EARLY REFERENCES TO THE MARINER’S COMPASSThe following are the passages referred to in the introductory notice: Abbot Neckam (1157-1217), in his De Naturis Rerum, writes: “The sailors, moreover, as they sail over the sea, when in cloudy weather they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, or when the world is wrapped up in the darkness of the shades of night and they are ignorant to what point their ship’s course is directed, these mariners touch the lodestone with a needle, which (the needle) is whirled round in a circle until when its motion ceases, its point looks direct to the north. (Cuspis ipsius septentrionalem plagam respiciat.)” In his De Utensilibus, we read: “Among other stores of a ship, there must be a needle mounted on a dart (habeat etiam acum jaculo superpositam) which will oscillate and turn until the point looks to the north, and the sailors will thus know how to direct their course when Alexander Neckam was born at St. Albans in 1157, joined the Augustinian Order and taught in the University of Paris from 1180 to 1187, after which he returned to England to take charge of a College of his Order at Dunstable. He was elected Abbot of Cirencester in 1213 and died at Kemsey, near Worcester, in 1217. The satirical poem of Guyot de Provins, written about 1208, contains the following passage: The mariners employ an art which cannot deceive, By the property of the lodestone, An ugly stone and brown, To which iron joints itself willingly They have; they attend to where it points After they have applied a needle to it; And they lay the latter on a straw And put it simply in the water Where the straw makes it float. Then the point turns direct To the star with such certainty That no man will ever doubt it, Nor will it ever go wrong. When the sea is dark and hazy, That one sees neither star nor moon, Then they put a light by the needle And have no fear of losing their way. The point turns towards the star; And the mariners are taught To follow the right way. It is an art which cannot fail. Provins, from which Guyot took his surname, was a small town in the vicinity of Paris. Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, in his Historia Orientalis, Cap. 89, writes: “An iron needle, after having been in contact with the lodestone, turns towards the north star, so that it is very necessary for those who navigate the seas.” Jacques de Vitry was born at Argenteuil, near Paris, joined the fourth crusade, became Bishop of Ptolemais, and died in Rome in 1244. He wrote his “Description of Palestine,” which forms the first book of his Historia Orientalis, in the East, between 1215 and 1220. Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) in his De Mineralibus, Lib. II., Tract 3, Cap. 6, writes: “It is the end of the lodestone which makes the iron that touched it turn to the north (ad zoron) and which is of use to mariners; but the other end of the needle turns toward the south (ad aphron).” This illustrious Bavarian schoolman joined the Dominican Order in his youth, lectured to great audiences in Cologne, became bishop of Ratisbonne in 1260, and died in 1280. Thomas Aquinas the greatest of schoolmen, was among his pupils. In the Spanish code of laws, begun in 1256, during the reign of Alfonso el Sabio, and known as Las Siete Partidas, we read: “Just as mariners are guided during the night by the needle, which replaces for them the shores and pole star alike, by showing them the course to pursue both in fair weather and foul, so those who are called upon to advise the King must always be guided by a spirit of justice.” Brunetto Latini, in his TrÉsor des Sciences, 1260, writes: “The sailors navigate the seas guided by the two stars called the tramontanes, and each of the two parts of the lodestone directs the end of the needle to the star to which that part itself turns.” Brunetto Latini (1230-1294) was a man of great eminence in the thirteenth century; Dante was among his pupils at Florence. For political reasons, he removed to Paris, where he wrote his TrÉsor and also his Tesoretto. He visited Roger Bacon at Oxford about 1260. In his treatise De Contemplatione, begun in 1272, Raymond Lully writes: “As the needle, after having touched the lodestone, turns to the north, so the mariner’s needle (acus nautica) directs them over the sea.” Lully was born at Palma in the Island of Majorca in 1236; he joined the Third Order of St. Francis, dying in 1315. Ristoro d’Arezzo, in his Libro della Composizione del Mundo, written in 1282, has the following: “Besides this, there is the needle which guides the mariner, and which is itself directed by the star called the tramontane.” The following metrical translation of a poem by Guido Guinicelli, an Italian priest, 1276, is from the pen of Dr. Park Benjamin, of New York: In what strange regions ’neath the polar star May the great hills of massy lodestone rise, Virtue imparting to the ambient air To draw the stubborn iron; while afar From that same stone, the hidden virtue flies To turn the quivering needle to the Bear In splendor blazing in the Northern skies. The above extracts show that the directive property of the magnetic needle was well known in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy in the thirteenth century. In the passage from Neckam, the acum jaculo superpositam has been construed by some to mean a form of pivoted needle, while in the letter of Peregrinus, 1269, the double pivoted form is clearly described. |