The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France and England Author(S): Katharine Park and Lorraine J

The Past and Present Society

Unnatural Conceptions: The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France and England Author(s): Katharine Park and Lorraine J. Daston Source: Past & Present, No. 92 (Aug., 1981), pp. 20-54 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650748 . Accessed: 07/09/2011 11:24

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http://www.jstor.org UNNATURAL CONCEPTIONS:THE STUDY OF MONSTERSIN SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCEAND ENGLAND*

IN HIS NOVUM ORGANON, BLUEPRINT FOR THE NEW EXPERIMENTAL scienceof the seventeenthcentury, Francis Bacon advised prospec- tive naturalphilosophers that: a compilation, or particular natural history, must be made of all monsters and prodigious births of nature; of every thing, in short, which is new, rare, and unusual in nature. This should be done with a rigorous selection, so as to be worthy of credit. 1 Odd as Bacon'splan for a collectionof monsterssounds to modern ears, it was a projectwhich his contemporariesgreeted with con- fidenceand enthusiasm. Monsters were in greatvogue during Bacon's time. On 4 NovemberI637, for example,Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, granteda six-monthlicense "to Lazaras,an Italian,to shew his brotherBaptista, that grows out of his navell, and carryes him at his syde".2Lazarus Coloredo and his parasitictwin JohnBap- tistaarrived in Englandat the age of twentyafter appearances on the Continent.Lazarus' exhibitions were a greatsuccess. In I639 he was still in London;he laterappeared at Norwichand, in I642, in Scot- land, on what seems to have been an extendedtour of the provinces. John Spaldingdescribed his stay in Aberdeen: He had his portraiture with the monster drawin, and hung out at his lodging, to the view of the people. The one seruand had ane trumpettour who soundit at suche tyme as the people sould cum and sie this monster, who flocked aboundantlie into his lodging. The uther seruand receaved the moneyis fra ilk persone for his sight, sum less sum mair. And efter there wes so muche collectit as culd be gottin, he with his seruandis, schortlie left the toun, and went southuard agane.3 Lazarusand John Baptistawere furthercelebrated in a broadside balladfrom the sameperiod called "The Two InseparableBrothers", which includeda woodcutportrait (Figure I), and in a pamphleton

* We would like to thank Dr. Bert Hansen for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 Francis Bacon, Nov^m organon (London, I620, S.T.C. II62), ii. 29, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Basil Montagu, I7 vols. (London, I83I), XiV, p. I38. 2 The information about Lazarus and John Baptista is collected in Hyder E. Rollins introduction to "The Two Inseparable Brothers" (London, I637), in The Pack of Autolys^s, or Strange and Terrible News . . . as Told in Broadside Ballads of the Years I624-I693, ed. Hyder E. Rollins (Cambridge, Mass., I927; repr. I969), pp. 7-9. 3 John Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and in England, I624-I645, 2 vols. (Aberdeen, I850-I), ii, pp. I25-6. For the publication history of the Mertzorialls, see ^aza.,.. .. 1,. pp. X-Xll... _ _ -

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"TheTwo InseparableBrothers" (London, I637), repr.in The Pack of AutoZysus,ed. HyderE. Rollins(Cambridge, Mass., I927; repr. I969), p. IO. 22 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 anotherequally famous monster on display in London: Tannakin Skinker,the "hog-facedwoman" from Holland.4 Monstersfigured in literaturedirected towards more learnedau- diencesin both Franceand England, as well as in popularbroadsides. In fact they appearedin almost every forum of discussionin the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies. Philosophers like Baconincor- poratedthem into treatmentsof natureand naturalhistory; civil and canon lawyers debated the marriageabilityof hermaphroditesand whetherboth headsof Siamesetwins deservedbaptism; hack writers retailedwoodcuts and balladsabout the latestpretergeneration; and generalaudiences eagerly consumed proliferating accounts of monstrousbirths, both classicaland modern,exotic and domestic. Despite theirubiquity, monsters have received little seriousatten- tion from historiansof the intellectualand culturalclimate of the period,as a phenomenonat the best trivialand at the worsttasteless.5 Yet the subject is of considerableinterest. The study of the sixteenth-and seventeenth-century literature on monsters-aberrations in the naturalorder sheds new light on earlierconceptions of nature,as well as on the Baconianscientific programme and its in- carnationin the work of Frenchand Englishacademies. It also provides a fascinatingcase-study in levels of culture, and in particular on the changingrelationship between popular and learnedculture in this period. Popularand learnedinterest in monstersdid not, of course,orig- inate with the early modernperiod. There was a long traditionof writingon the subject, both in classicaland Christianantiquity and during the middle ages. (As indicatedlater in both text and refer- ences, these earlier treatmentswere often importantsources of sixteenth-and seventeenth-centuryideas.) It is possibleto identify three main componentsof the earliertradition.6 The first was the body of scientificwriting on monsterswhich appears most character- isticallyin the biologicalwork of Aristotleand his classicaland medi-

4 "TheTwo InseparableBrothers", repr. in ThePackof Autolysus,ed. Rollins,pp. I0-II; "A CertaineRelation of the Hog-FacedGentlewoman . . ." (London, I640), repr.in EdmundWilliam Ashbee, Occasional Fac-simile Reprints of Rareand Curious Tractsof thez6th and I7thcenturies, 2 vols. (London,I868-72), no. I6. 5 In general,the secondaryliterature on monstersin this periodleaves much to be desired,both in quantityand in quality.The indispensablesources are Jean Ceard, La natureet lesprodiges (Geneva, I977), and RudolfWittkower, "Marvels of the East:A Studyin the Historyof Monsters",Zl. WarburgInst., v (I942), pp. I59-97. Ernest Martin,Histoire des monstres depois l'antiquite jusqu'a nos jours (Paris, I880), andC. J. S. Thompson,The Mystery and Lore of Monsters(London, I930), provideinteresting leads,although neither is notablefor historicalsophistication or comprehensivelisting of sources.Ceard's study is remarkablefor its eruditionand command of the texts,his main interest is in the philosophicalcontent of the literatureof monsters in sixteenth-centuryFrance, rather than in its culturaland socialcontext. 6 On the first two components,see Ceard,op. cit., chs. I-2. On the third, see Wittkower,op. cit., pp. I59-82. Martin,op. cit., also dealsbriefly with a subsidiary theme, that of the legalstatus of monstersand infanticide in antiquity;see pp. I-9. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 23 eval followers,notably Albertus Magnus.7 The seconddealt specifi- cally with monstrousbirths as portents or divine signs; the most influentialpagan contributorto this traditionwas Cicero,although laterChristian writers relied overwhelminglyon the interpretations of Augustineand those he influenced,like Isidoreof Seville.8The third strainof classicaland medievalthought on monsters,finally, was cosmographicaland anthropological,and concernedthe monstrousraces of menwidely believed to inhabitparts of Asiaand Africa; this strainwas transmittedby classicalauthorities like Solinusto a wide varietyof medievalwriters, as well as artistsand sculptors.All three traditionsappear in the discussionof monstersafter I500, although, as we will argue,the subjectwas investedwith new content andnew urgencyas a resultof contemporaryreligious and intellectual developments. The treatmentof monstersand attitudestowards them evolveno- ticeablyduring the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies. Character- istically,monsters appear most frequentlyin the contextof a whole group of relatednatural phenomena: earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions,celestial apparitions, and rainsof blood, stonesand other miscellanea.The interpretationof this canon of phenomenaunder- went a series of metamorphosesin the yearsafter I500. In the most popularliterature such events were originallytreated as divine prodigies, and popularinterest in them was sparkedand fuelledby the religiousconflicts of the Reformation.As the periodprogressed, they appearedmore and more as naturalwonders signs of nature's fertilityrather than God'swrath. Bacon, stronglyinfluenced by this attitude,adopted the study of monstersas one of threecoequal parts in his refurbishedscheme for naturalhistory a schemewhich in- spiredthe earlyefforts of the RoyalSociety. By the end of the seventeenth century, monsters had lost their autonomyas a subject of scientificstudy, dissolvingtheir links with earthquakesand the like, and had been integratedinto the medicaldisciplines of comparative anatomyand embryology. Of course the varioustypes of literaturecannot be rigidlydiffer- entiated,and the variousattitudes towards monsters form much more of a continuumthan allowedby this schema.Nonetheless, the prin- cipalline of development,from monsters as prodigiesto monstersas examplesof medicalpathology, is clear. This developmentis inter- estingboth in its own rightand for the light it shedson the enormous culturaland social changes sweeping Europe in the two centuries afterthe beginningof the Reformationand the inventionand spread

7 See n. 6I below. 8 See n. I 3 below. 24 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 of printing.9 Severalhistorians, among them Natalie Davis and Peter Burke, have discussed what they see as the "withdrawal"of high frompopular culture (the "great"from the "little"tradition). 10 This phenomenonappears general in west Europeanculture of the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies. In the crudestterms, the sharpening of social boundariesbetween city dwellersand peasants,the urban literateelite and unletteredday labourers, seems to havebeen accompaniedby a parallelcultural development. Where before peasant and professionalhad participated to a significantextent in a sharedculture of intellectualand religiousinterests, moral and politicalassump- tions, by the end of the earlymodern period the commonground had dwindledenormously, as literateculture evolved far more rapidly thanthe traditionalculture of the less-educatedclasses. Naturallythis hypothesiscan only be substantiatedby detailed case-studies,and our researchon changingattitudes toward monstrousbirths in sixteenth-and seventeenth-centuryFrance and Eng- land seems to confirmit. In the earlyyears of the Reformation,the tendencyto treatmonsters as prodigies frighteningsigns of God's wrathdependent ultimately or solely on his will-was almostuni- versal.By the end of the seventeenthcentury only the most popular formsof literature ballads,broadsides and the occasionalreligious pamphlet treatedmonsters in this way.1lFor the educatedlayman, full of Baconianenthusiasm, and even more for the professionalscien- tist of I700, the religious associationsof monsters were merely anothermanifestation of popularignorance and superstition,foster- ing uncriticalwonder rather than the sober investigationof natural causes. The meaningof "naturalcauses" changes significantly during this period, and attitudestowards monsters provide a particularlysensi- tive barometerto subtle alterationsin philosophicaland scientific outlook. Bacon segregatednatural and supernaturalcauses, but his view of the naturalderived from a literaturewhich personified nature as an ingenious craftsmanand monstersas her most artfulworks.

