Showing posts with label Pope Clement VI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pope Clement VI. Show all posts

Saturday, February 3, 2024

The Apostle of the Gauls

Gregory of Tours tells the story of the 3rd century Pope Fabian sending seven bishops to different parts of Gaul. One of them, Martial, went to Limoges, where he was very successful at converting locals to Christianity. After his death, his burial site outside of Limoges became an important pilgrimage site, growing in popularity over the years and generating many stories of miracles.

The 9th century Miracula Martialis ("Miracles of Martial") gives an idea of how popular he was: it pushes his origin story earlier in time so that he was made a bishop by St. Peter himself (illustrated here in a fresco from the Palais des Papes in Avignon, commissioned by Pope Clement VI from Matteo Giovannetti).

The Miracula gives him credit for evangelizing all of Aquitaine and miracles such as reviving a dead man by touching him with the staff given to him by Peter in the illustration. The medieval compendium of saints' lives called the Golden Legend adds casting out demons to his repertoire.

Martial's intercession was invoked during an epidemic of ergot poisoning in 994. The staff mentioned above (more accurately, a staff that is said to have been Martial's staff) is kept in the Basilica Saint-Seurin in Bordeaux and used in processions during outbreaks of illness to invoke his aid.

His importance in southern Gaul and link (however fictional) to Peter made him attractive to Clement VI, leading to the above-mentioned chapel. His burial site became the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Martial with a library second only to Cluny's. The chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil worked in the library. The Abbey was damaged so badly in the 19th century that little remained; some manuscripts had been bought by King Louis XV and were therefore saved and are noe in the Bibliotheque Nationale.

Ergot epidemics were quite common in the Middle Ages, so divine intervention was frequently sought. Let's talk about ergot poisoning in the Middle Ages next.

Friday, February 2, 2024

The Pope's Artist

When Pope Clement VI wanted to build a new chapel connected to the papal complex in Avignon and have it lavishly decorated, he called on Matteo Giovannetti. Giovanetti (c.1322 - 1368) was in his 20s at the time, and according to the oldest documentation we have about him, he was a priest.

He received a large salary to lead a team to design and decorate chapels, the Grand Audience room (where the pope meets visitors), the Consistory (where the pope meets with the cardinals), and more. He created altarpieces and paintings that the pope would offer to churches and monasteries.

One of his chief projects was to paint the new Saint-Martial Chapel, begun in 1344, attached to the Tinel, the pope's grand dining hall. The chapel's paintings tell the life story of Saint Martial in 13 scenes. Giovannetti even worked Clement into one of the frescoes (see illustration).

He also decorated the chapels of St. John located below the chapel of Saint Martial. He included events in the life of John the Baptist as well as John the Evangelist, including their parents. The frescoes deteriorated over time, but in the 1990s a restoration program began.

Giovanetti remained employed by the popes after Clement's death. He accompanied Pope Urban V on Urban's return to Rome in 1367. We are told that he worked on paintings at the Vatican Palace. It is the receipts for his payment that allow us to identify his works and track his movements. After 1368, however, we have no records for him, and we do not know where he ended up or how long he may have lived after that. In 1368 he was only in his late 40s, and his lifestyle would have kept him well-nourished and housed, so "old age" seems an unlikely ending. We simply do not know anything more about him, but the Vatican records allow us to give attribution to his work—not always the case for medieval art.

Why was Saint Martial important to Clement VI, so much so that he was the subject of a new chapel? I'll explain next time.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Clement's Preferences

Clement VI (1291 - 1352) was a different pope from some of his predecessors. One of his first acts was to promise gifts to every cleric who came to Avignon to present himself to the pope in the first two months of his papacy. This attempt, apparently, to buy loyalty, along with Clement's move to reserve appointing abbots so that he could use the appointments as favors, was justified by saying "Our predecessors did not know how to be pope." (Incidentally, so many clerics appeared in Avignon that the estimate was made that the number of clerics in all the parishes of the world was around 100,000.)

His favoritism did not stop there. A mere four months after his election, he created several new cardinals, three of whom were his nephews. During his reign, he created cardinals of nine relatives. This practice of promoting a pope's relatives gave rise to the term "cardinal nephew." It was fairly standard practice, although his predecessor only created one and his successor only three.

