The Mediating Spirit in Salernitan Reflections on the Body-Soul Nexus
p. 113-142
Texte intégral
1Scholars have long considered the twelfth century a crucial moment in the formation of a new Christian discourse on the body-soul nexus, in which the compound notion of spirit (spiritus) played a key function. The translation of dozens of medical textbooks from the Greek and the Arabic between 1080 and 1180 prompted the systematization of medical learning as a philosophical discipline. Conjointly, discussion of the humors, powers (virtutes), and spirits that constitute, vivify, and govern the human body became an integral part of the medical curriculum.1 The twelfth century was also a period of religious renaissance, during which the traditional dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit gave way to a new understanding of spiritus as a mediator between the corporeal body and the incorporeal soul. Noted theologians, associated with the new Order of Cîteaux and the Augustinian house of Saint-Victor in Paris, presented the spirit as a ladder that the soul could ascend by various degrees of corporeity until it reached the sphere of divine contemplation.2 Thus, while the notion of spirit has always been part of the Christian discourse on man, usage of the term intensified considerably across a variety of theoretical frameworks in the twelfth century, subsequently becoming an inseparable part of what James Bono has called “the medieval language of life”.3 Concurrently, new questions arose regarding the material nature of this spirit and the kind of influence the soul and the spirit could exert on one another.4
2This study seeks to explore how twelfth-century physicians tackled these questions in the Italian city of Salerno, then the principal center of medical learning in the Latin West. The Salernitan physicians’ interest in discussions concerning the body-soul nexus has gained visibility through the studies of Mark Jordan, Danielle Jacquart, Irene Caiazzo, and Faith Wallis.5 The Salernitans followed the newly-translated medical textbooks in arguing that the human body was governed by three principal powers (virtutes): the natural power (virtus naturalis), which grows and nourishes the organs; the spiritual power (virtus spiritualis), which moves the heart; and the animal power (virtus animalis), which drives the cognitive functions in the brain and provides the organs with movement and sensation. They also suggested that these powers carried out their functions in the body using three material instruments named spirits: a spiritus naturalis originating in the liver, a spiritus vitalis originating in the heart, and a spiritus animalis (literally, the spirit that pertains to the soul), the source of which is the brain. This theory became a fundamental theme in medical learning. However, the Salernitans’ approach to spiritus as a mediator between the corporeal body and the incorporeal soul calls for further elaboration. Was the Salernitan discussion on the natural, vital, and animal spirits conceptually distinct from the contemporary theological discourse, and how did Salernitan authors handle the polysemy of the term spiritus in Christian culture? Did they consider discussion of the spirit’s ontological status relevant to medicine? If so, how did they explain the spirit’s ability to bridge the ontological gap between the corporeal body and the incorporeal soul when presenting the spiritus animalis in the brain? These questions can help to clarify a complex chapter in Salernitan thought that sits at the intersection of medicine, philosophy, and theology. They can shed new light on the still widespread idea that the twelfth-century discourse on spirit was a primarily theological enterprise, aimed at serving the needs of a new form of Christian spirituality.6 The Salernitan physicians not only participated in this discourse, but also used it to define the contours of medical thought and its points of interaction with cosmology and theology. Examining their views can thus contribute to the ongoing efforts of scholars such as Faith Wallis and Maaike van der Lugt to explore the various points where medical thought met religious thought in the twelfth century.7 This article also proposes to rethink the historiographic caesura that separates the study of twelfth-century thought from that of the late Middle Ages. It does so by stressing the significance of Salernitan discussions of the mediating spirit in understanding the mechanisms that shaped the Western discourse on human nature in the centuries that followed.8
Salernitan Sources
3At the heart of this study stands a group of medical commentaries on the Isagoge Iohannitii, a short introduction to the principles of Galenic medicine that launched the medical canon that became known as the Articella.9 The treatise, a translation-adaptation of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq’s (808-873) Al-Masā’il fī al-tibb (Questions on Medicine), was one of the earliest medical texts translated by Constantinus Africanus (d. before 1098-1099) and his second most diffused medical translation in the twelfth century. As early as the late eleventh or early twelfth century, physicians started to gloss this short introduction as part of their medical training. By the second quarter of the twelfth century, the Isagoge Iohannitii became known in philosophical and theological circles, too.10
4One of the reasons for its success in the twelfth century is that the Isagoge managed to encompass an extremely wide range of medical notions and topics in an impressively organized and succinct manner. Its first part, stretching over seventeen short chapters in Maurach’s edition, focuses on seven natural factors in human physiology (res naturales): the elements that constitute the human body, the mixtures of their qualities, the four humors, the organs of the body, the powers, their functions, and at last, the spirits. This part includes an explicit description of the animal, vital, and natural spirits as structural units in human psychophysiology. The rest of the treatise comprises 83 chapters on non-natural things (res non naturales, chapters 18-41) and on things that are against nature (contra naturam, chapters 42-100).11 These chapters do not tackle the issue of spirits explicitly, but some of them, like chapter 41 on emotions and chapter 42 on fevers, invited a deep reflection on the substance of spirits and their mediating qualities. Since the pedagogical exercise of the commentary consisted of developing this list of medical themes and definitions into lucid and comprehensive discussions, the glosses that elucidate these chapters in the twelfth century form a rich resource for Salernitan views on spiritus, as this was conceptualized in various contexts of discussion and using a wide spectrum of sources.
5The commentaries on the Isagoge Iohannitii also have the benefit of providing a relatively complete picture of the development of Salernitan thought throughout the twelfth century.12 The earliest extant commentaries on the Isagoge Iohannitii are dated to the first two decades of the twelfth century. They consist of the commentary known as the Digby commentary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108) and a commentary recently discovered by Irene Caiazzo in Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 544 (hereafter “the Parisian commentary”). While scholars are divided on the local and educational context in which these early commentaries were written, they seem to agree on their early dating: the Digby commentary was probably written before the mid-1120s, and the Parisian commentary, which presents a rather rudimentary form of commentary, seems to predate the Digby.13
6The rest of the medical commentaries on the Isagoge dated to the twelfth century belong to an identified lineage of Salernitan masters described in Giles of Corbeil’s well-known eulogy for the school from ca 1200.14 This lineage began with Bartholomaeus (fl. ca 1150), whose association with the city of Salerno is the subject of scholarly debate. Evidence suggests that Bartholomaeus was well-known in French circles, and there is no direct evidence that he ever lived in Salerno.15 It is, however, significant that one of the earliest copies of Bartholomaeus’ commentary is a reportatio by Petrus Musandinus, a prominent Salernitan master of the second half of the century. This suggests that Petrus Musandinus heard Bartholomaeus lecture on the Isagoge in the classroom and took notes, which he received permission to publish.16 Since Petrus’ disciples in Salerno quoted Bartholomaeus’ commentary in their glosses, it is likely that he introduced the reportatio in his own classroom, thus turning Bartholomaeus’ commentary into a model for the next generation of commentators in Salerno. This generation consisted of Archimatthaeus (ca 1153-1181), who named Archbishop Romuald II Guarna as his teacher; Maurus (ca 1160-1200), described by Giles of Corbeil as the disciple and most worthy successor of Petrus Musandinus; and Urso, whose activity is dated to the last decades of the twelfth century.17 While Urso never wrote a commentary on the Isagoge Iohannitii, his Aphorismi cum glossulis (ca 1200) drew on the commentaries of Bartholomaeus, Archimatthaeus, and Maurus, thus representing the peak of this commentary tradition.18
7Since a single chapter could hardly cover this corpus in its entirety, my examination will be guided by one significant turning point in the Salernitan discourse on spirits, which occurred in Maurus’ commentary. The main argument I wish to lay out is that before Maurus, the Salernitan discourse on spirits was limited to the understanding of spirit as a form of air (aer). In its most rarified form, this airy substance had the ability to perform cognitive functions such as imagination, reason, and memory. But the Salernitans deliberately limited their discussions to the material aspects of these functions, thus avoiding the ambiguities that became linked to the notion of spirit in the Christian discourse. In Maurus’ commentary, spiritus was accorded a whole new dimension as a quasi-incorporeal entity, responsible for the union between the soul and the body and for linking the material and immaterial aspects of human existence. Inspired by medical and philosophical theories alike, Maurus placed the discussion on the mediating spirit at the center of his doctrine on human physiology, while presenting the spirit as a key element in the creationist union between the soul and the body. In doing so, he became the first twelfth-century medical commentator to attempt the construction of a unified theoretical framework for the discussion on the body-soul nexus, which took into account Christian considerations as well as medical and philosophical ones. His theory of spiritus thus emerges not only as a turning point in the medical discourse on human physiology, but also as a significant landmark in establishing a holistic perception of the human being in the Latin West at the intersection of medicine, philosophy, and theology. This perception, I contend, is crucial for understanding how medieval theologians, philosophers, and caregivers rationalized their conceptions of healing throughout the late Middle Ages, across a variety of institutional, social, and spatial contexts.
