The Renaissance English History Podcast Episode 154 covered a brief history of alchemy.
Want to dig deeper?
Read Travis Dow’s book on Alchemy and listen to his podcast The History of Alchemy.
Read Alchemy in Medieval and Tudor England by Guthrie Stewart
Or watch this video with Dr Jennifer Rampling at the Royal Society
And check out the Ripley Scroll at the British Library
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/exploring-the-ripley-scroll/sgLCNEuJqIJzLg
Or listen to the rough transcript of Episode 154: A Brief History of Alchemy
Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity.
This is episode 154, and because it’s getting to be halloween time, and I like to do things that are timely, this episode is going to be all about the practice of alchemy. Alchemy is the art and the science of transforming base metals into gold or silver, and also about creating healing potions that can heal any disease. And both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I supported and patronized alchemists – perhaps the most famous is John Dee, the famous scientist who had both the largest private library in Europe, and a conjuring table. It’s hard for us, with our post-Enlightenment mind, to square these two sides of people. How can someone be both a scientist, and an occultist. But it’s important to remember that this was before the scientific revolution. In our modern minds, it’s impossible to be both a scientist, and someone who would pursue finding the philosopher’s stone. And it’s easy for us to look down at people who did search for the philosopher’s stone, or the elixir of life, and think that we are so much smarter than they were, I think that possibly in some ways we may have gone too far. Look at the constant fighting between science and religion in terms of things like evolution. It might not be a bad thing to bring back some of the mystery and faith into the “hard” sciences.
Sooo, let’s talk about alchemy, shall we? One of the things that makes alchemy different than simply metallurgy, and I think it’s important to remember, is the idea that alchemists saw themselves as the inheritors of sacred knowledge, not available to just anyone, and who they shared that knowledge with, and how they chose to pass that knowledge on to the future, was of utmost importance. There’s a sacredness to practicing alchemy that we don’t see in other sciences. And even then, when the books were written, many of them were put into codes, so that only someone who has dedicated their lives to understanding alchemy would be able to decipher it. There is also a sacred element to alchemy that we don’t see in other sciences of the time – often alchemy was practiced by monks, or other religious people. But it wasn’t just monks who studied alchemy. It could be courtiers, merchants, and doctors. By the Elizabethan period, in addition to the most famous John Dee, lots of noble men and women were practicing alchemy, including Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, who had an alchemical laboratory in Wilton House, and her lab assistant was Adrian Gilbert, the half brother to Sir Walter Raleigh. So the reach of alchemy went far.
But it had a long history. By the Tudor period, the art of practicing alchemy was at least 14 centuries old. The very first alchemical text we have was written in Egypt in the first century AD, with a title that translates to Natural and Secret Things. There were alchemists working in Egypt writing their texts throughout this period – one recipe from the 3rd century calls for the distillation of eggs in order to produce a substance that turns silver into a gold color.
These early alchemical texts are mystical and often discuss how alchemy is the practical side of religious work that we do to purify our souls to eventually join the divine in heaven – and so, here on earth, we can turn impure metals into gold.
The practice of alchemy spread throughout the Byzantine Empire, with people practicing in Byzantium, as well as in Syria, and Alexandria. When the Arabs began to conquer Egypt and the Middle East, they would have discovered some of the ancient Hellenistic texts, including alchemical ones. It’s interesting that for Europe, much of the alchemical knowledge came through Arab translations of original Greek texts. The first known Latin, European translation of an alchemical text was from Robert of Chester, who was active in the 1140’s. He was a mathemetician and scientist who, though he was from Chester, studied in Barcelona, and was the archdeacon of Pamplona. Robert is most famous for being the first westerner to translate the Koran to Latin, and his translations also introduced Western Europe to Arabic algebra. He also completed the first Latin translation of an alchemical book, the Book of the Composition of Alchemy, which tells a story of how a Christian monk, Moreinus, taught alchemy to the Umayyad prince Khalid ibn Yazid in Damascus.
Around the 7th century is also when we see the Emerald Tablet, a tablet supposedly found in a vault below a statue of Hermes on a corpse sitting on a golden throne. This tablet apparently has the secret of transmutation, and none other than Isaac Newton, almost 900 years later, had a translation from the original Arabic in his papers. One of the verses on the tablet says:
Tis true without lying, certain and most true.