Unlike Benedict before him, Clement had no intention of leaving France for Rome, and set about on a building campaign to expand the Avignon papal complex. Benedict had built a palace—the Palais de Papes—that suited his tastes as a Cistercian. Clement, however, was accustomed to more grand living, and added extensively and opulently to it. A new chapel dedicated to Saint-Martial was attached to the Palais and filled with hunting and fishing scenes—more suited to a king's decor than a pope's—and he had large tapestries installed.

Fortunately for him, Benedict's organizational skills and less-extravagant lifestyle left Clement with a large treasury with which to carry out his plans of elegance. He hired composers and musicians of the Ars Nova style to always be around, including Philippe de Vitry.

Clement died on 6 December 1352, aged about 60. He had suffered from kidney stones for many years. At the end, a tumor broke out into an abscess and fever, and he died within a week. His elaborate tomb (see above) was surrounded by 44 statues of his relatives; he had planned it himself and commissioned the sculptor; it was ready prior to his death. (In 1562, Huguenots destroyed the 44 statues.) Historians agree that Clement may have been a good pope in many ways, but he was not a holy person.

The artist who decorated Clement's new chapel was Matteo Giovannetti. He did quite a lot of work for Clement, and stuck around after that. I'll tell you more about him and his papal projects tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Pope and the Plague

One of the major events during the reign of Pope Clement VI (1291 – 6 December 1352) was not of his making. He had been pope for four years when plague landed on his shores in 1347, spreading throughout Europe and killing one-third to one-half of the population within a few years.

Clement believed the Plague was the result of God's wrath, but that did not mean he was willing to stand idly by and let the results speak for themselves. He consulted with astrologers for the physical cause and looked for ways to mitigate the effects. One of the team that proposed a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in 1341 as its origin was Johannes de Muris, who had been brought to Avignon by Clement in 1344 to aid in calendar reform. Another of Clement's advisors was his personal physician Guy de Chauliac, seen here bandaging the pope's leg (in a painting from 20th century artist Ernest Board).

The advice of his physicians was to surround himself with fire to fight off the plague-inducing vapors in the air; stories tell that he had two raging fireplaces on either side of him while he worked. He did not, however, just sit in his palace: he involved himself in supervising care of the dying and burials. There was so much death that cemeteries ran out of space. Clement consecrated the Rhône River—the entire 500-miles—so that bodies could be thrown in and it would be considered proper burial along its length in France and Switzerland.

Because there was condemnation of Jews for the Plague in some areas, he released two papal bulls on the subject, on 6 July and 26 September, condemning the violence against the Jews. The second stated that those blaming the Jews were seduced by the Devil, because:

It cannot be true that the Jews, by such a heinous crime, are the cause or occasion of the plague, because through many parts of the world the same plague, by the hidden judgment of God, has afflicted and afflicts the Jews themselves and many other races who have never lived alongside them.

Six cardinals died in 1348. One of Clement's solutions was to make his nephew a cardinal, even though his nephew was only 18 years old! (Twenty-two years later he would become Pope Gregory XI.) Clement's favoritism was one of the ways he was distinctly different from his predecessor, Benedict. I want to talk about Clement's more "worldly" tendencies next time.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Pope Clement VI

Pierre Roger was born in 1291 into a noble family; his siblings all had successful careers and marriages. Roger, however, entered the Benedictine Order at the age of 10, spending six years at the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu before being recommended for more advanced studies. He went to Paris and the Sorbonne, where he studied canon law and theology, receiving the doctorate in theology at the age of 31. He lectured on Peter Lombard's Sententiae and promoted the writings of Aquinas.

He was made an abbot of a royal abbey, Fécamp, until he was called to Avignon. Fécamp was in the Duchy of Aquitaine, lands owned by the English king (in this case Edward III), and Roger was given the task in 1328 of summoning Edward to pay homage to the King of France, Philip VI, inside of whose kingdom Aquitaine lay. Roger's trip to England was fruitless: Edward ignored the summons, and Roger returned to France.

Despite this failure, in December of that year he was named Bishop of Arras and a councilor to king Philip. In less than a year, he was promoted to Archbishop of Sens, and a year after that was moved to Rouen. In an assembly of French clergy with Philip to discuss the judicial powers of ecclesiastical authorities, Roger argued impressively for ecclesiastical jurisdiction over temporal authority, gaining the admiration of his peers.

Pierre Roger was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XII and "received the red hat" on 5 May, 1339. After Benedict's death in April 1342, a conclave of 18 out of the existing 19 cardinals (one had gout and could not attend) met on 5 May, and by the 7th had elected Pierre Roger as the next pope. He chose the name Clement VI.