Two Contexts of Discussion
8Before examining this turning point, it is useful to recall the main contexts in which the Salernitan commentaries on the Isagoge tackled the notion of spirit and the questions they raised concerning the body-soul nexus. For the sake of convenience, I have divided these loci of discussion into two thematic pairings: spirit and power; and spirit and heat. This division will allow me to pinpoint internal discrepancies within the Salernitan discussion on spirits and to suggest that they explain, at least initially, the difficulty of conceptualizing the mediating quality of spirits in medical writing.
Spirit and Power
9The relationship between spirit and power is a core theme in the chapters of the Isagoge dealing with the natural factors of human physiology, the res naturales. After presenting the elements that constitute the human body, the mixtures of their qualities, the humors, and the organs of the body, the Isagoge enumerates the three powers that drive the various functions of the human body (chapters 12-15), classifies these functions as either simple or composed (chapter 16), and then enumerates the spirits that govern these functions from the three principal organs in the body: the spiritus naturalis, vitalis, and animalis (chapter 17). The chapters of the Isagoge do not provide a clear definition of the spirits or an explanation of their role in relation to the powers and, by extension, the soul. After naming the spirits and tracing their origin to the principal organs of the body, the Isagoge merely notes that the spirits spread in the body through the veins, arteries, and nerves.19 However, Salernitan glosses on this chapter also draw on the Pantegni, Constantinus Africanus’ translation of Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Majūsī’s (d. 994) Complete Book of the Medical Art (Kitāb Kāmil aṣ-Ṣināʿa aṭ-Ṭibbiyya).20 Unlike the Isagoge, which is constructed in the form of a short aide-mémoire, the Pantegni is a lengthy medical encyclopaedia presenting the principles of Galenic physiology in an extensive and often eclectic manner. Accordingly, it provides a relatively detailed account of the nature, origin, and functioning of each spirit, taking pains to explain how the animal spirit can drive the cognitive functions of the soul despite its material origins: sanguine fumes and inhaled air. This explanation is anchored in the idea that each spirit represents a different degree of corporeity in the human body. The natural spirit, born directly from the fumes of digested blood, represents the most corporeal and coarse form of spirit, whereas the animal spirit, born from the vital spirit in a net of arteries beneath the brain, represents the purest and clearest form of this airy and fumy substance.21 In its purest state, the spirit is able to perform even the most subtle operations of the soul: imagination, reason, and memory.22 Since this spirit remains corporeal and must physically move between different parts of the brain in order to perform these activities, al-Majūsī and his translator Constantinus add a note regarding the difference between this spirit and the incorporeal soul. Although some philosophers consider this spirit to be the soul itself, they write, it is probably better to follow the opinion of those believing the soul is incorporeal, who argue that the spirit is, in fact, the instrument of the soul (instrumentum anime).23
10The Pantegni’s chapter on the spirits thus covers a variety of issues related to the mediating quality of spirit in a relatively clear and explicit manner. It is, however, the only chapter to do so. The chapters on the natural and spiritual powers ignore the existence of the spirits that supposedly rule and oversee the powers’ activities.24 The discussion on the animal power only mentions the animal spirit briefly as something that drives sensation and movement, not imagination, reason, and memory.25 In summary, other than a short description of the spirit that drives sight as a “luminous” avatar of the animal spirit,26 the Pantegni’s chapters on the powers are as unclear about the nature and mediating qualities of the spirits as the Isagoge.
Spirit and Heat
11To further complicate things, the Isagoge and the textbooks used to interpret it triggered another discussion on the spirits, as entities linked to heat (calor) and its various forms of diffusion in the body. This discussion centered around two seemingly different medical concepts: emotions, presented in chapter 41 of the Isagoge as “the accidents of the soul” (De accidentibus animae), and fevers (De febribus), discussed in the following chapter.
12Of these chapters, only chapter 42 on fevers sparked an explicit discussion on the relationship between spirit and heat. The vulgate version of the Isagoge does not refer to spiritus in this chapter, but to the enigmatic term animus.27 It presents animus as one of the origins of ephemeral fevers – namely, fevers that last no more than a day. However, Salernitan authors interpreted this passage using complementary textbooks on fevers, and these clearly referred to spirits as both the source of ephemeral fevers and their principal vehicle in the body. The Viaticum, Constantinus’ translation of Ibn al-Jazzār’s (d. 979) Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir, described the three spirits as bodily entities that transmit heat as part of a chain reaction that ends when the heart diffuses the heat throughout the body. This chain reaction can begin outside the body, like a fever originating from the summer sun, poisons, excessive cold, or baths. Or else it can begin within the body, like a fever caused by labor and exercise, anger, excessive thought, sorrow, anguish, and so on.28 The relationship between spirit and heat was further clarified in De febribus, Constantinus’ translation of a highly popular treatise by Jewish-Arab physician Isaac Israeli (d. 932). Isaac’s introduction states that heat originates in movement and increases with the circulation of the spirits, which occurs when the spirits do not have a free path of exhalation.29 It also establishes that the heart is the organ that releases these blocked spirits to the surface of the body because it is naturally warm and dry.30
13Few other medical discussions accorded the spirits such a central role in human psychology and presented their physiology with such clarity.31 The spirits emerge from the works of Isaac Israeli and Ibn al-Jazzār as entities enabling the body to react to mental and environmental stimulations by producing heat and thus as the primary agents of the psychobiological mechanism of human behaviour. At the same time, this account of the spirits was significantly different from the one provided in the Pantegni. The chapters in the Pantegni on fevers (book VIII) mention spiritus as the origin of ephemeral fevers but leave the three spirits out of the description of how the fever is generated in the body.32 Similarly, the chapters dealing with emotions in book IV (“on the passible power”) and book V (“on the actions of the soul”) explain why the soul diffuses heat from the heart in certain mental conditions, especially anger, but do not mention spirit either. Anger is defined in them as a sudden diffusion of heat toward the exterior of the body when the soul wants to complete a planned vengeance (excogitatam vindictam). Emotions appear to involve the activity of the heart as well as the brain (human beings are presented as being able to control this diffusion of heat using the power of reason seated in the brain). However, no other bodily elements intervene.33
14This difference between the Pantegni and the two works mentioned on fevers could be explained by their authors’ varying views. Isaac Israeli and Ibn al-Jazzār belonged to a circle of Arabic physicians whose perception of human psychology was highly materialistic, based on the idea that bodily spirits have the ability to transmit thoughts and feelings through movement and contact. In their works, written under the influence of Isḥāq Ibn-ʿImrān (d. 932), the spirits mediate between the heart and the brain, on the one hand, and between the brain and the soul, on the other hand.34 Completed shortly after the death of Ibn al-Jazzār, Al-Majūsī’s Kitāb Kāmil aṣ-Ṣināʿa (Pantegni) reflected a more Platonistic approach inherited from Al-Balhi (d. 934) and Al‑Rāzī (d. 925). This approach was more concerned with the ontological distance between the corporeal body and the incorporeal soul, referring to the “interweaving” (ištibāk) between psychic and physical diseases in general terms rather than providing an explicit physiological explanation for it.35
15Though not necessarily aware of this rich philosophical backdrop, the Salernitan commentators were sensitive to the differences and discrepancies that arose when reading these various accounts of the spirits. Their task was to clarify such ambiguities and provide a uniform account of how they perceived the spirits. On the surface, the formation of a uniform definition of spirit aimed to help medical students surmount the internal discrepancies within the sources. But behind it lay a series of fundamental questions regarding the role of the medical commentator in shaping the Christian discourse on the body-soul nexus. When discussing the nature of the spirits and their origin, were medical commentators supposed to consider the intricacies underlying the Christian understanding of spiritus? Or should they limit their discussion to a strictly medical definition of the spirits as avatars of fume and air? Moreover, what measures were they supposed to adopt in order to avoid confusing medical spirits with the Christian notion of a single spirit that transcends the material world?
The Spirit as a Physical Substance
16Before Maurus, the Salernitans tended to adopt a relatively uniform line of interpretation when considering these questions, regardless of whether they did so implicitly or explicitly. Generally speaking, this line of interpretation consisted of stressing the material and airy nature of spirit, while eliminating anything that might suggest an immaterial nature transcending the boundaries of medical thought.
