**Images of Nature—From the Middle Ages to (Non-)Western Modernities**

Editors

**Jon Mathieu Simona Boscani Leoni**

Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Novi Sad • Cluj • Manchester

*Editors* Jon Mathieu University of Lucerne Lucerne Switzerland

Simona Boscani Leoni University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland

*Editorial Office* MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal *Histories* (ISSN 2409-9252) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/histories/special issues/ DCVEYBP06T).

For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below:

Lastname, Firstname, Firstname Lastname, and Firstname Lastname. Article Title. *Journal Name* **Year**, *Volume Number*, Page Range.

**ISBN 978-3-0365-9524-5 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-9525-2 (PDF) doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-0365-9525-2**

Cover image courtesy of Jon Mathieu

© 2023 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

## **Contents**

## **About the Editors**

#### **Jon Mathieu**

Editor-in-Chief of the journal Histories and professor emeritus of history at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland. He has widely published on the history of mountain regions. His latest book is "Mount Sacred. A Brief History of Holy Mountains Since 1500".

#### **Simona Boscani Leoni**

Professor of history at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She is an expert inof the social history of natural philosophy. A forthcoming book is entitled "Interconnected Worlds: Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733), Natural History, and the Alps in the Early Modern Era (1500-1730)".

### *Editorial* **Images of Nature: Introduction to the Special Issue**

**Jon Mathieu**

Department of History, University of Lucerne, 6002 Luzern, Switzerland<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **1. Starting Point**

This Special Issue on 'Images of Nature' in the *longue durée* has its origins in a historical conference on 'Nature' at the University of Geneva in the summer of 2022 (6th Swiss History Days, 29 June–1 July 2022). The suggestion to organize a panel there came from Sophie Ruppel, who recently published a detailed study on 'botanophilia' in bourgeois Enlightenment society. She vividly shows how European perceptions of nature changed in the 18th century and how the world of plants became an important field of popular education and occupation from about 1780 onward. Religious, scientific, and early ecological ideas contributed to these new practices. Around 1800, for example, people discussed a possible kinship among all living beings and even spoke of a 'plant soul'. This raises fundamental questions about the human–nature relationship at the transition to modernity (Ruppel 2019).

Of course, we did not quite agree on how to frame and understand these phenomena. For many decades, there have been various proposals from various authors and disciplines—history, anthropology, philosophy, literary studies, and ecology—both in terms their disciplinary traditions and interdisciplinary combinations. The scholarly discussion has intensified in recent years, as was also obvious in Geneva. In order to gain more clarity on some issues in a pluralistic way, we decided to organize a call for papers after the conference and see what we could learn from the studies submitted. In this, we also received support from Simona Boscani Leoni, who has a lot of experience in the field (Boscani Leoni 2024) and who volunteered to be a co-guest editor.

When debates around a term seem so diverse and convoluted, it is useful to remember that terms rely on words and that these can have a specific starting point: *Natura* is a polysemic Latin noun that has accompanied the historical development of the West for centuries, spreading around much of the globe with colonialism and imperialism. It has been adopted or replicated in numerous languages, and it has taken on new meanings in different contexts over time and across regions. Our relationship with that abstract, fuzzy 'nature' has become a highly charged issue at least since the ecological turn around 1970. One reason for its politicization lies in the fact that it is not only about the human– environment relationship but also about the relationship of people to each other.

In our call for papers, we mentioned three factors affecting the long-term history of 'Images of Nature' that we would like to cover:

**Citation:** Mathieu, Jon. 2023. Images of Nature: Introduction to the Special Issue. *Histories* 3: 348–353. https://doi.org/10.3390/ histories3040023

Received: 26 August 2023 Accepted: 11 September 2023 Published: 18 October 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

1

#### **2. Authors and Topics**

The papers submitted addressed all these points and were remarkably well distributed over time. The selection for this Special Issue can be presented in four chronological and thematic groups: late medieval/early modern scholarship; transition to modernity ('Sattelzeit'); western alternatives; and global outreach.

#### *2.1. Late Medieval/Early Modern Scholarship*

1. Camille Schneiter (Changing Natures: On Theory and Practice of Breeding in the European Middle Ages) mainly deals with Albertus Magnus' commentary about animals, which is based on Aristotle and written between 1256 and 1268. The paper suggests that various concepts usually attributed to the early modern period such as 'race' and 'ancestry' had their origin in late medieval times.

2. Karsten Engel (Man as Image of Nature in Magnus Hundt: The Perspective of a Thomist ca. 1500) explores a treatise on human dignity published in 1501 by the Leipzig scholar Magnus Hundt. The treatise pays special attention to the human body—not as a prison of the soul but as a perfectly balanced physical counterpart to it.

3. Gabriel Müller (Daniel Sennert's Corpuscularian Reforms to Natural Philosophy) shows how the well-known physician and professor Daniel Sennert, in his publications from 1619 on, inserted atomistic views into the anti-atomistic writings of Aristotle. This had serious consequences for the theoretical understanding of natural substances.

#### *2.2. Transition to Modernity ('Sattelzeit')*

4. Sophie Ruppel (Nature as a Huge Organism: Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (1776–1837) and Early Ecology in German Romantic Science) portrays a founder of modern biology who turned away from earlier classification efforts in empirical research. His natural philosophy adapted traditional ideas and yet seems ecologically relevant today.

5. Joachim Eibach (*Naturmenschen?* Alexander von Humboldt and Indigenous People) uses a large corpus of Humboldt's writings to examine his views on Indigenous peoples. Unlike many contemporaries, the famous German naturalist was repeatedly reluctant to reproduce pejorative colonialist opinions and criticized them on occasion, based on personal experience.

#### *2.3. Western Alternatives*

6. Milo Probst (A Political Ecology of the Body: Nature in French Anarchist Pedagogy around 1900) shows that for anarchists around 1900, 'nature' was not stable, ahistorical, or preordained. Their political struggle and their pedagogy were directed toward saving human and nonhuman nature from its oppression by capitalism, religion, and the state.

7. Isabella Schlehaider ('Apart from the Experiences of Subjects There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Bare Nothingness'—Nature and Subjectivity in Alfred North Whitehead) presents the British process philosopher and his concept of subjectivity. In the 1920s and 1930s, he began to view subjectivity as part of nature, which was radically different from prevailing Western philosophies.

#### *2.4. Global Outreach*

8. Jon Mathieu (How Great Was the 'Great Divide of Nature and Culture' in Europe? Philippe Descola's Argument under Scrutiny) looks at the way the French anthropologist presents European history from the 16th to the 19th centuries in his global theory. With good reasons, he argues, one could also reverse the overall trend traced by Descola.

9. Regina M. Bichler (Harm and Harmony—Concepts of Nature and Environmental Practice in Japan) explores the Japanese 'love of nature', one of the country's hallmarks. She outlines and explains the discrepancies between discourse on nature and physical engagement with nature in the long run and with reference to Western impact, particularly from the 19th century on.

#### **3. The Long-Term Perspective**

While each article has its specific points and ideas, when read together, more aspects of nature imagery emerge. Some of these aspects are briefly presented here in free succession, along with some further notes, but with few additional references. The complete bibliographies are given in the articles.

#### *3.1. Languages*

Accustomed to today's public discourse on nature, we often tend to forget that for a long time in history, 'nature' was a learned word used by only a fraction of the European population. It was small academic circles that exchanged ideas and inserted this ancient noun into Latin and later vernacular texts and gave it different meanings depending on the context. A revealing case of this inside story is the 1688 proposal by the British scholar Robert Boyle to eliminate the word from the vocabulary altogether or rigorously restrict its use and replace it with 'mechanism'. (Boyle 1688; Zedler 1740, column 1036) In the run-up to the French Revolution, 'nature' became politicized and gained broader appeal. But still around 1900, it seems to have been mostly an elite word that ordinary persons seldom verbalized—unless they needed a taboo word (learned from physicians) for sexual matters.1 These questions of dissemination and popularization are still among the poorly studied topics that deserve more attention.

Well-documented translation processes can be helpful for this. How was the notion, for example, introduced in Japan? A Dutch–Japanese dictionary from 1796 rendered Dutch *natuur* as Japanese *shizen*. But effectively, there were many culturally specific expressions in the semantic horizon of *natuur* in pre-modern Japan. They are usually translated as 'mountains and waters', 'heaven and earth', 'something that is so given by heaven, 'vegetation growing in ten thousand forms', etc. The fact that *shizen* became the word connected to 'nature' may have been favored by its abstractness. It had been adapted centuries ago from Chinese with the meaning 'what is so of itself'. Until the 19th century, it denoted a universe consisting of humans and physical environments as equal, inseparable parts. With the connection to Western 'nature' becoming stabilized and increasingly important, however, *shizen* later turned into an opposite term relative to 'culture' and other human-related notions.2

#### *3.2. Traditions*

The academic circles that dealt with 'nature' in Europe since the rise of population and towns in the Middle Ages were mainly composed of physicians and theologians. Although it is a random selection, the first group of articles gathered in this Special Issue gives a nice impression thereof. Schneiter begins in the 13th century with Albertus Magnus working on the recovered writings of Aristotle. Engel picks up the thread in the 1500s with a German scholar who uses Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and his student Thomas Aquinas. Müller treats an early 17th-century scholar who stands in front of a similar ancestral gallery but finds a new twist under the broad umbrella of this tradition. These (exclusively male) specialists were scholastic natural philosophers working in the context of small universities, using books based on Aristotle and the Bible for teaching and research and viewing their study of nature as truth-producing science. (Schneiter 2023; Engel 2023; Müller 2023)

In our series of articles, the embedding of naturalists in Christian precepts ends at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. As Ruppel notes, God is not mentioned in the extensive writings of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (died 1837). Creation was replaced by nature, but the biologist used the old idea of a 'great chain of being': that is, nature as a vast network of interconnected life, powerful in pre-modern times and then often combined with theology. Treviranus instead supplemented it with the romantic idea of a 'vital force' behind all organisms. One can regard it as an example of the vitalistic current in late Enlightenment. (Ruppel 2023) While theology was only left aside by Treviranus, European anarchists, a hundred years later, saw it as a political enemy to be actively fought. Probst illustrates this on the example of French-speaking anarchist educators and schools. 'Returning to nature' for them meant promoting a self-regulated, holistic life, unmolested by the old clerical

repression—a new life in which freedom, equality, autonomy, and solidarity were inherent values (Probst 2023).