9 The culturaldevelopment we treatand the textswe havetaken as oursources must be seen withinthe contextof the spreadof printing,the increasein the volumeof all varietiesof printedmatter, and the rise of literacy-all subjectsof recenthistorical studybut beyondthe scope of this paper.See, for example,Elizabeth L. Eisenstein ThePrznting Press as an Agentof Change,2 vols. (Cambridge,I979)- the thirdpart "The Book of NatureTransformed", is particularlyrelevant, although Eisenstein's mainconcern is withhigh culture and the generativefactors in the scientificrevolution. 10Peter Burke, Popular Culture in EarlyModern Europe (London, I978), pp. 270- 9; NatalieZemon Davis, "ProverbialWisdom and Popular Errors", in herSociety and Culturein EarlyModern France (Stanford, I975), esp. pp. 240-I, 265. 11Burke, op. cit., pp. 65-77, and Davis, "Printingand the People",in her Society andCulture, pp. I9I-2, haveboth emphasized the dangersof usingwritten sources for popularculture. It shouldbe clearat everypoint thatwe malteno claimsto dealwith theoral or materialculture of the countryside,and that our concern is withthe different levels-from popularto elite-within the subsetof urbanwritten culture. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 25 Bacon'stripartite scheme of naturalhistory corresponded to the ac- tivitiesof naturerather than to typesof subjectmatter or methodsof investigation.The naturalhistory of monsters and other marvels playeda crucialrole in the Baconianprogramme: monsters provided both the key to understandingmore regularphenomena and the in- spirationfor humaninvention. As prodigies,monsters had straddled the boundariesbetween the naturaland the supernatural;as natural history,they bridgedthe naturaland the artificial. Despite the energeticefforts of the declaredBaconians of the early RoyalSociety to realizethis programme,the studyof marvels and the emphasison nature'sirregularities provedfruitless in the fields of both inventionand naturalhistory. By I700, professionalscience had integratedthe studyof monstersinto broadertheories; abandon- ing the Baconianplan for a distinct history of the "new, rare, and unusualin nature",they pegged their metaphysicsas well as their methodologyon nature'suniformity and order.

MONSTERS AS PRODIGIES For sixteenth-centuryChristians a prodigywas a disturbingand unusualevent, one apparentlycontrary to natureand thereforeat- tributabledirectly to God. It servedto warnof divinedispleasure and futuremisfortune war, the deathof famousmen, the rise and fall of empiresand religions.The biblicaltext most often quoted when prodigiousevents were afoot was the passagein 2 Esdraswhere the angel Uriel predictsthe downfallof Babylonand the end of Israel's misfortunes.Many signs are to heraldthis time: the sunneshal suddenlyshine againe in the night, and the moonethre times a day. Bloodshal drop out of the wood, andthe stoneshal give his voyce . . . Thereshalbe a confusionin manyplaces, and the fyreshal oft breakeforthe, and the wildebeastes shalchange their places, and menstruouswomen shal bearemonstres 12 Two aspects of this prophecydeserve attention. First, prodigies comein groups.Christian writers drew on the rich classicaltradition of divinationas well as on Judaicthought for what came to be the canon of prodigiousevents: comets and other celestialapparitions, floods,earthquakes, rains of bloodor stones,and of coursemonstrous births. (Monstrum,according to Augustine,is synonymouswith pro- digium,since it shows[monstrat] God's will.)13 Second, prodigies have apocalypticassociations. They presageworld reformation,the over- throwof the wicked, and the vindicationof God'select. Giventhese associations,it is not surprisingthat the Reformation openedthe floodgatesfor a delugeof prodigyliterature, ranging from simplevernacular broadsides to eruditeLatin treatises, in whichmon-

12 2 Esdrasv. 4-8 (GenevaVersion). 13 Augustine? De civitateDei, xxi. 8. Isidoreof Sevilledeveloped Augustine's ideas in his Etymologzae,xi. 3, a chapterof greatinfluence. 26 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 strousbirths occupied pride of place. Monstershad figured in certain typesof medievalwriting, but in a subordinateposition as elements in the Latintradition of chronicles,geographies, bestiaries, and com- mentarieson Aristotle'sDe generatione not as subjectsof study in their own right.14It seems to have been Luther and Melanchthon who assuredthe successof monstersas a tool of religiouspolemic and a focus of generalinterest with their short pamphlet,Deuttung der czwogrewlichen Figuren, Bapstesels czu Rom und MunchEalbs su Freij- bergiinn Meiisszen funden, published in I523. 15 As Lutherindicated in a letter of the same year, he was fully consciousof breakingwith the medievalchronicle tradition in which monstersand otherprodi- gies foretoldgeneral misfortune and widespread political upheaval. 16 The pamphletwas in fact a pointed attackon the church. It began with two woodcuts,one of the "monk-calf",an actualcalf born sev- eralmonths earlier in Freiburgwith what lookedlike a cowl around its neck (Figure2), and the other, by Cranach,of the "pope-ass",a compositeand clearlyfictitious monster reputedly fished out of the Tiber in I496 (Figure3). The pope-ass,in Melanchthon'sinterpret- ation, representedthe "RomishAntichrist", its variousbestial parts correspondingaccurately to the bestialvices and errors of his church. The monk-calf,according to Luther, symbolizedthe typicalmonk spiritualin externals,but within brutal,idolatrous, and resistant to the light of Scripture.Both monsterswere prodigiesprophesying the imminentruin of the Romanchurch. The pamphletwas of greatinfluence. Frequently reprinted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and translatedinto French, Dutch and English, it establishedmonsters and prodigiouslines of argumentfirmly in the centre of both Catholicand Protestantreli- gious polemic.17In this case, as in others, Lutheras publicistfunc- tionedas a mediatorbetween more popular and learned culture, cloth- ing his theologicaland ecclesiological concerns in formsand language 14 As an indication,of the manythousands of titles in Lynn Thorndikeand Pearl Kibre,A Catalogueof Incipitsof MediaevalScientific Writings in Latin,2nd edn. (Cam- bridge,Mass., I 963), only two beforethe latefifteenth century mention monsters. For medievalreferences to monstersin othercontexts, see Ceard,Op. Cit., pp. 3I-79, and Wittkower,op. Ctt., pp. I76-82. 5 Editedin MartinLuther7 Werke, 58 vols. (Weimar,I883-I948), Xi, pp. 370-85. 16 Luther to WenzeslausLink, I6 Jan. I523, in Luther, Werke:Brietwechsel, I4 vols. (Weimar,I930-70), iii, p. I7: "Insteadof the generalinterpretation of monsters as signifyingpolitical change through war, . . . I inclinetowards a particularinter- pretationwhich pertainsto the monks". For an exampleof the traditionaluse of monstersas portentsof generalor politicaldisaster, see HartmannSchedel, Liber chronicarum(Nuremberg, I493), fos. I5Ir, I82V, 2I7r. The traditionseems to have enjoyeda surgeof popularityin Germanyin the yearsaround I500: see EugenHol- lander,Wunder, Wundergeburt und Wundergestalt (Stuttgart, I92I)- Hans Fehr, Mas- sentunstim I6. 3rahrhundert(Berlin, I924), p. 2I. 17 As in, for example,the two anonymouspamphlets, Le grantmiracle dung enfant nepar la voulentede Dieu (n.p., [I529]), repr.in Bulletindu bibliophile,[lv] (I890), pp. 20I-8, and Les slgnes,prodiges, monstres et constellationscelestes apparues nouvellement ([Paris?],I53I). See Fehr, op. cit., pp. 68-9. 0f-t'D- S t''S===s_-y- iC, - #.... 0.. f -. ,,,_,__sOj,tl>3rZ --^ - \-0 -- - Sicf A ... -e- Z- ' . %'^C -e o-CX _ \ - - Z z^ fs ___3 - \

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MartinLuther and Philip Melanchthon,Deuttung der czwo grewlichen Figuren (Wit- tenberg,I523), repr.ln Luther,Werke, 58 vols. (Weimar,I883-I948)t Xi, p. 37I. 28 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 of popularorigin and accessibleto the widest possible audience.18 Justas the Reformationas a religiousand political movement engaged everylevel of society, from peasantsto princes,so afterLuther prodigies in generaland monstersin particularappeared as signal elements in the sharedculture of early modernFrance and England. Bridgingthe little and the great tradition,they were receivedwith high excitementby learnedand barelyliterate alike indeedby the entireaudience which had half createdand half been createdby the spread of printing.19They figuredin broadsides the cheapest, most widely disseminatedof literarygenres-and in philological treatisesproduced in the contextof Latinhumanism, that most elite of cultures. The appealof monsters,however, was firstand foremostpopular, and their spiritualhome during the Reformationperiod was the broadsideballad. Before the first newspapers,ballads and prose broadsideswere the principalways news was disseminatedin print; composedby professionalwriters and printed in haste, they were cried on the streets by vendorshawking them for a penny. A sub- stantialportion of the broadsidesof sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Franceand Englanddealt with recentprodigious events terres- trialand celestial,usually illustrated (Figure 4). Withinthis groupby far the most popularsubject was monsters.20MLost monster broad- sidesbegan with a provocativetitle, a schematicwoodcut of the child or animalinvolved, and a briefdescription of the circumstancesof its birth, while the bulk of the sheet was given over to an interpretative section,in poetryor prose, clarifyingGod's message in the particular instance.21 Althoughbroadsides cannot be takenas directsources for popular culture,they bring us closerthan any other texts to the popularau- dience of the Reformationperiod. Displayedand recited publicly, andcharacteristically illustrated, they appealedthrough spoken word 18 On this aspectof Luther'sthought, see MauriceGravier, Luther et l'opinionpub- lique(Paris, [I942]), pp. 32-3; ErichKlingner, Luther und der deutsche Volksaberglaube (Berlin,I9I2), pp. I-I8, 92-I00. 19The problemof readershipis a complicatedone. At the momentthe most con- vincingevidence for who readwhat comes from extant library inventories. Two pre- liminarystudies of the questionare Henri-JeanMartin, "Ce qu'on lisait a Parisau XVIe siecle", Bibliothequed5humanisme et renaissance, xxi (I959), pp. 222-30, and especially,Natalie Davis, "Printingand the People",pp. I89-226. Botharticles include referencesto a largenumber of editedinventories. 20 For a partiallist of referencesto monsterbroadsides, see Jean-PierreSeguin L'infonnationen Franceavant le periodique(Paris, I964), pp. I2I-3, and plates23-30- MatthiasA. Shaaber,Some Forerunners of the Newspaperin England(Philadelphia I929), pp. I5I-6; Hyder E. Rollins, "An AnalyticalIndex to the Ballad-Entries (I557-I709) in the Registerof the Companyof Stationersof London",Studies in Philology,xxi (I924), pp. 305-6. In HarvardCollege's Widener Library alone we have foundeditions of at leastthirty French and Englishephemera dealing with monsters. 21 A typicalexample is "Nature'sWonder?" (London, I664), repr. in TheEuing Collectionof EnglishBroadside Ballads of the Universityof Glasgow(Glasgow, I97I), Pp. 386-7. *rvSt _ u a srb(9>.so c)