Spirit as Air
17The main loci for stressing the material nature of the spirits were the glosses on the spiritual power and the rational functions of the brain, which presented an interpretation of spiritus as synonymous with breath (anhelitus) and air (aer). The earliest glosses on this issue, dated to ca 1100-1120, do not mention spirit at all, only air. The virtus spiritualis emerges from these glosses as the power of the heart to draw in air from the lungs and expel redundant fumes. The air in the lungs is drawn to the heart by a certain appetitive power and goes through a process of purification before it continues to the arteries.36 Following the Isagoge Iohannitii, the commentators note that this power also produces anger, indignation, belligerence, and imperiousness when the heart dilates and creates cunning and anxiety when the heart contracts. However, they do not explain the relationship between the physical movement of the heart and its cognitive or psychological origin.37
18Regarding the rational functions, which the Isagoge and the Pantegni locate in the brain, the early commentaries on the Isagoge stress that the brain completes them “on its own” (per se solum). The Digby commentator specifies that it does so due to a certain amount of air (aer) and brain matter (cerebrum, later replaced by medulla) found in the brain cells (cellulae) and the complexion that results. The front cell of the brain, which contains a lot of air (multum aeris) and a tiny quantity of brain matter (parum cerebri), is hot and dry in order to allow the soul to grasp images with a certain appetitive power. The middle part of the brain is hot and humid so that the soul can digest and thus discern the things that have been perceived by imagination. The back part of the brain is cold and dry in order to retain that which has been committed to it by reason.38 To put it differently, the heart and the brain do not operate because of spirits, but because of the four natural powers: appetite (which occurs in heat and dryness), digestion (in heat and humidity), retention (in cold and dryness), and expulsion (in cold and humidity). According to Galen and his Arabic interpreters, these powers inhere in every organ in the body to guarantee its continual growth and nourishment.39 For the Digby commentator, they explain even the most subtle operations of the soul.
19The commentaries of Bartholomaeus and Archimatthaeus, dated to the second half of the twelfth century, articulate the relation of spirit to air more clearly, but the context of the discussion remains purely physiological. When explaining the etymology of virtus spiritualis, Bartholomaeus and Archimatthaeus present the term spiritus as a synonym of air: spiritual power is thus named because it causes the inhalation of spirit – in other words, air.40 Accordingly, upon inhalation, the cavities of the heart fill not with air, but with “spirit and fume”, which cause the heart’s substance to expand in all directions. A few lines later, in an explanation of the difference between spirit and fume, the spirit is accorded a new material dimension as a body “midway between air and fire, coarser than fire but more diaphanous than air and water”.41 Neither of their chapters on anger, indignation, belligerence, and so on mention either spirit or air. They merely argue that the heart’s movement originates in a certain movement of the brain (motus cerebri).42 Further information on the material traits of the spirit is found in the chapter on the functions of the brain. Each part of the brain is said to contain both spirit and brain matter, which Bartholomaeus describes as “almost contrary in their substance and complexion”. He specifies that spirit has a hot and dry complexion and is a subtle substance, whereas brain matter has a humid complexion and is a coarse substance.43
20To formalize the material nature of spiritus, the Salernitans provided a clear definition of spirit as a subtle, airy substance (substantia) or body (corpus) in their glosses on the three spirits (chapter 17). As the table below shows, the earliest gloss on the three spirits, found in Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 544, reflects a unique and undoubtedly preliminary stage of this glossing tradition. It defines spiritus not as a substance or a body, but as “the movement of the powers (motus virtutum) towards the completion of their activities”. This definition might have originated in the introduction of the Pantegni’s book on the powers, which classifies the activities of the three powers according to the kind of movement (motus) or change (mutatio) they induce in the body.44 Either way, it seems to reflect an early understanding of spiritus as a technical term used to describe the powers in action.
21Beginning with the slightly later Digby commentary, spirit begins to be perceived as a material, moving body, while the definition of spirit as movement gradually disappears. The Digby commentator quotes the definition of spirit as movement but adds that it can also be defined as air that has been refined (aer subtiliatus) to complete the activities of the powers. Bartholomaeus’ commentary defines spiritus both as movement and as a subtle, airy body (he traces the origins of the “old” definition of spirit to the Pantegni). In Archimatthaeus’ commentary, the old definition of spirit as a movement disappears entirely, ceding to the new, consensual definition of spirit as a subtle, airy substance.
In Isagoge Iohannitii, Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 544, f. 62rb | Spiritus est motus virtutum ad suas peragendas operationes. |
In Isagoge Iohannitii, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 13v | Spiritus est motus virtutum ad suas peragendas actiones, vel spiritus est aer subtiliatus ad virtutum actionem vel operationem peragendam. […] vel quo operante moventur virtutes ad suas actiones perficiendas. |
Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 14.1, ed. F. Wallis, p. 290 | Qui sic diffinitur in Pantegni: Spiritus est motus vel motio virtutum ad explendas suas actiones vel operationes. Que diffinitio secundum effectum data est. Spiritus namque non est motus, sed [facit] ut virtutes ad explendas suas actiones vel operationes moveantur. Est ergo corpus subtile et aereum quo mediante ad explendas suas actiones virtutes moveantur. |
Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 42 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 8va) | Spiritus est subtilis et aerea substantia virtutes corporis excitans ad suas peragendas actiones. |
Spirit Between Body and Soul
22Having defined the spirit in this way, the Salernitan authors now had to explain this airy substance’s precise relation to the soul, specifically how an immaterial entity such as the rational, human soul operates in – or uses – corporeal entities such as spirit or air. This soul-body problem became a key question beginning with Bartholomaeus. Unlike his predecessors, Bartholomaeus and his followers openly adhered to the view that the creation of psychosomatic fevers involved spirits and that these spirits were responsible, at least to some extent, for transforming thoughts and images into physical reactions. Classifying such fevers according to whether they originate in the animal, vital, or natural spirit, the Salernitan authors began to include excessive thought (nimia cogitatio) as one of the possible origins of these fevers and argue that thought has the ability to move the animal spirit that fills the rational cell in the brain. The animal spirit, they contended, moves the vital spirit, and this spirit then moves the heart to diffuse heat.45
23The gloss on the three spirits would have been the most natural place to tackle the soul-body problem that emerged from this description. Beginning with the Digby commentary, this gloss provided a rather comprehensive account of the notion of spirit drawing on a number of supplementary textbooks, including the Pantegni and (according to Bartholomaeus) Costa ben Luca’s De differentia spiritus et anime. Use of Costa’s De differentia spiritus et anime is significant in this regard. Rendered twice into Latin over the course of the second quarter of the twelfth century, this work presented the principles of human psychology and psychophysiology by tackling the notions of “spirit” and “soul” one after the other. Its author, a ninth-century Christian physician and philosopher, drew on medical doctrines, most of them Galenic, to discuss the spirit and philosophical sources to discuss the soul, especially those by Plato and Aristotle. His goal, however, was not only to clarify the difference between spirit and soul (as the title of the treatise implies), but also to construct a shared discourse on the soul-body problem, one that physicians, philosophers, and theologians could all approach.46 Works such as Hugh of Saint-Victor’s De unione spiritus et corporis (ca 1130) and William of Saint-Thierry’s De natura corporis et anime (ca 1140-1148) show that the construction of such a shared Christian discourse on the soul-body problem was indeed a priority for the scholars of the time. As Charles Burnett and others have noted, they appear to reflect a trend in Latin scholarship that sought to reshape the Christian discussion on the soul-body problem in light of the medical “renaissance” of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.47
24Considering their length, systematic treatment of the notion of spirit, and intellectual sophistication, the Salernitans’ glosses on the three spirits can be easily regarded as part of this new trend. Nonetheless, the materiality of the spirit was the central theme of these glosses, not the problem it triggered when considering the immaterial nature of the soul. Most likely following the Pantegni, the Digby commentator and Bartholomaeus mentioned the soul only at the end of their gloss, without adding much to what Constantinus had already stated in the Pantegni: some philosophers considered the spirit as the soul itself, whereas others, considering the soul incorporeal, argued the spirit is the instrument of the soul (instrumentum anime). Bartholomaeus and the Digby commentator did not conclude, as Constantinus did, which opinion was better. Rather, they seemed to agree with Constantinus that the issue surpassed the scope of medical discussion. Without providing further explanation, Bartholomaeus advised his readers to consult another treatise on this issue – namely, Costa ben Luca’s De differentia spiritus et animae.48 Archimatthaeus decided to ignore this issue entirely.