#### *3.3. Dualisms*

In the older European past, we find 'nature' in opposite relationships to a variety of notions: God, spirit, history, art, custom, etc. The dominant divisions were certainly produced by theology. Mankind was created in the image of God. In his son, he had himself become a man. Therefore, humans were the worthiest of all creatures. The cosmic hierarchy had several main levels: God the lord, then the human race, and finally the rest of creation. It was a pronounced anthropocentric vision that sharply divided the human and nonhuman spheres (Thomas 1983, pp. 17–50; Koselleck 1995, pp. 244–58; Engel 2023).

Today, we almost exclusively talk about nature and culture being opposed to each other. After all, the two words sound similar and trip off the tongue. But historically, this pair of opposites is young. We do not encounter it in the early modern period, if only because 'culture' as a general term was still emerging. As suggested by Mathieu, the trajectory of the nature–culture dualism was related to overarching power relations. In the age of high imperialism, it was a hegemonic weapon that placed the 'cultured', 'civilized' West above all others. In a second phase, with decolonization and Indigenous empowerment, it was turned against the hegemons. At present, the dualism is widely considered a handicap that should be overcome by uniting the two parts (Mathieu 2022).

The countertrend was certainly also fueled by dissenting, innovative voices in the West. When did it start? This question does not seem to have been studied systematically. Alfred North Whitehead in the interwar period was probably among the early but not the earliest exponents. Schlehaider shows how his non-anthropocentric, pluralistic concept of subjectivity radically dissolved the nature–culture dualism. Whitehead opposed what he called the 'bifurcation of nature'(Schlehaider 2023). This bifurcation, in a sense, had to be distilled from the past by himself. He identified it with the 'new science' of Newton and others in the late 17th century. One can suppose that the technical and scientific revolutions of Whitehead's own lifetime supported his choice.3

#### *3.4. Souls*

Interesting clues to the complex field of hierarchical classifications are given by the notion of soul. The attribution of a soul resembled mostly a certificate of dignity. In premodern history, we encounter a fascinating variety of statements. In our sample of articles, the subject comes up several times. Magnus Hundt in 1501 put the body on a par with the soul and thus related to the divine sphere (Engel 2023). Daniel Sennert later spoke of ensouled atoms and of vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls for plants, animals and human beings, respectively (Müller 2023). In the 1630s, René Descartes pictured the bodies of humans and animals as machine-like automata. Only humans, however, possessed an immaterial soul. In modern times, he was often used as a key witness for Western dualisms. However, it is uncertain how many people shared his opinion, and for how long, in the 17th and 18th centuries (Müller 2023; Ruppel 2023; Mathieu 2022).

Of course, in the early modern period, there was also a discussion whether women, children, and Indigenous people were endowed with souls. Ironically, since the late 19th century, the Indigenous have been inundated with the Western soul, as the anthropological term 'animism' (from Latin *anima*, soul) made the rounds. Now, it was no longer primarily about their own endowment but about the way they viewed the world. Edward Tylor, one originator of the term, first wanted to speak of spiritualism, but he then saw that this could be confused with the European spiritualism of the period and decided on the transcultural use of 'anima' (Harvey 2005, p. 7). Anthropologists have been struggling with this transmission ever since. Like other concepts, animism has had its ups and downs in scholarly popularity. Sometimes the doubt runs right through a researcher's biography. Philippe Descola, an important protagonist of the nature–culture debate, rejected the

concept in his thesis. Later, in his main work, he reconciled with it and expanded it further (Descola 1994, pp. 98–99; Descola 2013, pp. 129–43).

#### *3.5. Symmetry in the Anthropocene*

Among the key claims of recent scholarship in the humanities is the idea of 'symmetry': Symmetry on all sides—for the nature–society relationship, for the interaction with Indigenous peoples and nations, even for the connections between present and past (Arni 2018; Arni and Teuscher 2020). The call for symmetry is certainly justified and corresponds to an old ideal of academic balance. Balances can easily become tilted and need to be realigned frequently.

However, this cannot always be realized in the same way. In historical research, the source material plays a preeminent role, and it is often unbalanced. Historians can counteract this to a certain extent by focusing on weak voices. But in the case of voices that cannot be heard at all, any amplification is pointless—pure invention violates the rules of truth-seeking. In his article, Eibach is able to examine Alexander von Humboldt's remarks about Indigenous people in a very fine, nuanced way because the German naturalist left so many texts, which are now also accessible in a digital corpus. His utterances can be compared to the loud contemporary Euro-American chorus with its unabashedly colonialist and racist slant. (Eibach 2023) But how should we know, in the sense of postcolonial symmetry, what Indigenous persons thought of Humbolt if there are almost no documents about it?

Is there also a symmetrical relationship between images of nature and environmental behavior? An interesting case in point is again Japan with its flourishing 'love of nature' expressed in a variety of culturally valued metaphors. Bichler shows in her long-term overview that practical environmental behavior evolved quite independently of them. Pollution and environmental damage were already evident in pre-modern Japan. In the late 19th century, they increased massively and soon reached critical levels through the introduction of modern technology from the West. It was not the adaptation to Euro-American images of nature in the first place that caused this unprecedented damage but the political goal of catching up with technology under the slogan 'enriching the nation, strengthening the army'. The introduction of the nature–culture dualism with the new twist of the term *shizen* (mentioned at the beginning) can rather be seen as a parallel development or a by-product of this change (Bichler 2023).

The example can help us think about the general place of the studies in nature imagery. *Ceci n'est pas une pipe*—'This is not a pipe', the Belgium artist René Magritte famously wrote under the painting of an ordinary pipe in 1929. Up to the present day, many observers are puzzled when they see it for the first time. And even upon reflection, it is not that easy to pinpoint the relationships between the written sentence, the painted canvas, and the everyday object visible on it. Images are, and remain, a challenge for good scholarship.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**

#### **References**

Bichler, Regina M. 2023. Harm and Harmony—Concepts of Nature and Environmental Practice in Japan. *Histories* 3: 62–75. [CrossRef] Boscani Leoni, Simona. 2024. *Interconnected Worlds: Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672–1733), Natural History, and the Alps in the Early Modern Era*. Rome: Viella.

Boyle, Robert. 1688. Tractatus de Ipsa Natura Sive Libera in Receptam Naturae Notionem Disquisitio ad Amicum. Geneva: Samuel de Tournes. Abridged English version 1725: A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion of Nature. In *The Philosophical Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle*. London: W. and J. Innys, vol. 2, pp. 106–49.

Descola, Philippe. 1994. *In the Society of Nature. A Native Ecology in Amazonia*. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Descola, Philippe. 2013. *Beyond Nature and Culture*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Eibach, Joachim. 2023. *Naturmenschen*? Alexander von Humboldt and Indigenous People. *Histories* 3: 331–47. [CrossRef]

Engel, Karsten. 2023. Man as Image of Nature in Magnus Hundt: The Perspective of a Thomist ca. 1500. *Histories* 3: 32–45. [CrossRef] Harvey, Graham. 2005. *Animism: Respecting the Living World*. London: Hurst.

Müller, Gabriel. 2023. Daniel Sennert's Corpuscularian Reforms to Natural Philosophy. *Histories* 3: 245–60. [CrossRef]

Sarton, George. 1913. L'Histoire de la Science. ISIS. *Revue consacrée à l'histoire de la science* 1: 3–46.

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## *Essay* **Changing Natures: On Theory and Practice of Breeding in the European Middle Ages**

**Camille Schneiter**

Department of History, University of Zurich, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract:** While throughout modern history it has been shown how thoroughly biological discourses were shaped by conceptions originating in the theory and praxis of breeding, for the medieval period similar studies are mostly absent. This paper offers a symmetrical history of theory and praxis of breeding by asking to what extent they shaped medieval conceptions of human 'race' and 'ancestry' in Europe. For scholarly knowledge of breeding, the analysis relies on Albertus Magnus' extensive Aristotelian work *De animalibus*. For the practical knowledge of the breeders, scattered indications from the secondary literature are compiled and promising primary sources are outlined for further research. The paper finds that various concepts and practices whose origins are commonly placed in the early modern period were already present in the Middle Ages, including the concept of reproductive heredity and the view that creation diversified over time through reproductive ancestry. Breeding practices, thus, existed before the rise of genetics in modern biology. The medieval conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' underwent conceptual transfers from the non-human into the human sphere, collapsing the qualitative distinction of the two spheres into one quantitively graded overarching image of nature.

**Keywords:** history of biology; symmetrical history; medieval breeding; race; ancestry; Aristotelianism; Albertus Magnus; practical knowledge

#### **1. Introduction**

Breeding animals and plants is a fundamental component of modern-day agriculture. To write the history of breeding practices of the European Middle Ages, however, is by no means self-evident. Before Mendel first discovered that traits are inheritable in the 19th century and, thus, laid the foundation of genetics, interfering with the reproductive process of plants and animals to change their natures might well have seemed like an odd pursuit.

It should prick up one's ears, then, when historians discuss the 'agricultural domain of animal breeding that was already well known in the ancient and medieval worlds' (Nirenberg 2009, p. 236). Was there really breeding of plants and animals before genetics? Interestingly, the context in which medievalist David Nirenberg points toward medieval breeding practices is an early instance of the conception of 'race'. He argues that '[t]he topic of medieval knowledge about animal breeding is only now beginning to be studied. [ ... ] The well-known contribution of knowledge about animal breeding to the development of biological discourses about evolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth century suggests that for our purposes, the topic would merit further research' (Nirenberg 2009, p. 251).

With this paper, I aim to take up this research gap by asking to what extent conceptions of human 'race' and 'ancestry' in the European Middle Ages were influenced by the breeding of animals and plants.

Pursuing this research question is important in light of the conceptual history of the term 'race'. The term first appeared as *raza* in Castilian sources of the early 15th century to refer to an equine hoof disease, and it was soon taken up by breeders to express what we understand today as a 'pedigree' or 'genealogical table'. The etymology of 'race' was also

**Citation:** Schneiter, Camille. 2023. Changing Natures: On Theory and Practice of Breeding in the European Middle Ages. *Histories* 3: 231–244. https://doi.org/10.3390/ histories3030016

Academic Editors: Jon Mathieu and Simona Boscani Leoni

Received: 31 March 2023 Revised: 19 June 2023 Accepted: 21 June 2023 Published: 18 July 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

analysed in this direction—deriving from *haraz/haras*, which means 'the breeding of horses' or 'the stallion's deposit' (Nirenberg 2009, p. 248).

Thus, embarking onto the history of theory and praxis of medieval breeding promises to shed light on how conceptions of 'ancestry' and 'race' first emerged. Additionally, it allows insights into practical agricultural knowledge that, for the most part, escapes the grasp of historical approaches. Shedding light on subaltern knowledge in medieval Europe, consequently, constitutes a significant task of this paper.

