The Maimonidean Controversy, Part 1

Recent posts have talked about different individual's attitude toward Maimonides and what they did about it—sometimes with radical consequences.

Besides studying all the known Jewish religious texts, Moses ben Maimon (1138 - 1204) was a rabbi, knew medicine (he was the personal physician of Saladin) and astronomy. He became well-known and liked in Egypt (he lived in Cairo for a time), but he also had some very vocal critics.

The chief issue is that he took a rationalist-philosophical approach to the world and came to conclusions that were contradictory to what many believed. A couple that I have mentioned before were:

•The power of prophecy does not require intervention by God. Any human being, through the application of logic and reason, study and meditation, has the potential to become a prophet.

•In a treatise on resurrection, he emphasizes that God would not violate the laws of Nature which He has created, and therefore any bodily resurrection would only be temporary; true resurrection to come is spiritual.

He really got under people's skin when he criticized the Geonim, the rabbinic scholars who took donations from sponsors. Maimonides felt they should learn a profession and support themselves, as he did.

After his death, his The Guide for the Perplexed was translated into Hebrew (he had been writing in Arabic). Jewish scholars around the Mediterranean who were familiar with Arabic philosophy could see and parse the influences on Maimonides' work, but when his work became accessible to European Jews it kicked off a new stage of controversy.

In the early13th century, European scholars were unfamiliar with concepts of science and philosophy. Aristotle's works were just being re-discovered in the West thanks to Arabic translations in Spain from the original Greek versions. Other works of philosophy were starting to spread because 1204 was not only Maimonides' death but also the Sack of Constantinople, which started bringing Greek treasures—including intellectual treasures—to the West.

I'll go into more about how the controversy heated up in Europe tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can read a little more about Maimonides and the intellectual evolution of Western Europe in my post on Scholasticism.

Learning a Lesson

Yonah Gerondi had an Italian student in Barcelona named Hillel ben Samuel (c.1220 - c.1295) The grandson of a known Talmudic scholar, Hillel grew up to be a physician and Talmudic scholar himself. While practicing medicine in Rome, he became friends with Maestro Isaac Gajo, the pope's physician.

Hillel was strictly orthodox in his Judaism, proclaiming his absolute belief in the miracles outlined in the Torah and Talmud, despite some of these stories being considered more symbolic by other scholars. He wrote a book that covered the philosophic works of the time from Arabs, Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

He also translated some of the works of Thomas Aquinas into Hebrew, accepting Aquinas' idea of the soul's immortality. He referred to Aquinas as the "the Maimonides of his age."

Hillel had originally been opposed to Maimonides, but changed after he saw his teacher, Gerondi, change his attitude toward Maimonides. Gerondi had been opposed to Maimonides' rationalist approach to religious questions, and had caused the authorities of Paris to round up copies of Maimonides' works and burn them, specifically the Guide for the Perplexed. Gerondi regretted convincing the Christian leaders to take such a bold action against Jewish literature, especially when years later they burned all the copies they could find of the Talmud. Hillel saw Gerondi's regret, and how he radically hanged his attitude toward Maimonides.

Hillel moved to Forli in northern Italy when he was much older. While there he learned that a Tosafist (someone known for writing commentaries on the Talmud), a French Jew named Solomon Petit, was speaking out strongly against Maimonides. Aware of how Gerondi's anti-Maimonidean crusade turned out, Hillel addressed two long letters to his friend Isaac Gajo, explaining what had happened and asking him not to give any support to Petit's complaints.

What was the problem with Maimonides? What was the controversy about? I'll give you a taste of that tomorrow.

Burning the Talmud

Yonah Gerondi, or Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi (c.1200 - 1263), was a 13th century rabbi from Catalonia in Spain. He was a cousin of Nachmanides and one of the teachers of Shlomo ibn Aderet.

He was part of a faction that was opposed to Maimonides, whose Guide for the Perplexed was very popular. The Guide's logical and philosophical examination of concepts such as whether God was corporeal or whether something could be created from nothing contradicted many earlier scholars.

Gerondi organized a victory over Maimonides' teaching by convincing the authorities in Paris to round up any copies of the Guide for the Perplexed and burn them. Unfortunately for Gerondi, this attack on the works of a fellow Jew inspired anger of local Jews against Gerondi. Some years later, on the same public spot where Maimonides' works had been burned, the authorities burned several wagonloads of the Talmud and other works.

Gerondi felt remorse, blaming himself for originally bringing Christian authorities into the philosophic debate between Jews. In the synagogue at Montpellier in France he proclaimed publicly his shame at fighting against Maimonides.

Vowing to do penance by traveling to Israel and prostrating himself on Maimonides' grave, he left France but was stopped at Barcelona and then in Toledo. He stayed in Toledo and became known as a great Talmudic scholar who also frequently quoted Maimonides. He died suddenly in 1263, some said because he never finished his vow to do penance in Israel.

