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MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Alexander Neckam | |
|---|---|
| Born | 8 September 1157  |
| Died | 31 March 1217 |
Resting place | Worcester Cathedral |
| Education | St Albans School |
| Occupations |
|
| Mother | Hodierna of St Albans |
Alexander Neckam[a] (8 September 1157 – 31 March 1217) was an English poet, theologian, and writer. He was an abbot of Cirencester Abbey from 1213 until his death.[1]
Born on 8 September 1157 in St Albans, Alexander shared his birthday with King Richard I. For this reason, his mother, Hodierna of St Albans, was hired by the royal household under Henry II to serve as a wet nurse for the future monarch. As a result, Alexander was raised as Richard's foster-brother in their early years.[2]
Alexander was the abbot of Cirencester Abbey from 1213 until his death, having previously been a canon there. In 1204, while still a canon, he and another canon of Cirencester accompanied Martin, the prior of Llanthony Priory, to a meeting with Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Alexander spoke on Martin's behalf in an attempt to repair relations between the two men.[1][3]: clxxix–clxxx
The Speculum speculationum (edited by Rodney M. Thomson, 1988) is Neckam's major surviving contribution to the science of theology. It is unfinished in its current form, but covers a fairly standard range of theological topics derived from Peter Lombard's Sentences and Augustine. Neckam is not regarded as an especially innovative or profound theologian, although he is notable for his early interest in the ideas of St. Anselm of Canterbury. His outlook in the Speculum, a work written very late in his life, probably in 1215, and perhaps drawing heavily on his teaching notes from the past decades, combines an interest in the Platonic writings of earlier 12th-century thinkers such as Thierry of Chartres and William of Conches, with an early appreciation of the newly translated writings of Aristotle and Avicenna. Neckam was a firm admirer of Aristotle as an authority in natural science as well as in the logical arts, one of the first Latin thinkers since antiquity to credit this aspect of the Stagirite's output.
In the Speculum speculationum Alexander identifies one of his key purposes as combating the Cathar heresy, particularly its belief in dualism. He spends a large part of Book 1 on this, and thereafter passes on to focus on his other key purpose, the application of dialectic logic to the study of theology.[4]
Besides theology, Neckam was interested in the study of grammar and natural history, but his name is chiefly associated with nautical science. In his De utensilibus and De naturis rerum (both written at about 1190), Neckam has preserved to us the earliest European notices of the magnetized needle as a guide to seamen and the earliest European description of the compass.[5] Outside China, these seem to be the earliest records.[b] It was probably in Paris that Neckam heard how a ship, among its other stores, must have a magnetised needle, mounted on a pivot, which would rotate until it pointed north and thus guide sailors in murky weather or on starless nights. Neckam does not seem to think of this as a startling novelty: he merely records what had apparently become the regular practice of many seamen of the Catholic world.[6]
However, De naturis rerum itself was written as a preface to Neckam's commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, itself a part of a wider programme of biblical commentary encompassing the Song of Solomon and the Psalms, representing the three branches of wisdom literature. It was not intended as an independent and free-standing encyclopedic work in its own right, and indeed it is mostly filled with fanciful moralising allegories rather than a detailed natural philosophy.
See Thomas Wright's edition of Neckam's De naturis rerum and De laudibus divinae sapientiae in the Rolls Series (1863), and of the De utensilibus in his Volume of Vocabularies.[6]
Out of all Neckam's writings on natural history, the De naturis rerum, a sort of manual of the scientific knowledge of the 12th century, is by far the most important: the magnet passage referred to above is in Book 2, Chapter 98 (De vi attractiva), p. 183 of Wright's edition. The corresponding section in the De utensilibus is on p. 114 of the Volume of Vocabularies.[6]
Neckam also displays a keen interest in contemporary medical science. In particular he draws many ideas from the philosophical writings of the Salernitan medical master Urso of Calabria, particularly De commixtionibus elementorum on humoral theory.
Neckam also wrote Corrogationes Promethei, a scriptural commentary prefaced by a treatise on grammatical criticism; a translation of Aesop into Latin elegiacs (six fables from this version, as given in a Paris manuscript, are printed in Robert's Fables inedites); commentaries, on portions of Aristotle and Ovid's Metamorphoses, which remain unprinted, and on Martianus Capella, which has recently received an edition, and on other works.[6]
His version of Aesop's fables in elegiac verse,[7] called Novus Aesopus, is a collection of 42 fables taken from the prose Romulus. He also composed a shorter Novus Avianus, taken from Avianus.[8] A supplementary poem to De laudibus divinae sapientiae, called simply the Suppletio defectuum, covers further material on animals and the natural world, as well as cosmology, free will, astrology and the human soul. An edition of this and several of Neckam's minor poems, edited by P. Hochgurtel, was published as a part of the Brepols Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis series in 2008.