A great benefit of conducting this task lies in the fact that I can draw on research with similar approaches that cover later periods, analysing how biological discourses were shaped by conceptions originating in the theory and praxis of breeding. The literature on medieval breeding practices is extraordinarily scarce. The only contemporary historical work devoted entirely to medieval breeding covers horses alone (Gladitz 1997). Apart from that, some contributions on the medieval human–animal relationship dealt with breeding practices in passing (Epstein 2012; Aberth 2013), or at least allowed conclusions to be drawn as to where it might be fruitful to look for them (Teuscher 1998; Giese 2007, 2008, 2010, 2017). For the Early Modern period, historical research connecting knowledge on breeding practices to conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' is more abundant (Russell 1986; Renton 2019). It is when focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries, however, that biological discourses have been scrutinised the most in regard to thinking with 'race' and 'ancestry' (Orel and Wood 2001; Müller-Wille and Orel 2007; Ratcliff 2007; Wood 2007; Müller-Wille and Rheinberger 2012).

#### **2. Symmetrical History of Breeding**

In order to shed light on subaltern knowledge of the Middle Ages, it is crucial to engage with medieval knowledge in its own right without presupposing our own modern scientific knowledge as superior. In doing so, this paper employs the method of a symmetrical history (Arni and Teuscher 2020).

A chief prerequisite of a symmetrical history of breeding is to clarify what exactly we are searching for in the Middle Ages when we discuss 'breeding' from a contemporary point of view. In its modern usage, the term encompasses the raising of animals and plants by a human breeder who intervenes in the development of these respective species by interfering with their reproduction in order to optimise them according to the breeder's needs (Duden 2023).

By applying this concept to a time before the emergence of a biology based on reproduction and heredity, four further research questions arise. First, on the conceptual level, it should be clarified whether an optimisation of creatures—or, even more fundamentally, the mutability of creatures in general—was considered possible. This leads to a second conceptual question: if mutability was conceivable, was human intervention a possible cause for it? Thirdly, it raises the question of whether this eventual mutability was linked to the reproduction of creatures or whether it was entirely different influences that were held responsible for it. Finally, on a practical level, the question arises of whether breeding in the sense of optimisation—irrespective of its conceptual possibility—was practised in the Middle Ages.

The analytical separation between a theoretical and a practical level of breeding implied in these questions will determine the structure of this paper. This is based on the hypothesis that medieval conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' were not homogeneous but rather that decisive differences existed between scholarly traditions and practical knowledge of breeders (Cohen 1993, p. 109).

Identifying these differences can, on the one hand, help to shed light on the two levels themselves—which, in the case of practical knowledge on breeding, already means entering a largely unresearched territory. On the other hand, it could manifest dynamics of knowledge transfers between scholarly and practical knowledge—a field that has proven to be particularly interesting in regard to conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' in later periods (Ratcliff 2007, p. 221).

#### **3. Scholarly Theory—Albertus Magnus**

To access the medieval theory of breeding, we will turn to the monumental work *De animalibus* by the Dominican universal scholar Albertus Magnus from the middle of the 13th century. '[I]n the period between Aristotle and the sixteenth century there is no other work which comes close to Albert's in its attempts to provide a descriptive and experimental approach to biological phenomena' (Shaw 1975, p. 56). Albertus Magnus was one of the most influential representatives of the medieval line of thought called 'Aristotelianism.'

This philosophy emerged in Latin Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. Representatives of Aristotelianism were 'operating under the assumption that nature is intelligent and works towards an end or goal (*telos*)' (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 28). Thus, they assumed that natural phenomena were only understandable through observing nature itself—an assumption strikingly similar to the empiricism of modern-day science.

'Albert both helped to introduce Aristotle's philosophy of science to the medieval world and challenged prevailing conceptions of nature' (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 26). Moreover, Albertus Magnus' work had an enormous influence on later lines of thought both in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 56). With this author, therefore, we have before us an appropriate representative of the medieval scholarly tradition which should serve as an access point to theoretical knowledge about the influence of breeding animals and plants on conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry'.

#### *3.1. De animalibus—Source Criticism*

Since *De animalibus* was penned by an author of whom it can be said that it was 'not exaggerate[d] [ ... ] that Albert was in all likelihood the most prolific author of the whole of the Middle Ages' (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 18), it will benefit our interpretation of the source to first acquaint ourselves more closely with his gigantic work—more than 20,000 pages of a manuscript—and the man behind it. Albertus, who is honoured with the epithet *Magnus* ('the Great'), spent his time on Earth from between 1193–1207 to the 15th of November, 1280.

We know little of his origins (which can in itself be read as an indication of the conception of 'ancestry' at the time), however, there are hints that his family belonged to the knighthood (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 4). As a young man, Albertus joined the Dominican Order, which was still relatively new at the time. Under the wing of the Dominicans, he completed his theological studies in Cologne and then embarked on a steep clerical career, beginning as a *lector* in Paris and ending as Provincial of the Order's chapter in Worms. In addition to the tasks that fell to Albertus throughout these positions—for example, the sermon for participation in the last crusade—he wrote countless writings on theology, philosophy, and the contemplation of nature—to such an extent that 'he was criticized by some who claimed that his interest in natural science was excessive' (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 21). One of the objectives of Albertus' extensive activity as an author which he pursued at the request of the Dominican Order was the systematic presentation and interpretation of the works of Aristotle. These had first been translated into Latin via Arabic in the 12th century. Over the course of the 13th century, Aristotelian writings that had been unknown to Latin Europe until then appeared continuously.

*De animalibus* represented one of Albertus' efforts to integrate such newly translated writings of Aristotle into medieval ontology. Albertus was and remained one of the only scholastics to tackle Aristotle's *De animalibus* and the pseudo-Aristotelian work *De plantis*. For this purpose, he worked with a translation from the Arabic version, which was produced approximately in 1217. In addition to this function as a commentary on Aristotle, Albertus also integrated the literary traditions of the *Physiologus* and the Bestiaries into his *De animalibus*. These different influences are also reflected in the structure of our source, which can be divided into three parts: the first and most extensive part is the commentary on Aristotle (books 1–19), the second part contains the conclusions Albertus draws from his own observation of nature (books 20–21), and the third part functions as a bestiary

(books 22–26). It is not certain when *De animalibus* was written but research suggests a date of composition between 1256 and 1268 (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 35). More than 40 manuscript copies of *De animalibus* survived to this day, most likely including the well-preserved but difficult-to-read manuscript of Albertus Magnus himself. This sheer number points to the widespread reception of the work in the Middle Ages and, thus, to the importance of the author, whose 'teaching achieved an authority in the schools of Christendom that placed him on a level equal to that of the ancients' (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 1).

#### *3.2. The Genealogy of Creation?*

In order to identify influences of breeding animals and plants concerning the scholar's conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' in his substantial *De animalibus*, we shall be guided by my four sub-questions. As a first step, this leads us to the hierarchical character of creation. For Albertus Magnus not only wrote *de animalibus* (on animals) in the narrow sense but rather on 'the body of everything generated.'1 He presented this body as arranged in a strictly hierarchical manner according to the criterion of 'perfection': 'From these things, then, it is clear that there can be no more perfect animal than a human'2 [ ... ] 'Every other animal, however, lacks something according to more or less, and a defect arises from the lack of something pertaining to perfection.'3

The human that we find here not only implicitly mentioned as one creature among many but moreover explicitly counted as an animal stood at the upper end of the hierarchy of creation. That Albertus granted perfection only to humans is remarkable, for he thereby portrayed the rest of 'God's work' as imperfect.4 At this point, the question arises of whether an eventual optimisation of animals and plants in this ontology would mean bringing them closer to human beings. Albertus' depiction of the creatures following directly after humans in the hierarchy of creation could speak in favour of this: 'Some, moreover, flourish so much in the instruction of hearing that they even seem to signify their intentions to one another, as does the pygmy, which speaks, although it is an irrational animal, nevertheless. For this reason the pygmy seems to be the most perfect animal, in terms of animal virtues, after the human.'<sup>5</sup> [ ... ] 'Still, monkeys more than other animals seem to have this sagacity: they are capable of instruction from sensibles.'<sup>6</sup> [ ... ] 'And this is the reason that these genuses of animals are called 'human likenesses'. '7

The high rank of the pygmies (which today we credit to fables rather than to creation (Friedrich 2009)) and the monkeys were granted to them due to their capacity to be disciplined by humans. We can understand this form of optimisation as a non-reproductive form of breeding, which started only after the birth of a creature and was an explicitly feasible practice for humans. The question of whether in addition to this non-reproductive optimisation, reproductive optimisation was also considered possible, becomes clearer if we follow the hierarchy to its lowest end: 'Those animals, however, which seem to be imperfect throughout their genus [ ... ] are certain genuses of vermin, like those which we call earthworms [ ... ] Avicenna opines that eels are generated from these [ ... ] And if this is true, then it is necessary that these creatures are the material seeds and eggs, as it were, for the generation of eels.'8

Here, we are confronted with a conception of 'ancestry' that clearly implies the mutability of creatures: Eels originated from earthworms. Remarkably, to integrate this view of Avicenna into his ontology, Albertus invoked the theme of reproduction. This conceptual linking of reproductive ancestry with the hierarchy of creation urges us to reflect on the temporal dimension of creation: Was it a singular act that could be taxonomically represented in its completeness, or rather an ongoing process that could be read as a genealogy? For eels, at least, Albertus seems to have tended towards the latter. This is remarkable because the translation of the order of species into a sequence and, thus, into the dimension of time is regarded by current research as the essential conceptual innovation of the 18th century toward modern biology (Klapisch-Zuber 1991, p. 122f.; Weigel 2006, p. 212; Ratcliff

2007, p. 221). To verify this finding, it is crucial to check whether Albertus' other taxonomic units were presented as stable over time.

By focusing on his taxonomic units, the author's conception of 'race' comes into play. The terms he uses to order creation are 'genus' and 'species': 'We must now understand that these powers, divided from each other according to being and subject, constitute the *differentia* of genus and species among those beings which are animate. [ ... ] we see that the bodies of plants [ ... ] belong to an entirely different genus than that of animals [ ... ] In the same way it is also clear that animals differ from one another in species.'9

Following medievalist David Nirenberg in the assumption that we can analyse any division ascribed to biology and reproduction as 'race', we could settle these lines as Albertus' conception of 'race' (Nirenberg 2009, p. 235). However, he added a few thoughts, specifically in regard to the taxonomic order of human beings: 'He therefore differs in more than species from the brutes and he seems to have a certain difference in kind [*genus*] over them [ ... ] If, however, someone should object that a genus encompasses many species and that thus a human ought to have many species, it will carry no weight.'10

Even if we accept 'species' as a medieval conception of 'race', Albertus Magnus explicitly excluded humans from any further taxonomic subdivision. Interestingly, he justified the special position of humans by classifying them as a genus (rather than a species). Consequently, our results on the mutability of creatures through breeding can only be applied to human beings if not only species but also entire genera are found to be unstable over time.