His attitude toward Maimonides and the shift after the burning of the Talmud is told to us by his student, Hillel ben Samuel. Hillel was not only a Talmudic scholar but also a physician. Tomorrow I'll tell you how he learned his lesson from Gerondi's story.

The Rabbi of Spain

Born in 1235 in Barcelona, Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet became known as the Rabbi of Spain because of his reputation for knowledge and wisdom. He had famous teachers: Nachmanides and his cousin, Yonah Gerondi.

Aderet became a banker, but was an expert on the Talmud and was treated as the leader of Spanish Jewry. He was rabbi of the Barcelona Synagogue for 50 years. People came from all over to hear him lecture on the Talmud. His fame spread to the point that questions were sent to him from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Three thousand of these questions and his responses still survive.

He was a great defender of Judaism from external and internal forces. When the Dominican Raymond Martini read the Talmud and found passages that he believed supported Christianity, he also found passages that he said blasphemed. Martini wrote a document condemning the Talmud. Aderet wrote a response to this document. On the other hand, when a Muslim attacked Christian priests for falsifying the Bible, Aderet refuted his statements.

Aderet cared about authenticity, and "pure Judaism." Although he defended Maimonides when he got into trouble with authorities for some of his interpetations, Aderet did not approve of Maimonides' philosophic-rationalistic approach that saw reason as the best tool in understanding the divine rather than faith. In fact, Aderet was part of the beth din (the rabbinical court of law) in Barcelona that forbade men younger then 25 from studying secular philosophy or natural science, lest they be led astray by worldly thinking. (They were allowed to study medicine.) He was quite adamant about avoiding being led astray, writing: 

In that city [Barcelona] are those who write iniquity about the Torah and if there would be a heretic writing books, they should be burnt as if they were the book of sorcerers.

Trying to enforce this ban created much hostility in his final years as rabbi. He was also sympathetic to those who wanted to study Kabbalah. but spoke out against people who took it to an extreme and considered themselves more than just men, namely people like Nissim ben Abraham of Avila and Abulafia.

Aderet died in 1310. Some of his students became famous in their own right. But I want to say something more about one of his teachers, Yonah Gerondi, who got involved in a religious controversy that led to an anti-jewish event I've mentioned before. I'll explain tomorrow.

False Messiahs, Part 2

Yesterday we started looking at some of the predictions about the Jewish Messiah appearing in the 12th century. The 13th century had its own claimants as well. Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia was one.

Born in Aragon in 1240, he was taught the Torah and Talmud by his father after the family moved to Navarre. When Abulafia was 18, his father died, and the young man began wandering the world, eventually deciding to go to Israel and find the Ten Lost Tribes. Unfortunately, the Crusades had made a journey to Israel dangerous, so he returned to Europe, studied the Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides, and started having visions.

He studied Kabbalah, and immersed himself in the Sefer Yetzirah, finding in it the path to perfection for a human being. In 1280 he went to Rome to convert Pope Nicholas III to Judaism. Hearing of his intention, the pope gave orders to burn the heretic as soon as he arrived. Before Abulafia reached Rome, however, he heard that Nicholas died of a stroke, so he returned to Messina where he was imprisoned for a month by the Order of Friars Minor.

In Messina he is reported to have declared himself a prophet and the Messiah, which angered the local Jewish congregation. A letter against Abulafia written by the influential Shlomo ben Aderet of Barcelona—who was making it his life's work to speak out against the rise of false Messiahs—helped put an end to Abulafia's career. Up until 1291 he was in Malta and writing his own works on meditation and symbolism, after which he disappears from records.

The other major "Messiah" of this century was Nissim ben Abraham, whom we discussed in the story of Abner of Burgos.

It is interesting that there was enough concern about false Messiahs that Shlomo ben Aderet had a career about denouncing and disproving them. Let's take a look at Shlomo next, the "Rabbi of Spain."

(The illustration is from William Holman Hunt's 1860 "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple.")

False Messiahs, Part 1

Yesterday's post explained how Abner of Burgos' conversion to Christianity from Judaism may have started with doubts after treating patients who were distraught after a promised Jewish Messiah failed to appear.

As it turns out, there were more than a couple claims about the appearance of the Messiah. The 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 8th centuries had their share. In the Middle Ages, there were quite a few, some documented, some not so much, like the one reported to have been simply killed by the French in 1087.

A teacher in Morocco, Moses ben Abraham Dar'ī, believed a Messiah would appear at Passover in 1127 to specifically free the Jews in the territories controlled by the Almoravid dynasty.

