The Alchemical testament of John Gibbs of Exeter, and other 16th century English alchemists

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alchemy

This is a peculiar little text, apparently from the 16^th century. The original MS is apparently Ashmole 1423 in the Bodleian library, yet I can’t find it in their catalogue, it seems because it isnt properly digitised yet and they have multiple catalogues. Mind you I wonder maybe it doesn’t exist and the attribution is wrong.…

The Alchemy website has a listing of all works within the book, and it seems to date from the end of the 16^th century.

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/mss/mss540.htm

It’s yet another book whose individual importance is low but as one of many such books around at the time can give a much broader and informed picture of the state of knowledge and public interest in alchemy, chymistry and related topics at the time. The more I have learnt the more I have realised that the public histories of alchemy give a very simple idea of it, necessarily so in many cases, but in others I think the research hasn’t been done, especially amongst all the surviving manuscripts.

So of course it probably won’t get digitised, he typed cynically.

Anyway, the 19^th century transcription can be found here online:

http://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b24927004#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&z=-0.3378%2C0.2163%2C1.6476%2C0.9006

It starts very seriously, introducing John Gybbys of Exeter, who on his deathbed, wants to communicate his ‘great secret’ he has. He does so “ and ye wyll, shall have a cause to pray for my sowle and for the good deyd ye may do be my informacyn.” which to me sounds rather Catholic, i.e. pre-reformation. In the notes accompanying the transcription, the MS apparently belonged to John Dee in 1563.

There follows an odd text, clearly somewhat cut and pasted in from other sources, which starts with instructions to melt lead and hold a stick in it when it cools, so as to leave a hole. Then take mercury, “true and good; see he be strained and clarified well through a piece of leather white…” (modernised spellings)

This mercury is to be put to the metal, seemingly into the hole you have, whilst it is still hot even if solid, and a cucurbit of glass luted above the hole, over the crucible, and anything that appears in it is collected.

Eventually, you proceed to the usual gentle heating of your hermetically sealed vessel, which isn’t usually as well described as here. The mercury spirit that is distilled from it all is put back to the body, “… and iff the body reseave the spyritt againe, itt is perfytte, iff he wyll, not prove hym again.”

The stone you get is called lapis adamantis, or in English a ‘Shypman stone’ or a ‘lood stone’.

That is certainly a good way to confuse names.

The second step is to take the stone, put it in a glass pot, and mortified mercury, lute it shut, heat it, on and off, for 40 days! Which should cause the mercury to dissolve into a crystall clear water.

After for 24 hours burning with a great fire, it will turn black, when it should be taken out the pot. This is rather a departure from the norm. Black is supposed to change to white, and then red, often via a rainbow colour step.

I can fantasise about a poorly educated, country based alchemist gulling less sophisticated people, but it isn’t even clear if Gybbys really existed and was an alchemist!

When added to liquid mercury it will mortify it and it will harden, often shaking the crucible as it does so. When heated it will all melt and dissolve again, and it can be cast into an ingot.

An ingot of what, I hear you ask. To which I can only say, this sounds like a method of making a silver analogue. Not gold. Of course, Saturn usually means lead, the trick is how to make the lead harder and shinier.

Note the way it combines common forms of language and action yet in a slightly different way from normal. I’m sure that as historians dig deeper into the many different manuscripts, they will find many such variations, due to the many different people that have written them.

Here’s a photo of a somewhat weathered lead cauldron casting at Kentwell, done maybe 20 years ago now:

Note the colour and dullness, which has to be overcome in order to make it look like silver.

As for other alchemists, every now and then I stumble across mention of others, there really were quite a lot of them. For instance, in “Alchemical poetry 1575- 1700” (the title is a lie, there is earlier stuff in it in translation) there is a work by Edward Cradock.

He attended Oxford University, and lived from around 1536- 1594, i.e. through the various religious upheavals and political change. He was a doctor of theology at Oxford and lectured on the topic, and according to a bibliographical entry on him, spent a lot of time on alchemy. He produced 3 alchemical works, the third being a poem “A treatise touching the Philosopher’s stone” which is therefore in the book above.

The book also features two verse works by Simon forman, and three verse translations from middle french by William Backhouses, in 1644. The texts are from 1413 and 1500, the latter being by pseudo- Jean de meun and titled “The complaint of Nature against the Erronious Alchymist” and ”The Alchymyst’s Answere to Nature”

I find it interesting that someone would translated older French alchemical poetry into English in the mid-17^th century, and think it’s all part of the broader cultural importance of alchemy, which is something I just don’t think has been adequately covered, especially in a more public friendly fashion. It’s easy enough to state that alchemy was widely known of and popular amongst learned people, much harder to explain it in both breadth and depth.

The “Natural Magic” of Giambattista della Porta

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Della Porta, Magic, Natural Magic

This is a famous book, but an odd one to modern eyes. Wikipedia calls it “… a fine example of pre-Baconian science.”, which might be correct but doesn’t mean much to most people. What it most obviously is is a recipes book, like the then popular books of secrets, on topics such as poisons, magnetism, metallurgy etc. But what it seems to do is align ‘natural magic’ with simply how the world works in and of itself, i.e. it isn’t occult i.e. hidden, in the old sense of the word. How important this was at the time I don’t really know yet.

However, on closer inspection, the term “natural magic” is clearly used as meaning not sorcery, which uses “foul spirits”, but rather knowing how nature works.

