18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



those herbs were especially cultivated which were supposed to 

 have healing virtues. So, too, in the thirteenth century, the Em- 

 peror Frederick II, though under the ban of the pope, brought to- 

 gether in his various journeys, and especially in his crusading 

 expeditions, many Greek and Arabic manuscripts, and took spe- 

 cial pains to have those which concerned medicine preserved and 

 studied ; he also promoted better ideas of medicine, and embodied 

 them in law. 



Men of science also rose, in the stricter sense of the word, even 

 in the centuries under the most complete sway of theological 

 thought and ecclesiastical power ; a science, indeed, alloyed with 

 theology, but still infolding precious germs. Of these were men 

 like Arnold of Villanova, Bertrand de Gordon, Albert of Bollstadt, 

 Basil Valentine, Raymond Lull, and, above all, Roger Bacon, all 

 of whom cultivated sciences subsidiary to medicine, and in spite 

 of charges of sorcery, and consequent imprisonment and danger 

 of death, kept the torch of knowledge burning, and passed it on 

 to future generations.* 



From the Church itself, also, even when the theological atmos- 

 phere was most dense, rose here and there men who persisted in 

 something like scientific effort. As early as the ninth century, 

 Bertrarius, a monk of Monte Casino, prepared two manuscript 

 volumes of prescriptions selected from ancient writers ; other 

 monks studied them somewhat, and during succeeding ages, 

 scholars like Hugo, Abbot of St. Denis ; Sigoal, Abbot of Epinay ; 

 Hildegarde, Abbess of Rupertsberg ; Milon, Archbishop of Bene- 

 ventum ; John of St. Amand, Canon of Tournay, did something 

 for medicine as they understood it. Unfortunately, they gener- 

 ally understood its theory as a mixture of deductions from Script- 

 ure with dogmas from Galen, and its practice as a mixture of 

 incantations with fetiches. Even Pope Honorius III did some- 

 thing for the establishment of medical schools; but he did so 

 much more to place ecclesiastical and theological fetters upon 

 teachers and taught, that the value of his gifts may well be 

 doubted. All germs of a higher evolution of medicine were for 

 ages well kept under by the theological spirit. As far back as 

 the sixth century so great a man as Pope Gregory I showed him- 

 self hostile to every development of science. In the beginning 

 of the twelfth century the Council of Rheims interdicted the 

 study of law and physic to monks, and a multitude of other coun- 

 cils enforced this decree. About the middle of the same century 



* For the progress of sciences subsidiary to medicine even in the darkest ages, see Fort, 

 pp. 374, 375. Also, Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, pp. 225 et scq. Also, Monteil, p. 89, 

 Ileller, Geschichte der Physik, vol. i Buch II. Also Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie. For 

 Frederick II and his Medicinal Gesetz, see Baas, p. 221, but especially Von Raumer, 

 Geschichte der Ilohenstaufen, Leipsic, 1872, vol. iii, p. 259. 