Menaḥem ben Solomon was born in Iraq. Growing up he studied the Torah and Talmud and, calling himself David Alroy or David el-David (meaning "David son of King/David") claimed to be the Messiah, calling on Jews to rise up against their caliph and then go to Jerusalem where they would free it from the Muslims. (Yes, a Jewish crusade in the 1160s!)

Stories of his results differ, but Benjamin of Tudela wrote that the sultan had David brought to him, asked him "Are you the king of the Jews?" to which David replied "I am." whereupon he was thrown into prison. Three days later he "rose again"; that is, he miraculously appeared in the midst of the sultan's council, then evaded arrest by turning invisible, making the 10-day journey back to his native town, Amadiya, in one day. The sultan threatened to put all Jews in his domain to death unless David surrendered. The governor of Amadiya bribed David's father-in-law to kill David.

Maimonides in his Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen) tells the story of a Yemenite Messiah. Born in Fez in Morocco, he grew up at a time when the Muslims were trying to get all Jews to convert. The Yemenite Messiah claimed the troubles this caused were a sign that a Messiah would soon appear to liberate them. He started preaching that property should be distributed to the poor and people should start repenting for their sins. After a year of becoming a public nuisance the Muslims arrested him. He himself suggested that they kill him so he could prove himself by returning to life. He was beheaded, and his story ends there.

I'll tell you a more tomorrow.

Abner of Burgos, Converso

Abner of Burgos (c.1270 – c.1347) converted to Christianity from Judaism around 1320, taking on the name Alfonso of Valladolid or "Master Alfonso." He was well into adulthood, so his conversion was not a rebellion against his parents' culture, nor was it a young man's quest for something "different," nor was it forced upon him by an oppressive Christian government. So what happened?

The Jewish belief in a messiah gave rise to many claims over the centuries that he was imminent. In Avila, in central Spain, a Jew named Nissim ben Abraham actively preached that the messiah would appear in 1295 on the last day of the month of Tammuz (which can fall in late June or early July). Nissim was said to be a simple man who was inspired by an angel and wrote a mystic work, "The Wonder of Wisdom."

Many were convinced by Nissim, and they eagerly awaited the messiah. Like predictions of the Second Coming or of the End of the World, no messiah appeared. What they experienced, however, was a rain of crosses that stuck to their clothing (so they described to Abner). The disappointment and depression that followed among Nissim's adherents was profound.

Abner, a scholar of the Bible and the Talmud as well as a doctor, found himself being turned to by these disappointed people, treating them and trying to assuage their grief. Curiously, his discussions with these people about the lack of a messiah and their report of the appearance of the Christian symbol made him think "outside the box" about Judaism and its promises.

In a post-conversion work by Abner, Moreh tsedeḳ ("Teacher of righteousness"), he described how some 25 years after Avila he had a dream/revelation of a man who told him to become a "teacher of righteousness." About three years later he had the same dream, but this time noticed that the man had crosses on his clothes. This was his tipping point: he chose to embrace Christianity. He became a Neo-Platonic Christian and wrote treatises against Judaism. He believed that his version of Christianity was superior to others' and to Judaism. He preached that conversion to Christianity was the only way for Jews to get out of their perpetual Exile.

He was appointed sacristan of the collegiate church of Valladolid. This made some Jews accuse him of converting for material gain. What they did not understand, however, was that a sacristan was far from a lucrative position. He wrote extensive works (not all extant, or available in English) supporting conversion of Jews. He also debated rabbis. His arguments to King Alfonso XI of Castile that a Jewish prayer, the Birkat haMinim, blasphemed the Christian God and cursed Christians, led to the prayers being declared forbidden as off February 1336. The Birkat declares a curse on all heretics (so he had an ironic point, I guess).

We have his works, but no record of his death. 1347 was the last known record of him publishing. It is possible that he was a victim of the Black Death.

There were a few claims of a Jewish Messiah in the Middle Ages (and earlier and later). We'll look at some of them tomorrow.

The Christian Kabbalah

Scholars and philosophers of the later Middle Ages became interested in the mysticism found in the Jewish Kabbalah and tried to blend it with Christian concepts of the divine.

Ramon Llull (c.1232–1316), who also wrote of worldly affairs like knighthood, was one of the first known Christians to look at Kabbalah, although his study of it was mostly to develop ways to debate Jews and influence conversion to Christianity. His interest got him in trouble because the concepts he was talking about attracted the attention of the Inquisition.

The conversion of Spanish Jews did bring Kabbalistic concepts to Christian theology, especially in Spain prior to 1492. One prominent converso was Abner of Burgos (c.1270 – c.1347), a Bible and Talmud scholar who had a dream of crosses after he developed religious doubts because of a failed Messianic movement in 1295. He embraced and used Jewish sources to try to prove the validity of Christianity.

