Chapter 18

CHAPTER XI

✦

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS OF THE
MIDDLE AGES

THE first Englishman associated with alchemy appears to
have been Robert of Chester, who, in the twelfth century,
completed a translation of The Book of the Composition of
Alchemie , which he made from the Arabic while in Spain. The
original work is attributed to Marianus. It is not, however,
until the following century that the foundations of natural science
in England were laid by Roger Bacon. This scientist was born
at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1214, and after studying at
Oxford became a friar. He devoted much of his time to the
study of alchemy, and it is only within the present century that
the extent of the work he accomplished has been recognized.

He defined alchemy as the formation of things from elements,
and appears to have believed that potable gold was the secret
of the true Elixir of Life. He is said to have been the discoverer
of gunpowder, which, Hine says, he describes in an anagram
which alludes to a powder producing a thunderous noise and a
bright flash and made by mixing seven parts of saltpetre, five
of young ashwood, and five of sulphur. In his work entitled
De Secretis Artis Natures , written in 1249, gives a process
for refining saltpetre, and in other treatises deals with the metals
gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, and iron. He describes their pro¬
perties and various processes for subliming, distilling, and cal¬
cining, and treats of the management of furnaces and the regula¬
tion of heat. He spent a large amount of money on instruments
and apparatus in order to carry out his experiments, and his
works show that he was a man of great intelligence and an
earnest seeker after scientific truth.

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

Reference to two alchemists of the fourteenth century is made
in the Plea Rolls of that period, one being John de Walden, who
in 1350 was imprisoned in the Tower because he failed in his
alchemical experiments “on 5000 crowns of gold and 20 pounds
of silver, which he had received from the King’s treasure to
work thereon by the art of alchemy for the benefit of the King.”
The other is “William de Brumley, chaplain, lately dwelling
with the Prior of Harmandsworth.” He was arrested by order
of the King’s Council, with four counterfeit pieces of gold upon
him. He expressly acknowledged that he had by the art of al¬
chemy made these pieces from gold and silver and other medi¬
cines — to wit, “sal armoniak,” vitriol, and “golermonik” (prob¬
ably persulphuret of tin). The process had occupied him five
weeks, and he had taken the pieces to Gautron, the keeper of the
King’s money at the Tower, and offered to sell them if they ap¬
peared to him of any value. William had before sold to Gautron
a piece of this sort of metal for 18s., but of what weight it was
he did not know. He said that he made the metal according to
the teaching of William Shuchirch, Canon of the King’s Chapel
at Windsor. Two separate juries, one of six laymen and the
other of three experts, valued the four pieces offered by William
Brumley at 355., but they declared them not to be pure gold.

Of the English alchemists of the fifteenth century George
Ripley, who was a canon of Bridlington, is perhaps best known.
A contemporary writer tells us that “he was a man of a quick
and curious wit who spent almost his whole life in searching
on the occult and abstruse causes and effects of natural things.”
On giving up his monastic life he set out to travel Europe,
and journeyed through France, Germany, and Italy, where he
visited the Court of Innocent VIII. From Italy he sailed to the
Isle of Rhodes, residing there for some months with the Knights
of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, to whom, it is said, he gave
£ 1 00,000 annually toward maintaining the war that they were
then carrying on against the Turks. On returning to England
he became a member of the Carmelite Order and renewed
92

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS

his alchemical studies. His chief work, The Compound of
Alchymie conteining Twelve Gates , dedicated to King Edward IV,
was written in 1475, and is in verse. In it he describes the
twelve processes necessary for the achievement of the magnum
opus , which he likens to the twelve gates of a castle which
the philosopher must enter. These he names Calcination,
Solution, Separation, Conjunction, Putrefaction, Congelation,
Cibation, Sublimation, Fermentation, Exaltation, Multiplica¬
tion, and Projection. He states that alchemists purposely
employ mystery in order “to discourage the fools, for al¬
though we write primarily for the edification of the disciples of
the art, we also write for the mystification of those owls and
bats which can neither bear the splendour of the sun nor the
light of the moon.”

“Concerning the first gate,” Calcination, he writes:

Calcination is the purgacyon of our Stone
Reatauryng also of hys naturall heate.

Of the second gate, Solution, he says :

Here a secret to thee I wyll dysclose
Whych ys the ground of our secrets all.

• •••••

Take hede therefore in Errour that thou not fall,

The more thyne Erth and the lesse thy Water be
The rather and better Solucyon shall thou see.