#### *3.3. Monstrous Inheritance*

Since Albertus Magnus linked the question of the stability of species and genera over time with the theme of reproduction, we should take into account a concept usually only considered relevant for conceptions of 'ancestry' as of the 18th century: heredity (Müller-Wille and Rheinberger 2012, p. 41). Contrary to this conventional view of research, the 13th-century scholar actually reflected extensively on the relationship between 'ancestry' and 'heredity': 'The cause of resemblance of the young to its father or mother or to one of its ancestors, as well as the cause of any lack of resemblance to them, is also derived from these causes. [ ... ] The reason for all these things is taken from the harmonic proportion of the complexion of the sperm to the nature of the conceived and vice versa'.11

Albertus assumed here that genera and species remained stable over time if it was the case that, at the time of reproduction, the sperm 'prevails and bounds perfectly, due either to the power of the sperm considered in and of itself, or because it is reduced through age to a tempered state, or for some other reason.'12

In regard to my question on the possibility of human intervention in the reproductive mutability of animals and plants, these lines open up the interesting perspective that under different conditions, sperm produced offspring with a different degree of resemblance to the father. These conditions—such as the age of the father at the time of reproduction mentioned here—were controllable by humans and could, thus, have represented a practice of breeding.

Important in light of an eventual optimisation of species and genera is that in the above statement, Albertus perceived these practices of breeding as positive only if they brought about the greatest possible resemblance to the parents. In this ontology, therefore, breeding practices that brought about change represented less of an 'optimisation' as opposed to a degeneration.

An additional contrast to the 18th-century concept of optimisation can be found in Albertus' ideas on ancestry encompassing heredity. The optimisation of the 18th century, which was 'known as 'grading' or 'grading up', was based on a *proportionate* concept of heredity, as a fraction of the blood. It probably had a long history' (Wood 2007, p. 231). Certainly, this long history does not go back to Albertus Magnus, who argued against the view that heredity resulted from a proportional mixing of paternal and maternal predispositions and instead advocated a competition between the sexes for heredity.13

Which parent would win the competition was unpredictable in this logic. However, through the choice of a strong father and a weak mother, human beings could, again, potentially promote the conditions favouring the preferred ancestry.

Yet, another factor of heredity remained standing: 'Sometimes, it will not only be male like the father [ ... ] but it has a resemblance with respect to genealogy. In this way, some resemble their near parents and some their remote. This generation of resemblance occurs when generation is accomplished in an essential and not in an accidental way. [... ] For the power of the ancestors is in the members of the great grandchildren up to the fourth generation and occasionally further. [ ... ] The power of the ancestors is thus present potentially in the bodies of those generating and when it is helped by resemblance either of food or of place, it functions in actuality.'14

These lines provide us with answers to several of my questions: First, they clearly show that the conception of 'ancestry' encompassing heredity linked creatures to their genealogy. Secondly, it clarifies the third sub-question of whether the mutability of creatures was linked to their reproduction or whether it was entirely different influences that were held responsible for it; it was not a question of either-or but of both-and. For our scholar, reproduction created a potential for stable offspring through heredity. However, this potential could only be fully realised if, in addition to ancestry encompassing heredity, the food and locality of the offspring remained the same. Soil—as the common denominator of food and locality—did not produce stable species over time per se (an idea we will encounter in the section on practical knowledge) but only if, additionally, ancestry encompassing heredity was in place.

Strange and all the more fascinating about this ontology, which appears modern in so many respects, is the finding that, for Albertus, in contrast to the 18th century, it was precisely *not* this ancestry encompassing heredity that represented the origin of the diversity of creation. Nor was it the Christian God whom the scholar named as its origin. Instead, he located the origin of the diversity of creation in ancestry *without* heredity: 'Perhaps that which has been stated is the only cause of diversity, namely, that that which is generated by something else does not take on a likeness of one of its ancestors due to being related to it.'15

The most fundamental conclusion that this sentence allows us to draw is simultaneously the answer to my first sub-question: a mutability of creatures was considered possible. The fact that it was mentioned here by Albertus as the *sole* cause of diversity suggests that we are indeed dealing with a genealogy of creation. However, as stated above, he did not conceptualise this change as an optimisation but as a degeneration.

It was nature that he placed as the origin of the diversity of creation. For nature acted as the creator of those beings that exhibited an ancestry *without* heredity: 'Sometimes too they resemble neither of their parents but still preserve the shape of the species in that they are humans. But at other times they do not even retain a human shape or that of those that generated them, but take on instead a monstrous and wondrous form. An offspring which is in no way like its parent, either in the nature of the species or individual shape, is monstrous and is called a wonder of nature.'16

Thus, it was monsters that through the non-existence of an inheritance contributed to the (degenerative) diversification of creation over time. With regard to practices of breeding, this means: Mutability should have been possible, but always resulted in monsters. Such a breeding of monsters was hardly predictable because change did not result from rules but from exceptions.

Whether these results imply that human beings disposed over mutability through a lack of ancestry as well—perhaps allowing for breeding into different 'races'—must be examined in light of the mutability of genera rather than species, as seen above. Albertus had a clear answer to this: 'At still other times it is not to the species, but is only to the genus of animal. It keeps this resemblance at a minimum, for no animal is found which has ever given birth to a plant or a stone, but at a minimum the genus is preserved in all things which are generated.'17 Since human beings were conceptualised as a genus in their own right, a stable ancestry of humanity was sacrosanct.

#### *3.4. The Lesson of the Hawks*

Turning towards breeding practices in which human interventions were possible, leads us, finally, to Albertus' bestiary. We will approach this bestiary through Albertus' reflections on hawks, which are the most frequently translated part of *De animalibus*, for they were used as a manual on falconry throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages (Kitchell and Resnick 1999, p. 33).

These practically applied pages of Albertus are interesting with regard to our results on the theoretical knowledge of the scholarly tradition, because they seem to contradict all the statements given above. For example, as he tried to explain the variety of hawk species (of which he distinguished 17)18: 'Since any one of these genuses can be interbred with any other, many genuses of falcons are created. [ ... ] The peregrine falcon often interbreeds with the one with hyacinth-blue feet [ ... ] The young which is produced reflects the father, although a bit of the azure color is scattered over its feet. [ ... ] Their seeds become mixed and they move, change, and complete each other.'19

In these few lines, Albertus Magnus contradicted, on the one hand, his previously lengthy differentiation between species and genera, on the other hand, his view, defended at length against other authors, that offspring can only ever inherit the dispositions of *one* parent and, finally, even his fundamental view that the origin of the diversity of creatures lies precisely *not* in heredity.

Instead of all this, he introduced a completely new concept: *permiscere*, to mix, which was translated into English as 'to interbreed', and which we could interpret in the passive form *permiscetur* used here as the source term for 'to breed'. Albertus made it particularly clear, that he regarded this newly introduced concept of mixing as the main cause of the diversity of the hawks, and not the influences of locality that he had previously mentioned: 'Although we have said that four genuses of such interbreedings of falcons have come down to us, reason demands that there are many and that more genuses of falcons can be formed on a daily basis. We think this is why such diverse genuses of falcons are found in diverse regions. For while climata can diversify the behaviors and colors of animals, it is the interbreeding of which we spoke that especially causes the diversity among species so similar. This is just as we have seen happen in the genuses of geese, dogs, and horses in our time.'20

These words of Albertus seem as if his empirical observations of real hawks had taught him to deviate from his theoretical knowledge as a scholar and to replace it with knowledge that could be experienced practically. This was all the more so as he extended the application of these lessons of the hawks to geese, dogs, and horses, the diversification of which he himself had witnessed 'in his time'. It does not seem implausible that this statement by Albertus Magnus points to a direct influence of practical knowledge from breeders (Wood 2007, p. 230)—a possible transfer of knowledge, whose starting point deserves a closer evaluation.

#### **4. Breeders' Practice—A Research Outlook**

Should we interpret the possible influence of practical knowledge from breeders on Albertus Magnus in the direction that the medieval theory and praxis of breeding were not so different after all? Whether these two forms of knowledge stood in an exchange with each other or were decisively distinct—which would hardly be directly reflected in the scholarly sources but might surface in descriptions of concrete practices (Teuscher 1998, p. 359)—it is clear in any case that the practices of breeding themselves are largely unknown to contemporary research. In the following, I aim to compile the scattered information on medieval breeding practices, specifically in light of connections to conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry'. In particular, I will propose promising sources for further research in the field.

#### *4.1. The Identitity of the Breeders*

The first step in our search for medieval practices of breeding must be to consider *who* practised the breeding of animals and plants in the first place. The most obvious guess from today's point of view is the farmers: 'how for thousands of years rural people outside books had found another way to make like produce like' (Epstein 2012, p. 25).

It is, thus, surprising to learn of incidents such as the revolt of the secret peasants' league *Armer Konrad*, which started out in certain villages as a peasant plundering campaign against so-called 'dog houses' (Teuscher 1998, p. 363). These dog houses—which present likely spaces of breeding practices—were not under the control of the peasant population until the late Middle Ages and the early modern period (Giese 2010, p. 117). Instead, we encounter the two estates of the clergy and the nobles as actors in breeding and keeping dogs.

For instance, the so-called *Hundsaufstockung* (dog increasing)—a source term worthy of follow-up research—was subordinate to monasteries and *Stifte* from the 8th century onwards by the decree of Charlemagne (Giese 2010, p. 114). The medievalist Martina Giese points out the remarkability of encountering the keeping and breeding of dogs in monasteries of all places (Giese 2010, p. 110). Just as remarkable is the fact that legal regulation of breeding was apparently of interest to medieval authorities. In the 12th century still 'planned breeding policies of the French kings' were being developed (Gladitz 1997, p. 141).