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MartinLuther and Philip Melanchthon,Deuttung der czwo grewlichen Figuren (Wit- tenberg,I523), repr.in Luther,Werke, xi, p. 373. 3o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 and image to the illiterateas well as to the readingpublic, to John Earle's"Country wench" as well as to SamuelPepys, Fellow of the Royal Society.22But they also served as sources for more erudite treatmentsof prodigies.The I550S saw a spateof humanistinterest in divinationas an elementof Romanculture and religion,and produced a numberof Latin treatisesdealing with the same. Giventhe Reformationassociations of prodigiesand monsters,it is not surpris- ing that Germanand Swissscholars were most activein this area;one of the earliestand most impressiveworks was publishedin Witten- burgby KasparPeucer, Melanchthon's son-in-law. His Commentartus de praecipaisdivinationum generibus (I553) was followedby the Pro- digiorumac ostentonzmchronicon (I557) of KonradLycosthenes, who had also edited a treatiseon prodigiesby the fourth-centuryLatin authorJulius Obsequens.23 The trafficin prodigiesbetween the little and the greattraditions went in both directions.On the one hand, some of Lycosthenes's examplesof modernmonstrous births were drawn directly from con- temporaryephemeral literature. On the other, workslike his Chron- iconwere rapidlyassimilated back into the more populartradition. They weretranslated into the vernacularand shamelessly plagiarized, for both woodcutsand text, by the authorsof a new and enormously successful genre: the prodigy book.24 These books purportedly sought to educatetheir readerswith storiesfrom approvedclassical and contemporaryauthors, but their main purpose,like that of the broadsidesand ballads,was to combinean improvingreligious mes- sagewith a pleasurablefrisson. The most popularexamples of this genrewere the Histoiresprodi- gieuses,a series of six volumesby varioushands publishedbetween I560 and I598.25The first volume the eponymousHistoires pro- 22 JohnEarle, Micro-Cosmographie (London, I628, S.T.C. 744I), Sig. e IorV:"[The ballad-writer's]frequent'st Workes goe out in single sheets, and are chantedfrom marketto market,to a vile tune, and a worsethroat: whilst the pooreCountry wench meltslike herbutter to hearethem. Andthese are the Storiesof somemen of Tiburne or a strangeMonster out of Germany".Pepys collectedbroadsides and is one of our main sourcesfor this literaturein England,see The Pepys Ballads, ed. Hyder E. Rollins,8 vols. (Cambridge,Mass., I929-32). Monsterbroadsides also figure in French diaries;see, for example,Le journal d'un bourgeoisde Paris, ed. V.-L. Bourrilly(Paris I9IO), pp. 8I-2; Pierrede l'Estoile,Memoiresjournaux, ed. G. Brunetet al., I2 vols. (Paris,I875-96), iX, pp. I93-5. 23 KasparPeucer, Commentarius de praecipais divinationumgeneribus (Wittenburg I553); KonradLycosthenes [Wolffhart], Prodigiorum ac ostentormmchronicon (Basle I557); JuliusObsequens, Prodigiorum liber, ed. Lycosthenes(Basle, I552). Ceardana- lyses this literaturein La natureet les prodiges,ch. 7. 24 The Chronicon,for example,was used as the basisfor a Germantranslation by Lycosthenes,Wunderwersk, oder Gottes unergrundtliches Vorbilden (Basle, I 5 57), andan Englishadaptation by StephenBateman, The Doome, WarningallMen to theQudgemente (London,I 58 I, S . T .C . I 582) . Two of the morefamous works which plagiarized figures or sectionsof the text of the Chroniconwere Boaistuau'sHistoires prodigieuses (see n. 26 below)and Pare'sDes monstreset prodiges(see n. 42 below). 25 Histoires prodigieuses,6 vols. (Lyon and Paris, I598). On the authorsand first publicationdates of the individualvolumes, see Rudolf Schenda,Die franzosische (cont. on p. 32) FIGURE 4 CELESTIALAPPARITION (I638)

ct c

- 32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 digieuses(I560) wasthe workof the Frenchtranslator and compiler Pierre Boaistuau, and it went through at least thirty editions in French, Dutch and English.26Boaistuau concentrated heavily on monsters,which he lifted from Peucerand Lycosthenes,as well as fromthe Swisssurgeon Jakob Rueff and the naturalistsKonrad Ges- nerand Pierre Belon.27 Like Lutherand Melanchthon, he juxtaposed recent and easily documentedmonstrous births a two-headed womanseen in Bavariain I54I, an Englishset of three-leggedSiamese twins from I552, a calf without forelegsreported in I556 with fantasticbeings like the celebratedmonster of Cracow,covered with the headsof barkingdogs, who diedafter four hours saying, "Watch, the Lord cometh". Despite individualdifferences in perspective, Boaistuau'ssuccessors maintained the same ghoulishtone and religious didacticismin the latervolumes of the Histoiresprodigieuses. The extent to which all of these formsof monsterliterature, from the humblestbroadside to the most eruditeLatin treatise, share in a common culture is obvious not only from the numbingfrequency with which the sameexamples recur in eachgenre, but also fromthe fundamentalsimilarity of interpretation.The authorof the ballad "Nature'sWonder?", Lycosthenes, and Boaistuau boast a singlepur- pose: to "discovrethe secret judgmentand scourge of the ire of God".28There was somevariation within this pattern.Some writers, like Luther and Melanchthon,used monstersto arguea particular positionin the Reformationdebate; in theirhands monsters became polemicalweapons against Calvinism during the Frenchwars of religion,29against Rome in late sixteenth-centuryEngland,30 or against separatismduring the EnglishCivil War,31 and the familiarwoodcuts appearedin alteredform to serve the purposeat hand. (A French Catholicversion of Melanchthon'smonster, for example,would have all visual and verbal referencesto the papacyremoved; Figure 5.) Otherwriters, perhaps the majority,proclaimed the birthsas God's (n. 25 cont.) Prodigienliteraturin der zweiten Hdlfte des I6. 3!ahrhunderts(Munchner Romanistische Arbeiten,xvi, Munich, I96I), pp. 62-8I- and, for a differentattribution of the sixth volume,Ceard, op. cit., pp. 462-3 n. 26 PierreBoaistuau, Histoires prodigieuses . . . extraictesde pl?wsieurs fameux autheurs (Paris, IS60). Schendadiscusses the variouseditions and translations,op. cit., pp. 34-5- 27 JakobRueff, De concept2xetgeneratione hominis (Zurich, I554), esp. v. 3-5; Konrad Gesner,Historia animalium, 3 vols. (Zurich,I55I-8), esp. i, p. 978, and iii, pp. 5I9- 22- PierreBelon, La natureet diversitedes poissons (Paris, I555), pp. 32-3. 28 The quotationis from the prefaceof EdwardFenton's English translation of Boaistuau,Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature(London, I569, S.T.C. I0787); see nn. I6, I8. 29 For example,Arnauld Sorbin, Tractatus de monstris(Paris, I570), translatedby Francoisde Belleforestas the fifthvolume of Histoiresprodigieuses, 5 vols. (Paris,I 582). 30 For example,Bateman, op. cit.; this translationof Lycosthenes,Prodigiorum ac ostentorumchronicon, was adaptedfor a Protestantaudience. 31 For example,Thomas Edwards, Gangraena, 3rd edn., 3 vols. (London, I646), 1l,. . pp. 4-5- THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 33

FIGURE 5 THE POPE-ASS, CATHOLICVERSION (I567)