His predecessor was opposed to "lazy" clerics who did not administer their parishes and dioceses, simply accepting the tithes and delegating the work. Benedict was careful about choosing pastors and bishops. Clement took a different approach, declaring that votes in monasteries for abbot were void. He wanted the right to appoint whom he liked and grant favors to those loyal to him. When it was pointed out that this was not the style of previous popes, he supposedly replied  "Our predecessors did not know how to be pope."

His time as pope was not going to be easy, however: a few years later, the Black Death came ashore. Next time we will take a look at how he responded to the crisis.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Protecting the Jews

The Plague, also called the Black Death, spread across Sicily shortly after the arrival of a fleet of a dozen Genoese galleys bringing goods from the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. This was in October of 1346. A few months later, in January 1348, galleys from Kaffa (in Crimea) reached Genoa and Venice, where outbreaks also began.

The rest of Europe might have been spared—crossing the Alps would be difficult for the Plague carriers—but one of the galleys was driven away from Italy and found shelter in the port of Marseilles on the southern coast of France. That was the real introduction to continental Europe, after which there was no stopping it.

There is plenty of information about the Black Death to be found online—including in the blog—so there is no need to go into details here. There is, however, a specific event related to the Plague that took place on today's date.

Many populations throughout history, unhappy with their lot, either due to general difficulties or tragedy, have looked for a scapegoat. That scapegoat often takes the form of other people who can be labeled as "outsiders" who are not us and whose presence or actions are hurting us. In the case of the Plague, that scapegoat in many locations was the Jews, who were persecuted and killed, accused of poisoning wells (despite the fact that they drank from the very same sources of water), or of general wickedness that had brought down the wrath of God.

Pope Clement VI was moved to produce a papal bull, Quamvis perfidiam, defending the Jews against the accusations, and urging his fellow Christian prelates to defend them in their territories. It was released on 6 July, 1348. Unfortunately, persecution persisted, and so he re-issued it on 26 September.

Monday, November 23, 2015

To Restore Rome

The Glory of the Roman Empire was seen by the Middle Ages as a Golden Age. Petrarch lamented the loss of learning and art between the peak of the Roman Empire and his own age. In Petrarch's lifetime, however, there seemed to be a chance to restore the greatness that was. The post of the supposed "King John I of France" mentions the figure who tried to elevate the humble Giannino di Guccio to the throne of France, Cola di Renzo (c.1313 - 8 October 1354).

Cola di Rienzo
at the Capitoline Museum
Cola di Renzo himself had humble origins. The son of a washer-woman and a tavern-keeper, he inspired himself with stories of Classical Rome, its literature and history and figures until he decided to make it his life's work to restore Rome to greatness. At this time, remember, Italy was a collection of city-states; Rome was the capital of nothing but itself, and even the popes had forsaken it for Avignon.

After becoming a notary, he was sent as a messenger to Pope Clement VI in Avignon, whom he impressed so much that he was given a place at the pope's court. He eventually returned to Rome and spent a few years gathering support for a "coup" to eliminate corrupt politicians. On the Feast of Pentecost in 1357 (20 May), dressed in armor, he made a speech at the Capitol in which he outlined his plans for a new and restored Rome.

The crowd accepted this speech, and the person who made it, and proclaimed him their ruler. Many politicians and public servants, seeing the tide of popular opinion turning against them, fled the City. Cola di Rienzo took the title of Tribune. Petrarch wrote a letter, urging him to continue in his great work.

Having succeeded in taking over Rome and making changes, he set his sights on restoring/uniting the entire Roman Empire, starting with Italy. He sent letters to all the major cities, bidding them send representatives. He also sent to the rival Holy Roman Emperors, Louis IV and Charles IV, to appear before him. He then celebrated a "festival of unity" in which he was officially proclaimed Tribune.

Unfortunately, although the Kingdom of Naples recognized him, no other political entity felt compelled to declare loyalty to him. Pope Clement VI, wary that di Rienzo's aim would include making the papacy subordinate to him, sent a league to arrest him. It was a little over six months since the speech in Rome that had seemed to cement his future good fortune. His initial success against his enemies did not last, and in December of the same year in which he was declared Tribune, he fled Rome, first hiding in Naples, and then for two years in a mountain monastery.