25This hesitant approach regarding the soul-body problem reemerged in Salernitan discussions on sight and the visual spirit. The Salernitans adhered to an idea that was widely accepted in the philosophy and theology schools of northern France, whereby the human soul must use some kind of a medium in order to perceive material objects since it was immaterial. This medium, they argued, transcended the sphere of nature toward a metaphysical sphere of immaterial beings and was therefore substantially and ontologically different from the other spirits. To distinguish this medium from other physical entities, they used a different language from the typical medical language of the four elements and their qualities. The Digby commentator reserved the term spiritus for this unique entity, thereby distinguishing its action from that of the soul (anima) and from that of the air (aer) that fills the parts of the brain. This entity, he argued, receives the colors and shapes of bodies and carries their quality all the way to the brain, where it is perceived by reason (ibi ratione discernitur).49 Bartholomaeus made a similar distinction but changed the terminology. He used the term spiritus to describe the airy substance in the brain and introduced a new entity into the medical discourse to explain how sight is performed: the visual ray (radius). Unlike the visual spirit, which is an avatar of the animal spirit that inheres in the brain, the visual ray is immaterial, like the ray of the sun.50
26The idea of the visual ray echoes a number of contemporary discussions on sense-perception emanating from the schools of philosophy of northern France.51 This should come as no surprise, considering Bartholomaeus’ engagement in the contemporary debate on the merit of medical learning and his overall project to present medicine as a branch of philosophy. As Faith Wallis has shown, Bartholomaeus substantiated his claims drawing on contemporary philosophical treatises, such as Dominicus Gundissalinus’ De divisione philosophiae (ca 1150).52 It is quite possible that he also borrowed from contemporary treatises on the issue of sense-perception, especially when considering the affinities between his gloss on the animal power and some contemporary commentaries on Boethius’ De trinitate. A complete examination of this issue is beyond the scope of this chapter. The main point I would like to lay out here is that the affinities between Bartholomaeus and his contemporaries on the issue of sense-perception do not only strengthen the idea that Bartholomaeus had direct access to contemporary philosophical writings, either at Salerno or as a student or teacher in one of the schools in northern France. They also reveal a major difference between medical and philosophical writing. Unlike the philosophers and theologians of the time, medical commentators considered their discussion on the soul and the mediating spirit to be limited to a material sphere of being.53 The Digby commentator merely implied the existence of such limits, by using a vaguer language and different terminology when discussing the entity that drives sight. Bartholomaeus is more straightforward, saying that “we should leave out the discussion on how the soul discerns through the repercussion of rays because the nature of the soul (anima) and the rays is not known”.54 A short comment on the term virtus animalis suggests that this statement was specifically aimed at those who study the natural world, named phisici. Phisici, Bartholomaeus explains, use the term animalis (i.e., “pertaining to the soul”) because some of this power’s activities – such as reason and intellect – extend to things that are not subject to nature and do not receive any operation of nature, such as God and the divine spirits. Since nature does not appear to be the effective cause of these activities, phisici find another cause, which they refer to as “soul” (anima).55 According to Bartholomaeus, the medical notion of virtus animalis is therefore misleading and should not be understood as referring to the soul itself. Only a small part of the activities denoted by this power pertain to the divine sphere of knowledge to which “soul” belongs, and these activities – reason and intellect – belong, in fact, to a metaphysical field of knowledge that transcends the material reality studied by the physician. To put it differently, the passage draws invisible limits between the natural and the divine, which reflect Bartholomaeus’ perception of physica and metaphysica as two separate fields of knowledge. One deals with nature, the other with the divine.56
On the Confines Between the Natural and the Divine
27Maurus’ commentary on the Isagoge appears to have been the first to openly challenge these invisible limits between the natural and the divine. Maurus was well acquainted with both Bartholomaeus’ and Archimatthaeus’ perception of the spirits. Several segments of his commentary on the Isagoge are almost identical to Archimatthaeus’ glosses, especially where Archimatthaeus offers a useful abridgement of Bartholomaeus’ more elaborate arguments.57 Nonetheless, a close reading of his glosses suggests that Maurus’ view of man and medicine is completely different from that of his Salernitan predecessors. His glosses not only challenge the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical, but also form a new, holistic medical discourse around the idea of spirit as a medium (medius, or “middle”) between the physical body and the incorporeal soul.58
28Strikingly, Maurus chose to develop this idea in the gloss on the spiritual power, the power that moves the heart to produce pulse and anger. The term “middle” and its various inclinations are repeated several times in this gloss, each time expressing a slightly different idea regarding the quality of this spirit, its function in the body, and its ontological status. According to the opening of the gloss, the author of the Isagoge located the discussion on the spiritual power in the middle (mediam locavit) between the natural and the animal powers because it is partly from the soul and partly from nature. In the paragraphs that follow, Maurus argues that the soul is united to the firm substance of the body with the spirit’s mediation (eo mediante). He describes the spirit as “a third kind of nature that God placed midway (medium locavit) between the indivisible and the divisible substances [of the universe]”.59 Finally, he claims the spirit is infused in the body through the heart, which God placed in the middle of the microcosm (in medio microcosmi), just as He placed the sun in the middle of the greater world.60
29This last passage implies that Maurus gave the term “middle” a clear physical meaning. There is one spirit in the body that serves as a bridge between the corporeal and the incorporeal, and this spirit is placed in the heart, the center of the human body. It does so to warm all the parts of the body evenly, just like the sun warms the universe evenly from its central position in the heavens. At the same time, the term “middle” appears to encapsulate an abstract idea, by indicating the ontological status of this spirit, which is neither corporeal like the body nor incorporeal like the soul. It is something in between that allows the soul, an incorporeal, non-spatial entity, to operate within a firm substance such as the body. Physical centrality and ontological “middleness” thus overlap to create a new discourse on spirit, which is at once physical and metaphysical, medical and cosmological.
30Significantly, and in contrast to previous authors’ hesitation, most of Maurus’ gloss on the spiritual power deals with the ontological and cosmological aspects of this theory, leaving its physical and physiological aspects in the gloss on the three spirits. Thus, instead of explaining how the spirit bridges the two opposing substances of body and soul, the gloss deals with the moments of its creation by God, its place in the macrocosm and the microcosm, the reasons for its creation, and the spirit’s likeness to the soul. Maurus’ principal inspiration here appears to come from Plato’s Timaeus and the commentary tradition that surrounded it in the twelfth century.61 He anchors the idea of the spirit as a unifying substance in Timaeus 35A, which explains how God united the divisible and indivisible substances of the world-soul by creating “a third kind of genus” (tercium nature genus) and placing it between them. Although Maurus’ gloss situates this passage in a new context, the wording is almost identical.62 A few lines later, Maurus develops this Platonistic account further when arguing that God infused the spiritual power into the human heart just as he infused heat and fire into the sun. Here, Maurus seems to echo one of Plato’s late antique interpreters, possibly Calcidius.63 Maurus may have also known some Cistercian or Victorine writings, which tended to stress the ontological “middleness” of the bodily spirit to explain how it communicates with the incorporeal spirit. According to Hugh of Saint-Victor, if there was nothing in the middle (medium) between the body and the incorporeal spirit, the two would never be able to unite (convenire). The authors of these texts often quoted John 3:6 on this matter: “That which was born from flesh is flesh, and that which was born of spirit is spirit”.64 A passage at the end of Maurus’ gloss on the spiritual power suggests that he shared a similar view of the spirit. For him, the spirit had a certain likeness (similitudo) to the soul. It was, nonetheless, corporeal, “for incorporeal things are effected in corporeity”.65
31Maurus’ originality lies in his effort to expand the Christian discourse on the spirit in new naturalistic directions, by fusing it with the medical interpretations of his Salernitan predecessors. This fusion often lacks elegance and consistency. At the beginning of the gloss on the spiritual power, Maurus argues that the heart dilates when spirit and heat are poured into it by the creator. A few lines later, he follows Bartholomaeus’ commentary, arguing that the heart dilates due to an evaporation of the blood arriving from the liver.66 At the end of the gloss, the heart appears to dilate due to the presence of the Godly-created spirit within it. Further complicating things, Maurus immediately goes on to speak about spirits in the plural, suggesting that the spirits that refill the heart after constriction come from the arteries, not the veins.67 The link (vinculum) Maurus tries to establish between the soul and the heart is also ambiguous. In some places, the heart emerges as the only organ that links the soul to the body with the spirit’s mediation, whereas in other places the soul appears to drive and influence the circulation of spirits (plural) from the brain. Maurus’ description of anger is particularly disturbing in this regard, for it suggests seeing the heart as a mere pathway through which cerebral spirits burst out of the body to create the physical effect of anger.68
32These inconsistencies raise a number of new questions regarding Maurus’ perception of the spirit. Is the spirit that God poured into the heart of the same nature and genus as the spirits that refill the heart from the arteries and those that evaporate from the blood that arrives from the liver? And if the soul triggers emotions from the brain, why does Maurus insist on situating the body-soul nexus in the heart? Maurus’ use of the plural to describe the spirits in the arteries and the brain suggests that he may have distinguished between the spirit God created to enliven man through the heart and the spirits (plural) that filled the brain and the arteries to guarantee the continual motion of the heart and to express emotions. But this distinction is never explicitly articulated. For Maurus, spiritus only has one definition: it is an airy substance that seems incorporeal (incorporeum iudicatur) because of its subtleness. It fills the blood-vessels and the organs physically but is so subtle that it does not appear to move locally.69 All things considered, Maurus shows a sincere effort to create uniformity and consistency. He does so by adopting the language and rhetoric of the philosophers and theologians of his time and merging it with the medical language of the Isagoge.