Pierre Boaistuau, Histoiresprodigieuses . . . augmenteesoutre les precedentes impressions dedouzehistoires(Paris, I s67),p. I85. Bv permissionof the HoughlonLibrarvt, Harrard tJniverslty. PAST AND PRESENT 34 NUMBER 92 generalwarning to all sinners.32There was a that widespreadconviction monstrousbirths were far more commonthan in earlier a sign of the last times, days. Accordingto an Englishballad of I562: The Scripturesayth, before the ende Of all thingesshall appeare, Godwill woundersstraunge thinges send, As some1S sene this yeare. The selye infantes,voyde of shape, The caluesand pyggesso straunge With othermo of suchemishape Declareththis worldeschaunge.33 Few of the prodigywriters inquired deeply into the ship of preciserelation- monstrousbirths to the naturalorder, or questioned in which they the way were produced.Those that did fetched up againsta difficultquestion: how does one tell which monsters courseof arise in the natureand which are expresslyproduced as signs by In otherwords, God? whichmonsters are unnatural only becauserare, and whichare trulysupernatural and of divineorigin? writerson Virtuallyall of the prodigiesadopted the solution proposedby Augustine: natureis the will of God.34Augustine and his lowers sixteenth-centuryfol- allowednature little autonomyas a causalforce. All intothe proximate enquiry physicalcauses of monstrousbirths is wastedtime. Godshapes and altersthe naturalorder in sure,so accordancewith his plea- that naturebecomes a cipher,a mirrorof his will. Despite the austereinterpretations, it is clear that the interestin universal monstersdid not springsolely from a concernfor signs.Even in divine the middle of the sixteenthcentury, monstrous chil- drenand animalswere broughtto town for public monsters display.35By I600 werea prominentattraction at BartholomewFair in andcontinued as London such into the eighteenthcentury; during the restof theyear they could commonlybe seen in pubs or asmall fee.36 coffee-housesfor Broadsides,the most popularand conservativeform of 32 For example,the anonymousbroadside, Shapeof a "The True Reporteof the Formeand MonstrousChilde" (London, I562), repr.in A Black-LetterBalladsand Collectionof Seventy-Nine Broadsides,ed. JosephLilly (London, I867), broadsidescharged the sin to the pp. 27-30. Some a parentsof the child, as in "TheForme and Shapeof MonstrousChild" (London, I568), repr.in ibid., asuniversal and pp. I94-5. Otherstreated the sin denied the parents'special responsibility; see, for TrueDiscription of Two Monsterous example,"The Chyldren"(London, I565), repr.in Balladsand BroadsidesChiefly of the ElizabethanPenod, ed. HerbertL. I9I2), pp. I86-7. Collmann(New York 33 "A Discription of a MonstrousChylde" (London, I 562), Seventy-NineBlack-Letter repr.in A Collectionof Balladsand Broadsides, ed. Lilly, pp. 202-3. 34 Augustine,De civitateDei, xxi. 8, andDe 35 Tnnitate,iii. 2. W. Elderton,"The True Fourmeand Shapeof a Monsterous I565,S.T.C. 7565), repr. Chyld"(London, in Balladsand Broadsides Chiefly of theElizabethan ed.Collmann, p. I I3: "thisChilde was Penod dyvers broughtup to London,wheare it wasseene of worshipfullmen and womenof the Cytie.And alsoof 36Henry Morley,Memoirs the Countrey". of BartholomewFair (London, I859), p. reprintsa number of monsterhandbills from 3I5- Morley centurieson the late seventeenthand eighteenth pp. 3I7-32. See also RichardAltick, TheShows of Mass.,I978), ch. 3. London(Cambridge, THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 35 literature,continued to emphasizethe spiritualand apocalypticim- plications of prodigies, but as the tensions of the Reformation lessened, monstersbegan to lose their religiousresonance. This development was not always welcomed. For example, in a sermon preachedat Plymouthin I635, on the occasionof the local birth of Siamesetwins, the ministercastigated the practiceof showingmons- ters for money. He arguedthat it was unlawfulto "delight"in the undesirable,and he lamentedthe lack of popularinterest in the portentous meaningof monsters:"The commonsort make no further use of prodigiesand strange-births,than as a matterof wonderand table-talk". 37 From fear to delight, prodigyto wonder, sermonto table-talk- the transitioncan be tracedin the changingadjectives used to describe monstersin the titles of French and Englishbooks and broadsides. By the end of the sixteenthcentury, words like "horrible","terrible", "effrayable","espouventable" had begun to yield to "strange", "wonderful","merveilleux". This shift signalleda changein interpretation.Although God was of coursestill ultimatelyresponsible for all monstrousbirths, the emphasisshifted from final causes(divine will) to proximateones (physicalexplanations and the naturalorder). No longera transparentglass revealing God's purposes, nature began to assumethe role of an autonomousentity with a will - and sense of humour-of her own. This new vision informsa largeand het- erogeneousbody of literature:books of secretsor naturalwonders.

MONSTERS AS NATURAL WONDERS The original,broad popular interest in monstersas prodigiesseed- ed by Luther and the religiousupheavals of the Reformationcrys- tallized in the mass of French and English books and broadsides publicizingthese and other prodigiousevents. To a certaindegree, the wonderliterature of the latersixteenth and seventeenthcenturies representsa secularizationof this interest.Wonder books were cata- loguesof strangeinstances or hiddenproperties of animals,vegetables and minerals.38They lay in the medievaltradition of spurialike the De secretisnaturae attributed to AlbertusMagnus, or the De mirabi- libusauscultationibus which circulatedunder the name of Aristotle, and of question-and-answerbooks modelledon the pseudo-Aristo-

37 Th[omas] B[edford], A Trueand Certaine Relation of a Strange-Birth. . . Together withthe Notes of a Set7non,Preached October 23, I635 (London, I635, S.T.C. I79I) repr. in Charles Hindley, The Old Book Collector'sMiscellany, 3 vols. (London, I87I-3), 11, pp. I2, 2I. 38 For an idea of the extent and contents of this literature, see John Ferguson BibltograpAtcalNotes on Historiesof Inventionsand Books of Secrets,2 vols. (London I959), especially the indices at the end of vol. i and the sixth supplement of vol. ii- Louis B. Wright, Middle-ClassCulture in ElizabethanEngland (Chapel Hill, N.C. I935), pp- 549-72- 36 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 telian Problemataor the SalernitanQuestions.39 Their authorspil- laged classicalsources and more recentcosmography and travellit- erature,as well as the lavishlyillustrated books of sixteenth-century naturalistslike Gesnerand Belon.40 On firstglancing at a wonderbook, the readerof prodigyliterature experiencesan immediateflash of recognition.There among the geo- logical curiosa,the herbaland astrologicallore, stand long sections devoted to the canon of phenomenatraditionally identified as prodigies: floods, earthquakes,strange rains, celestialapparitions and monsters.Even the specificinstances are familiar,but the prodigies have been denudedof their supernaturalaura and presentedas in- trinsicallyinteresting facts to surpriseand entertain the reader,rather than to acquainthim with imminentapocalypse and judgement. The line betweenwonder and prodigyliterature in this period,as one mightexpect, was often blurred.A booklike Boaistuau'svolume of the Histoiresprodigieuses (translated into Englishunder the char- acteristictitle CertaineSecrete Wonders of l\lature)41 reallybelongs to both genres, since it does not restrict itself to purely portentous events;one of its chapters,for example,deals with the surprisingfact that a man can dip his hands withoutharm in moltenlead if he has firstwashed them in urineor mercury.Even clearer is the caseof Des monstreset prodiges(I573) by the French surgeonAmbroise Pare.42 In additionto pieces of informationof the moltenlead variety,Pare includesthree long chapterson "monsters"of the sea, air and land specieslike ostrichesand crocodiles. presumably granted honorary monstrousstatus by virtueof their rarity. Wonderbooks shared more than their subject matter with the prodigy tradition.They alsowere part of the greatbody of commonculture and concernswhich linkedthe learnedand the popularliterary tradi- tions, and they variedas much as prodigywriting in intellectuallevel and intent. Some of the most famous-Cardanus's De subtilitate (I550), Lemnius's De miraculisoccultis naturae (I559, expanded 1574)43 werewritten in Latinby doctorsfor readerswith a classical education. They dealt at length with causal explanationsand em- phaslzedphilosophical and theologicalissues. Do humanmonsters possess rationalsouls) for example, and in what form will they be resurrected?Like the Latinprodigy works, these wonder books were

39 Brian Lawn discussesthese traditionsin his The Salernitan Questions(Oxford, I 963) 40 See n. 27 above. 41 See nn. 26 and 28 above. 42 AmbroisePare, Des monstreset prodiges,first issued in his Deux livres de chirurgie (Paris, I573), and recentlyedited by JeanCeard (Geneva, I97I). All futurecitations will referto Ceard'sedition. 43 HieronyrnlusCardanus [Girolamo Cardano], De subtilitatelibri xxi (Nuremberg, I550); Levinus Lemnius[Livin Lemmens],De miraculisoccultis naturae (Antwerp, I559; revisededn., I574). THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 37 translatedinto the vernacularto reacha much wideraudience, and plunderedby more popularwriters. ThomasLupton is typicalof the vulgarizersof the wondertradition. His often reprintedA ThousandNotable Things(I579) was a catalogueof a thousandnatural marvels taken from Lemnius and others. Unillustrated,of smallerformat, and much cheaperthan the largeand expensivewonder classics, it avoidedcomplex explanations and explicitlycourted a lowerclass of reader.In his preface,Lupton advertisedhis plain style as accessibleto "the slenderlylearned and common sorte". His method, he claimed, had been to despoil less availableworks for naturalwonders, like monsters,in the hope that: manywill readethem, hearethem and haueprofit by them, thatotherwise whould neuerhaue knowen them. For many(I suppose)will buyethis Bookefor the things wheretothey areaffectioned, that neuer coulde or wouldhave bought, or lookedon the bookes,wherein all they are.44 Fromall appearances,wonder books were intended largely as plea- surereading. Fenton, for example,proposed his translationof Boais- tuauas a bracingalternative to "the fruitlesseHistorie of kingArthur and his round table Knights"and the "trifelingtales of Gatvinand Gargantua".4sIn fact monsterswere clearlyassociated with two of the most common and popularforms of escapist literature:travel booksand chivalricromance. Monstrous races men with a single giant foot, or huge ears, or their faces on their chests (Figure6) had playeda part in descriptionsof Africaand Asia since antiquity and still figuredin Renaissancecosmography.46 Giants and dwarfs were an importantelement in the traditionof romance.47Further- more, the controversysurrounding Pare's Des monstreset prodiges showsthat it and some of the othermore medically oriented monster literature,which dealt with sex and generationand was frequently highly illustrated,was consideredthinly veiled pornography.48Pare was forced to eliminatea section on lesbianism,with a graphicde- scriptionof the femalegenitals, before including Des monstresin later editionsof his collectedworks . 49 As the authorsof the wonderbooks continually emphasized, however, their worksyielded profit as well as pleasure.In partthe profit wasintellectual. Much of the wonderliterature shows strong affinities to the popularsixteenth-century genre of diverseslefons books of

