AND ALCHE.MV. 181 



a i'lvsh Crusade against the infidels. Raymond Lulli (Fig. 128) left behind 

 him numerous disciples, who were termed Lnllixtx or ilri-iinn'i-n, and who made 

 a cunning use of the sad end of their leader, just as the Court of Rome 

 M rnied inclined to accord him the honours of beatification. Concealing 

 beneath the prestige of black magic their attempts at chemical experimental- 

 ising, the Lullists propagated a report that the soul of the blessed martyr 

 appeared at certain hours of the night, and confided to his neophytes the 

 secrets of heaven, especially touching the divine art of transforming into fine 

 gold the commonest of metals. The Lullists enjoyed considerable credit all 

 over Europe, and although it might have been supposed that this sect, owing 

 to its occult and mysterious practices, would have incurred the rigour of the 

 ecclesiastical and civil laws, the clergy and the magistrates exhibited no 

 little tolerance towards the eminent men belonging to it. The mysterious 

 meetings of the Lullists were surrounded, especially in Germany, with much 

 solemn formality, being held at night, in wild and uninhabited regions, 

 and, if possible, near iron or copper mines (Fig. 129), where the ruggedness 

 of the soil and the bareness of the landscape were in harmony with the 

 arcana of the great work. It is believed that the Brothers of the Rosy 

 Cross, who derived their name from a German gentleman called Rosenkrutz, 

 succeeded the Lullists in the fifteenth century. 



A contemporary of Raymond Lulli, and versed, as he was, in Eastern 

 languages, mathematics, philosophy, and medicine, Arnauld de Villeneuve, a 

 native of Languedoc, also interrogated nature by the analysis of bodies and 

 of substances. He investigated more particularly the mysteries of chemical 

 science as bearing upon medicine, and in this way he discovered the various 

 acids since named sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic. It is said that he was the 

 first person to make alcohol and spirits of wine. Arnauld de Villeneuve was, 

 together with Albertus Magnus, one of the most eminent exponents in the 

 Middle Ages of the experimental art, which, still in a state of confusion, was 

 exposed to the suspicions of the ignorant, and could only be practised under 

 the protection of kings, or in the solitude of the cloister. It is a matter for 

 regret, however, that men of such rare intelligence as Arnauld de Villeneuve 

 and Raymond Lulli should have embraced the opinion and systems of 

 theosophy, which was a source of false and absurd theories that often interfered 

 with the application of the most remarkable discoveries in science. 



At the same epoch England had the honour of giving birth to Roger 