*
33What made Maurus take the Salernitan interpretation of spirit in new philosophical and theological directions? And what was the significance of his move within the context of the broader discourse on the body-soul nexus as this took shape in the following decades? The first question touches on a problem that extends beyond the scope of this chapter. It relates to the ongoing debate regarding the philosophical training of Salernitan physicians and the ties they might have fostered with northern European scholars. The thesis that Piero Morpurgo offered three decades ago – according to which Bartholomaeus, Maurus, and Urso were the disciples of Parisian master of philosophy Adam of Petit-Pont – is now considered untenable.70 However, the idea that the Salernitan commentators were in some way linked to the schools of northern France and had direct access to the writings produced there continues to make modern scholars think.71 The present study does not attempt to solve this debate or provide new insight into this question. It can only be asserted with some certainty that Maurus was a practicing physician who studied and taught in Salerno at some point during the second half of the twelfth century and who knew Plato’s Timaeus well enough to quote it freely and accurately in his commentary on the Isagoge Iohannitii. Whether he read the texts and commentaries that had been written in the French schools at the time, as Bartholomaeus seems to have done, and whether he himself had studied there at some point of his career remains open for further investigation.
34As for the question of the impact of Maurus’ definition of spirit, it must be limited for now to a few conclusions regarding the turning point his commentary represents in the Salernitan discourse on spiritus and its significance for the study of medical thought in the Middle Ages. The very decision to present Maurus’ commentary as a turning point calls for some reflection, since Maurus is not usually considered a key figure in the study of Salernitan medicine – as opposed to Bartholomaeus, who was considered the most sophisticated and most speculative of the Salernitan commentators. The reputation Bartholomaeus earned among modern scholars is undoubtedly justified. His commentaries are longer and more structured than any other medical commentary in the twelfth century. They demonstrate remarkable knowledge of Aristotle’s natural philosophy, which was unequaled by other scholars of his time, and they draw on a number of sources that were not previously considered relevant to the study of medicine, including Boethius’ Opuscula sacra, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and Dominicus Gundissalinus’ De divisione philosophiae.72 Accordingly, scholars today tend to present Bartholomaeus as the father of a new educational program in the Latin West, which aimed to establish medicine as a branch of philosophy and the physician as a well-trained natural philosopher.73 By contrast, Maurus is considered an interim figure with relatively little significance, as a modest heir of Bartholomaeus’ intellectual program, who never fully understood the depth of his philosophical sources.74
35The analysis offered here suggests rethinking this narrative in two principal ways. First, it relativizes the view of Bartholomaeus as the father of a new era in Salernitan medicine, marked by a sharp philosophical inclination and a desire to expand medicine’s purview into neighboring fields of thought. Rather than thinking of Bartholomaeus as a pioneer, it presents him as an heir to a relatively narrow definition of medicine as a science that restricts its observation to bodies, leaving the question of the soul and the body-soul nexus to other branches of philosophy. The exclusive attention Bartholomaeus gave to the elemental composition of bodies, including bodily spirits, was in direct continuity with earlier commentators on the Isagoge. At the same time, it had little impact on his followers, Archimatthaeus, Maurus, and Urso. In sum, he seems to have played a far less important role than they did in shaping the late-medieval understanding of spirits as mediators.
36By contrast, Maurus may have had a greater impact than we have grown accustomed to thinking. His interpretation reestablished the body-soul nexus as an integral part of medical theory, situating it at the center of the medical discourse on the powers that govern the human body. He was the first (and probably one of the only ones) to attempt a cosmogonic and specifically Platonist interpretation of this medical discourse, and he seems to have been one of the first Christian scholars to situate the body-soul nexus in the heart rather than the brain. These factors show Maurus to be not only an original author, but also a pioneer of a new, holistic understanding of man, which would come to be fully developed in the centuries that followed. They also explain some of the titles he received in the manuscripts documenting his work. For his contemporaries, Maurus was “the Salernitan Galen”, “more valuable than gold”, and simply “the best physician” (optimus physicus).75
37It goes beyond the scope of this chapter to determine the precise influence his ideas had on future generations of scholars. For the time being, it is enough to say that they seem to have found an important echo in the writings of Urso of Salerno, who is considered the last in the series of seminal figures associated with the school of Salerno at its apogee. Urso is often studied separately from other Salernitan commentators, in part because of the originality and complexity of his thought, and also because he preferred to write original treatises rather than commenting on the texts that were being studied in Salerno.76 His theory of imagination, in which the spirits play a key role, is another reflection of his originality, along with his theories of body-soul “compassion” and dreams. Supported by an extremely vast spectrum of sources, each of these theories presents a different aspect of his holistic approach to the body-soul nexus and advances a complex psychological mechanism, like those later found among Avicenna’s readers.77 What I would like to suggest here is that, despite Urso’s indisputable originality, his glosses on the spirits and the body-soul nexus cannot be read separately from Maurus’ developments on the spirit. In particular, two foundational concepts in his theory seem to elaborate ideas that were first formulated by Maurus in his discussions on the spirits. The first is the idea that spirits move like vapors in an enclosed vessel, continuously seeking a pathway of exhalation.78 This idea emerged from a variety of medical sources, especially textbooks on fevers, but Urso introduces it to explain a series of psychosomatic phenomena that parallel Maurus’ description of emotions in the commentary on the spiritual power. The second is the idea that the movement of spirits secures the union between the soul and the corporeal nature of the body. In Urso’s glosses, the spirits not only arouse the soul’s powers to complete their operations, but also allow the soul and the body to rejoice and suffer together harmoniously.79 As the dates of Urso’s and Maurus’ writing careers are still vague, it would be careless to argue that Urso depended on Maurus’ commentary without reservation. Nonetheless, Urso’s discussion of mediating spirits is more refined than Maurus’ crude attempts to depict the spirit as medium, suggesting the two authors represent two consecutive stages in the development of this new medical tradition. Further research will be able to determine the fate of this medical tradition by linking it to the changes that took place in the discourse on the body-soul nexus during the two centuries that followed.
Notes de bas de page
1See D. Jacquart, “Medical Education in the 12th Century”; D. Jacquart, “La reconstruction médicale”; M. Jordan, “The Construction of a Philosophical Medicine”.
2On this ladder of spiritual elevation, see D. Boquet, L’ordre de l’affect au Moyen Âge, pp. 124-144; B. McGinn, The Golden Chain.
3J. J. Bono, “Medical Spirits”.
4See J. J. Bono, “Medical Spirits”; M.-D. Chenu, “Spiritus: le vocabulaire de l’âme au xiie siècle”; A.-M. Bautier, “Spiritus dans les textes antérieurs à 1200”.
5In addition to the articles previously cited (D. Jacquart, “La reconstruction médicale”; M. Jordan, “The Construction of a Philosophical Medicine”), see I. Caiazzo, “Imagination et intellect” and F. Wallis, “Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Tegni”.
6This is the view that emerges from the studies of B. McGinn, D. Boquet, and J. Bono, previously cited.
7See, in particular, F. Wallis, “Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Tegni”, pp. 127-168 and M. van der Lugt, “The Learned Physician”.
8This historiographic caesura stands at the heart of Richard Southern’s renowned thesis regarding the schools of Paris and the “scholastic humanism” they created (R. Southern, “Humanism and the School of Chartres”; R. Southern, Scholastic Humanism). For the view of the twelfth century as a separate historiographic unit in intellectual history, see the recapitulations offered in J. Marenbon, “Humanism, Scholasticism and the School of Chartres (Book Review)” and C. Giraud, “Schools and the ‘Renaissance of the Twelfth Century’”.
9The origins of the Articella and the Isagoge’s place within it are still the subject of scholarly debate. See M. Green, “Gloriosissimus Galienus”, pp. 325-332 and G. E. M. Gasper and F. Wallis, “Anselm and the Articella”. On the Isagoge and its context of translation, see D. Jacquart, “A l’aube de la renaissance médicale”, pp. 209-240; F. Newton, “Constantine the African and Monte Cassino”, pp. 16-47.