Another converso was Pablo/Paulus de Heredia (c.1405), who wrote an "Epistle of Secrets" which is considered the first true work of Christian Kabbalah. Not the scholar that Abner was, Pablo's work misquotes Kabbalah sources and "quotes" sources that are non-existent.

A Christian who adopted Kabbalistic ideas was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), a student of Marsilius Ficino. (The illustration shows Pico in the center with Ficino in red next to him.) Kabbalah was introduced to him by another tutor, Rabbi Johanan Alemanno, whose idea was that the study of magic was the ultimate goal and expression of intellectual and spiritual mastery. Pico became convinced that the Kabbalah was necessary to understand the world and the divine, and had a Jewish convert translate the entire body of kabbalistic literature into Latin for him (now being published in its entirety). Pico's "900 Theses" became a foundation of Western esotericism.

So how exactly does a lifelong Jew decide to convert to Christianity (I mean, when not being forced)? Let's examine Abner of Burgos' personal journey tomorrow, and whether he did it for financial gain.

Jewish Mysticism

The mention of Jewish mysticism likely evokes the Kabbalah, but there were other forms. I suppose you could argue that it begins with Adam, the first man, if the theory that the Sefer Yetzirah was written by Adam were true (but let's look at other options).

In fact, there were many philosophical trends prior to the Common Era (like Prophetic Judaism and Apocalyptic Judaism). The Sefer Yetzirah is judged to have inspired/affected Jewish mysticism in 200-600CE with its ideas on the formation of the world using the Hebrew alphabet and 10 sefirot.

The 11th through 13th centuries saw a rise in named scholars producing works that tried to explain the universe and the relationship of Man to God. This is where we find Isaac Israeli ben Solomon developing Jewish Neoplatonism, along with men like Solomon ibn Gabirol and Abraham ibn Ezra and Maimonides.

Neoplatonism was an attempt to "modernize" the works of Plato—considered a primary utility on intellectual thought but needing more work as new ideas came about in the centuries following his era—by people like John Eriugena and many others. One of its common themes was monism, the idea that all reality c an be tied to and derived from a single principle.

Many of the Jewish scholars promoting mysticism were in Spain, where Muslims had taken over and brought with them Arabic-language versions of texts from Greek philosophers not yet available to the Latin West. Jewish mysticism flourished in Spain until 1492 and the Alhambra Decree that expelled all Jews from Spain.

One of the features of Jewish mysticism we find in the Sefer Yetzirah and in the Kabbalah is the development of the 10 sefirot: the 10 facets or dimensions of the inner self.

1. Keter/Ayin (nothingness),  
2. Hokhma (wisdom)  
3. Binah (understanding)  
4. Hesed (Kindness) 
5. Gevurah (Discipline) 
6. Tiferet (Glory) 
7. Netzah (Victory) 
8. Hod (Splendor) 
9. Yesod (Foundation) 
10. Shekhinah (Divine Presence)

The Sefer Yetzirah was the first work that listed 10 sefirot, but the tenth was called Malkut, which means "Kingdom" or "Queenship." (I am sure that there are countless pages written about why one over the other would be used.) In both the Sefer and Kabbalah the tenth of the sefirot refers to the point where the divine manifests in the real world. That is why (see the illustration) it appears at the bottom of the diagram, because despite its name it is the "lowest point" on the scale, being attached to the material world.

So what about Christian philosophers? What did they think about the Kabbalah? Well, some of them adopted some concepts from Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Let's talk about how that worked next time.

The Sefer Yetzirah

Technically, the title of this post is the same as yesterday's, because Sefer Yetzirah translates as "The Book of Formation." Its author is unknown, its date of composition is widely debated, but it has been studied and annotated more than almost any other work besides the Bible (by scholars such as Nachmanides), and its influence on later Kabbalah was profound.

While there are older Jewish mystical traditions, Sefer Yetzirah is the first book of what might be called proto-Kabbalah, the school of Jewish mysticism that emerged in the 13th century. Sefer Yetzirah has its own sacred structures and ways of understanding the world that differ in significant ways from the kabbalistic understanding, but many of its concepts significantly influenced later Jewish mystical tradition and practice. [source]

It primarily seems to be a linguistic work, because it claims the Hebrew alphabet is the key to understanding how the universe was created. It even distinguishes how letters and words are formed by the mouth:

In contrast to the Jewish grammarians, who assumed a special mode of articulation for each of the five groups of sounds, the "Sefer Yeẓirah" says that no sound can be produced without the tongue, to which the other organs of speech merely lend assistance. Hence the formation of the letters is described as follows:  with the tip of the tongue and the throat;  between the lips and the tip of the tongue;  in the middle ([?]) of the tongue;  by the tip of the tongue; and by the tongue, which lies flat and stretched, and by the teeth (ii. 3). The letters are distinguished, moreover, by the intensity of the sound necessary to produce them, and are accordingly divided ... [Jewish Encyclopedia]

The illustration above (a poster available here) shows each of the letters and explains its importance according to the Sefer. 