In 1350 he appealed to Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who held him under arrest for a year before turning him over to Clement. He was condemned to death, but the sentence was delayed (possibly due to pleas for leniency from Petrarch) until Clement died. His successor, Pope Innocent VI, sent him back to Rome with the title Senator and the mission to revive his goal of restoring Rome's glory. Within weeks, however, his arbitrary decisions had led to his death by an angry mob.

When two of his goals—the unification of Italy and the reduction of the pope's temporal power—were achieved in the 19th century, Cole di Rienzo was seen as a visionary and a praise-worthy historical figure.

Monday, September 29, 2014

The Fair Maid of Kent

To Froissart she was "the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England, and the most loving"; in her own right she was the 4th Countess of Kent and the 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell; to Edward the Black Prince she was wife; to history she was "The Fair Maid of kent."

Her father, Edmund of Woodstock, was a son of King Edward I, which meant that she and the Black Prince were cousins—not uncommon for aristocratic marriages. She might have been able to marry him at all, however, since she had been imprisoned when she was a child.

Her father had supported Edward II (who was his older half-brother) during the conflict with Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. Once Edward II was deposed, Edmund was executed and his wife and children placed under house arrest in Arundel Castle. Once Edward III came to power, however, he took the family into his care. Joan was his 1st cousin, and the 2nd cousin of his wife, Queen Philippa.

Having survived the scandal of being associated with a traitor, she mdd her own royal mistake when she was 12: she made a secret marriage with Thomas Holland without getting the king's consent. Then Thomas went Crusading. While he was gone, her family—unaware that she had contracted marriage with someone else—arranged a marriage with William Montacute, son of the Earl of Salisbury. Joan did not disclose that she was already married for fear that Thomas would be executed.

Thomas eventually returned to England, having gained great wealth on Crusade, found his wife married into the family of the Earl of Salisbury, and promptly appealed for help to King Edward and Pope Clement VI. Joan expressed the desire to return to the husband of her choice, and the Earl of Salisbury promptly imprisoned her in her own home. The pope, however, chose to annul the second marriage; Joan joined Thomas, and they had four or five children over the next 11 years. Holland died in 1360.

Joan was now about 30, and Edward the Prince of Wales (later called "The Black Prince") a little younger. They had known each other growing up, and a gift from him of a silver cup suggests special affection for his second cousin. There is some evidence that the pair made a secret marriage (this was getting to be a habit of hers) in 1360. This presented a problem, because their relationship was too close for the laws of consanguinity. Edward III, however, requested of the pope that a special dispensation be made, and the two were formally wed on 10 October 1361.

Their son, Richard of Bordeaux, would become King Richard II on the death of Edward III. Joan died on 7 August 1385.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

The Patron Saint of Lawyers

Everyone has an intercessor in Heaven, even lawyers.

Ivo of Kermartin (17 October 1253-19 May 1303) was born in Louannec, in Brittany. He studied civil law at the University of Paris, mingling with students such as Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus. He stood out from the crowd by abstaining from meat and wine, fasting with bread and water during Lent and Advent, and sleeping with a stone or book as a pillow. He also studied and prayed and helped the sick while his fellow students were having fun. In 1277 he went to study canon law in Orléans before returning to Brittany as a judge.

He gained a reputation for being a strong "advocate for the poor," helping to pay court expenses for those with little means and representing those in need before other judges. Butler's Lives of the Saints says of him:
Once, not being able to reconcile a mother and a son who pleaded violently against each other, he went and offered up mass for them, and they immediately came to an agreement together. He never took a fee, but pleaded all causes without any gratuity.
He also studied Scripture and was ordained to the priesthood in 1284. His presence in their dioceses was desired by several bishops.
He always rose at midnight to matins, and said every day mass with incredible devotion and fervour. In his preparation he continued long prostrate, quite absorbed in the consideration of the abyss of his own nothingness, and of the awful majesty of him to whom he was going to offer sacrifice, and the sanctity of the victim. [Butler]
He also used his own funds to build a hospital. He was canonized in 1347 by Pope Clement VI. Besides attorneys, widows and orphans, he has been named the patron saint of "abandoned people," bailiffs, Brittany, canon lawyers, judges, and notaries.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The College of Sorbonne

A university meeting
Today is the birthday of the founder of the Sorbonne. The Collège of Sorbonne is arguably the best-known college in France, its name becoming synonymous with excellence, especially in the field of theology. It was founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon.