Of the third gate, Separation :

Separacyon doth ech parte from other devyde,

The subtill to the Groce, fro the thyck the thyn.

Of the fourth gate, Conjunction :

Of two conjunctions philosophers doe mentyon make
Groce when the Body with Mercury ys reincendat.

Putrefaction, the fifth gate, may thus defyned be,

After Phylosophers sayings it ys of Bodyes the fleyng.

And in our Compound a dyvysyon of thyngs thre
The Kylling Bodyes into corrupcyon forth ledyng.

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

In similar vague language he continues to his twelfth gate,

Projection, of which he says :

If my Tyncture be sure and not varyable,

By a lyttyl of thy medcyn thus shall thou prove
Wyth mettall or wyth Mercury as Pyche yt wyll cleve
And Tynct in Projeccyon all Fyers to abyde
And sone yt wyll enter and spred hym full wyde.

He completes his verse with the admonition,

Now thou hast conqueryd the Twelve Gates

And all the Castell thou holdyst at wyll

Kepe thy secrets in store unto thy selve

And the commandements of God looke thou fulfill.

In fyer conteinue thy glas styll

And Multiply thy medcyns ay more and more

For wyse men done sey store ys no sore.

Ripley certainly succeeds in mystifying his readers, and what¬
ever truth there may be in his verse is enveloped in symbolism.
Some of his works are in the form of long scrolls, drawn and
coloured, full of symbolic and emblematic figures of men and
animals, which are supposed to represent certain alchemical pro¬
cesses. The texts are so vague they appear to be almost mean¬
ingless, and are said to have been revealed to him in a vision.
In The Compound of Alchymie he thus describes some of his ex¬
periments :

Many amalgam did I make,

Wenyng to fix these to grett avayle

And thereto sulphur dyd I take

Tartar, eggs whyts and the oyl of the snayle.

But ever of my purpose dyd I fayle,

For what for the more and what for the lesse,

Evermore something wanting there was.

Later Ripley obtained an Indulgence from Pope Innocent VII
exempting him from “Claustrall observance,” and he left the
Carmelite Order, and is said to have become an anchorite until
his death in 1490.

Thomas Norton, who was born in Bristol, belonged to an old
family long associated with that city. His father held the office
of sheriff in 1401 and was elected mayor in 1413, while he also

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS

represented Bristol in Parliament. The house where the Nortons
lived, a fine old half-timbered building, now called St Peter’s
Hospital, is still standing.

Thomas became an earnest student of alchemy when a young
man, for he tells us that he had arrived at the knowledge of
preparing the Elixir of Gold when he was twenty-eight. It is
said that he became a pupil of George Ripley, and that he
achieved more than local fame as an alchemist is shown by the
references made to his work by many writers of a later date.

According to an account of his life which he gives in one of
his works, he once rode over a hundred miles to meet his master
and stayed with him forty days, in the course of which he learned
all the secrets of alchemy. On returning to Bristol he renewed
his studies and succeeded in making the great Elixir of Gold,
but the secret was stolen from him by a dishonest servant. Un¬
daunted by this loss, he continued his labours and at length dis¬
covered the much-sought Elixir of Life ; but again misfortune
came upon him, for this secret also was stolen from him by a
merchant’s wife, who is supposed to have been the spouse of
William Canynges, a Bristol merchant who rebuilt the famous
church of St Mary Redcliff.

Norton’s chief work, called the Ordinall of Alkimie , was
printed in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) of Elias
Ashmole, who states that he made the transcript from a very fine
manuscript which he had compared with fourteen other copies.
He found the author’s name from the first word of the Proheme
and the initial letters of the six following chapters.

Thus we may collect the author’s name and place of residence,
for these letters together with the first line of the seventh chapter
speak thus :

Tomais Norton of Briseto
A parfet master ye maie him trowe.

Such like fancies

were the results of the wisdome and humility of the auncient
philosophers who (when they intended not absolute concealment

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

of Persons, Names, Misteries, etc.) were wont to hide them by

Transpositions, Acrostiques and the lyke.

In the Proheme Norton shows how the craze to make gold at
that time had seized on all classes. He writes :

Common workmen will not be out-lafte
For as well as Lords they love this noble craft ;

As gouldsmithes whom we shulde lest repreve
For sights in their Craft moveth them to believe,

But wonder it is that Wevers deale with such warks
Free-masons and Tanners with poore Parish Clerks ;

Tailors and Glasiers will not thereof cease,

And eke sely Tinkers will put them in the prease.