What is intriguing about this revised perspective on the identity of the breeders is the implied shift of source material to a field more promising for finding breeding practices. The focus now lies on the service law of cathedrals (Giese 2010, p. 115f.), correspondences between clergymen (Giese 2017, p. 234), and treatises of monastery dog and sow servants (Giese 2010, p. 119). This is a genre, where we find, for instance, a manual titled *Wie man j ˚ung laith ˚undt sol ziechen* (How to breed/raise young lead dogs) by a Peter Zaler discussing the mating of dogs, which suggests specialisation of dog and sow servants specifically in breeding (opposed to one in educating) and provides us with the interesting source term ziechen (to breed/raise) as worthy of further investigation (Giese 2010). Furthermore, urban histories hold good prospects for future research, as, in some cases, local dog keeping was recorded quantitively (Giese 2010, p. 115). In addition, legislation on breeding practices and the resulting surveys of royal and knightly studs (Gladitz 1997, p. 165ff.) might prove fruitful sources. An interesting starting point for further investigation might be found in *The Chronicles of the Royal Borough of Woodstock,* published in the 19th century (Ballard 1896). For the Anglo-Saxon area, so-called 'administrative rolls' are an interesting prospect in general. For Prussia, the archives of the studs of the Teutonic Order should be revisited for questions on medieval breeding (Rünger 1925).

Furthermore, our revised notion of the identity of medieval breeders is significant regarding the finding that the actors of practical and theoretical knowledge of breeding do not seem to have been so far apart from each other—certainly not spatially, if not socially, either. This could imply a direct influence of breeding practices on the conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' of the nobles.

That a conceptual link existed between the breeding of animals and plants and the 'breeding' of humans, is suggested by several findings. For example, '[t]he Teutonic knights attached great importance to heredity and line-breeding' (Gladitz 1997, p. 201f.) of their horses. Furthermore, the advocates of the principle of 'nobility by blood' (the view that nobility was acquirable solely by inheritance through blood) based their argumentation on the 'literature on the breeding of dogs and falcons' (Müller-Wille and Rheinberger 2012, p. 48). An interesting source for further investigating this conceptual link can be found in a popular manual on equine care from approximately 1430 by Manuel Dies that was later taken up by Alonso de Cartagena as an argument for a 'deep heritability' of nobility (Nirenberg 2009, p. 259).

On this basis, the process of ennoblement (as well as its opposite) can be analysed as 'mutability': in the sense of a mobility contingent to ancestry allowing for advancement (or descent) on the hierarchy of creation, which at its upper end merged into the social hierarchy of the order of estates (Freedman 2002, p. 38f.).

This outlook brings the question of whether not only noble conceptions of 'ancestry' were merging from the non-human into the human tier of creation but also noble conceptions of 'race'. For the non-human tier, so-called 'dog taxonomies,' can be named as representative of noble conceptions of 'race' (Teuscher 1998, p. 354). If these conceptions merged into the upper tier of creation, should we—taking the perspective of the nobles—understand 'estates' as human 'pseudo species' (Schlee 2007, p. 270) and, thus, as a conception of 'race'?

Interestingly, for the early modern period, we know of similar conceptual transfers between human and non-human spheres: The conception of 'race' was first introduced into early modern breeding practices by a nobleman, who 'used many words derived from the language of noble genealogies, such as 'offspring' (*postérité*), 'head of the tree', 'branches of the same house', and 'genealogical tree" (Ratcliff 2007, p. 218).

For the Middle Ages, the existence of such a conceptual transfer of the conception of 'race' could cast a quite different light on academic debates explicitly comparing the classification of nobles to one of dogs: 'At the university of Paris, for example, a number of satirical arguments pursued the question of whether noblemen, like the races of some dogs, were characterized by long ears' (Müller-Wille and Rheinberger 2012, p. 58).

#### *4.2. Practices of Breeding*

To finally turn to the concrete breeding practices that are likely to have shaped medieval conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry', we first have to answer my fourth sub-question: was breeding in the sense of optimisation—irrespective of its conceptual possibility actually practiced in the Middle Ages?

According to Charles Gladitz, the answer is relatively simple: 'In the periods with which the present work is concerned [the Middle Ages] there was, at least sporadically, an intentional application of controlled breeding for a variety of purposes' (Gladitz 1997, p. 21f.).

Such purposes will have mainly included the functions of animals and plants in regard to human usage because the functions for human usage presented the main criterion for subdividing animals and plants into 'species' (Atran 1990, p. 33; Teuscher 1998, p. 354). However, phenotypes as well seem to have been considered normative goals of breeding selection (Teuscher 1998, p. 355). This is evidenced by a certificate recording the obligation of a monastery to deliver two phenotypically identical dogs to the authorities (Giese 2010, p. 119).

It is misguided, however, to infer on this basis that breeding practices depended on the reproductive heredity of external features. Even though phenotypes, as already noted for Albertus Magnus, seem to have been associated with the act of procreation during mating, it was mostly the circumstances of this act that were considered relevant: the age of the parents, as well as their health or even their emotional state (Gladitz 1997, p. 178ff.).

In addition, phenotypes were not conceptualised as stable but rather as malleable by external influences during the lifespan of an individual.21 Thus, medieval breeding practices should rather be searched in the provision of optimal conditions—both for expecting parents and for the offspring themselves—rather than in human manipulation of reproduction.

Given that the existence of breeding for phenotypes implied no reference to the 'ancestry' or 'race' of those being bred, we should finally turn to breeding practices where an influence on conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' seems more likely. This brings us back to a view we have already encountered regarding the theoretical knowledge of breeding: over time, shared soil leads to stable species through uniform food and locality.

Similar views have been accounted for by anthropology for various ontologies: in the case of the Hagen people of Papua New Guinea, for instance, '[t]erritory is soil upon which people are grown and a common source of sustenance produces in people a common social identity' (Strathern 1980, p. 195). Similar views have been attested for the Amerindian indigenous peoples of the Amazon (Viveiros de Castro 2013) and for the Rofaifo of Papua New Guinea (Atran 1990, p. 75). 'Comparable views were probably expressed in the Middle Ages, since they were rigorously refuted by academics such as Thomas Aquinas' (Teuscher 2013, p. 86).

Against this background, I will point to three groups of breeding practices that I consider likely to provide us with promising sources for my research question. The first group consists of practises of commensality. The diet of animals, demonstrably, played a major role in medieval breeding (Gladitz 1997, p. 179; Giese 2010, p. 128). Consequently, it seems quite possible that these views on breeding may have shaped conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' to include an understanding of shared food as building a common substance. The establishment of 'race' and 'ancestry' would, thus, not be restricted to the reproductive act but would happen gradually and cumulatively through a common diet (Schlee and Trillmich 2007, p. 386).

The second group encompasses practices of sharing a common land. Commons might have had a crucial impact on conceptions of 'ancestry' and 'race': 'uncertainties could arise about the siring of the offspring in the absence of adequate controls, and disputes about the ownership of stock where several owners were involved' (Gladitz 1997, p. 170). Questioning sources of such disputes as to whether argumentations relied on conceptions of 'ancestry' seems like a very promising endeavour. In particular, the question of whether some form of testing was practised to check the ancestry of animals kept on common land could be extremely fruitful for an investigation of conceptions of 'ancestry' (Lane 1980, p. 20; Gladitz 1997, p. 169f.; Orel and Wood 2001, p. 36).

The third group, finally, is made up of practices of delocalisation and mobility of animals and plants. Should it be true 'that an animal's own nature and 'external' nature were somehow interconnected' (Wood 2007, p. 230), the question arises of what transregional mobility conceptually meant for the 'race' of a creature. The prevailing view of research that such delocalisation of animals and plants became a common practice only from the 17th century onward must be challenged at this point (Orel and Wood 2001, p. 44). There are plenty of practices providing ample evidence for the mobility of animals and plants in the Middle Ages. For instance, the practice of circulating dogs as gifts (Teuscher 1998, p. 361), the geographically dispersed housing of dogs belonging to a single owner (Giese 2010, p. 115), the periodic exchange of stock between studs (Gladitz 1997, p. 169), and the import of animals from distant countries (Gladitz 1997, p. 211; Teuscher 1998, p. 360). Whether such mobility was accompanied by a shift in the appreciation of the creatures concerned, as was often the case for delocalised human groups, would be worth examining with regard to medieval concepts of 'race'. It would also be interesting to see in future research whether such practices—especially for nobles, who could often be classified as delocalised themselves—represented a shift away from the conceptual importance of locality for identity formation toward an emphasis on 'ancestry'.

#### **5. Conclusions**

The theory and praxis of breeding in medieval Europe proved to be interconnected with the early history of the conceptions of 'ancestry' and 'race' in several ways. By approaching both scholarly and practical knowledge on breeding symmetrically through a set of four sub-questions, I was able to carve out a form of breeding inspiring a biological discourse quite different from the modern scientific one.

We learned that the mutability of creatures was theoretically considered possible through reproductive ancestry over time. However, it was conceived rather as a degeneration than as an optimisation. Alongside reproduction—which only involved the potential, not the necessity for heredity—other logics were always employed to explain mutability: for instance, the conditions at the time of conception (age, health, emotional state of the parents), or the soil from which the creatures descended via food and locality. These external conditions, thus, represent the most likely access for human intervention in the form of

practices of breeding. Breeding seems to have been practiced primarily with the objective to achieve certain specific functions of animals and plants for human usage. Nevertheless, phenotypes were targeted by medieval breeding practices as well.

Remarkably, the history of medieval breeding revealed various concepts and practices whose origins are usually situated by researchers in the early modern period: the existence of the extensive mobility of animals and plants; the concept of reproductive heredity; the view that ancestry (*without* heredity) was the only cause of the diversity of creation—not the Christian God; and the implied temporal dimension of creation.

The extent to which medieval biological discourses were influenced by the breeding of animals and plants is significant. Even though in theory a conceptual transfer of 'mutability' from non-human 'species' to the human 'genus' was illicit, in praxis similar transfers existed. The significance of commensality, for instance, is evident not just for breeding animals but for Christian religious practices too, and delocalisation is known in the context of animals and plants as well as nobles.

As a result of such conceptual transfers of the conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' from the non-human into the human sphere, we should question the qualitative distinction of these two spheres for the European Middle Ages. What we encountered instead was a quantitively graded hierarchy of creation featuring earthworms at its lowest end and, at its upper end, the social hierarchy of the three estates. The image of nature depicted by medieval breeding is, thus, overarching the modern dichotomy between 'nature' and 'culture'.22

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** See Primary Literature in References.

**Acknowledgments:** I warmly thank Simon Teuscher (University of Zurich), Risa Aria Schnebly (Arizona State University), and Matthias Maurer Rueda (University of Basel) for their crucial help in bringing the text to its final form.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**

animata. [ ... ] nos videmus corpora plantarum [ ... ] esse omnino alterius generis quam animalium [ ... ] Per hoc idem autem patet quod etiam animalia a se invicem specie sunt differentia.'

#### **References**

#### **Primary Literature**

#### **Secondary Literature**

Aberth, John. 2013. *An Environmental History of the Middle Ages. The Crucible of Nature*. London and New York: Routledge.