44 ThomasLupton, A ThousandNotable Things, of SundrySortes (London, I586, S.T.C. I6956), sig. a 3r. 45 Fenton,Certaine Secrete Wonders, sig. a 3'. 46 See, for example, SebastianMunster, Cosmographiae universalis libri vi (Basle I544), p. I080; this traditionis the principalsubject of Wittkower's"Marvels of the East". 47 For example,the genealogyof Pantagruelin Rabelais,Pantagruel, ch. I, includes the namesof a largenumber of giantstaken from chivalric romance. 48 For the history of the controversywith the Parisianfaculty of medicine, see Ceard'sintroduction to Pare,op. cit., pp. XiV-XVi. 49 See Pare,op. cit., pp. 26-7 n., for the uncensoredtext. l t

38 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92

FIGURE 6 MONSTROUSRACES (I493)

HartmannSchedel) Liber chronicarnm (Nuremberg, I493)n fo. I080. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 39 selectionsfrom famousauthors for those with neithertime, money nor educationto read them in the original.5?Many of these books concentratedon fields of generalinterest, like medicine,natural his- toryand geography,and triedto rendertheir material more palatable by singlingout extraordinaryor astoundingeffects, often including monsters. Some, like Rhodiginus'sLectiones antiquae (first edition I5I6), became common sources for later writerson wonders,who alsoadopted their approach to the classics.51Boaistuau's full title, for example,was Histoires prodigieuses extraictes de plusieurs fameux auteurs grecset latins,sacrez et prophanes.52 Thereis evidencethat the second-handclassical culture accessible throughwonder books of all sorts was prizedfor its socialas well as its intellectualbenefits. The social utility of this kind of knowledge was most baldlystated in the Englishconversation manuals and etiquette books of the seventeenthcentury. The anonymousauthor of A Helpe to Memoneand Discourse(I62I) stressedthe importanceof conversancewith "the passagesand occurrencesof the world, the creaturesthereof, and the casualtiestherein", for: this it is thatpresents education, Gentility, understanding, memory . . .; it hasbeen a porterto admitmany a pooroutside for his preicous[sic] inside, to silkenlaced and perfumedhindes, thathad rich bodies, but poorwretched mindes.53 To this end, conversationmanuals provided cheaply and conveniently materialwhich might be parlayedinto successand preferment.Wil- liam Winstanley'sNew Helpe to Discourse(I669) is typical of the genre. Besidesquestions and answers,jokes, epigrams,and rules of etiquette,it includeda sectioncalled "A Discourseof Wonders,For- eign and Domestick". Here the readerfound accountsof storms, earthquakes,floods, volcanoes,and a selectionof the most famous monstersof the day: Lazarusand John BaptistaColoredo, a set of Siamesetwins from I542, and the Englishgiant William Evans.54 Anotherrelated aspect of the wonderbooks deserves mention. Not onlydid theycourt a large,lay publiceager for diversion,a smattering of classicalculture, and a readysupply of educatedsmall talk; many of thempresented a new, civil idealof culture,opposed to bothpopu- lar ignoranceand the solitaryefforts of the professionalscholar, and identifiedwith the cultureof the educatedlayman-the lawyer,the businessman,the governmentofficial, and their wives and daughters.

50 Schenda,Die franzosische Prodigienliteratur, pp. I4-2I. 51Ludovicus Caelius Rhodiginus [Lodovico Ricchieri], Lectiones antiquae (Venice ISI6; expandedBasle, I542). The descriptionof two bicephalousmonsters in xxiv. 3 of the I542 editionwas particularlyinfluential. 52 See n. 26 above. 53 A Helpeto Memorie and Discourse *with Table-Talk (London, I 62I, S . T.C. I 305I ). Wrightdiscusses this kind of literaturein Middle-ClassCulture, pp. I 32-g. 54 W[illiam]W[instanley], The New Helpto Discourse, sth edn. (London,I702), pp. I37-5I 4o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92

This attitudeis epitomizedin GuillaumeBouchet's Les serees(I584). Dedicatedto the merchantsof Poitiers,it was cast in the form of a series of amusingand instructiveafter-dinner conversations among social peers, men and women. Most of the subjectschosen for dis- cussionare familiar to the connoisseurof wonderbooks: little-known propertiesof wine and water,among other things, surprisingstories aboutfish, dogs, cuckolds,and an entiresection on hunchbacksand monsters.In his introductionBouchet commended the collectiveand conversationalapproach to learningas a: truly Pythagorean school, effected through communication which is free and not mercenary. For it is sure that an educated man benefits more in an hour employed in discoursing and reasoning with his equals, than he would in a day spent solitary and shut up in study.55 Reflectingon this new social and sociableuse of monstersas part of the educatedsmall-talk of the manwith pretensionsto culture,we can see the beginningsof what has been calledthe "withdrawal"of the educatedclasses from more popular culture.56 Significantly, this withdrawalappears first less as a shift in intereststhan in self-con- sciousness.Once the familiarcanon of prodigies,with all its popular andreligious associations, was presented as naturalwonders or secrets the visibleeffects of hiddencauses known only to a few it gained a new aura of intellectualrespectability, and became, accordingto the introductoryepistle of the FrenchLemnius, "a subjectof great fashionand not vulgar".57 This changein sensibilitywas accompaniedby a changein interpretation.Beginning in the secondhalf of the sixteenthcentury, there wasa growingtendency in the wonderbooks, as opposedto the highly conservativebroadside literature, to playdown or even deny the prodigious characterof monstrousbirths. This strainappeared first in the Latin literature- Cardanuswas franklysceptical of the predic- tive value of monstersin De subtilitate58-but severaldecades later even Montaigne,writing as a layman, shied away from portentous speculations.In the essay "Dnunenfant monstrueux", he described a child with a parasitictwin broughtfor his inspection,and hazarded a brief politIcalprognostic based on the deformity.In the next sen- tence, however,he retreatedto a morecongenial suspension of judgement: But for fear the event should belie it, it is better to let it go its way, for there is nothing like divining about things past. "So thatS when things have happened, by 55 Guillaume Bouchet, Les serees, 2 vols. (Lyons, I6I8), i, sig. a 5V-6r.The first edition of this work, including only Book I, appearedat Poitiers in I 584. Later editions, including additional Books, were published at Paris (I608) and Lyon (I6I5). 56 Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 270-g, Davis discusses the same phenomenon in her "Proverbial Wisdom". 57 Lemnius, Les occultesmerveilles et secretzde nature, trans. I. G. P. (Paris, I574), fo. 3 . 58 Cardanus, De la subtilite, et subtiles inventions, trans. Richard Le Blanc (Paris, I556), fo. 272r. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 4I someinterpretation they arefound to havebeen prophesied" [Cicero]. As they said of Epimenidesthat he prophesiedbackward.59 Othertexts showthe sameattitude. While popular literature retained its traditionalprodigious and propheticthrust, educatedculture, in this as in other areas7was tending to detachitself from what it per- ceived as the ignoranceand supersititionof the folk-"the most deceptablepart of Mankind", as Thomas Browne called them in Pseudodoxiaepidemica.60 In the wonderliterature, then, monsters alongwith the rest of the canonof prodigies beganto castoff theirreligious associations. This trend was accompaniedby a movementto emphasizenatural causesover supernaturalones. Pare,for example,listed thirteensep- aratecauses of monstrousbirths in his Des monstres.Of these only three (God's glory, his wrath, and demonicintervention) were supernatural;the rest representedan elaborationon the naturalexpla- nationsoffered by Aristotleand writersin the Aristoteliantradition (too much or too little seed, maternalimagination, a narrowwomb, a traumaticpregnancy, hereditary disease, bestiality and so on), plus a new causal category artifice to include fakes and children mutilatedby their parentsto enhancetheir take as beggars.61The samenatural causes figured in the otherwonder writers, from Lem- nius, who appliedthem with the sophisticationto be expectedfrom a doctor, to Lupton, who expandedthe powerof maternalimagination to covervirtually every eventuality. Impliedin this shiftin causalthinking is a new wayof talkingabout nature.Whereas in the prodigyliterature nature was effectively trans- parent,a veil throughwhich God'spurposes could be discerned,she acquireda new autonomyin the wonderbooks. Typically,she was personified;Pare, for example,called her the "chambermaidto our greatGod".62 In a laterchapter, apropos of a most peculiarmonster reportedlyfound in Africa(Figure 7), he acknowledgedhis inability to give any kind of functionalexplanation for the multiplicationof its parts;"The only thing I can say", he admitted,"is that Naturewas playing [s'y est jouee], to make us admire the greatness of her works".63Increasingly in the wonderbooks, the emphasisfell on the 59Michel de Montaigne,Essays, ii. 30, in The CompleteWorks of Montaigne, trans. DonaldM. Frame(Stanford, I948), p. 539. On Montaigne'sgeneral scepticism re- gardingprodlgies, see Ceard,La natureet les prodiges,pp. 4I5-34. 60 ThomasBrowne, Pseudodoxia epidemica, i. 3, in The Worksof Sir ThomasBrowne ed. GeoffreyKeynes, 4 vols. (London, I964), ii, p. 25. 61 The list is in Pare,Des monstres,p. 4. See Aristotle,De generationeanimalium, iv. 3-4 (76gbIo-773a33)jAlbertus Magnus, De animalibus, xviii. I. 6 and xviii. 2. 3 (ed. HermannStadler, 2 VOlS., Munster,I920, ii, pp. I2I4-8, I224-6). 62 Pare, op. cit., p. II7. The personificationof natureis, of course,nothing new. See ArthurO. Lovejoyand GeorgeBoas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquiw (Baltlmore,Md., I935), p. 448; GeorgeD. Economou,The GoddessNatura in Medieval Literature(Cambridge, Mass., I 972). 63 Pare,op. cit., p. I39. 42 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92

FIGURE 7 AFRICAN 1tONSTER (I573)