That which is below is like that which is above
and that which is above is like that which is below
to do the miracle of one only thing
And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one:
so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
So by the late middle ages, we start to see alchemy flourishing in England. One of the earliest alchemists was Roger Bacon, who lived in the 13th century, and was one of the first scientists to talk about experimenting as a way to learn – what we would call the scientific method. He found and translated the Secreta Secretorum, the Secret of Secrets, formed as a letter from Aristotle to his pupil Alexander the Great, which was a general how-to guide, but also contains several paragraphs on the secrets of alchemy. Bacon decided to follow its advice, such as a suggestion to eat rhubarb, and he began to develop some of the ideas around alchemy for health. It seemed that men could live longer if they ate healthier food, and engaged in exercise, but it was difficult in real life situations to get that good food that balanced everything. But you could use alchemy to create medicines to reproduce that – so the vitamins and supplements we take now could be seen as alchemy derived by Roger Bacon in the 13th century.
By 1329, 17 year old Edward III ordered “writ of aid for Thomas Cary, appointed to bring to the king John le URouis, and Master William de Dalby, who are said to be able to make silver by alchemy, with the instruments, and other things pertaining to their craft.” By the end of the 14th century alchemy seems to be such a part of culture that an alchemist appears in the Canterbury Tales, the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. It’s possible that an inspiration for this came from a trial happening at the same time, of William de Brumley, a chaplain from Middlesex who was caught trying to sell four counterfeit coins to the Master of the Royal Mint at the Tower of London; coins made – it was claimed – by means of alchemy. “These coins had been made from a combination of gold, silver and other ‘medicines’ by the art of alchemy which William claimed he had been taught according to the doctrine of a canon of the king’s chapel at Windsor.
William had previously been successful in selling his alchemical metal at the Mint, for the price of 18s. At his second attempt, however, after five weeks of work, de Brumley’s attempt at counterfeiting had been unsuccessful, and he was arrested, with his alchemical coins being seized as evidence.”
The use of alchemy to create money actually led to a backlash against alchemists because people were worried that they were being ripped off. By 1403 Henry IV ordered that “none from henceforth shall use to multiply Gold or Silver, not use the craft of Miltiplication, and if any the same do, and be thereof attaint, that he incur the pain of Felony in this Case.”
But by the mid 15th century, alchemy was back. Henry VI gave special permission for some people to practice transmutation – making gold or silver – and one of the most popular books in England in the 15th century was a translation known as The Right Path of Alchemy – there are about 30 copies of the translation in Latin, and 30 copies in English, that still survive from this period. One of the interesting things about this text is that it has eight pieces of advice for budding alchemists in it, and one of them is to not try to chase after kings or powerful people. It says that there are two reasons to be wary of working for powerful people – first, if you commit yourself, you’re going to have to deliver and they’re going to want results. And if you can’t give them results, they’re going to be upset and you’ll be humiliated. But if you do succeed, they won’t want to let you go, so you’ll become a prisoner to your own success.
In May 1456 Henry VI granted a license to certain alchemists to practice, and this sheds some light on who the people were who practiced alchemy through the time period. One of those men was actually the physician to the King. There’s also a chancellor of Oxford University, and several other physicians. Edward IV licensed Henry Gray to attempt to transmute metals, and five years later gave Richard Carter permission to practice his alchemical crafts at the manor of Woodstock. In 1475 he set up a royal commission on ALchemy which included the Archbishop of York, George Neville, and others.
One of the most famous alchecmists of the period was a Thomas Norton, who lived from 1433 to about 1514, and wrote The Ordinal of Alchemy, written in 1477. The book is in English, with advice, comments, and instructions on how to do alchemy, and it contains some beautiful illustrations.
George Ripley is the other famous alchemist of this period. The Canon of Bridlington priory in Yorkshire who wrote a text called The Compound of Alchemy. He is remembered for a 6 meter long scroll (about 20 feet), the Ripley Scroll named after him, which dates from about 1490, and supposedly contains the secret to creating the Philospher’s Stone. In the first scene, the legendary Egyptian alchemist Hermes Trismegistus has a flask over a furnace, and then presents a book about alchemy to Ripley. In the final scene we see the creation of the Philospher’s Stone as three colored orbs – red, white, and black, combining to make the Elixir of Life. There is a beaming sun which symbolizes gold, and a crescent moon to signify silver. It also has the words, “you must make water of earth and earth of air and air of fire, and fire of earth.” The scrolls were copied well into the 17th century, and there are still 23 examples today.