In a beautiful manuscript copy of Norton’s Ordinall of
Alkimie in the British Museum, probably written about 1477,
there are some finely executed miniatures showing alchemists at
work in their laboratories. In one an alchemist is depicted
seated at a table on which stands a pair of scales enclosed in what
appears to be a glass case or box, almost a counterpart of the
chemical balance used to-day.

The work itself is interesting as showing how mysticism and
science were intertwined by the alchemists of the time, who re¬
garded the art as a kind of divine revelation, or what Norton calls
the “subtle science of holi alchyme.”

He begins by asking :

Shall all men teache ?

What manner of people maie this science reache,

And which is the true science of alchemis
Of ould fathers called blessed and holi ?

He warns his readers that the secrets must not be com¬
mitted to writing :

It must need be taught from mouth to mouth
And also he shall (be he never so loath)

Regard it with sacred and most dreadful oath.

So blood and blood maie have no parte
But only vertue wynneth this HOLI ART.

feftdcrb

‘ttwtfefl*

-Jig-fin

MINIATURE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY DEPICTING

AN ALCHEMIST IN HIS LABORATORY

On the table at which he is seated is a chemical balance, and in the foreground two
assistants are superintending operations with an aludel, or sublimatory.

Norton’s Ordinall of Alkimie (B.M. MS.)

MINIATURE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY REPRESENTING AN
ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY IN WHICH TWO ASSISTANTS ARE
ENGAGED IN VARIOUS OPERATIONS
Norton’s Ordinall of Alkimie (B.M. MS.)

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS

Like the earlier alchemists, Norton believed that the true
secrets of the art were only revealed to certain holy men, for he
says, “Almightie God from great doctors hath this science for-
bod and grant is to few men of his merret ; such as be faithful
true and holi.”

He thus alludes to the ancient legend of the origin of al¬
chemy which was doubtless commonly believed at the time :

This science beareth her name by a King called

Alchumis,

A glorius Prince of most noble minde,

His noble virtues helpt him this Arte to find.

He searched Nature ; he was a noble clerk,

He sought and found this Arte.

King Hermes also did the same,

Which was a clerk of excellent fame.

In quadripartite manner of astrologie,

Of physick and this Arte of alchemie,

And also Magic naturall.

Concerning Raymond Lully Norton says :

Such as truly make gold and silver fine
Where of example for testimony,

In a cittie of Catalony

Which Raymond Lully, knight as men suppose,

May in seven images the truth disclose.

He next proceeds to tell the story of one Thomas Dalton, a
monastic alchemist who had succeeded in making the Philo¬
sopher’s Stone, for

Of the red medicine he hath great store.

I trow never Englishman had more.

He tells us that Dalton was taken out of an abbey in Gloucester¬
shire against his wish and brought before King Edward.
Thomas Herbert, body-squire to the King, was sent to bring
Dalton to Court, and Delius, his confidential squire, reported
to the King that Dalton had made a thousand pounds’ worth of
good gold.

The King asked Dalton to perform the process again, and ques¬
tioned him from whom he had the secret. He replied, from a

G 97

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

canon of Lichfield. The King then gave Dalton money to go and
find the canon where he would. Dalton set forth on his quest,
but was waylaid and kidnapped by Herbert, who lay in wait for
him and brought him to Stepney. They stole all the money the
King had given him and eventually took him to Gloucester Castle,
where they kept him a prisoner for four years and then brought
him out to die.

Norton continues:

This was his payne as I you tell
By men who had no dread of hell.

Herbert died soon after in his bedd
And Delius at Tewkesbury lost his head.

The third chapter of the book begins :

For the love of one

Shall briefly disclose the matters of our store
Which the Arabians doe Elixir call
Wherefor it is here understand you shall.

In it he mentions one Tonsill, evidently an apothecary, who

spent all his lustie daies
In fals Recipts and such lewde assayes,

Of herbes, gummes, of rootes and of grass
Many kindes by him assayed was,

As crowfoot, celandine, and Mizerion,

Vervayne, Lunara and Martagon,

In Antimony, Arsenick, Honey, wax and Wyne.

The fourth chapter:

Teacheth the greate worke
A foule labour, not fitt kindlie for a clerke
In which is found greate travaile
With many perills and many a faile.