Robert de Sorbon (9 October 1201-15 August 1274) was born in a lower-class family in the Champagne-Ardennes region of northeast France, a wild part of the country prone to spawn legends and tales of adventure. Robert joined the church and studied at Reims and Paris. His devout bearing brought him to the attention of Louis IX, and he was named canon of Cambrai (next door to the Ardennes region) in 1251.

He became a teacher in 1253; in 1257 he created a college in Paris which he called Maison de Sorbonne [House of Sorbon] to teach theology to students who could not otherwise afford a university education. The Maison grew in popularity, however, and was endorsed by the King and by Pope Alexander IV (previously mentioned here and here). The College of Sorbonne grew to become the heart of the University of Paris (which produced such lights as Jean Buridan as well as conflicts). Sorbon became its chancellor until his death in 1274.

Sorbon created an academic environment that was (in the words of one scholar) "as opposed to mere hostel foundations and elementary forms of collegial living."
... Robert of Sorbon, formulated the central idea of the future college system in exemplary fashion: vivere socialiter et collegialiter, et moraliter, et scholariter*—a formulation which implies the existence of a study community organized in the form of a brotherhood and living together in regulated and moral fashion. [P. Glorieux, Les Origines du collège de Sorbon, quoted in A History of the University in Europe: Volume 1, Universities in the Middle Ages]
Among the students were Pope Clement VI and Nicholas Oresme.

*[roughly] "To live socially and collegially and morally and scholarly"

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Plague and The Clergy

The Black Death, estimated to have killed up to one-third of Europeans from 1347-1351, caused changes in society that we cannot imagine. Some of those changes wind up on record, however. Consider, for instance, important positions in government or the church.

The first Archbishop of Canterbury was St. Augustine* (died c.604), who was sent by Pope Gregory I to bring Christianity to Kent in 597. The office is even referred to sometimes as "The Chair of Augustine." Gregory's proposed methods for missions was discussed here. The position became the most important Christian post in England, and candidates for it—chosen by election from their peers or appointed by the king (which led to many conflicts over the years)—had to travel to be confirmed personally by the Pope.

During the plague years, maintaining the office was difficult. John de Stratford, who became Archbishop in 1333, died of the plague in 1348. The election for his successor created a conflict: the canons voted for Thomas Bradwardine, while Edward III wanted them to choose his Chancellor, John de Ufford. The king's choice was grudgingly accepted, de Ufford was declared by the pope to be the new Archbishop, but he died before he could be consecrated back in Canterbury. So Thomas Bradwardine got his chance after all. Bradwardine made the trip to Avignon to be confirmed by Pope Clement VI, but died in Rochester of the plague on his way back to London. He had officially been Archbishop for only 40 days. Fortunately, the next candidate, Simon Islip—the fourth archbishop in 16 months—was confirmed in December of 1349 and lasted for 17 years.

Islip had his work cut out for him, however. As Archbishop following the plague, he was faced with the problem of too few priests in the country. Priests were demanding greater stipends for their work, to which the normally frugal Islip objected both personally and professionally. He worked to regulate their fees, and increased the pace of finding more priests to fill parishes and other posts. Despite his efforts, many in the years to follow would comment on the unhappy change in the post-plague quality of priests, claiming that quantity prevailed over quality in the selection of new clergy.

Although the plague returned at regular intervals, its effects were never as radical as the first time through the population. Islip survived these further outbreaks, but suffered from a stroke in 1363; he spent the last three years of his Archbishopric debilitated while subordinates kept things running. Before he became ill, he did manage to resolve a long-standing dispute between the positions of Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York, but that's a tale for another day.

*Note: Not the same as the earlier Augustine of Hippo.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Doctor Profundus

I have written about the Oxford Calculators, four men at Oxford University in the second quarter of the 14th century who made great strides in science and philosophy by treating things like heat and light as if they were quantifiable, even though they did not have ways to measure them. They engaged in "thought experiments" and used mathematics to determine the validity of their points. They were not always right in the end, but they were meticulous in their approach. One of the four was so esteemed that he was called Doctor Profundus, the "Profound Doctor."

Thomas Bradwardine (c.1290-1349) had a reputation as a precocious student at Balliol College. We know he was there by 1321, and later took a doctor of divinity degree. A gifted scholar and theologian, he wrote theories on the Liar Paradox and other logical "insolubles." The Liar Paradox is the statement "I am a liar." For it to be true, the speaker must be a liar; but if it is a true statement then the speaker is not lying. Resolving with logic how such statements can be understood had been tackled for centuries. Bradwardine's work Insolubilia presented complex solutions for puzzles/statements like this.

