizabeth had Dr. John Dee (1527- 1608) as one of her advisors and her court astrologer. Dee was also an alchemist, a student of the Hermetic writings, and a skilled mathematician. He was the most prominent practitioner of Cabbala and alchemy in 16th century England.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Ix. the Spiritual Conferences (1581-1589)
    CHAPTER IX. THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES (1581-1589). I. The True and Faithful Relation and additional M.S. sources — Casaubon’s objects in publishing the T.F.R. in 1659 — to confute atheism and discredit enthusiasm — his view of Dee as deluded by devils. II. The conferences mark no abrupt discontinuity in Dee’s career — their conformity with his general interests and speculations — the Angelic realm a recognised topic in Natural Philosophy — Platonism and intermediate spiritual entities — sixteenth century pneumatology — belief in prevalence of spirits and their communion with men — Platonic hierarchy of spirits reflected even in conventional scale of demons — such a scale encourages view that the less malevolent and powerful may be safely dealt with or controlled — confusion of such demons with daemons and fairies — resemblance of Kelley’s “angels” to traditional fairies — Dee’s insistence that they can only be servants of God perhaps influenced by Platonic doctrines of negativity of evil — the usual orthodox condemnation of all dealings with spirits — but the doctrine that man may come consciously to associate with angels in this life a familiar feature in contemporary mystical Platonism — similarity of Kelley’s “angelic books” and the Cabalah — the frequency of crystal gazing — Dee’s own view of the conferences as the crown and seal of all his past intellectual endeavour — scrying as one of the chief parts of “experimental science” — the union of practical experience and speculative theology. III. Particular reasons for Dee’s so extensive concentration on the conferences at this date — his apocalyptic view of history — influence of the cyclical theories of Trithemius and progressive revelations through time of Joachim of Flora — Dee’s chronology — connection with astrological teachings — the doctrine of trigons governing historical and religious change — the conjunction of 1583 interpreted as indicating the birth of a new religion or the end of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Charlotte.Pdf
    TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I BIRTH AND EDUCATION Tercentenary of Dee’s death — No life of him — Persistent misunderstanding — Birth — Parentage — At Chelmsford Grammar School — St. John’s College, Cambridge — Fellow of Trinity — Theatrical enterprise — In the Low Countries — M.A. of Cambridge — Louvain University — Paris — Readings in Euclid — Correspondents abroad — Return to England. CHAPTER II IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP Books dedicated to Edward VI. — Upton Rectory — Long Leadenham — Books dedicated to Duchess of Northumberland — Ferrys informs against his “magic” — In prison — Handed over to Bonner — At Philpot’s trial — Efforts to found a State Library — Astrology — Horoscopes — Choice of a day for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation — Introduced to her by Dudley — Sympathetic magic — Bachelor of Divinity — In Antwerp — Monas Hieroglyphica — Preface to Billingsley’s Euclid — Called a conjurer. CHAPTER III MORTLAKE Proposed benefices — Propædeumata Aphoristica — Alchemical secrets — Settled at Mortlake — Journey to Lorraine — Illness — The Queen’s attentions — Mines and hidden treasure — Wigmore Castle — Marriage — Death of first wife — Literary correspondence — John Stow — Diary commenced — The Hexameron Brytannicum — The British Complement — Slander and falsehood — A petty navy — The sea-power of Albion — Fisheries and foreign policy. CHAPTER IV JANE DEE A comet or blazing star — Second marriage — Jane Fromond — Hurried journey abroad — Berlin and Frankfort — Birth of a son — Christening — Edward Dyer — Duc d’Alencon — Michael Lock — His sons — The Queen’s visit — Sir Humphrey Gilbert at Mortlake — Adrian Gilbert — John Davis — The Queen’s Title Royall — Lord Treasurer Burleigh — Death of Dee’s mother — The Queen’s visit of condolence — Map of America — Visits to the Muscovy House — Frobisher and Hawkins — Birth of a daughter — Accident to Arthur.
    [Show full text]
  • Elias Ashmole's Hermetic Reading of Gower's
    Accessus Volume 6 Issue 2 Magic, Religion, and Science Article 3 2020 Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’s Hermetic Reading of Gower’s Jason and the Golden Fleece Curtis Runstedler Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, and the Medieval Studies Commons Recommended Citation Runstedler, Curtis (2020) "Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’s Hermetic Reading of Gower’s Jason and the Golden Fleece," Accessus: Vol. 6 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus/vol6/iss2/3 This Article has been accepted for inclusion in Accessus by the editorial board of the journal and administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’s Hermetic Reading of Gower’s Jason and the Golden Fleece Acknowledgments I would like to thank the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, The Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. for granting permission with their image reproduction. I am indebted to the following scholars and funding bodies for their generous support and encouragement: Elizabeth Archibald, Matthias Bauer, Angelika Zirker, Chad Gunnoe, Bob Yeager, Teach@Tübingen, Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). I would also like to thank the anonymous peer reviewer for their invaluable feedback. This article is available in Accessus: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus/vol6/iss2/3 Runstedler: A Hermetic Reading of Gower’s Jason & the Golden Fleece 1 Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’s Hermetic Reading of Gower’s Jason and the Golden Fleece1 In the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652), Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) includes annotations for the fourteenth- century trilingual English poet John Gower’s (c.
    [Show full text]