10For a discussion and quantitative evaluation of the diffusion of the Isagoge Iohannitii and other medical textbooks in the twelfth century see M. Green, “Medical Books”, p. 281.
11D. Jacquart, “A l’aube de la renaissance médicale”, pp. 215-216. On the origins of the division into natural factors (the res naturales), non-natural factors (res non naturales), and factors that are against nature (contra naturam), see L. García-Ballester, “On the Origin of the ‘Six Non-Natural Things’”.
12On this peculiarity of the Isagoge Iohannitii, see M. Jordan, “The Construction of a Philosophical Medicine”, pp. 43-45.
13On these early commentaries and their internal chronology, see I. Caiazzo, “Un inedito commento”; M. Jordan, “Medicine as Science”, pp. 133-137; M. Jordan, “The Construction of a Philosophical Medicine”, p. 47. A third anonymous commentary, known as the Chartres commentary, was almost entirely destroyed during World War II and is thus of little value to this study.
14M. Ausécache, “Gilles de Corbeil”, pp. 192-193 and 204-214.
15Faith Wallis explores this issue amply in her recent edition of Bartholomaeus’ commentary on the Isagoge. Nonetheless, some of her arguments call for further investigation. See Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 7-27. See also D. Jacquart, “Medical Education in the 12th Century”, pp. 211-212.
16Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 28-31; O. Weijers, “Methods and Tools of Learning”, p. 112. On Petrus Musandinus see B. Laurioux, “Petrus Musandinus et son traité sur l’alimentation des malades”, pp. 239-242.
17On this lineage of the Salernitan masters and their internal chronology, see P. O. Kristeller, “Bartholomaeus, Musandinus and Maurus”; M. Jordan, “Medicine as Science”, pp. 130-133. On p. 132, Jordan argues that Archimatthaeus’ commentary predates that of Bartholomaeus, but the opposite seems more plausible. F. Wallis, “Maurus of Salerno”, pp. 334-335; M. Ausécache, “Gilles de Corbeil”, pp. 204-214.
18D. Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought”, pp. 424-426; I. Caiazzo, “Urso of Salerno”, p. 37; F. Wallis, “Urso of Calabria”. For the relevant passages in Urso’s glosses, see Urso of Salerno, Aphorismi cum glossulis, ed. R. Creutz, pp. 45-57.
19Constantinus Africanus, Isagoge Iohannitii 17, ed. G. Maurach, p. 155. “Spiritus igitur tres sunt: primus, naturalis, sumit principium ab epate; secundus, vitalis, a corde; tertius, i. animalis, a cerebro. Horum primus in venas, quae non habent pulsum, in totum corpus diffunditur, secundus in arterias, tertius vero in nervos dirigitur, quae in septima naturalium rerum parte, i. in spiritu, cognoscuntur.”
20On the Pantegni and its date of translation, see E. Kwakkel and F. L. Newton, Medicine at Monte Cassino, pp. 22, 170-182.
21On the ambiguity regarding the origin of the vital power, see D. Jacquart, “Les emprunts”, p. 95.
22Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 19], ed. Basel, p. 96, transcribed in C. Burnett, “The Chapter on the Spirits”, p. 114. Different versions of the theory of gradual purification of the spirits can be found in Constantinus Africanus, Liber de oculis 5, ed. Lyon, f. 172vb, a translation of Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Ten Treatises of the Eye, and in Costa ben Luca’s De differentia spiritus et anime, ed. J. Wilcox, p. 153. On its philosophical backdrop, see B. S. Eastwood, “The Elements of Vision”, esp. pp. 16-20.
23Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 19], ed. Basel, p. 96. “Dicunt Philosophi quidam hunc spiritum cerebri esse animam et eandem corpoream. Alii dicunt anime esse instrumentum, qui animam fatentur incorpoream. Quorum intentio priore est melior. Sed quia disputatio huiusmodi non huic suppetit intentioni cum philosophica sit, hic dimittenda censuimus ista.” On the different versions of this passage in the Latin manuscript tradition and their origin, see C. Burnett, “The Chapter on the Spirits”.
24The spirit is only mentioned briefly in the Pantegni’s discussion of the spiritual power, as something that is replenished by inhaled air. See Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 6], ed. Basel, p. 88. “Nutrimentum vitalis spiritus ut animal generetur frigiditatis aeris est tractus. Spiritui ergo anhelitus est necessarius, ut aeris temperie augmentetur. Generatio utriusque ex temperati sanguinis fit fumositate, sicut dicturi sumus cum de spiritu disputaverimus”.
25Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 9-10], ed. Basel, p. 91. “Locus vero intellectus sive rationis sunt ventriculi que sunt in puppi cerebri, in quibus est spiritus animatus, qui has actiones exequatur […] Ad operanda manualia spiritus animatus. Ille aperit membra que operi sunt habilia ut motum expleant voluntarium. […] Virtutes sensibilies et motum voluntarium prout diximus cerebrum facit, nervis mediantibus, quibus eorum instrumenta esse comprobantur, cum spiritus animatus a ventriculis cerebri ad membra per nervos exeat.”
26Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 11], ed. Basel, pp. 92-93. “Aer enim diei lucentissimus tantum spiritui dat supplementum, quantum et nervo cerebrum. Nervus enim a cerebro sensum atque motum suscipit, suisque portat membris. Similiter exterior aer visibili aeri colorum fert mutationes, et spiritus eandem menti infert mutationem.”
27On the confusion between anima, animus, and mens in medical writing and the discussions it triggered among late medieval physicians, see N. Cohen-Hanegbi, “Accidentia anime”. Maurus of Salerno refers to Constantinus’ usage of the term animus as a synonym of spiritus in Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 17ra, quoted in n. 65 below.
28Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum VII, 1, ed. Basel, pp. 139-140. “Ephemera ergo febris ex calore nascitur simplici et spiritus sine materia, vel putredine calefit. Unde fit, ut non duret nisi die una. Spiritus hi sunt: vitalis spiritus, qui fundamentum est vitae et materia caloris naturalis; animalis, qui fundamentum est sensus et voluntarii motus; naturalis item spiritus, qui fundamentum est quatuor naturalium virtutum, quae sunt appetitiva, contentiva, digestiva et expulsiva. Hec febris duobus dividit modis: vel enim ipsa est morbus, vel accidens morbi, tale quale ex alio morbo consequetur. Si ipsa est morbus, fit ex causis tribus: Una est qua corpus patitur extrinsecus, sicut calor est estivi solis, et venenum et frigus nimium, et balnea aquarum, exteriora corpora suis viribus desiccantium, et oppilantium, sicut vitrea aqua, vel aluminosa, vel sulphurea. Secunda est motus corporis sicut et labor et exercitia, ambulatio nimia et similia; vel motus animae sicut ira, cogitationes, tristitia, angustia et similia. Tertia est consuetudo ciborum et potuum calidorum sanguinem calefacientium.” For an example of the chain reaction produced by the spirits, see p. 140 (“Ephemera febris quae accidens est interioris…”).
29Constantinus Africanus, Liber febrium I, 5, ed. Lyon, f. 205rb. “Febris fit propter aliquod accidens humorem et spiritum calefaciens et eos faciens extra temperamentum exire. […] Causa quidem ignem generans est putredo aut vehemens motio […] videmus fortem et velocem motum loca calefacere eum circundantia et ignem generare […] Quia si aer fuerit mobilis ignem cum suo suscitat motu vel ictu. […] Causa autem qua febris custoditur ut non dissolvatur corporis est oppilatio et pororum constipatio, per quos clauditur fumus in corporis interioribus.”
30Constantinus Africanus, Liber febrium I, 3, ed. Lyon, f. 204rb-va. “Quare calor extranaturam prius ad cor per arterias veniat quam ad cerebrum per nervos et ad epar per venas? Respondendum est: cor enim scimus naturaliter calidius et siccius cerebro et epate […] calor propter naturam accidit velocius cordi et arteriis calorem et siccitatem habentibus naturaliter quam aliis membris.”
31On this peculiarity of the Greco-Arabic theory of fever, see also D. Jacquart, “La notion philosophico-médicale de spiritus”, pp. 24-25.
32Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica VIII, 2-3], ed. Basel, pp. 210-212. “Unum est in spiritu, quod ab ipso incipit…”.
33Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 8 and V, 38], ed. Basel, pp. 90, 141-142. “Ira enim est fervor cordis per quam calor naturalis subito extra prorumpit cum anima ob illatas iniurias excogitatam vindictam explere desiderat. […] concordantur autem medici et philosophi quod hae virtutes a principalitate cordis nascentes et rationabilibus et irrationabulibus compétant animalibus. […] Sed tamen animal rationale habet cum discretione, causa rationis in cerebro sedentis […].”