“I pass over other men of the same temper, who affirm that I am a witch and a Conjurer whereas I never wrote here nor elsewhere, what is not contained within the bounds of nature. Wherefore, studious readers, accept my long labors, that cost me much study, travel, expense, and much inconvenience, with the same mind that I publish them; and remove all blindness and malice, which are wont to dazzle the sight of the mind, and hinder the truth; weigh these things with a right judgment, when you try what I have written, for finding both truth and profit, you will think better of my pains.”

Within the bound of nature = natural magic = pretty much how everything works or how a physician heals his patient. It also says in the introduction:

From the first time it appeared, it is now thirty five years, and (without any derogation from my modesty be it spoken) if ever any man labored earnestly to discover the secrets of Nature, it was I; For with all my mind and power, I have turned over the monuments of our ancestors, and if they wrote anything that was secret and concealed, that I enrolled in my catalogue of rarities. Moreover, as I traveled through France, Italy, and Spain, I consulted with all libraries, learned men, and artificers, that if they knew anything that was curious, I might understand such truths as they had proved by their long experience. Those places and men, I had not the happiness to see, I wrote letters to, frequently, earnestly desiring them to furnish me with those secrets, which they esteemed rare; not failing with my entreaties, gifts, commutations, art and industry. So that whatsoever was notable, and to be desired through the whole world, for curiosities and excellent things, I have abundantly found out, and therewith beatified and augmented these, my endeavors, in “NATURAL MAGICK”, wherefore by earnest study and constant experience, I did both night and day endeavored to know whether what I heard or read, was true or false, that I might leave nothing unassayed; for I have oft thought of that sentence of Cicero, It is fit that they who desire for the good of mankind, to commit to memory things most profitable, well weighted and approved, should make trial of all things.

This obsession with testing things is not new; it is seen in Geber, and Roger Bacon discusses the forms of knowledge including that of testing what has been claimed. However he put a lot of weight on old experts and wise men, as well as on theology.

Porta on the other hand seems very much more modern, being sceptical and open minded.

The next few chapters discuss what magic is and how it works, with chapter 9 being “how to attract and draw forth the virtues of superior bodies”.

This is not new, it is important to emphasise that in the 16^th century what we think of as a more modern approach was forming, but it was very clearly based in medieval thought and in turn upon classical thought.

Indeed I suspect that most people and organisations were still rather medieval in their outlook until the Enlightenment in the later 18^th century.
Anyway, my main focus is of course on alchemy and metallurgy, and here it has something potentially interesting.

Gunpowder that doesn’t go bang

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gunpowder

I was at the local council fireworks tonight when I remembered a strange little legend that was widely known during the post medieval period, although I do wonder when it first arose.

It is of gunpowder that doesn’t make a noise when it explodes.

In the early 17th century, we have Francis Bacon mentioning a white gunpowder which “will discharge a piece without noises: and it is a dangerous Experiment if true.”

Fortunately for his reputation, he went on to write, “But it seems to me impossible; for it confined air be drive out, and strike the open air, it will certainly make a noise.”

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DNQRDPIb_aAC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=gunpowder+that+makes+no+noise&source=bl&ots=ZtR2HIdim6&sig=4BFjFu-HjehY4jDeDvAsVJQ9eus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Zo1aVJ_wDJPbsATf0YGYDQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gunpowder%20that%20makes%20no%20noise&f=false

But then he goes on to discuss how it might might possible to achieve an explosion and operation of a gun without the confined air meeting the open air.

J. R. Partington, in his book “A history of Greek Fire and Gunpowder”, still a good starting point for the history of both substances, wrote that “The idea of noiseless and (apparently) flameless gunpowder is found in old European works.”

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fNZBSqd2cToC&pg=PA272&lpg=PA272&dq=noiseless+gunpowder&source=bl&ots=VoH9V5qq8E&sig=hvf2rE77xOG2bnA6PtLqTSTGSRY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1Y1aVNrXHcWmgwTDl4LgCg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=noiseless%20gunpowder&f=false

Certainly, in the 1540 “De Pyrotechnia” of Biringuccio, based on the previous decades of his life and work, he writes, “There are many who start a lie circulating by saying that they make a powder that does not make a noise when guns are fired with it. This is impossible for the aforesaid reasons since fire and air are present, and far from being able to do what they say in artillery, they would not do it in one of those popguns that children are accustomed to shoot when laurel berries are ripe. Besides this, other things could be mentioned in which it is recognised that everything proceeds from the shattering of the air when they are struck.”

(Page 416 of the Dover Paperback of Smith and Gnudi’s translation)

He had previously explained the noise made by firing a gun as due to the hot air inside meeting cold air outside, the air pushed out of the gun by the bullet colliding with the air outside, etc etc.

So the interesting thing is where and when did this idea originate? I have been unable to find any more information so far, but suspect it comes from either an early book of secrets (Which contained many impossible recipes as well as ones that did work) or from a pseudo-magical book of some sort written by someone who was not actually involved in alchemy or foundry work or anything practical.

If anyone has any ideas it would be nice to know.

What I did on my holidays, or, Tudor pottery kilns are great

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furnace, kilns, pottery, Tudor

I am one of hundreds of people who consider it a holiday to dress up as a Tudor and pretend to be living in the 16th century, and carrying out 16th century activities in a way that they would have done. This year I was supposed to be doing and talking about land surveying and improvement, but the slightly more interesting stuff that went on in the evening included helping the potters fire some pottery the old fashioned, but very effective, way.

This is the kiln, note the chains on it to help keep it all tied together when hot, although it would matter more on the full sized one (Without the chains and some repairs, it might open a big crack in the side letting all the heat out) :