By the reign of Elizabeth, alchemy was in vogue, with an emphasis on how to make gold. With a higher level of literacy and more learning, people were becoming more interested in alchemy, and began doing experiments which would become the basis for modern chemistry. One example of is Clement Draper, who spent more than 13 years in debtors prison, and while he was there he filled notebooks with information he got from fellow prisoners, and visitors, as well as books, and he learned all about medicine, mining, and chemistry. People would create their own journals and books with collections of recipes for everything from curing diseases to transmutation to cleaning clothing, and with the growth of publishers and printing presses, these books became easy enough for anyone to own. Draper tried experiments like dissolving mercury in aqua fortis, recording what happened.
Even William Cecil was interested in alchemy. Thomas Charnock presented him with a book for the queen about alchemy, perhaps hoping to be her alchemist, but apparently Cecil liked it enough that he kept it in his own library.
In 1564 a Cornelius de Lannoy, from a well to do family in the Low Countries, came to England and proposed to manufacture gold using equipment and raw materials in the mint. After a year he didn’t have success, and blamed the poor quality of glassware and pots. Then the Swedish Princess Cecelia showed some interest in what he was doing, and Cecil and the Queen were worried that he was going to try to go to Sweden, so he was confined to the Tower in 1566 in order to continue his experiments. He blamed evil men for interfering with his processes, the equipment, and being rushed by Cecil and Elizabeth. By 1571 he was still in the Tower, which we see in a letter written from his wife to Leicester, and it’s possible that he died there.
Around this time, the great grandson of Thomas Norton, who was by now a member of the Somerset gentry, discovered alchemical recipes supposedly written by George Ripley. He wrote them out in The Key of Alchemy, in Latin, and dedicated it to Elizabeth. It was supposedly meant to be used as a proposal for patronage. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, in 1596, there’s a surviving manuscript owned by Robert Garland, listing texts, including Bacon, George Ripley, and others that were brand new. There are also recipes and notes of a process supposedly carried out at John Dee’s lab.
Alchemy was even involved in the exploration of the Americas – on Martin Frobisher’s tours of Newfoundland, he found what he thought was gold ore, leading to an effort to fund more trips to bring back even more gold. And while mettalurgists couldn’t find gold, alchemists were brought in to see whether they could make gold from what he had found. Michael Lok, the person who was organizing the financing and raising the money, said that Frobisher, upon his return to London from the Arctic, had given him a black stone as the first object taken from the new land. Lok brought samples of the stone to the royal assayer in the Tower of London and two other expert assayers, all of whom said that it was worthless, and contained no gold. Lok then took the “ore” to an Italian alchemist living in London, Giovanni Battista Agnello, who claimed it was gold-bearing. Agnello assayed the ore three times and showed Lok small amounts of gold dust; when he was challenged as to why the other assayers failed to find gold in their specimens, Agnello replied, “Bisogna sapere adulare la natura” (“One must know how to flatter nature”). Ignoring the negative reports, Lok secretly wrote to the Queen to inform her of the encouraging result, and used this assessment to lobby investors to finance another voyage. Subsequently the stone became the focus of intense attention by the Cathay enterprise’s venturers, who saw in it the possibility of vast profits to be derived from mining the rocky islands of Meta Incognita; gossip spread in the court and from there throughout London about the gold powder Agnello was supposedly deriving from the rock.
Within the next 50 years or so, England would see the birth of the Enlightenment, and the study of alchemy would turn into chemistry, and men stopped searching for the Philosopher’s Stone – that is, until a certain He Who Shall Not Be Named was hunting it and a boy wizard had to stop him, only about 25 years ago.
So that’s it for this week. If you want to know more about medieval and Tudor alchemy, there’s a book by Guthrie Stewart called Alchemy in Medieval and Tudor England. There’s also the work of Dr Jennifer Rampling, and several lectures she’s done including one at the Royal Society. And finally, I would be remiss not to mention my fellow Agora Podcast Network colleague Travis Dow, who has an entire podcast series on the History of Alchemy. And do let me know what you thought about this episode -You can get in touch with me through the listener support line at 801 6TEYSKO or join the free Tudor Learning Circle social network at TudorLearningCircle.com. Thanks so much for listening.
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