34P. Koetschet, “Les maladies de l’âme”, p. 438.
35P. Koetschet, “Les maladies de l’âme”, pp. 430-435.
36In Isagoge Iohannitii, Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 544, f. 62ra. “Dilatatio est loqualis motus a medio ad omnes extremitates ut in follibus fabrorum. Fit autem hoc ut fervetur moderatus calor in corde attrahendo aerem exteriorem (ms. citeriorem) et sanguinem subtilissimum a venis. […] Constrictio vero est ab extremitatibus ad medium reductio fit ut (ms. aut) fumosam a corde superfluitatem expellendam.” The corresponding gloss in Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 11r quotes this definition and adds the following: “Sed in ipsa dilatatione quadam appetitiva virtute aer attrahitur a pulmone, et ibi purificatur a pulmone ad cor, a corde in arterias.”
37In Isagoge Iohannitii, Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 544, f. 62ra. “Ab operata vero hec nascuntur: ira, indignatio, victoria, dominatio, ex apertione [ms. operatione] cordis, astutia, sollicitudo, ex constrictione”. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 11r adds a definition of three types of anger from the Premnon physicon (“Sed ira alia est quasi furor et sic diffinitur…”).
38In Isagoge Iohannitii, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 11v, quoted and discussed in I. Caiazzo, “Imagination et intellect”, pp. 1016-1017 (“Prima cellula calida est et sicca, multum aeris et parum cerebri continen…”). For the impact of this interpretation on the Digby’s contemporaries, see D. Jacquart, “Les emprunts”, pp. 99-100 and I. Caiazzo, “The Four Elements”, pp. 11-14.
39This issue was amply discussed in the Pantegni’s chapter on the natural power (ed. Basel, p. 82). The Isagoge Iohannitii presents the theory in chapter 16 (De operationibus), after discussing the animal power. For Galen’s hesitations on this issue, see H. von Staden, “Body, Soul, and Nerves”.
40Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 10.5, ed. F. Wallis, p. 231. “Spiritualis autem uirtus tertia dicitur ab effectu scilicet eo quod spiritum id est aerem inspirare faciat”; Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 32 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 6va). “Est autem virtus spiritualis, que spiritum operatur, sc. inspirationem et respirationem.”
41Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 11.3, ed. F. Wallis, p. 241. “Fumus autem in hoc differt a spiritu quoniam fumus est corpus medium inter aerem et aquam, aere scilicet grossius et aqua subtilius. Spiritus autem inter aerem et ignem est medius, igne scilicet grossior aere et aqua subtilior. Spiritus igitur et fumus maiorem locum occupando cordis replent concauitatem. Vnde per spiritus et fumi et repletionem et inflationem cordis efficitur dilatatio.”
42Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 11.10, ed. F. Wallis, p. 249. “Verumtamen motu cerebri qui per ymaginationem efficitur per meatus quosdam seu per arterias ad cor redundante, contingit cor amplius dilatari uel contringi iuxta qualitatem rei ymaginate uel sensu percepte. Unde consimilis humor in corde mouetur; unde gaudium et timor cetereque anime affectiones in corde complentur.” Archimatthaeus merely states that emotions (passiones anime) begin in the brain and reach completion in the heart. See Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 32 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 6vb).
43Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 12.7, ed. F. Wallis, p. 257. “Cellula namque calida rationalis est et humida, plurimam partem cerebri cum spiritu animali continens. Que duo licet permixta sint, secundum complexionem tamen et substantiam differentia sunt et quasi contraria sunt. Spiritus namque calide complexionis est et sicce et substantie subtilis. Cerebrum uero humide complexionis est et grosse substantie.” See also Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 34 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 7ra). “Media cellula calida fuit et humida, multum habuit de spiritu et multum de medulla…” From Archimatthaeus onward, the commentators use the term medulla instead of cerebrum.
44Constantinus Africanus, Pantegni [Theorica IV, 1], ed. Basel, p. 80. “Actiones nihil sunt aliud quam quidam virtutis motus ad id quod efficitur […]”.
45Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 57 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 12ra-rb). “Ex nimia enim cogitatione, dum anima multum movetur in cerebro, spiritus animalis per motum distemperatur, distemperatus distemperat spiritum vitalem et naturalem, et fit effimera principali vitio spiritus animalis.” Bartholomaeus refers to the origin of this fever as studium and anime exercitium and considers it a chronic, rather than ephemeral, fever. See Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 33.19, ed. F. Wallis, p. 473. “Studio enim movetur spiritus in rationali cellula contentus et inde totus animalis spiritus qui motus ad vitalem redundat et naturalem. Unde spiritus redduntur subtiliores et penetrativi. Humoribus per motum spirituum subtiliatis et in fumum dissolutis, corpora desiccantur, et sic fit ethica febris.” See also Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum VII, 1, ed. Basel, pp. 139-140 quoted above.
46J. Wilcox, The Transmission and Influence, pp. 42-78.
47C. Burnett, “The Chapter on the Spirits”, p. 107. See also J. Wilcox, The Transmission and Influence, pp. 99-105; D. Jacquart, “La reconstruction médicale”, pp. 459-462.
48In Isagoge Iohannitii, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 13v; Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 14.8, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 295-296 (“Quidam philosophi dixerunt animam esse… cuius ad animam in libro quidem stabili vita constabilacione inscribitur perfecte differentia ostenditur.”)
49In Isagoge Iohannitii, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Digby 108, f. 12r. “Sic et aer hoc modo spiritui visibili corporum colores et figuras offert. Ille autem cum tali proprietate ad cerebrum dirigitur et ibi ratione discernitur et sic fit visus.”
50Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 12.22, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 263, 269. “Dicimus ergo uisum fieri huiusmodi per medium. Visibilis spiritus a fantastica cellula per obticum neruum ad oculum ueniens eundem irradiat. Spiritu autem interius remanente radius eiusdem foras diffunditur. […] Radius iste non est corpus nec substantia sicut nec radius solis.”
51See, for example, William of Conches, Philosophia mundi 22.40-41, ed. G. Maurach, p. 108. “Ut igitur visus sit, tria sunt necessaria: Interior radius, exterior splendor, obstaculum rei. […]”; Thierry of Chartres, Commentum super Boethii librum De trinitate 2.3-6, ed. N. M. Häring, pp. 68-70. “Est autem in media parte capitis, i.e. in rationali cellula spiritus quidam tenuissimus: lux videlicet ethera. Cum igitur illo spiritu pro instrumento utitur anima alleviatur quodam modo pro qualitate instrumenti subtilior facta adeo ut statum a statu discernat: ut hoc ipsum album ab eo statu quem hoc nomen scilicet nigrum designat.”
52F. Wallis, “Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Tegni”, pp. 136-139, 150-159; F. Wallis, “The Articella Commentaries of Bartholomaeus”, esp. pp. 139-153.
53Bartholomaeus’ views of the boundaries of medical knowledge and the medical discussion on the soul are further explored in his Glossae in Tegnum Galeni. See F. Wallis, “Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Tegni”, pp. 135-147, 160-161; C. de Miramon, “Réception et oubli de l’Ethica Vetus”, pp. 727-746.
54Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 12.22, ed. F. Wallis, p. 271. “Qualiter autem anima per radiorum repercussionem a corporibus colores eorum et figuras discernat indiscussum relinquamus presertim cum anime et radiorum natura ignota sit. Radius quippe nec substantia nec accidens videtur esse.”
55Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 10.5, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 230-231. “Animalis autem uirtus dicitur eo quod ab anima non a natura procedit. Quedam namque operationes huius uirtutis sicut ratio et intellectus ad ea protenduntur que nature non subiacent nec aliquam nature operationem recipiunt, sicut Deus et spiritus diuini. Cum ergo harum operationum natura efficiens causa esse non uideatur, per huius cause remotionem aliam inueniunt phisici causam eandem scilicet animam appellantes, unde et animalis uirtus dicitur.”
56Bartholomaeus elaborates his views on physica and metaphysica in both the introduction to the Isagoge and his gloss on the brain’s functions. See Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii Pr12, Pr18, and 12.4-5, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 101, 105 and 255-256. “Methaphisica uero a quibusdam auctoribus theologia dicitur. […] In theologia namque, ductu rationis a corporeis substantiis sensu perceptibilibus ad incorporeas et insensibiles contemplatio procedit, sicut phi<losophi> ex creaturarum dispositione, motu et ordine aliquam sibi creatoris notitiam comparauerunt, ex effectu scilicet causam conicientes. […] In phisica uero ex formis rerum sensibilibus et manifestis et ad insensibiles formas et occultas procedit ratio.”