Arni, Caroline, and Simon Teuscher. 2020. Editorial. Symmetrische Anthropologie, symmetrische Geschichte. *Historische Anthropologie: Kultur—Gesellschaft—Alltag* 28: 5–8. [CrossRef]

Atran, Scott. 1990. *Cognitive Foundations of Natural History. Towards an Anthropology of Science*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ballard, Adolphus. 1896. *Chronicles of the Royal Borough of Woodstock. Compiled from the Borough Records and Other Original Documents. With Illustrations*. Oxford: Alden Limited.

Cohen, Esther. 1993. *The Crossroads of Justice. Law and Culture in Late Medieval France*. Leiden, New York and Köln: E.J. Brill.

Duden. 2023. Dictionary Entry on 'züchten'. Available online: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/zuechten (accessed on 31 March 2023).

Epstein, Steven A. 2012. *The Medieval Discovery of Nature*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. 1991. The Genesis of the Family Tree. *I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance* 4: 105–29. [CrossRef]

Lane, Carolina. 1980. The Development of Pastures and Meadows during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. *The Agricultural History Review* 28: 18–30.

Müller-Wille, Staffan, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. 2012. *A Cultural History of Heredity*. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Weigel, Sigrid. 2006. *Genea-Logik. Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften*. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink.

Wood, Roger J. 2007. The Sheep Breeder's View of Heredity Before and After 1800. In *Heredity Produced. At the Crossroads of Biology, Politics and Culture, 1500–1870*. Edited by Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, pp. 229–50.

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**Karsten Engel**

Department Arts, Media, Philosophy, University of Basel, 4051 Basel, Switzerland<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract:** This paper draws on a late medieval example to show that images of nature can also be images of the human body. It presents the *Anthropologium de hominis dignitate* by the Leipzig magister Magnus Hundt (1449–1519). The *Anthropologium* is a text that prominently integrates the human body into its conception of man and its account of human dignity. The body is not presented as a prison of the soul, but as a perfectly balanced physical counterpart to the soul. The paper shows how Hundt's reflections were influenced by his commitment to the Thomistic school. Moreover, it reveals how the elevated Imago Dei thesis provides a justification for the study of the human body. Hundt is shown to offer nothing less than a theological–philosophical legitimation for practising medicine. In doing so, he also incorporates images of nature in a literal sense, insofar as he includes images of the human body in his book.

**Keywords:** scholasticism; image of man; Thomism; medieval medicine; anthropology; Magnus Hundt; human body

#### **1. Introduction**

Nowadays, human beings have a strange connection to their natural environment. In thinking about the relationship between humans and nature, it has often been emphasised that everything that has been affected by humans becomes part of their 'cultural' world. Only that which has remained largely untouched by humans can still be called nature. In this understanding, nature is that which remains distant from humanity.1

The Middle Ages did not have this distinction between nature on the one hand and culture on the other. 'Natura' was the word that stood for the essence of a thing—whether it was the essence of plants, of arts or of humans. For example, according to the Aristotelian tradition, the nature of human beings was that they were rational animals. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, nature was not 'the other', but the essence of a thing.

From the aforementioned definition of the nature of human beings, one can already see that, according to medieval understanding, they have two essential components: First, they are animals and therefore have some characteristics in common with other animals. Secondly, humans are gifted with rationality, which distinguishes them from all other corporeal beings.

Historically, when philosophers thought about human beings, the emphasis was very often on those specificities which distinguish them from other living beings. Of course, it is precisely these that make humans so unique. In this context, much has been said in the history of philosophy about the human intellect, mind and reason. Magnus Hundt, the Thomistic thinker who is the subject of this paper, was very interested in the connection between both the intellectual and the 'animal' part of the human. He will therefore be introduced here.

Hundt first became known as a philosopher before 1500, but then subsequently studied at the medical faculty of the University of Leipzig (Worstbrock 2008). Despite institutional barriers, his *Anthropologium de hominis dignitate* (Hundt 1501) served as a bridge that helped to integrate the physical component of the human being into the overall conception of man.

**Citation:** Engel, Karsten. 2023. Man as Image of Nature in Magnus Hundt: The Perspective of a Thomist ca. 1500. *Histories* 3: 32–45. https:// doi.org/10.3390/histories3010004

Academic Editors: Jon Mathieu and Simona Boscani Leoni

Received: 14 December 2022 Revised: 4 February 2023 Accepted: 6 February 2023 Published: 10 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

In addition to his great praise for the human soul in this work, one cannot help but observe the enormous potential he attributes to the human body. The dignity of the human being, which is one of the stated themes of the treatise, is thereby explained with reference not only to the soul, but also to the particularities of the human body. In other words, an image of the bodily nature of the human being is strongly connected to an image of man.2

The aim of the present paper is to present this Renaissance approach to thinking about the human being, which focuses not only on the soul and reason, but also on his physical aspect, i.e., his 'natural creatureliness'. Previously, the soul, which in the medieval understanding is in much closer contact with God than the body is, had often been understood as the bridge by means of which we can reach a better understanding of God. However, on Hundt's account, it is also by perceiving himself as a corporeal being and by examining the body that an individual learns about God and his intentions in creation.

Moreover, in becoming more familiar with their bodily needs, human beings are also studying what, in a certain way, connects them with other creatures. Hundt's anthropology, which will be presented in more detail here, stands within this dialectic, which deals with the special dignity of the human being, on the one hand, and his physical commonalities with other living beings, on the other.

## **2. Magnus Hundt's** *Anthropologium* **and His Image of Man**

Magnus Hundt has been so far quite rarely the subject of research. However, more recently his treatises on anthropology (Santing 2020), medicine (Lanska 2022), grammar (Kneepkens 2017) or logic (Hoenen 2023) have been analysed in more detail. We know that Magnus Hundt was a magister at the Saxon University of Leipzig from 1486 and achieved fame mainly as a logician and teacher in the faculty of arts. By 1500 at the latest, however, he became increasingly well known for his work on natural philosophy, theology and anthropology. It is documented that Hundt had taken up the study of theology and medicine in the 1490s, completing his medical studies with a baccalaureate in 1499 and his theological studies with a doctorate in 1505 (Worstbrock 2008, col. 1176).3 His anthropological work, which is the subject of this article, was published in Leipzig in 1501 by the printer Wolfgang Stöckel. Its title proclaims that it is an 'Anthropologium on the dignity, nature and properties of man; on the elements, parts and members of the human body; what is beneficial and harmful to them and their accidents, infirmities, remedies and physionomy; on the excretions and discharges; on the human mind, its nature, parts and creations and on the human soul and its appendages'.4

The title says it all: in a good 230 pages, Hundt compiles what he considers to be the most important scientific findings about man that had been expressed by philosophers and physicians up to that time. Moreover, as the title announces, the book not only makes general statements about humanity's position in the world, but also deals with, for example, the individual organs, hair, nerves and intestines (Figure 1) in a thoroughly medical manner. The anatomical drawings that can be found on certain pages are intended to help the reader to understand and mentally process the material (see Sudhoff 1909, p. 119; Santing 2020; Lanska 2022).

**Figure 1.** Hundt's illustration of the stomach and intestines (Hundt 1501, fol. O Vr).5

The first chapter of the text, which deals with the 'dignity of the superior human nature', gives us a somewhat more comprehensive overview of Hundt's conception of man. Even though human beings are afflicted with deficiencies as regards both their bodies and their souls, they were created in the image of God and are therefore the worthiest of all creatures. After all, God himself had become a man.6

Furthermore, man could also be understood as the knot between the divine world and the earthly one: on the one hand, man possesses the divine intellect in his rational soul; on the other, he is part of the earthly world in virtue of his body. Possessing both characteristics, he is the optimal intermediary between God and the earthly sphere.7

At the same time, Hundt also distinguishes man from God. Both God and man are creators, but what God creates (including humans) are natural things, while what man creates are artificial things that only imitate nature. Human creation is a mere imitation of God's creation.8

In a series of superlative characterisations, Hundt presents the most important features of his conception of man in didactically memorable omnia formulas: 'homo est omnia' (man is everything), 'homo continet omnia' (man contains everything), 'homo est finis omnium' (man is the purpose of everything), 'homo cognoscit omnia' (man recognises everything), 'homo potest omnia facere' (man can make everything), 'ad hominem omnia tendunt' (everything strives for man).<sup>9</sup> These formulas are elucidated very extensively in the course of the text and are supported by arguments (cf. Haedke 1961, p. 37).

The reason why the human being 'is' everything, for example, is grounded in the fact that the soul can 'carry' all species within itself. Just as God carries all things within himself, because he possesses the ideas that underlie these things, in virtue of which he can directly know their essence, the human soul carries perceptible things in itself by means of the senses and intellectually comprehensible things by means of the intellect.<sup>10</sup> This also explains how man can 'know' all things.11

The reason why man can 'do' everything has both a physical and a mental dimension. On the one hand, he can reproduce all intelligible things (in the intellect) through the 'intellectus agens' and 'intellectus possibilis'; on the other hand, he is also capable of creating physical things. For the hand, which is the executive organ of the soul and serves as its tool, is the organ of the organs (organum organorum), by means of which man can produce all material things.12 This is also the reason why man is born naked, because he himself can produce everything he needs to live, while nature provides him with everything he needs for this.13

Moreover, in a certain way, the human being also 'contains' all creatures, because these can all be found in some way in the human being: the inanimate ones simply in virtue of their being, the animate ones due to the fact they are alive, the animal ones with regard to their sensory abilities and, finally, the spiritual and separate substances with regard to the intellect.14 In this respect, man is also to be understood as a world in miniature: everything that can be found in the world is also mirrored in human beings—a topos that reappears in relation to the human being as a reflection of the divine principle of order and creation in the world.

In this account, it is precisely in the human being that all the elements and parts composed of elements, which elsewhere do not fit together very well, are united in 'unanimity' and harmonise wonderfully. Because this phenomenon can also be seen throughout the entire universe, it is even easier to understand why human beings represent the entire world in miniature.15

A little later, it is even said that 'everything strives towards man and according to him the heaven and all nature are ordered'.<sup>16</sup> Hundt refers to Albertus Magnus, according to whom the universe is ordered not only in relation to God and itself, but also in relation to man. Man is ultimately the goal (finis) of all creatures and the one to whom all things render their service (subministrant).17 This view is justified by man's higher degree of perfection as compared to other creatures: 'The more perfect things are the purpose of the others'.18 Just as God is the purpose of the optimal human being, the optimal human being is also the purpose of other human beings.19 In addition, human beings in general are the purpose of other creatures, and so on.

It should be clear by this point that, in his argumentation for the special dignity of the human being, Hundt repeatedly refers to the bodily dimension of the human being, and not only to the mental-intellectual one. In other passages, he makes this even more explicit, painting a picture of human nature in which the body also plays an important role. These will be examined in greater detail in the following sections.