AmbroisePare, Des monstreset prodiges(Paris, I573), ed. JeanCeard (Geneva, I97I), THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 43 worksof naturerather than the worksof God. Monsterswere treated as jokes or "sports"(lusus) of a personifiednature, ratherthan as divine prodigies. They signified her fertility of invention and throughher God'sown fertilityand creativity,rather than his wrath. Not only could humanartifice create monsters, but all naturalmons- ters were in a certainsense nature'sartifacts, and naturebecame the artisanpar excellence. MONSTERSAND THE BACONIAN PROGRAMME FrancisBacon's reflections on the study of monstersrepresent an intermediatestage in the gradualprocess of naturalizationbegun in the wonderbooks. Where Pare and other wonderauthors counten- anceda mixtureof supernaturaland naturalcauses in the generation of monsters,Bacon insisted on a strict divisionbetween marvels of naturaland supernaturalorigin; henceforth compilations of eachsort of event were to be kept separate,in accordancewith more general prohibitionsagainst mixing natural philosophy and theology.64 Mon- stersnow belongedwholly to naturalhistory, the productsof wholly naturalcauses or "generalrules". Yet within the corpusof natural historyBacon preserved the traditionalcanon of prodigiesas a distinct category.In The Advancementof Learning,his programmefor the reformof human knowledge,he divided naturalhistory into three parts:the study of nature"in course",or naturalhistory per se; the study of nature"erring", or the "historyof marvels";and the study of nature"wrought, or the historyof arts". 6s Althoughthe "miracles of nature", includingmonsters and the rest of the prodigycanon, couldbe "comprehendedunder some Form or fixedLaw", for Bacon they nonethelessconstituted a coherentcategory rather than a mis- cellaneouscollection of phenomena.All phenomenawere natural, but nature operatedin three distinct modes, correspondingto the three subdivisionsof naturalhistory: the natural(or regular),the preternatural,and the artificial. Bacon's rationalefor segregatingmonsters and other prodigies from mainstreamnatural history derivedfrom the image of nature purveyedin the wonder books. Bacon adoptedand elaboratedthe view of nature as a creative, if capricious,artisan, and made this characterizationthe implicitbasis for his tripartitedivision of natural history.Like Pare,Bacon looked to nature'saberrations for the finest examplesof her workmanship.Monsters illuminated both the reg- ularitiesof nature,for "he who has learnther deviationswill be able moreaccurately to describeher paths",and also furtheredthe inventions of art, since "the passagefrom the miraclesof natureto those of art is easy".66Personification of natureas an ingeniouscraftsman 64 Bacon, Norumorganon, ii. 65, in Works,xiv, pp. 45-6. 65 Bacon, TheAdvancement of Learning(London, I605, S.T.C. I I64), ii, in Works, ii, p. I02. 66 Bacon, Norumorganon, ii. 29, in Works,xiv, p. I38. 44 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 permittedBacon to straddletwo explanatorydivides. On the one hand, the historyof marvelsbridged the traditionallyopposed cat- egoriesof natureand art; on the other,the workmanlyimage of nature enabledBacon tacitly to invokethe finaland formalcauses which he had otherwisebanned from naturalphilosophy. Bacon thus appro- priatedboth the prodigycanon and the natureimagery of the wonder booksand turnedthem to novel ends. The antithesisof artand nature was a commonplaceof Renaissance thought. GeorgePuttenham's Arte of EnglishPoesie (I589) provides an inventoryof the possiblerelations between the two poles:art may aid, imitate, modify or surpassnature.67 Bacon attempted to over- comethis entrenchedopposition by assimilatingworks of artto those of nature, decrying "the fashion to talk as if art were something differentto nature".68In the Norumorganon he noted that this re- conciliationrequired both that artbecome more natural (through the manipulationof naturalcauses) and that naturebe made more artificial (as the inventive artisanof the wonder books). In the latter rapprochementthe distinctionbetween the formaland finalcauses of the artificialrealm and the materialand efficientcauses of the natural realmbecame blurred. As the more "artificial"of nature'sworks, monstersand othermarvels would inspire human inventions, since: the passagefrom the miraclesof natureto thoseof art is easy;for if naturebe once seizedin her variations,and the causebe manifest,it will be easyto leadher by art to such deviationas she was at firstled by chance. . .69 Both the history of marvelsand the history of the arts revealed naturein extremis,either forced to wanderfrom her wontedpaths by the "obstinacyand resistanceof matter"in the case of marvels,or "constrainedand mouldedby humanart and labour".The "experi- ments of the mechanicalarts" and nature'sown deviationslifted the "maskand veil, as it were, fromnatural objects, which are generally concealedor obscuredunder a diversityof forms and externalap- pearances".70As naturestruggled to overcomethe recalcitranceof matteror the fettersof art, she assumedthe novel formsof "preter- generation",monsters, which servedas models for the noveltiesof art. Thus both naturaland artificialmarvels corrected conventional wisdomwith exceptionswhich forced philosophers to seekmore com- prehensiveprinciples, "for as the understandingis elevatedand raised by rareand unusualworks of nature,to investigateand discoverthe formswhich includethem also; so is the sameeffect frequentlypro- 67 GeorgePuttenham, The Arte of EnglishPoesie (London, I 589, S.T.C. 205I9), ed. GladysD. Willcockand Alice Walker(Cambridge, I936), pp. 303-7. See Edward WilliamTayler, Natureand Art in RenaissanceLiterature (New York, I964), esp. ch. I. 68 Bacon,Description of theIntellectual Globe, ch. 2, in Works,xv, p. I53. 69 Bacon,Norum organon, ii. 29, in Works,xiv, p. I38. 70 Ibid., "Preparationfor a Naturaland ExperimentalHistory", in Works,xiv, p. 2I7. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 45 duced by the excellentand wonderfulworks of art".71 The view that the most penetratinginsights into the innerworkings of naturewere to be gleaned from the close study of anomaliesdirected seventeenth-centuryexperimenters towards singular phenomena such as a double refractionin Iceland spar often describedas "wonders", "marvels"and "monsters"of natureby Baconand his followers. In contrastto the wondertradition, however, the avowedpurpose of Bacon'sprojected collection of prodigiesand monstrous births was the enrichmentof both speculativeand operativenatural philosophy, ratherthan the entertainmentretailed in the wonderbooks. His at- tempts to explain the secrets of nature by annexingmonsters and other traditionalprodigies to naturalhistory paralleledan equally explicitattempt to divorcethese phenomena from their more popular and, he implied,more frivolous context. Once again, Bacon's position lies half-waybetween the sharedculture of prodigiesand the complete withdrawalof learned culture from the enjoymentof monstersin publicfairs, broadsidesand wonderbooks. Bacon was at pains to distinguish his history of marvelsfrom "booksof fabulousexperiments and secrets"which served up a jum- ble of fact and fable to "curiousand vain wits". Wonderbooks in- discriminatelymixed authentic wonders with more dubious accounts, sacrificingaccuracy to admiration.Bacon singled out treatmentswith religiousovertones as particularlyliable to distortion,and calledfor a strict division between historiesof wondersattributed to natural andsupernatural causes: "as for the narrationstouching the prodigies and miraclesof religions,they areeither not true, or not natural;and thereforeimpertinent for the storyof nature".72 Naturalhistory treated only those marvelswhich could be well documentedaccording to guide-linesclearly drawn from Bacon's own legaltraining in the eval- uation of evidence and testimony. Reportersof monsterswere to identifythe authorityor witnessfrom whom the descriptionoriginally derived,to assessthe reliabilityof the source,to statehow the source had come by the information(eyewitness, oral or written), and to judge whetheradditional corroboration was required.73As in con- temporarycourts of law, the educationand social standingof the witness enhanced or impeached the credibilityof his testimony. Hence popularaccounts of the broadsidevariety, written on hearsay and usuallyanonymous, were automaticallysuspect. Bacon also opposed admirationand wonderto a thoroughinves- tigationof naturalcauses, associatingthe formerresponses with ignoranceand narrowexperience, for "neithercan any man marvelat