57Compare, for example, Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 17va (on the complexion of the brain and the rational functions) with the corresponding glosses in Archimatthaeus, Glossae in Isagogas Iohannitii, ed. H. Grensemann, p. 34 (Trier, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, ms. 76A, f. 7ra) and Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 12.2-12.8, ed. F. Wallis, pp. 253-258.
58Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 16rb. “De virtute spirituali etc. Hanc virtutem mediam locavit auctor, inter virtutem naturalem et virtutem animalem, quoniam partim inest ab anima partim a natura, vel quia inest a spiritu qui medius est inter naturam corporis et anime.” Following Jacquart, Caiazzo, and others, I use Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 18499 as my main manuscript of reference. It is longer than the two other copies of this commentary, Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 6956 and Brugge, Openbare Bibliotheek, ms. 474, and more concerned with the cosmological and metaphysical aspects of human physiology. However, it is important to note that, at this stage in my research, it is impossible to determine which copy is the closest to the original.
59Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 16rb. “[…] Eo enim mediante tamquam in subiecto firmissimo anima corpori est unita. Iuxta illud Plato: est et tercium nature genus quod medium locavit Deus inter dividuam et individuam substantiam.”
60Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 16va. “Virtutis autem operative infusio sic attenditur: summus opifex provide cuncta disponens, cor in medio microcosmi scilicet humani corporis quemadmodum solem in medio maioris mundi locavit. Ipsum fervidum et ignitum stabiluit, quemadmodum sol in medio maioris mundi positus mediante aere maiorem calefacit mundum. Sic et cor in medio corporis humani positum nostrum calefacit microcosmum.”
61On this commentary tradition, see, in particular, A. J. Hicks, Composing the World, p. 204 and I. Caiazzo, “L’âme du monde”, pp. 79-89.
62Timaeus 35A, ed. J. Magee, p. 56 (the passage quoted by Maurus in Italics). “Itaque tertium animae genus excogitavit hoc pacto: ex individua semperque in suo statu perseverante substantia itemque alia, quae inseparabilis corporum comes per eadem corpora scindere se putatur, tertium substantiae genus mixtum locavit medium inter utramque substantiam eodemque modo ex gemina biformique natura, quippe cuius pars idem, pars diversum vocetur, tertium naturae genus commentus est, quod medium locavit inter individuam et item coniugatione corporea dividuam substantiam. Triaque haec omnia in unam speciem permiscuit diversa illa natura concretioni atque adunationi generum repugnante.”
63On the Neoplatonistic background of the heart-sun analogy, see T. Ricklin, “Le coeur, soleil du corps”, pp. 123-143.
64Hugh of Saint-Victor, De unione spiritus et corporis, ed. A. Piazzoni, p. 883. “Quod natum est ex carne caro est, et quod natum est ex spiritu spiritus est. Si nichil inter spiritum et corpus medium esset, neque spiritus cum corpore, neque corpus cum spiritu convenire potuisset.” Isaac of Stella, Epistola de anima, ed. C. Tarlazzi, pp. 265-266. “Extremus spiritus corporei conatus, sed non ad incorporeum perventus. […] Omne enim quod natum est ex carne semper per naturam et essentiam caro est, et quod natum est ex spiritu similiter spiritus est.”
65The passage refers to a sentence in the Pantegni, which, according to Maurus, traces the origin of the spiritual power to animus: “Quod probat Constantinus dicens ‘virtus naturalis modo generat modo nutrit modo pascit. Virtus autem animi solum vivificat, id est dilatat cor et arterias et iterum constringit.’ Animus autem non dicitur anima; sed animus dicitur spiritus propter similitudinem quam habet cum anima. Incorporea enim in corporeitate efficitur et vinculum proprie anime et cordis deputatum est.” (Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 17ra).
66Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 16vb-17ra. “Spiritus vel fumositas fuit necessaria. Quedam enim vena nascitur in gibbo epatis, que concava nuncupatur… per hanc venam sanguis cum spiritu naturali mittitur usque ad cor, ex quo sanguine, actione caliditatis ipsius cordis, dissolvitur fumositas. Cuius interventu cordis fieret dilatatio.” Compare with Bartholomaeus, Glose super Isagogen Iohannitii 11.3, ed. F. Wallis, p. 241, “Compositio uero cordis est rotunda, oblonga ad modum pinee, concauitatem habens in medio, cui scilicet uena que dicitur concaua ab epate ueniens sanguinem cum spiritu naturali ministrat. Sanguis itaque in cordis concauitate per ipsius calorem ebulliens in spiritum et fumum resoluitur. […] Vnde per spiritus et fumi et repletionem et inflationem cordis efficitur dilatatio.”
67Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 17ra. “Ipse enim replendo sua presentia arterias dilatat cum res aerea et spiritualis cor repleat et dilatet. Et dum fumosarum superfluitatum per cordis constrictionem fit eductio et spirituum ab artariis ad cor fit renovatio. Sequitur constrictio.”
68Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 16vb. “Sed dum anima indignatur movetur cum impetu in cerebro; mota anima moventur spiritus eidem servientes, et primus cursus cerebri est in corde tamquam intermedio membrorum animatorum. Dum moventur ipsi spiritus impetuosa fit transmissio spirituum a cerebro ad cor et quia liberam non habent exalationem distemperantur in calore.”
69Maurus, In Isagoge Iohannitii, ms. lat. 18499, f. 21rb. “Subtilis substantia est spiritus, corpus scilicet subtile quo nil subtilius. Unde corpus incorporeum iudicatur, nec manifeste faciens localem distantiam.”
70P. Morpurgo, Filosofia della natura, pp. 105-157, esp. 147-151; C. Burnett, “Filosofia della natura”; D. Jacquart, “Medical Education”, p. 212 and n. 69.
71See F. Wallis, “The Articella Commentaries of Bartholomaeus”, pp. 128-133; M. Green, “Rethinking the Manuscript Basis”, pp. 31-32 and table 1 at pp. 54-60.
72On Bartholomaeus as a pioneer of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the Latin West, see A. Birkenmajer, Le rôle joué par les médecins; P. O. Kristeller, “Nuove fonti per la medicina salernitana”; D. Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought”, pp. 416-423. His other sources are discussed in D. Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought”, 423-424; F. Wallis, “Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Tegni”, pp. 136-139, 150-159; C. de Miramon, “Réception et oubli”, pp. 727-746; I. Caiazzo, “Nature et découverte de la nature”, p. 59.
73Wallis focuses on this aspect of Bartholomaeus’ commentaries in F. Wallis, “The Articella Commentaries of Bartholomaeus”, esp. pp. 138, 152-153.
74M. H. Saffron, Maurus of Salerno, p. 20; D. Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought”, pp. 410-411, 420-421.
75M. H. Saffron, Maurus of Salerno, p. 13.
76See, for example, B. Delaurenti, La contagion des émotions, pp. 169-194 and M. van der Lugt, “The Learned Physician”.
77Various aspects of this psychological mechanism are discussed in T. Ricklin, Der Traum der Philosophie, pp. 347-357; M. van der Lugt, “The Learned Physician”; and B. Delaurenti, La contagion des émotions, pp. 169-194. For Urso as a forerunner of later, “Avicennian” theories see A. Robert, “Dino del Garbo”, esp. p. 146. On Urso’s sources see also D. Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought”, pp. 424-426 and I. Caiazzo, “Urso of Salerno”, pp. 25-42.
78Urso of Salerno, Aphorismi cum glossulis 6, ed. R. Creutz, p. 27. “In hoc afforismo multarum quaestionum manifesta patet solutio, principaliter {quaestionis} unde corpus vivificatur et calefit, quod fit propter contitnentiam aereae substantiae, ut substantia aerea tam spiritum quam aerem comprehendamus. Ex continentia enim aereae substantiae animal vivificatur, dum ipsa inclusa in poris corporis motu naturali totum corpus movet et levigat et sic vivificat et eadem interclusa dum movetur non habens liberam exhalationem concultatur et concultata calefit, calefactam calefacit.” For one of the corresponding passages in Maurus’ glosses, see n. 68 above.
79Urso of Salerno, Aphorismi cum glossulis 25, ed. R. Creutz, p. 55. “Ut diximus, actiones naturae et animae se ad invicem comitantur cum anima naturae et natura animae congaudeat et compatiatur, quod sic fit. Dum natura patitur passionem animae mediantibus spiritibus denuntiat et anima dum patitur eisdem spiritibus mediis, quasi pricipalissimis instrumentis, suam passionem naturae notificat, quod qualiter fiat exemplo pateat.”
Auteur
-
Tamar Nadav
The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas ; Morris E. Curiel Institute for European Studies, Tel Aviv University

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