#### **3. The Emphasis on the Human Body**

The aim of the *Anthropologium* is primarily to present the superior dignity of the human being. As we have seen, Hundt pursues the goal of substantiating this dignity by means of arguments. He devotes a considerable part of his text to deriving this dignity from the human body. At first glance, the body has certain shortcomings (just like the soul, incidentally), and Hundt emphasises that it is to a large extent subject to various necessities and needs. The reason for this is original sin.20 Nevertheless, Hundt is able to prove in his *Anthropologium* that it is the body of the worthiest creature on earth (cf. Figure 2).

**Figure 2.** Hundt's illustration of the location of the viscera (Hundt 1501, fol. L IIr).21

What at first glance sounds like a typical humanist project turns out, on closer look, to be a compilation of a wide variety of scholastic ideas. It is true that Hundt, especially at the beginning, shows off his knowledge of classical authors such as Ovid or Horace and also important humanist authors such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Nevertheless, not only is the style typically scholastic but also the majority of the sources Hundt consults for the *Anthropologium*. He makes use of many standard medical works of the Middle Ages and relies, for example, on Petrus de Abano, Avicenna and Averroes (Santing 2020, pp. 471–75). The main ideas of how the dignity of man is shown in his body

look like humanist ideas, but actually come from Albertus Magnus. Hundt's interest in depicting the human being in a certain way may well have been influenced by a humanist mindset. However, the arguments and ideas he consults are predominantly medievalscholastic. Hundt does not hide these roots, but rather highlights them. This is also evident, for example, when he describes the properties and functioning of the body in the words of Albertus Magnus.

Hundt shows that man has a special dignity, which is seen, for example, in his upright posture, a feature that distinguishes him from other creatures. Hundt writes: 'Man is the noblest creature [ ... ] with regard to his posture, because he has an upright stature which is directed towards heaven.'<sup>22</sup> The head of man—so the reasoning goes—in which the intellectual and living powers are understood to reside is placed above the body in view of its leadership role and is formed with regard to its position within creation and the order of the entire world.<sup>23</sup> Therefore, Hundt emphasises again the Aristotelian insight that the human being is a 'miniature world' (minor mundus).24 This motif is also found in the statement that the order of the world is established by God, i.e., metaphorically speaking: 'from above'. According to this principle, it is only coherent that the head, which also directs and guides the body, is positioned above it.<sup>25</sup> Man's upright posture is thus a symbol of the 'ruler's role' that God has bestowed on his most worthy creature, elevating it above the others.

In this context, Hundt also emphasises that if humans did not walk upright, like other animals, they would not have had both hands free for various activities. The hands are, in fact, the most important tools of the human body in the medieval understanding. They are, as already indicated above, 'organa organorum', because, with them, man can produce anything that he wants and that his intellect commands him to. The hands are, in a special way, the executive organ of the intellect and the guarantor that man can produce everything he needs for himself. While animals can only rely on the original tools given to them at creation, man can produce these tools (e.g., weapons for hunting or protection) on his own, using his intellect together with his hands, which carry out the former's commands. In this respect, the hands are also the 'signs of the intellect'.26 Later, when he describes the physiology of the hand, Hundt returns to this fact.27 If humans had to use their hands for locomotion like other animals, the organ of organs would be constantly impeded and could only perform this important executive function of the intellect to a very limited extent. This is why man was created by God as an upright walking being.28

That said, not only man's upright gait, but also his proportions reflect human excellence. They express very well his beauty and elegance, which are also a reflection of his spiritual powers. Hundt shows this in great detail with reference to the three different masses of the body, i.e., its length, width and depth. In humans, these masses are in perfect proportion with each other. They correspond most perfectly to the 'natural' masses. The length of a body, for example, must always exceed its width. While humans and, for example, worms fulfil this criterion, the ratio of length and width in worms is not well proportioned. In humans, by contrast, it is. Hundt admittedly presents these kinds of considerations about the measurements of humans in more detail in his text.<sup>29</sup> However, this may suffice to give an insight into the ways in which the dignity of the human body is justified.

In addition to the upright gait and distinctive proportions of the human body, the mixture of elements and fluids of the body is also used to make clear the special dignity of the human being. The human body is said to be perfectly mixed in the same way, namely that it is one of the most intelligent living beings and that God can influence the world through it.30 In the background here is a medical tradition that assumes that different natural objects are composed of different elements. Thomas Aquinas had already stated this in his *Summa contra gentiles*. In this context, Aquinas emphasises—just like Hundt—that man has the body that represents the best mixture of these different elements. No other body is so well mixed that a spiritual substance can be united with it. This is only possible in the human body.31

In Hundt's understanding, the soul is also the ruler of the body and brings it 'into form' (informatio).32 However, even if the soul is much more perfect and the body is sometimes afflicted with shortcomings, it is nevertheless 'tempered' just right to ensure the optimal functioning of a rational living being. This particular insight is shared by Thomas Aquinas and Magnus Hundt.

#### **4. A Thomist's Project?**

The view that the body is an important tool of the soul and that corporeality is at the same time an essential component of the image of man is not at all surprising for a Thomist such as Hundt. In both the classical Aristotelian tradition and, subsequently, the Thomistic one, a balanced answer had always been given to the problem of body and soul, i.e., the question of how the soul and the body were connected and which part of the human being was superior. Unlike in the Platonic tradition, for example, the body was always an important part of the human being for both Aristotle and Thomas (see, for example, among many others, Rapp 2003).

It is therefore not surprising that Thomas, like Hundt many years later, writes: 'Now the next purpose of the human body is the rational soul and its activity. For the material is chosen because of the form, and the tools because of the intended activity. God has therefore fitted the human body in such a way that it may serve such a form of being and the corresponding activities. Additionally, if anything defective is really observed in the arrangement of the body, it must be considered that such a defect follows the substance with necessity, inasmuch as some things are therefore required in order that the due relation of the substance to the form of being and to the corresponding activities may exist.'33

Thomas Aquinas thus concludes that the human body, despite its occasional defects, is a very good—and even the only possible—'shell' for the soul. This claim also aligns with the conclusions of the Thomists of the 15th century, who adopted the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Researchers have been able to demonstrate the philosophical–theological motives in light of which the followers of Thomas Aquinas considered not only the soul, but also the human body, so worthy of investigation (Hoenen 2001).

This point becomes particularly clear through a contrast with the competing school of Albertism. Albertists were scholars who primarily followed the writings and thoughts of Albertus Magnus. When asked how the cognition of the essence of a thing functions in humans, Albertus Magnus answers with a reference to Plato. He claims that those things that a person wants to know can be grasped primarily through ideas. According to the Albertists, these ideas are insights that were imprinted in people at the time of their creation and are therefore already present in the soul. Intellectual cognition is thus an incorporeal activity and therefore not necessarily dependent on sense data (Heymericus de Campo (1496), foll. H IIIr -H IV<sup>r</sup> ; cf. Hoenen 2001).

Unlike the Albertists, Thomists such as Hundt seem to attach particular importance to the physicality of human beings in their capacity for cognition.34 Many Thomists of this time agreed that cognition also takes place to a good extent through abstraction from individual things. In particular, the recognition of form takes place in an abstract way (cf. Seidl 1988, esp. pp. 106ff.). For such abstraction, however, sensual perception—and thus also the physicality of the perceiver—is indispensable. Intellectual cognition is thus only possible if the soul also has a body through which it can obtain the sensual 'information' (cf. Hoenen 2001).<sup>35</sup> Hundt had previously emphasised in his writing that the soul comes into the world 'naked' and without an understanding of species, habits or forces.36 Only sensory perception, which is bound to the physicality of the human being, thus gives the soul 'working materia'. As a convinced Thomist, Hundt accepts this claim. It is therefore obvious that, in his anthropology, he is particularly interested in the functioning of the eyes, the ears and the nose.

Even though Hundt quotes Albertus Magnus in extenso in the first chapter of the *Anthropologium*, the whole project is a fundamentally Thomistic endeavour for this reason. The body, which is so central here—this is the Thomistic insight—helps the soul to progress with intellectual knowledge. This is where human dignity lies.

Hundt also cites the reincarnation of God as another argument for the special role of the body. Jesus Christ came to earth in the physical form of a human being. God not only created man in his image, but also became man so that he, in turn, could become God.37 Hundt thus uses God's incarnation to bring the special dignity of the human body to the fore. The underlying idea is that by studying his own body more intensively, man can better find out what intentions and characteristics God may have had and still has.

In contrast to the Albertist doctrine presented above, man can be located much further 'towards nature' from Hundt's Thomistic perspective. Not only the examination of his soul, but also that of the body thus help us to better understand God and thereby indirectly also the functioning of the world. It can be seen that Hundt's Thomistic understanding of the human body can be interpreted as a reading of the book of nature. This observation reminds of the important findings that James Bono made some years ago about the scientific changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. People began to interpret the biblical narratives in such a way that they understood nature as the word of God that could be read like a book (Bono 1995, esp. p. 72).

To make this plausible, Hundt adopted a seemingly strange hybrid position between medical, philosophical and theological literature in his *Anthropologium*. For example, in addition to the first chapter on human dignity in general, there are also accounts of the functioning of the digestive tract (Figure 1), the necessity of body hair, female menstruation and sweat. As we have seen, this is no coincidence, but fits precisely into this picture.

To a certain extent, the human being is thus more 'naturalised'. He is an 'image of nature'. Hundt's approach, which involves claiming that the image of man is to a certain extent an image of nature, is very clearly reflected in the interesting drawings of the human body that can be found in his text (Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3).

#### **5. Example: The Eye**

In order to obtain a clearer idea of the extent to which the image of man in Magnus Hundt's Thomistic worldview is also an image of nature, a medical example will now be examined in more detail.

In chapter 33, Hundt discusses the eye and its parts (Hundt 1501, foll. H IVr–H VIv). According to Hundt, the main sources for his explanations were Galen, Averroes, Avicenna and Albertus Magnus. However, he also quotes directly from Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian texts.

In characterising the eye, Hundt first states that it is the organ of sight. It is also watery and has a round surface. It is found on the upper front part of the head, consists of seven tissue layers and three fluids, and is moved by six muscles, one, two or three of which also support it (Figure 3).38 This brief characterisation of the most important features of the eye is followed by a more detailed explanation of these points.39

**Figure 3.** Hundt's illustration of an eye, beginning of chapter 33 (Hundt 1501, fol. H IVr).40

For example, Hundt cites an interesting debate about the location of the eye. Avicenna and Galen supposed that the eyes were located in the upper part of the body, insofar as they can be compared to the guardians of a city. The head therefore has such an elevated position in the body because of the eyes. From this vantage point, it is possible to see particularly far and to recognise dangers from a distance.41 As should already be clear from the above-mentioned interpretation of man's upright posture as being oriented towards the heavens, Hundt himself does not necessarily accept this interpretation, instead citing a pseudo-Aristotelian text that claims the opposite, a position Hundt seemingly endorses, albeit without saying exactly what this opposite (oppositio) consists of.