And the letters show how they connect to the creation of the universe:

The linguistic theories of the author of the "Sefer Yeẓirah" are an integral component of his philosophy, its other parts being astrological and Gnostic cosmogony. The three letters are not only the three "mothers" from which the other letters of the alphabet are formed, but they are also symbolical figures for the three primordial elements, the substances which underlie all existence. The mute מ is the symbol of the water in which the mute fish live; the hissing ש corresponds to the hissing fire; and the airy א represents the air; while as the air occupies a middle position between the fire which reaches upward and the water which tends downward, so the א is placed between the mute מ and the hissing ש. [Jewish Encyclopedia]

The "32 paths of wisdom" that the Sefer Yetzirah claims God used to create the universe are the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the ten sefirot, later referred to as ten emanations or attributes of God. These sefirot are crucial to later Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Let's next take a look at how Jewish mysticism developed.

The Book of Formation

There is a much-studied document in Jewish literature whose origin is unknown. It has been considered the work of a 1st-century Rabbi Akiva, or the first man Adam, or the patriarch Abraham. The Jewish Encyclopedia claims it is more likely a work of the 3rd or 4th century based on its form of Jewish gnosis. It is the Sefer Yetzirah, sometimes called the "Book of Creation" but more accurately the "Book of Formation."

Not only is its origin a topic for debate, so is its purpose. It has been considered to be a mystical work about the Kabbalah, an explanation of how the universe came to be, and a work about linguistic theory. Each of these theories can be supported by its opening statement:

By thirty-two mysterious paths of wisdom Yah has engraved [all things], [who is] the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the living God, the Almighty God, He that is uplifted and exalted, He that Dwells forever, and whose Name is holy; having created His world by three [derivatives] of [the Hebrew root-word] sefar : namely, sefer (a book), sefor (a count) and sippur (a story), along with ten calibrations of empty space and twenty-two letters [of the Hebrew alphabet], [of which] three are principal [letters] (i.e. א מ ש‎), seven are double-sounding [consonants] (i.e. בג"ד כפר"ת‎) and twelve are ordinary [letters] (i.e. ה ו ז ח ט י ל נ ס ע צ ק‎).

(This idea, that the Hebrew alphabet is the guide to God and the universe, found new life in the Modern Era in something called the Bible Code.)

There are different versions of it extant that have been annotated by different scholars. One shorter version annotated by Dunash ibn Tamim, a pupil of Isaac Judaeus, argues that Hebrew was the original universal language and Arabic is derived from it. He states:

If God assists me and prolongs my life, I shall complete the work in which I have stated that Hebrew is the original tongue of mankind and older than the Arabic; furthermore, the book will show the relationship of the two languages, and that every pure word in the Arabic can be found in the Hebrew; that the Hebrew is a purified Arabic; and that the names of certain things are identical in both languages.

A bold claim. The Sefer Yetzirah is the subject of almost as much speculation and annotation as the Bible. We'll continue our exploration of it tomorrow.

Isaac Judaeus

An Andalusian Arab named Ibn Juljul wrote Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’ w’al-hukamā’ ("Generations of Physicians and Wise Men") in the late 900s. It is one of the only sources for biographies of several early scholars, philosophers, and doctors. In it we learn details about the life and career of Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, who is sometimes called simply Isaac Judaeus.

He was born in Cairo and became known as an oculist (we've talked about medieval eye treatment before).  About 904 he became the court physician to Prince Abu Mudhar Ziyadat Allah III in Kairouan, capital of Tunisia. He studied general medicine while there.

After the death of Ziyadat in 909, Isaac became doctor to Caliph 'Ubaid Allah al-Mahdi, the founder of the Fatimid dynasty. The caliph enjoyed the witty repartee of his Jewish physician. Isaac began lecturing on medicine, and many people came to hear him speak as his fame spread. He continued to learn, studying astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and natural history.

He wrote medical manuals in Arabic which, in the Arabic-speaking world, were considered gems, but were unknown in Western Europe. The 12th century saw translators in Toledo striving to make many works available to a wider audience. Gerard of Cremona translated Isaac's Liber de Definitionibus (Book of Definitions) and Liber Elementorum (Book on the Elements) into Latin. Christian scholars started noticing his work, such as Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Nicholas of Cusa, and Vincent de Beauvais.

One of his works dealt with the urinary tract, which I covered a few years ago.

The years of his life are given as different dates according to the source. Encyclopedia Britannica says born 832/855, Egypt—died 932/955) and that he lived more than 100 years. His death has been declared as 932, 940, 942, 950, and 955.