It has been speculated (Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, 1934) that Neckam might also have been unwittingly responsible for starting the late medieval legends about Virgil's alleged magical powers. In commenting on Virgil, Neckam used the phrase "Vergilius fecit Culicem" to describe the writing of one of Virgil's earlier poems, Culex ("The Gnat"). This may have been misinterpreted by later readers as "Virgil made a gnat" and formed the basis for the legend of Virgil's magic fly which killed all other flies it came across and thus preserved civic hygiene.
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Alexander Neckam (8 September 1157 – 31 March 1217) was an English poet, theologian, and writer. He was an abbot of Cirencester Abbey from 1213 until his death.
Alexander of Ashby (Latin: Alexander Essebiensis) was a celebrated English theologian and poet, who flourished about the year 1220. Scarcely anything is known of his history, except that he appears to have been prior of Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire. Some writers make him a native of Somersetshire; others of Staffordshire; and some have confounded him with Alexander Neckam. He wrote various theological and historical works in prose, particularly a chronicle of England, which are still found scattered in manuscripts. His poetry, in which he sought to imitate Ovid and Ausonius, is much praised by John Bale. Amongst other poems, we may enumerate one in elegiacs, giving a description of all the saints' days throughout the year, with the lives of the saints who were celebrated on each and a metrical compendium of Bible History. A further account of Alexander's works will be found in Thomas Tanner's Bibliotheca, and Polycarp Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi.
Alexander of St Albans (died circa 1220), said to have been known by the surnames of Cementarius or le Pargiter (the Plasterer), was an English ecclesiastic of the thirteenth century. He was first a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, of which house he was made abbot in 1213. He was distinguished by his steady adherence to King John, who sent him in Rome to protest Pope Innocent III. He was excommunicated by Legate Pandulph after the death of the king, and he was deprived of his clerical station. He died in great poverty about the year 1220, though some place his death in 1217. He wrote several works, which are enumerated by Tanner. Alexander may be confused with Alexander Neckam, also called Alexander of St Albans. Both were abbots and writers operating at the same time.
Shen Kuo (Chinese: 沈括; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua, courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁), was a Chinese polymath, scientist, and statesman of the Northern Song dynasty. Shen was a master in many fields of study including mathematics, optics, and horology. In his career as a civil servant, he became a finance minister, governmental state inspector, head official for the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song court, Assistant Minister of Imperial Hospitality, and also served as an academic chancellor. At court his political allegiance was to the Reformist faction known as the New Policies Group, headed by Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1085). In his Dream Pool Essays or Dream Torrent Essays (夢溪筆談; Mengxi Bitan) of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen discovered the concept of true north in terms of magnetic declination towards the north pole, with experimentation of suspended magnetic needles and "the improved meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the pole star and true north". This was the decisive step in human history to make compasses more useful for navigation, and may have been a concept unknown in Europe for another four hundred years (evidence of German sundials made circa 1450 show markings similar to Chinese geomancers' compasses in regard to declination). Alongside his colleague Wei Pu, Shen planned to map the orbital paths of the Moon and the planets in an intensive five-year project involving daily observations, yet this was thwarted by political opponents at court. To aid his work in astronomy, Shen Kuo made improved designs of the armillary sphere, gnomon, sighting tube, and invented a new type of inflow water clock. Shen Kuo devised a geological hypothesis for land formation (geomorphology), based upon findings of inland marine fossils, knowledge of soil erosion, and the deposition of silt. He also proposed a hypothesis of gradual climate change, after observing ancient petrified bamboos that were preserved underground in a dry northern habitat that would not support bamboo growth in his time. He was the first literary figure in China to mention the use of the drydock to repair boats suspended out of water, and also wrote of the effectiveness of the relatively new invention of the canal pound lock. Although not the first to invent camera obscura, Shen noted the relation of the focal point of a concave mirror and that of the pinhole. Shen wrote extensively about movable type printing invented by Bi Sheng (990–1051), and because of his written works the legacy of Bi Sheng and the modern understanding of the earliest movable type has been handed down to later generations. Following an old tradition in China, Shen created a raised-relief map while inspecting borderlands. His description of an ancient crossbow mechanism he unearthed as an amateur archaeologist proved to be a Jacob's staff, a surveying tool which was not known in Europe until described by Levi ben Gerson in 1321. Shen Kuo wrote several other books besides the Dream Pool Essays, yet much of the writing in his other books has not survived. Some of Shen's poetry was preserved in posthumous written works. Although much of his focus was on technical and scientific issues, he had an interest in divination and the supernatural, the latter including his vivid description of unidentified flying objects from eyewitness testimony. He also wrote commentary on ancient Daoist and Confucian texts.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