Like many university men of his day, Bradwardine followed an ecclesiastical career path. After serving as chancellor of the university, he became chancellor of the diocese of London and Dean of St.Paul's. He was also chosen to be chaplain and confessor to Edward III (mentioned in this blog numerous times), celebrating victory masses after campaigns of the Hundred Years War and being entrusted with diplomatic missions. The only time he did not have Edward's support was when John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Bradwardine was elected archbishop by the canons of Canterbury, but Edward opposed the choice, preferring his own chancellor at the time, John de Ufford. When de Ufford died of the Black Death (this was in 1349), Edward allowed Bradwardine to assume the position. Bradwardine had to travel to Pope Clement VI in Avignon for confirmation. but on his return, he succumbed to the Black Death on 26 August. He had been archbishop for 40 days.

That career would not have secured his place in history, however, even with his work attacking the Pelagian heresy. As one of the Oxford Calculators, he developed the "mean speed" theorem and the Law of Falling Bodies before Galileo. He studied "star polygons" (how regular polygons "tile" or fit together in patterns) before Kepler. He developed mnemonic techniques to improve mental abilities, explaining them in De Memoria Artificiali (On Artificial Memory).

One of his theories involved the vacuum of space. Aristotle felt that a vacuum needed a container, because an open space would automatically become filled by matter outside that space flowing into it. Therefore, according to Aristotle, no vacuum could exist above the world, because there was no container beyond the world to maintain the vacuum. Bradwardine was not satisfied with this. The infinity of space was a hot topic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. His De causa Dei (On the Causes of God) argued that God Himself was infinite, and therefore space beyond our world extended infinitely. (This was different from suggesting that God created separately a space that was infinite.) He also suggested that this infinity could include other worlds that God could create and rule over.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

More than a Musician

We so often study famous people in isolation, forgetting that their lives and successes probably overlapped other well-known people. Imagine the possibilities when people of vision and ingenuity met with and influence each other?

Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361) is not a well-known name today, but in his lifetime he was acknowledged as the greatest musician of the age, and his own works and his connections with others are worth knowing. In his lifetime, he was a diplomat, a soldier, a poet, a composer and music theorist. Like most university-educated men of the Middle Ages, de Vitry was in Holy Orders and held several clerical positions, finally being appointed Bishop of Meaux by Pope Clement VI.

Some of the motets he composed have survived. His chief contribution to music, however, was in the evolving system of notation. In Ars nova notandi (Art of the new notation), de Vitry improved on Franconian musical notation that had been set out in Franco of Cologne's Ars Cantus Mensurabilis (The Art of Measurement of Songs); de Vitry recognized the existence and importance of duple and triple meter. For connoisseurs of music:
In the treatise Vitry recognizes the existence of five note values (duplex longa, longa, brevis, semibrevis, and minima), codifies a system of binary as well as ternary mensuration at four levels (maximodus, modus, tempus, prolatio), and introduces four time signatures. He also discusses the use of red notes to signal both changes of mensural meaning and deviations from an original cantus firmus. (source)
And of course he knew other accomplished figures of his age, such as Petrarch, Nicholas Oresme, and Gersonides. In fact, de Vitry's musical approach to mathematics (the two subjects were closely linked in medieval education) prompted him to request of Gersonides a work to prove a theory. This 1342 work, De harmonicis numeris (On the harmony of numbers), maintained that, "except for the pairs 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 8-9, it is impossible for two numbers that follow each other to be composed of the factors 2 and 3." (source) The result is known today as the Theorem of Gersonides.

Friday, August 3, 2012

How far are the stars?

Rabbi Levi ben Gerson, also known as Gersonides, lived from 1288-c.1344. He was from a family of scholars: his father, Gerson ben Solomon of Arles, was the author of the Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, an encyclopedia of natural science, astronomy, and metaphysics.* Levi is credited with first mentioning, and possibility inventing, Jacob's Staff. (He references Genesis 32:10 when he describes the device; this is likely the origin of the name.)