Here he mentions a “subtill balance,” probably the one en¬
closed in a case of glass depicted in the miniature facing p. 96.
He refers to “Albertus Magnus, the blackfryer,” and says that
neither he “nor Bacon Fryer minor, his co-master, had not our
red stone in consideration.” He concludes his book by

Praying all men which this book shall find
With devout prayers to have my soul in mind.

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS

Norton was the author of other works entitled De Transmuta-
tione Metallorum and De Lapide Philosophico. From the writ¬
ings of his great-grandson, Samuel Norton, who was also an
alchemist, we learn that Thomas was a member of the Privy
Council of King Edward IV.

Of John Dastin, another English alchemist, little is known.
Bale, the historian, speaks of him as the “prime alchemist of his
age and the only Master thereof in England.’’ He is said to have
been the author of several treatises on the art. One of these is
supposed to have been revealed to him in a wonderful dream
in a book written in letters of gold. In this treatise, wrapped
in mysterious and symbolic language, the story is told of “a
mighty rich King” and of “the wedding of the Sun and Moon
and the feast that followed, at which all the planets attended.”

William Bird, who was Prior of Bath and who helped to build
the Abbey Church, was another of the monastic alchemists. He
was the instructor of Thomas Charnock, who declares that he
actually discovered the Elixir and hid it in a wall, but alas,
“ when ten days after he went to fetch it out he found nothing
but the stople of a cloute. He lost his sight and so was deprived
of attempting to make the Elixir again, whereupon he lived
obscurely and grewe very poore.”

Thomas Charnock, who is described by Ashmole as “a
student in the most worthy scyence of astronomy and philo¬
sophy,” was the author of a book called A Breviary of Naturall
Philosophy which was printed in 1557. That he also practised
alchemy is evidenced from the following lines in which he al¬
ludes to a monk of Salisbury who was famous as an alchemist:

For all our wrettings are verye darke
Despyse all Bookes and them defye
Wherein is nothing but Recipe and Accipe.

Few learned men within this Realme
Can tell the aright what I do mean ;

I could finde never man but one,

Which cowlde teache me the secrets of our Stone,

And that was a Pryste in the Close of Salusburie.

God rest his Soil in heaven full myrie.

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

The beliefs of other English alchemists of this period, such
as John of Preston, who wrote The Mirror of Elements , William

AN ALCHEMIST BLOWING THE FIRE OF A FURNACE

From a woodcut
Schrick, 1500

Bloomfield, and others of whom we know nothing but their
names, may be summarized in these anonymous lines (1477):

A wonderful science and gifte of Almightie
Which was never founde by labour of man.

But it by teaching or revelation began.

IOO

ENGLISH ALCHEMISTS

Elias Ashmole gives an interesting description of a curious
stained-glass window, placed behind the pulpit in St Margaret’s
Church at Westminster in the fifteenth or sixteenth century,
which symbolized alchemy but, being mistaken later for a
Popish story, was broken to pieces. He says:

The window is divided into three parts. In one was a man
holding a boy in his hand and a woman with a girl in hers all stand¬
ing upright, naked postures, upon a greene foliate earth.

Both had fetters on their feet and seemed chained to the ground,
which fetters were presented as falling from their legs.

Over their heads were placed the Sun and the Moon painted of
a sad darke colour.

On the left side of the window was a beautiful young man clad
in a garment of various colours bearing a yellow cross upon his
shoulders, his body encircled with a Bright Glory which sent forth
beams of divers colours. He stood upon an earth intimating oculus
piscium.

In the lower and middle part of the window was a faire large
red rose which issued rays upward and in the middle an exceeding
bright yellow glory. Above was the figure of a man rising with
beams of light spread about his head. He had a garment of a red¬
dish colour deepened with red and heightened with yellow. In his
left hand he had a white stone which he held towards the persons
arising in that part of the window, and in his right hand he held
a red stone towards him whose garments were of various colours.

Over the figures was inscribed, “ Omnes gentes adepti plau-

DITE QUIA DOMINUS FRATER VESTER.”

At the bottom of the window were several coats of arms,
“but,” says Ashmole, “after very diligent search among the
Records of English coats of arms these could not be found.”

It is evident from the date of his writing that the window was
still in St Margaret’s Church in the first half of the seventeenth
century. In some of the early symbolical drawings Adam and
Eve represented gold and silver or the sun and the moon, and
the white and red stones held by the figure “ rising with beams
of light ” were obviously intended to represent the Philo¬
sopher’s Stone.

IOI