THE ALCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SCOT 75 



of the later Arabian chemistry arose, contended and 

 flourished. Spain, therefore, during the eleventh 

 and twelfth centuries, became, by the attraction 

 she offered to European scholars, the country where 

 these theories first reached the Latin races, and 

 began to find an entrance among them. M. 

 Berthelot indeed, by a happy citation, has enabled 

 us to fix, almost with certainty, the very moment 

 of this important event. Robert Castrensis, the 

 author alluded to, remarks : ' Your Latin world 

 has not as yet learned the doctrine of Alchemy.' 

 These words are taken from the preface to this 

 author's version of the Liber de Compositione 

 Alchimiae, and a colophon informs us that the 

 translation was completed on the 11th of February 

 1182. We may add that the same year, corrected, 

 however, in one copy to 1183, was the date of 

 another of these versions of the Arabian chemistry : 

 that of the treatise called Interrogationes Regis 

 Kalid, et responsiones Morieni} Here then we 

 stand on the threshold of a new age, and find our- 

 selves in presence of an intellectual movement 

 which was certainly of the greatest importance, 

 since in it we may trace the origin of our modern 

 chemistry. The knowledge of what had already 

 been gained by Greek and Arabian alchemists was 

 the first step to independent research among the 

 Latins. The closing years of the twelfth century 

 saw that knowledge at last beginning to unfold 

 itself in a form intelligible to the Western schools. 

 As in Bagdad during the ninth century, the 



^ Speciale ms. No. vi. See the work by Sac. I. Carini, Stille Scienze 

 Occulte net Medio Evo, Palermo, 1872. 'Kalid Eex' was Khaled ben 

 Yezid ibn Moauia, and ' Morienus' was Mar Jannos, his Syrian master. 