At a time when religion, philosophy, astronomy, astrology and science were overlapping (and in some cases, interchangeable), Gersonides' greatest work, which was philosophical, contained his greatest contribution to astronomy. He put twelve years (1317-28) of effort into the Milhamot Adonai ("Wars of the Lord"), whose six books dealt with 1) the soul, 2) prophecy, 3) & 4) god's knowledge of facts and providence, 5) astronomy/astrology, and 6) creation and miracles. Gersonides firmly accepted astrology and the celestial hierarchy of powers inherited from neo-Platonists and pseudo-Dionysius (far too complex to go into here), but he also brought mathematics and observation to his work with extraordinary results for the time.

Postage stamp honoring Gersonides.
Gersonides rejected the Ptolemaic system of epicycles to explain the erratic motion of planets affixed to their crystal spheres surrounding the Earth. According to Ptolemy, epicycles explained the changing size of planets; he said, however, that Mars varies by a factor of six; Gersonides' observations told him that Mars's apparent size varies only two-fold. Gersonides used the Jacob Staff and a camera obscura (pinhole camera) to make careful observations over several years. For Gersonides, 48 crystalline spheres were needed to explain the apparent motion of various heavenly bodies. This expansion of the "physics" of the Ptolemaic model was nothing, however, compared to the actual physical expansion he proposed.

Careful observation with the Jacob Staff, the camera obscura, and math made Gersonides declare heavenly objects to be much farther away than previously calculated. Ptolemy claimed the distance to Venus was 1079 Earth radii; Gersonides estimated it to be 8,971,112 Earth radii away. Ptolemy said the fixed stars were 20,000 Earth radii away; Gersonides estimated them to be at a distance 10 billion times greater.

Pope Clement VI had the "Wars of the Lord" translated into Latin in 1344, making it available to the west. Its impact was minimal, however; we know of a few scholars who were influenced by it, and Kepler asked a friend to send him a copy in the 17th century. But it took Copernicus two centuries later to "confirm" to Western civilization's satisfaction that Gersonides was on the right track.

*As I have mentioned about medieval encyclopediæ before, they were often compilations of previous works; this one drew from Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest and the Morah Nebukim, or "Guide for the Perplexed" of Maimonides. A 1547 edition of ben Solomon's work can be had from Kestenbaum & Company.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Great Surgeon

The history of medicine includes many brave and progressive thinkers who were not willing to follow the herd or be content with what was already known. One such in the Middle Ages was Guy de Chauliac. Born about 1300, he studied at a university in Montpellier known for its expertise in medicine. After becoming a Master of Medicine and Surgery around 1325, he went to Bologna for further study. His reputation became such that he was invited to Avignon to be personal physician to Pope Clement VI, then Pope Innocent VI and Pope Urban V. The papal connection gave him access to a library that included the texts of the Greek physician Galen in their original; most of Europe knew Galen through less accurate Latin translations.

He possibly saved Clement's life during the spread of the Black Death, when he advised the pope to stay near blazing fires. Although many physicians fled Avignon at the arrival of the Plague, Chauliac stayed to study the disease and treat people. He determined that it was contagious, but couldn't figure out the method of contagion. Still, he advised bloodletting, a healthy diet, and exposure to pure air (hence the fires, which would have serendipitously served to keep fleas away). He also realized that there were two diseases involved because of different sets of symptoms: the initial Bubonic Plague, and the follow-up Pneumonic Plague which found its foothold in the weakened population and killed much more swiftly. Chauliac spoke out strongly against those who blamed the Jews for the Plague, explaining that scientifically it made no sense to consider them at fault.

Tools for withdrawing an arrow.
His value to the rest of the world and history was the writing of Chirurgia magna (Great [book of] Surgery) in 1363. Its seven volumes covered every imaginable medical topic of the day: intubation, surgery, disease, anesthesia, hernia, cataracts, ulcers, bloodletting, cauterization of wounds, and the use of special instruments (some of which he designed himself, such as an elaborate contraption for withdrawing an arrow from flesh). Chauliac drew on the past, quoting Galen (129-c.200) and Avicenna (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, c.980-1037). He placed great emphasis on learning anatomy, saying that "A surgeon who does not know his anatomy is like a blind man carving a log."

Chauliac was not always accurate. He believed, for instance, that pus was an important part of the healing process and should be left alone. Nevertheless, his Chirurgia became a standard text for the next three centuries, translated into several European languages. Unfortunately for future generations, anti-Islam sentiment caused many translators to leave out knowledge from Islamic scholars, resulting in a less complete and less accurate work. Still, he has been labeled the "Father of Modern Surgery," and his great work was the standard text until the 17th century.