One of his pupils, Dunash ibn Tamim, wrote a commentary on a work of Jewish mysticism that quotes Isaac so extensively that later scholars thought it was written by Isaac himself. Dunash and this work, the Sefer Yetzirah, will be our next line of topics.

Gilbertus Anglicus

I've talked before about John of Gaddesden, a late-13th-century doctor who wrote a compendium of medical knowledge. A little before him was another who created an encyclopedic work about what was known at the time of medicine and surgery.

His name was Gilbertus Anglicus (c.1180 - c.1250), called so because he was born in England, although after some initial education in his home country he went to Europe to study, particularly at the Salerno medical school. He actually returned to England for a time to assist a bishop, but that bishop died in 1205 and Gilbertus went back to Europe.

After 1230, he produced a seven-volume work in Latin called Compendium Medicinae. This work was copied and distributed as one of the foundational works of medical education for centuries (along with Gaddesden's). It was translated into Middle English in the early 1400s. It first saw formal print in 1510 with further editions, one as late as 1608. Chaucer includes him in the Canterbury Tales as one of the great physicians.

Among its seven volumes was a section on gynecology that was sometimes circulated separately as The Sickness of Women. Later it was called The Sickness of Women 2 after having a different author's work added. These became even more widely distributed than the Trotula.

One of the aspects that made Gilbertus' Compendium so valued was its inclusion of the knowledge of so many others. Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen are there, of course, but also Avicenna and Averroes, Macrobius, Boethius, several Arabians, Isaac Judaeus, and the Salernian writers.

Isaac Judaeus was mentioned briefly here regarding Charlemagne and an elephant, and I'd like to tell you more about him, starting tomorrow. Isaac, that is, not the elephant.

Medieval Dentistry

What you are looking at here is a "pelican," so-called because it resembles a pelican's beak. It was used to extract teeth and tools like it are believed to have been in use since about 1200.

Although the biggest danger to healthy teeth these days is sugar, and sugar was not found in many diets until about 1400, cavities, toothache, abscesses, and other dental problems could arise. Consequently, the Middle Ages developed ways to deal with them.

Food buildup on teeth was rubbed or brushed away by the use of rough linen cloth or twigs frayed at the end. Other substances applied to teeth to help clean them could include ground sage and salt, or a mix of pepper, salt, and mint (after which you were advised to swallow the stuff). Another recommended tooth cleaner was the charcoal made from burning the woody part of the rosemary plant.

Having sweet breath was desirable, and methods to deal with halitosis included mouthwashes of vinegar or wine, sometimes with herbs steeped in them. Fennel seeds or parsley or cloves could be carried around and chewed in case the need arose to sweeten one's breath on the fly.

Still, daily wear and tear occurred on the teeth. Stoneground bread sometimes had grit that could wear away at the enamel, leading to cavities and tooth loss. When the pain became too much, a trip to the barber-surgeon was necessary. By 1210, in France there was guild of people who specialized in dentistry. They called themselves "barbers," and tried to regulate the practice. France made royal decrees in 1400 to ensure that those performing dentistry had the proper training.

Books of medicine did not neglect teeth. Trotula had a solution for woman with black teeth:

… take walnut shells well cleaned of the interior rind, which is green, and … rub the teeth three times a day, and when they have been well rubbed … wash the mouth with warm wine, and with salt mixed in if desired.

She had a more elaborate recipe:

Take burnt white marble and burnt date pits, and white natron, a red tile, salt, and pumice. From all of these make a powder in which damp wool has been wrapped in a fine linen cloth. Rub the teeth inside and out.

After this rinse with wine again, then wipe the teeth with a new white cloth (have to get ride of the wine stains, after all!).

The advice to swallow the pepper and salt mixture came from Gilbertus Anglicus, who wrote a Compendium of Medicine. Let's talk about him and it tomorrow. 

Medieval Bioarchaeology

People lived so differently centuries ago that it is difficult to know exactly what life was like in the pre-Industrial Era. Some scholars, like Barbara Hanawalt (mentioned here) have deduced evidence of daily life by looking at coroner's reports.

Some look at corpses.

A few years ago, DNA evidence drawn from an ancient skeleton found that a descendant of the decedent was living just a few miles from where the progenitor was buried!

Medieval skeletons yield other finds about lifestyles centuries before the Modern Era without even doing DNA analysis. Yesterday I mentioned how information about aging and disease can be drawn from analysis of certain bones and teeth.

Skeletons can also yield indicators of malnutrition or disease in childhood, based on the appearance of something called Harris lines. Harris lines are "growth arrest lines" that are formed when malnutrition or disease or stress cause the bone to pause in the lengthening process, which causes developing bone instead to increase in density.

