EAST AND WEST 155 



stantine the African, aptly called "magister orientis et occidentis"; 

 he was indeed one of the great intermediaries between the East 

 and the West. Constantine translated a large number of Greco- 

 Muslim works from Arabic into Latin at the monastery of Monte 

 Cassino, where he died in 1087. As we might expect, the results 

 of his activity, far from appeasing the hunger of European 

 scholars, stimulated it considerably. It now dawned upon the 

 most advanced of them that the Arabic writings were not simply 

 important but essential, for they contained vast treasures of 

 knowledge, the accumulated learning and experience of the whole 

 past. It is no exaggeration to say that during the twelfth century 

 and down to about the middle of the thirteenth century, the fore- 

 most activity of Christian scholars was the translation of Arabic 

 treatises into Latin. There appeared a succession of translators of 

 such size that they have almost the dignity of creators : Adelard 

 of Bath, John of Seville, Domingo Gundisalvo, and many others 

 including the greatest of all times, Gerard of Cremona. By the 

 end of the twelfth century, the main body of Greco- Arabic knowl- 

 edge was already available to Latin readers, but the more they 

 had, the more they wanted. By the end of the following century, 

 and even by the middle of it, there was little of real importance 

 in the Arabic scientific literature which they were not aware of. 

 Moreover, under the stimulus of the Arabic writings, some trans- 

 lators took pains to rediscover the Greek originals, and their 

 translations straight from the Greek followed closely upon the 

 heels of those from the Arabic. A remarkable case is that of the 

 Almagest. This was actually translated from the Greek before 

 being translated from the Arabic; the direct translation was made 

 in Sicily about 1 160, the indirect one was completed by Gerard of 

 Cremona at Toledo in 1175. Yet such was the strength of the 

 Arabic tradition and Gerard's own prestige, that the earlier ver- 

 sion, though presumably better, was entirely superseded by the 

 second. 



At first the eastern Jews and those of Spain were much better 

 off than the Christians, for the whole of Arabic literature -was- 