71 Bacon,Norum organon, ii. 3I, in Works,xiv, pp. I39-40. 72 Ibid., ii. I2, p. I04. 73 Bacon,"Preparation for a Naturaland ExperimentalHistory", p. 223. 46 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 the play of puppets,that goeth behindthe curtain,and advisethwell of the motion".74All too often mere rarityexcites the ignorant.75 Bacon was not the only seventeenth-centurywriter to connect an appetitefor wonderswith populargullibility. Pierre Bayle's Pensees diversessur le comete(I682) counteredthe classicalinterpretation of cometsas portentswith the weightof informedtestimony. The con- sidered views of a few trustworthywitnesses counterbalancedthe consensusof "a hundredthousand vulgar minds which follow like sheep".76Although neither Bacon nor Bayle exemptedthe learned from uncriticalbelief, both implied that "vulgarminds" were less likely to curb their penchantfor wondersby a conscientioussearch for naturalcauses, particularly if religiousissues were at stake. The self-styledBaconians of the FrenchBureau d'Adresse and the EnglishRoyal Societyfollowed Bacon's lead in that they too aspired to a more naturalisticand sophisticatedtreatment of monsterswhile retaininga good measureof the popularwonder sensibility. Theo- phrasteRenaudot's short-lived Bureau d'Adresse in Paris(I633-42) mingled the utilitarianaims of the Baconianprogramme in natural philosophywith the loreof the wonderbooks. Bacon's works adorned many Parisianlibraries of the period,77and membersof the Bureau energeticallypursued his mandateto enlist sciencein the serviceof social improvement.Originally conceived along frankly practical lines as a combinationof employmentoffice, centrefor commercial exchange,and dispensaryof medicaland legal advicefor the poor, the Bureaualso sponsoreda series of weekly discussionson topics of generalinterest.78 Like the authorsof the conversationmanuals, the disputantsexpounded upon social skills ("Of Dancing"), diet ("WhetherDinner or SupperOught to be the Largest")and curiosa drawnfrom tlSeproblem tradition ("Of Physiognomy"),as well as upon the ubiquitousmonsters ("Of Two MonstrousBrethren Living in the Same Body", "Of the Little Hairy Girl Lately Seen in This City").79The Bureaud'Adresse conferences read like the airingof materialcontained in a treatiselike Cardanus'sDe subtilitate(I550) in a publicforum devoted both to polishingconversational skills and 74 Bacon,Advancement of Learning,i, in Works,ii, p. 8I. 75 Bacon,Norum organon, ii. 3I, in Works,xiv, p. I4I. 76 PierreBayle, Pensees diverses sur le comete(Rotterdam, I683), ed. A. Prat,2 vols. (ParlS, I9II-I2), 1, pp. I34-5. 77 Henri-JeanMartin, Livre pouvoirs et societea Parisau XVIIesiecle, IS98-I 70I, 2 vols. (Histoireet civilisationdu livre, iii, Geneva,I969), i, pp. 234, 27I, 427, 509. 78 HowardM. Solomon,Public Welfare,Science and Propagandain Seventeenth- CenturyFrance (Princeton, I972), pp. 74-5 . 79 Reportsof the "conferences"of the Bureaud'Adresse were published weekly by Renaudot,who also compiledfour collectionsof the conferences(I634-4I). A fifth volumewas published by Renaudot'sson Eusebein I655. In additionto severalFrench editions,the collectionsappeared in at leasttwo partialEnglish translations, one made circar640, andthe otherin two volumesin I664-5. The titlescited are taken from this last:A GeneralCollection of Discoursesof theVirtuosi of France,trans. G. Havers,2 vols. (London, I664-5). See Solomon,op. cit., pp. 65-6. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND to an exchangeof informationand ideas franklymodelled on the market-place. 47 Althoughthe speakersdid not strictlyobserve Bacon's injunction to keep theologyand naturalphilosophy apart in theirdiscussions of monsters, they sought an alternativesort of piety in the study of secondarycauses - one whichechoed Bacon's sentiments on wonder, rarityand the searchfor naturalcauses: For though[monsters] may be veryextraordinary in regardof theirseldomness, yet they havetheir true causes as well as ordinaryevents. Which doth not diminishthe Omnipotenceof the Divine Majesty,but, on the contrary,renders it morevisible and palpableto our Senses.80 The conferencesof the Bureau d'Adresserecall the treatmentof monstersin books of wonderson the one hand, and their study by fledgelingscientific societies in Franceand Englandon the other, for the Bureaupresented some of the first formallyand publiclyorgan- ized discussionsof naturalphilosophy, addressing problems such as "Of Atoms", "Of the Motionor Rest of the Earth","Of the Eclipse of the Sun and Moon". The RoyalSociety was the firstacademy to be devotedexclusively to the studyof naturalphilosophy, and it explicitlyespoused Baconian preceptsand objectivesin its charter.Excluding God and the human soul, all the "productionsand raritiesof Natureand Art"were to be studiedwith the aim of censoringerror and discoveringuseful information:"In the Artsof MensHands, those that eithernecessity, con- venience,or delighthave produc'd: In the worksof Nature,their helps, their varieties,redundancies, and defects:and in bringingall these to the usesof humaneSociety".81 Like the participantsin the Bureau d'Adresseand the earlier gatheringsdescribed by Bouchet in Les serees,the foundersof the Royal Societyadvocated a communalap- proachto learning,citing Bacon'sview thatif companyheightens the emotions,it must do the same for the intellect. They proposedcol- laborativeinvestigations of: whatNature does willingly,what constrain'd- what with its own power,what by the succoursof Art;what in a constantrode, and with somekind of sportand extrava- gance;industriously marking all the variousshapes into whichit turnsit self, when it 1S persued,and by how manysecret passages it at last obtainsits end . . .82 Still secretive,protean, playful, the artisannature of Baconand the wonder books persisted in the Baconian activities of the Royal Society. Giventhe Royal Society'sinterest in the Baconianhistory of marvels, the prevalenceof reportsof monstrousbirths in the earlyvol- umes of the PhilosophicalTransactions is hardlysurprising. Fellows and correspondentsregularly sent in accountswhich scrupulously 80 GeneralCollection of Discoursesof theVirtuosi of France,i, p 60 81 ThomasSprat, History of theRoyal Society (London, I667; S.T.C. 55032), ed. JacksonI. Copeand HaroldW. Jones(St. Louis, Mo., I958), p. 83. 82 Ib7d.,pp. 98-I00- 48 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 followedBacon's format in the Parasceve,listing namesof witnesses and particularsof time, place and circumstance.However, the re- porterswere notably reluctant to followup Bacon'sinjunction in The Advancementof Learningto seek the underlyingcauses which would assimilatesuch oddities to the regularcourse of nature.The pains- taking descriptionsand illustrations clearlydrawn from life, in contrastto the schematicwoodcuts of the broadsides seldomserved to makea point in comparativeanatomy or to substantiateor criticize a theoryof embryologicaldevelopment or teratogenesis. Robert Boyle's reportson a monstrouscolt and calf are typical. Mr. David Thomas and Dr. Haughteynof Salisburywere cited as witnessesto the calf (Figure8), "whosehinder Leggs had no Joynts, and whose Tongue was, Cerberus-like,triple", and the readerwas referredto the doctor for furtherinformation. Boyle recommended spiritsof wine for preservingthese and other monsters,in orderto "affordAnatomists the opportunitiesof examiningthem", but offered no explanation,anatomical or otherwise,for either monster.83De- spite a seventeenth-centuryefflorescence of embryologicaltheory in the works of Kenelm Digby, WilliamHarvey and others, even the medicallytrained authors of the monsterreports in the Philosophical Transactionsdeclined to link their observationsto ongoing contro- versiesover normalembryological development.84 Thus the RoyalSociety investigated monsters in a secular,but not whollynaturalistic vein. Membersadhered to Bacon'sinstructions to segregatethe naturalfrom the supernaturalin the historyof marvels (Boyle, for example,made lists called "StrangeReports" of natural wonderslike "resuscitableplants" or a chemicalliquor which waxed and waned with the moon, and he separatedthese from analogous lists of supernaturalphenomena),85 but they stoppedshort of pro- viding explanationsfor such anomaliesin terms of naturalcauses. Althoughtheir high standardsfor accuracyand detaildistinguish the RoyalSociety's accounts of monstersfrom those found in the wonder books, both genresclearly share a taste for the rareand singularfor its own sake. Thomas Sprat, official historianof the early Royal Society, defended its predilectionfor "the unexpected,and mon- strousexcesses, which Nature does sometimespractice in her works". While admittingthat a steady diet of such "strange,and delightful Tales"would rendernatural history frivolous, he nonethelessmain- tainedthat they "areindeed admirable in themselves",and reasserted 83 RobertBoyle, "An Accountof a Very Odd MonstrousCalf", Phil. Trans.Roy. soc.)i (I665-6), pp. IO, 85. 84 CharlesW. Bodemer,"Embryological Thought in Seventeenth-CenturyEng- land",in MedicalInvestigation in Seventeenth-CenturyEwlgland (paper read at a Clark LibrarySeminar, I4 Oct. I967 (Los Angeles, I968); JosephNeedham, A Historyof Embryology(New York, I959), ch. 3. 85 RobertBoyle, "StrangeReports", in TheWorks of theHonourable Robert Boyle, ed. ThomasBirch, 6 vols. (London, I772), v, pp. 604-g. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 49 FIGURE 8 MONSTROUSCALF (I665)

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RobertBoyle, "Observablesupon a MonstrousHead", Phil. Trans.Roy. Soc., i (I665-6), betweenpp. 78-9. 5o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 the Baconianinjunction to study the monstrousas a correctiveto commonrules and as a modelfor imitation.86 Just as the Royal Societyfailed to conjointhe historiesof nature erringand naturein course,it was also unableto realizethe putative connectionbetween nature erring and naturewrought. The statutes of the Societyexhorted members to "view, and discourseupon the productionsand raritiesof Nature, and Art: and to considerwhat to deducefrom them, or how they may be improv'dfor use, or discov- ery".87Similarly, the early issues of the PhilosophicalTransactions show a lively interestin the historyof tradesand inventions:typical titles include"An Accomptof the Improvementof OptickGlasses in Rome" and "Some ObservationsMade in the Orderingof Silk- Worms".Nonetheless, the RoyalSociety did not makegood Bacon's claimthat the marvelsof naturewould inspire marvels of art. At least in the seventeenthcentury, it producedfew inventionsof any sig- nificance;the connectionbetween the wondrousworks of natureand those of man provedto be moretenuous than Bacon had suggested. The incoherenceof the Baconianscheme for natural history is even more apparentin a popularimitator of the Royal Society, the self- styledAthenian Society. Its annals,variously titled the AthenianGa- zetteor the AthenianMercury, testify to the extent to which the Ba- conianenterprise fired the popularimagination. Describing itself as the "SecondBest Institution"(deferring to the Royal Society)and takingthe "PhoenixBoyle" as its inspiration,the AthenianSociety produceda "SecondBest History"(deferring to Sprat),which set forth the complementaryroles of the two academies:"the Royal Society,for the experimentalimprovement of NaturalKnowledge, and the AthenianSociety, for communicatingnot only that, but all other Sciencesto all men, as well as to both Sexes".88The encyclo- paedic range of issues addressedby the Gazette,its question-and- answerformat, and its avowed goal of instructingthose without a universityeducation all recallBouchet's Les sereesand the conversa- tion manuals.Everything was grist for the Gazette'smill: "Whether Beauty be Real or Imaginary?";"Whether There is a Vacuum?"; "What is the Cause of Dreams?".Monsters, along with the usual rosterof prodigies,cropped up frequentlyin the magazine,and its editorsheld forth on the usual theoriesof maternalimagination, rationalsouls, and the deficiencyor surplusof seminalvirtue. Althoughthe AthenianSociety, which even went so faras to launch

86 Sprat,op- cit., pp. 2I4-5- 87 Ibid.,p- I45- 88 [CharlesGilden], The History of theAthenian Socie@, for theResolving of all Nice and CuriousQuestions (London, [I69I]), p. 3. For detailsconcerning the publishing historyof the Gazette,see GilbertD. McEwen,The Oracle of theCoffee House (San Marino,Calif., I972); StephenParks, "John Dunton and TheWorks of theLearned", TheLibrary, sth ser., xxiii (I968), pp. I3-24. .

THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 5I its own projectfor a naturalhistory of domesticwonders,89 represents a caricatureof the science practisedby the Royal Society, it merely exaggeratedthe genuineinterest which the seventeenth-centuryFel- lows took in monstersand other freaksof nature.Wonder literature transformedthose freaksfrom religiousprodigies into naturalmar- vels. Baconand the Royal Societymade them into the key to secrets of naturallaw. But evenin thePhilosophical Transactions they retained theircoherence as a set of phenomenawhich belonged together, even thoughthe only thing they had in commonwas that eachwas anom- alous.It is difficultto explainthis element of the Baconianprogramme a naturalhistory in which monstersand other "unnatural"events enjoyedsuch prominence except by the lingeringinfluence of the prodigyand wondertradition. Thus Bacon representsa half-wayhouse in the naturalizationof monsters;he rejectedsupernatural explanations while retainingin covert form the final causes implicit in his image of an active and personifiednature. He also occupiesan intermediateposition in the processof culturalwithdrawal; deploring vulgar credulity and refin- ing criteriaof evidence to distinguish the true monster from the simple fake, he nonethelessaccepted the popularjudgement that nature'saberrations were as revealingas her regularities.Bacon's early followersin the Bureaud'Adresse, the Royal Societyand the AthenianSociety retained his emphasison marvelsand commitment to the collaborativeeffort of lay enquiry the heritageof the wonder and conversationliterature. This was not the case for the principal French scientific society of the period: the ParisianAcademie des bclences.

THE MEDICALIZATIONOF MONSTERS The Academiedes Sciencesrepresents the culminationof the pro- cess of naturalizationand culturalwithdrawal in late seventeenth- centurytreatments of monsters.Like theircounterparts in the Royal Society,the Frenchacademicians evinced keen interestin monsters, and the Memoiresof the Academiecontain nearly as manyreports of monstrousbirths as the correspondingissues of the Philosophical Transactions.However, the French savantsinvestigated their monsters within a frameworkwhich was both culturallyand intellectually professional.They studied them as specialists, chosen for stature within their discipline,rather than as laymenwith a generalinterest in things natural,and they situatedmonsters firmly inside a broader theoreticalframework drawn from embryology and comparative anat- omy, ratherthan inside the heterocliteBaconian history of marvels. This contrastin approacharises at least in part from imporant organizationaldifferences between the two academies.While the 89 AthenianGazette, vii no. 3 (I692). 52 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 Royal Societyadmitted both amateursand outstandingscientists as membersand set no upperlimit to theirnumbers, the Academiedes Sciencesconsisted of a nucleus of twenty salaried"pensionnaires" residentin Paris, chosen by scientificspeciality and drawnfrom the ranksof distinguishedprofessors at the Universityof Parisand the Museumof NaturalHistory.90 Although the popularand professional interestin monstersmay have sprungfrom common roots, the members of the Academiewere far more likely to regardthe topic in a medicallight whichimplied identification with botha learnedprofes- sion and a naturalisticscheme of explanation. Hand-picked a number as anatomists and expectedto do researchof a specializedand professionalnature, the Frenchacade- miciansowed primaryallegiance to their disciplinesrather than to the generalBaconian programme for naturalhistory. Drawing upon an establishedmedical tradition of compilinganomalies as the basis forcomparative investigations,91 they approached monsters as special cases in the establishedfields of comparativeanatomy and embryology ratherthan as items in a heterogeneouscategory composed solely of anomalies.The anatomistsof the Academiedissected not only monstersbut also animalslike bears,foses, owls and so forth,on the hypothesisthat structureswhich were hiddenor difficultto observe in one species might be more easily studied in another.Interest in exotic creatureswas toleratedonly in so far as it illuminatedthe anatomyof morecommon ones.92 The reports on monsters producedby the early Academiedes Sciencestestify to this spirit. Like those of the Royal Society, the reportsof the Academieidentify parents and witnesses by name,give detailsof time and place, and supplya descriptionand dissectionc)f the monster.The Academiedescriptions, however, routinely relate normaland abnormalstructures, often drawingconclusions applic- able to normalanatomy and physiology.The surgeonJean Mery, for example,used his examinationof a monstrousfoetus without a mouth to substantiatea theoryof foetal nourishment;the anatomistAlexis Littre made his study of anothermonster the point of departurefor speculationon prevailingtheories of nervousfluid.93 90Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society(Englewood Cliffs, N.J., I97I), p. 82' Joseph Philippe FrancJoisDeleuze, Histoireet descriptiondu MuseumRoyal d'HistoireNaturelle, 2 vols. (Paris,I823), i, pp. 7-I7. 91Rueff, De conceptuet generationehominis, and RealdoColombo, De re anatomica librixv (Venice,I554) bothincluded accounts of monstersas partsof medicaltreatises on moregeneral topics. In the seventeenthcentury the Danishdoctor Thomas Bar- tholinusand the Italianmedical writer Fortunio Liceti argued for a medicaldiscussion of monstersas a necessarycomplement to the studyof normalorganisms. See lshomas Bartholinus,Historiae anatomicae rariorum, 6 pts. (Copenhagen,I654-67)- Fortunio Liceti,De monstris(Padua, I6I6), translatedinto Frenchin I708 by the physicianJean Palfyn,who appendedanatomical descriptions of morerecent monsters. 92 Histoirede l'AcademieRoyale des Sciences, I666 a I698 (Paris,I777), p. I85. 93 Memoiresde l'AcademieRoyale des Sciences, annee I 709 (Paris,I733), pp. 9-20. THE STUDY OF MONSTERS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 53 Unlike the more doctrinaireBaconians of the Royal Society, the Frenchacademicians did not expectthat the studyof monsterswould lead to technologicalinnovations, although they readily acknow- ledgedthe importanceof an alliancebetween science and technology. French anatomistsretained a sense of wonderat nature'singenuity in creating myriad variationson a structuraltheme in the animal kingdom,and found these "prodigious"adaptations "very pleasant" to contemplate.But they tended to reservetheir highestadmiration for the underlyingunity of nature'splan and its harmoniousadapta- tion to variedconditions, rather than for anomalies. By the turnof the eighteenthcentury, the medicalizationof monsters which is so strikingin the work of the FrenchAcademie began to makeheadway in Britainas well. In I 699, forexample, Dr. Edward Tyson, Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Collegeof Physicians,communicated an accountto the formerof a "man-pig" bornin Staffordshire.Although Tyson offereda detaileddescription and illustrationof the monster,his centraltheme was theoretical:to disprovethe belief that such deformitiesresulted from bestialityand the mixture of human and animal seed, and to suggest alternative causessuch as pressureon the womb.94 For British as well as French physicians,monsters became clari- fying counter-examplesto normalembryological development, and as such played an importantrole in the eighteenth-centurydebates betweenadvocates of preformationismand epigenesis.At the same time, at least for the educated, their appealas objects of intrinsic interest, chargedwith wondrous, religiousand dimly ominous associations,faded, and theirbond with the host of otherportents like celestialapparitions, volcanoes and rains of bloodloosened. Prodigies and wondershad become anomaliesto be studiedin the contextof naturalphenomena, and naturalphenomena had becomethe subject of increasinglydivided and specializedscientific disciplines. By the end of the eighteenthcentury, the canonof prodigieshad been dis- solved.Astronomers studied comets; geologists studied earthquakes; doctorsstudied monsters. Monstrous births no longerbelonged to a categoryof supernaturalor preternaturalphenomena, defined either by divine intent or ingeniousnature, inspiring either fear or delight. Nature'sactivity was regularand monolithic, and her ordinarywork- manshipwas prizedabove her extraordinaryproductions. "Monsters ought to be less amazing,than the wonderfulUniformity, that does commonlyreign among living Creatures of all Kinds",95wrote James Blondelin his treatiseon the effects of maternalimagination (I 727).

94 Phil. Trans.Roy. Soc., xxi (I699), pp. 43I-5. 95 JamesAugustus Blondel, The Strength of Imaginationin PregnantWomen Exam- in'd:And theOpinion the Marks and Deformities in ChildrenArise from Thence, Demon- stratedto be a VulgarError (London, I727), p. 95. 54 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 92 Naturalphilosophers marvelled at the overallharmony of nature's design, the reiterationof the same theme at many structurallevels, and the regularityof naturalprocesses rather than at the whimsical creativityand limitlessvariety of anomalies.This moreorderly con- ceptionof naturedictated a differentapproach to naturalscience one which attemptedto discernregularities even in apparentaberra- tions. Anatomistsand embryologistsembarked upon a taxonomyof monsterswhich assimilatedindividual cases to more general cat- egoriesof monstrosity.When monstersdo appearin eighteenth-century naturalhistories, they are treatedgenerically and used to fill taxonomicgaps. (Linnaeus,for example,included genera of ;'Trog- lodytes","Satyrs" and "Pygmies",as well as six monstrousvarieties of Homosapiens.)96 The particularismwhich had characterizedthe popularlore of monstersand Baconiannatural history gave way to a search for regularitiesunder the auspices of disciplinesorganized aroundsubject matter rather than aroundthe variedactivities of a personifiednature. By the mid-eighteenthcentury an appetitefor the marvelloushad become, as Hume declared,the hallmarkof the "ignorantand bar- barous",antithetical to the study of natureas conductedby the man of "good-sense,education, and learning".97Although Hume could still quote with approvalBacon's injunction to keep naturalphilosophy and religiondistinct, he dismissedthe enthusiasmfor prodigies, which had played so centrala part in Bacon'snatural history, as the sign of an unenlightenedage. The threecategories of the natural, the preternaturaland the supernaturalhad collapsedinto two, andnatural history concerned itself onlywith the first.Hume implied thatthis divisioncorresponded to a culturaldivide between the vulgar and the learned.For the unletteredpopuface, monsters and theirilk retaineda piquanttinge of the supernatural;for men of "senseand learning",the prodigycanon had been brokenup and reintegrated into the wholly naturalorder. Monstersand kindredprodigies no longerserved as a pointwhere the naturaland supernatural, the natural and artificial,and the little and greattraditions met on common ground. WellesleyCollege, Massachusetts KatharinePark HarvardUniversity Lorraine. Daston

96 CarolusLinnaeus, Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, Ioth edn. (Stockholm I758), pp. 22-5. The originaledition of the Systemanaturae appeared in Leiden in I 635* 97 David Hume, An EnquityConcerning Human Understanding, x, in his ThePhi- losophicalWorks, ed. ThomasH. Greenand T. H. Grose,4 vols. (London,I882; repr. Darmstadt,I964), iV, pp. 96-7.