Also, because physical stress causes bones to thicken/strengthen, one can deduce that the person with, for instance, larger bones in the hand dealt regularly with moving/carrying heavy items. Perhaps he was a stone mason, or a potter.

If an exhumation is lucky enough to reveal preserved hair, it is possible to look at levels of nitrogen-carbon isotopes that reveal stress due to physical events or dietary changes. Increased cortisol in hair samples suggest a person undergoing stress before death, such as a long illness or advanced aging. Decreased cortisol can indicate a sudden death.

Another piece of a body that survives over time is teeth. Yesterday's post mentioned some of the features that can tell us about life back then for the owner of the teeth. That leads me to wonder: what was medieval dentistry like? Let me do some research and get back to you next time. See you soon.

Skeletons in the Closet

When learning about people in the Middle Ages, you can only go so far with records and archaeology. Sometimes you have to go to the people themselves—and not be dissuaded by the fact that they are dead.

It is said that "dead mean tell no tales"—a phrase nowadays associated irrevocably with Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, but probably originated by John Dryden in The Spanish Friar (1681), act IV, sc. i—but in fact we can learn a lot about dead men by examining their bones.

Someone who is learning a lot about the Middle Ages from bones is anthropologist Sharon DeWitte.* She spends her summers traveling from the University of South Carolina to London where she is able to analyze the bones from medieval English skeletons.

What can she tell from skeletons?

DeWitte says where the two halves of the pelvis meet in the front and join in the rear provide consistent signs of adult aging. For children, teeth and the fusing of certain bones are among the best indicators of age. To determine sex, she looks for a wider pelvis in women and a squared jaw and skull made rugged along the forehead and back by testosterone in men.

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She also examines for linear enamel hypoplasia, or little horizontal grooves that form on the teeth of children whose enamel formation was interrupted by malnutrition or infectious disease. Visible to the naked eye, these defects remain through adulthood and tell DeWitte the ages of when the health disturbances would have occurred.

There is a whole field of study referred to as Medieval Bioarchaeology. Let's look more into that tomorrow.

Learning After Black Death

While discussing how England tried to control the movement of laborers after the Black Death yesterday, I mentioned something about what we can learn from skeletons.

A while ago, I came across this article about Dr. Sharon DeWitte of the University of South Carolina, who examines skeletons from the Middle Ages to determine what she can about their lifestyle. So far, her research has included over 600 skeletons from the 11th through 14th centuries. She has particularly studied skeletons from the period just before and just after the Black Death. She found something curious:

“I found that a significantly higher number of people were living to really old ages after the Black Death. Many people lived beyond the age of 50 and particularly above the age of 70,” DeWitte said. “I honestly was surprised by how dramatic the difference was in their survival. I’ve analyzed risks of mortality within the pre-and post-Black Death populations, and the preliminary results suggest lower overall risks of mortality after the Black Death.” [source]

She attributes this to a few things: those who survived the Plague were more likely to be from a segment of the population that was healthier to begin with. Also, the population loss led to a food surplus that promoted greater health. We have already noted, for instance, the Statutes of Laborers, rules that were established (again and again) post-Plague to try to keep peasants from moving to other estates. The shortage of laborers meant workers had new opportunities to seek better wages that would lead to better living conditions.

In the future, she intends to collaborate with others to look at genetic variation in humans before and after the Plague. Perhaps she can learn how the massive "die off" perhaps reduced certain genes that made humans more susceptible to Plague, leaving future generations healthier.

Tomorrow we'll look at some of Dr. DeWitte's other conclusions from examining skeletons.

Controlling the Workforce

“Whereas late against the malice of servants, which were idle, and not willing to serve after the pestilence, without taking excessive wages, it was ordained by our lord the king… that such manner of servants… should be bound to serve, receiving salary and wages, accustomed in places where they ought to serve… five or six years before; and that the same servants refusing to serve… should be punished by imprisonment…”

That is some of the wording of the Statutes of Laborers, also called Ordinance of Laborers..

After the Black Death (1348-50 in England), the workforce was radically reduced. In a culture where 90%+ of the workforce was involved in agriculture, and every bit of it done by manual labor, this was potentially disastrous for lords who relied on peasants to plant and tend and harvest crops. The obvious solution was to offer better wages if peasants would leave their homes and settle in the lords' villages that had been deserted by the Pestilence.

This competition for labor did not sit well with most of society, who saw it as a disruption of the way things had been for centuries. The first Ordinance of Laborers was established by Edward III in 1349 to try to prevent the disruption of society that a "free market" could create. It stated:

• Everyone under the age of 60 must be willing to work
• Employers must not hire more workers than they need
• Wages must remain at pre-Pestilence levels
• Food prices must not be increased

Did it work?

• 1350 saw the Stature of Laborers that fixed the wages of laborers and artisans.
• 1356 saw regulations placed on the trade of masons. (Freemasons use this as proof that Freemasonry has been fighting "the Man" for centuries.)
• 1368 saw the Statute of Laborers reaffirmed.
• 1377 saw an act restricting the freedom of serfs to move from domain to domain.

Clearly, the laws had to be re-enacted because no one was listening. The attempt to suppress the freedom of the lower classes continued for the next two centuries. In England the above led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

What else can we learn about life immediately following the Black Death? You'd be surprised what you can learn from examining skeletons. I'll explain that tomorrow.

(Full disclosure: much of this post is a repeat from 2012, with new info added.)

After the Black Death, Part 2

As seen yesterday, the significant population loss resulting from the Black Death had a positive effect on laborers' wages. Reduction in the labor force made competition to hire laborers more keen, and those wishing to get their crops planted and harvested had to offer better rates to get laborers to travel to their demesne.

Unfortunately, this increase in wages did not result in an increase in quality of life. Inflation is not just a feature of modern economics. Because of the disruption in trade, etc., prices went up. Estimates from one scholar put the price increase at 27% just from 1348 to 1350. 

On the other hand, individuals had more cash on hand. With the deaths came a transfer of wealth to relatives, so there was more money in the hands of each individual. Barbara Hanawalt's research found, for instance, that the money lender in a town or village was likely to be a widow who inherited from her husband (sometimes a few husbands in a row) and used it to support her neighbors.

The changes mentioned in the preceding two paragraphs helped lead to the decline of the class called "serfs." There was more mobility, and the attempts to keep laborers tied to one lord's manor or demesne became increasingly difficult. Serfs could ask for higher wages or a larger percentage of the crops they harvested. The peasant class began to accrue more wealth. A generation or two would see a larger "middle class" forming.

Another change (difficult to quantify) came in the Church. St. Boniface centuries earlier was said to lament that "In the old days our priests were of gold and their chalices of wood; now the priests were of wood and their chalices are gold." The Black Death left many Church positions and parishes empty. The Church had to ordain many new priests quickly to fill appointments.

When the Black Death struck Europe in 1347, the increasingly secular Church was forced to respond when its religious, spiritual, and instructive capabilities were found wanting. The Black Death exacerbated this decline of faith in the Church because it exposed its vulnerability to Christian society.

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Part of the reason why the Catholic Church was so negatively affected by the plague was due to the deterioration in the quality of its clergy. A great number of priests succumbed to the pestilence, and the individuals whom the Church recruited to take their place could not adequately perform their duties. [link]

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about England's attempts to control the movement of peasants away from their obligated land to find new jobs.

After the Black Death, Part 1

Although the cause of the Black Death has been questioned, what we know as the Bubonic Plague is the likeliest culprit, causing widespread mortality throughout Europe, killing as much as one-third of the population over just a few years (1347-1350).

This enormous demographic shift caused chaos on a scale hitherto unknown.

National estimates of mortality for England, where the evidence is fullest, range from five percent, to 23.6 percent among aristocrats holding land from the king, to forty to forty—five percent of the kingdom’s clergy, to over sixty percent in a recent estimate. The picture for the continent likewise is varied. Regional mortality in Languedoc (France) was forty to fifty percent while sixty to eighty percent of Tuscans (Italy) perished. Urban death rates were mostly higher but no less disparate, e.g., half in Orvieto (Italy), Siena (Italy), and Volterra (Italy), fifty to sixty—six percent in Hamburg (Germany), fifty—eight to sixty—eight percent in Perpignan (France), sixty percent for Barcelona’s (Spain) clerical population, and seventy percent in Bremen (Germany). [link]

What was the impact of the loss of population? We don't have census data, but there are records that survive from monasteries and landowners (lords) who did keep track of their finances.

...in England ... the immediate impact was to lower real wages for both unskilled and skilled workers by about 20% over the next two years. Estimated per capita GDP decreased from 1348 to 1349 by 6%. Similarly, in Spain, where the Black Death also arrived in 1348, real wages were 9% lower in 1350 and estimated per capita GDP decreased by 3.3%. [link]

Once the Black Death had passed and recovery began, wages started to rise for agricultural laborers (by far the majority of the population was agricultural, working lands for a lord). A landowner in need of workers could offer higher wages out of desperation, causing nearby landowners who offered less to lose their labor force. Laws called the Statute of Laborers were passed in England following the Black Death that required peasants to stay in one place, but the fact that these laws were passed every few years tells us that no one was actually following the law.

Not all wages rose. Those in the building trade found the demand for new construction at a historic ebb, so wages for laborers in that field were low.

We'll talk more tomorrow, especially about how prices skyrocketed.