In addition to other medical explanations, Hundt emphasises the parts of which the eye is composed. Essentially, the eye is made up of ten parts: three different aqueous parts and seven others. In addition to these main parts, there are other 'adjunctive' parts, which are in turn of two types: intrinsic and external. The adjunctive intrinsic parts are, for example, the optic nerves, veins, arteries and muscles. The external parts include the eyebrows, eyelashes, eyelids, eye sockets and lacrimal fluid.42

A little later, Hundt describes the structure and functioning of the retina in great detail, incidentally noting that the word 'retina' comes from the fact that it looks like a net. One by one, the various functions that the retina fulfils are enumerated. The fourth tissue layer of the retina is the so-called 'aranea', on which colours and shapes are imprinted during sensory perception. This function of the retina is also the main goal of the visual process. Thus, the aranea layer of the retina is also the actual tool of the sense of sight.43

Hundt also describes the diversity of eyes found in different people, including large, small and medium-sized eyes. What is certain, however, is that a person always has two eyes—just as the other sense organs are always present in duplicate.44

In contrast to the ears, however, the eyes are directly adjacent to each other, so that the visual activity can be carried out more perfectly. This is why the optic nerves are crossed.45 Hundt had previously described in great detail how exactly the optic nerves run from the retina to the brain and where the optical information is processed.

In addition to all these remarks, however, the chapter also deals with various other anatomical and psychological topoi about eyes that were part of the classical medical tradition. In humans, for example, the eyes would indicate the will of the heart and soul to a particular degree (Hundt 1501, fol. H Vv). Hundt also explains how the pupils move and how tears are formed. Finally, eye diseases and their treatment are discussed. The chapter also includes a small drawing of an eye, which makes it easier for the observer to better understand its different layers and muscles (Figure 3).

The eye thus serves as one of many examples that can be cited to illustrate Hundt's special interest in the human body. Here, too, the same applies as has already been mentioned above: The Renaissance, with its special interest in seeing, in light and thus also in the eye, probably also influenced Hundt's studies. Similar to the humanist Lorenzo Ghiberti's third commentary (Ghiberti 1986), which takes a closer look at optics and the functioning of the eye, Hundt demonstrates an affinity for this subject. However, the sources he consults to inform himself and his readers are primarily standard medical works of the Middle Ages. Avicenna's *Canon medicinae* (Avicenna 1902) should be mentioned first and foremost.

#### **6. Conclusions**

The question of how human beings understand their relationship to nature and other living beings is connected not least to the question of how they understand themselves. The image that humans have of themselves—the so-called 'image of man'—has frequently been the subject of controversy. As medieval as most of the sources of the *Anthropologium* are, what is shown here is a compilation of medical and philosophical knowledge that is quite fruitful for the debate of the 'image of man' and the northern Alpine history of ideas in general. It marks an important milestone for the transformation process into the modern era.  He also contrasts knowledge about one part of natural creatures (that of humans) with knowledge about other natural creatures. He, thus, becomes, to a certain extent, the name and impulse giver of the discipline of anthropology.

In the Middle Ages, it was clear that the image of man always oscillated to some extent between his two essential parts, namely the physical and the mental. However, there was little agreement concerning the weight to be attached to these respective parts. Whereas some of Magnus Hundt's contemporaries focused primarily on the exquisiteness of the human soul when characterising man, Hundt points out that he was also created, at least in part, as a physical being. While he does concede a certain superiority to the soul, he also takes his insight into the importance of the body very seriously. In his *Anthropologium*, he examines the human body in extenso. This is the component of the human being that can be studied following the same standards as when studying the nature of other creatures.

The *Anthropologium* is, in fact, first and foremost a philosophical–medical treatise whose argument can certainly be interpreted as ascribing dignity not only to the soul of the human being, but also to every single organ in his body. Even though Hundt does not explicitly refer to this idea in every subsequent chapter, but rather speaks about dignity primarily in the first chapter, the reader is already given the impression from the beginning that the composition of the human body is not the product of pure chance. On the contrary, it was conceived with careful deliberation. Hundt thus makes clear right from the start that its physical components, such as the mass of the body, its upright posture, its composition out of the elements and so on, also point to its dignity and a certain resemblance to God. These should therefore also be understood as part of the image of man.

This paper has shown that Hundt's underlying Thomistic programme explains this unique approach to the human body. The Thomists of his time had a special interest in the human body, because they took Thomas Aquinas' statements on epistemology to mean that all knowledge—including knowledge of God and the world—is based on sensory experiences, which the intellectual component of the body needs in order to arrive at this knowledge. Sensory experience is, however, only possible if the soul has a body that can produce these experiences for it. This means, therefore, that its physical, natural component is very closely related to the soul. Man's relationship to the world and to God is only possible in virtue of his physical nature. Hundt also illustrates how flexible Thomism was. On the one hand, Thomism was able to incorporate the knowledge especially collected by Albertus Magnus and make it part of the Thomistic project. On the other hand, Thomists such as Hundt were capable of responding to the new needs and humanistic interests of the Renaissance, which had become popular at the time, both inside and outside universities. In both respects, the enormous potential of late medieval Thomism becomes clearer.

Moreover, God had chosen to come to Earth as a human. After all, Jesus Christ had appeared on Earth in human form. If one wishes to better understand God's intentions, the study of the human body helps reveal what was important to God. Learning more about the human body therefore also means understanding better God's intentions on Earth.

Finally, Hundt also captures this human nature in images, namely in the images of nature in which man represents himself as a natural being. From the eye to the digestive tract, Hundt's Thomistic worldview is revealed in the form of images: in a very special way, the image of man is also an image of nature.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, grant number 192196.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** I thank the University Library of Basel for digitising the illustrations from Hundt's text and Lukas Bickel for his assistance in transcribing the text.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**

intrinsice sunt nervi optici, vene, arterie, musculi, caro alba et piguedo. Extrinsice vero sunt supercilia, cilia et palpebre, orbita et lachrimalia.'

#### **References**

#### **Primary Literature**

Albertus Magnus. 1916–20. *De animalibus libri 26*. Edited by Stadler, Hermann. Münster: Aschendorff. (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 15 [vol. 1] and 16 [vol. 2]).

Albertus Magnus. 2008. *De homine*. Edited by Anzulewicz, Henryk. Münster: Aschendorff.

Avicenna. 1902. *Die Augenheilkunde des Ibn Sina*. Edited and translated by Hirschberg, Julius and Lippert, Julius. Leipzig: Veit & Comp. Ghiberti, Lorenzo. 1986. *Der dritte Kommentar Lorenzo Ghibertis. Naturwissnschaften und Medizin in der Kunsttheorie der Frührenaissance.*

Edited and translated by Bergdolt, Klaus. Weinheim: VHC.

Heymericus de Campo. 1496. *Problemata inter Albertum Magnum et sanctum Thomam [* ... *]*. Cologne: Johann Landen.

Hundt, Magnus. Ca. 1490. *Tractatus doctoris Sancti de modo intelligendi et potentiis animae et de mixtione elementorum*. Leipzig: Martin Landsberg.

Hundt, Magnus. 1501. *Anthropologium de hominis dignitate [* ... *]*. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel.

Thomas de Aquino. 1985. *Sentencia libri de senu et sensato*. Edited by Leonina. Rome: Commissio Leonina/Vrin, vol. XLV/2.

#### **Secondary Literature**

Descola, Philippe. 2005. *Par-delà Nature et Culture*. Paris: Gallimard.

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## *Article* **Daniel Sennert's Corpuscularian Reforms to Natural Philosophy**

**Gabriel Müller**

Department of Philosophy, University of Basel, 4001 Basel, Switzerland<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract:** Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), professor of medicine and natural philosophy in Wittenberg, defended a highly unusual philosophical system. This paper examines Sennert's vision of natural philosophy within the context of the rapidly changing environment of the seventeenth century and relates his philosophical innovations to his methodology. The main result is that Sennert's postulation of corpuscles with substantial forms, though it takes place within the framework of Aristotelian natural philosophy, directly influences his philosophical view of qualities.

**Keywords:** natural philosophy; seventeenth century; atomism; corpuscles; Aristotelianism

#### **1. Introduction**

At the time of his death in July 1637, Daniel Sennert had been serving as a physician in and around Wittenberg for more than 35 years. Like so many of his contemporaries, he died of the plague, to which he had often been exposed in his work. While he was also a practicing physician in his chosen home of Wittenberg (he had been born in Wrocław), to the rest of Europe he was better known as a scholar and professor. At the university of Wittenberg, he taught the higher-level courses in medicine, but also more general classes in natural philosophy. Many of his published works reflect his teaching duties in so far as each of them contains a systematic account of a single discipline, starting from the most general principles. The *Institutiones medicinae*, for example, do this for theoretical medicine. Sennert also wrote works on controversial topics directed at a more critical and international audience, of which the late *Hypomnemata physica* (*Physical Memories*) is the clearest example. His work earned him lasting renown in both medicine and natural philosophy, as evidenced by the fact that his collected works were printed four times between 1641 and 1676 (almost 40 years after his death), in Paris, Venice, and Lyon. The works mentioned can be found in volumes one and two of (Sennert 1676). Sennert was also influential on one of the most famous philosophers and scientists of the late seventeenth century, Robert Boyle, and his conception of ensouled atoms was at least an indirect inspiration for Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. On the connection to Boyle, see (Clericuzio 2000, p. 77; Newman 1996; 2006, pp. 157–75). On Sennert and Leibniz, see (Arthur 2018, p. 113); an explicit reference to Sennert by Leibniz can be found in a letter to Thomasius, in (Leibniz 1875, vol. I, p. 15).

The biography printed in the frontmatter of Sennert's collected works gives an impression of his daily occupations and the circumstances of his passing. In terms of academic achievements, the text notes especially that Sennert was awarded a degree in medicine in 1601 and that he was the first to introduce the discipline of *chymia* to Wittenberg. Otherwise, his activities as a physician are emphasized above his duties as a lecturer and researcher: The biographer reports that between 1602 and 1637, Wittenberg and surroundings had been ravaged by the plague at least seven times. Sennert's death at the age of 55 on July 21 was quick and unexpected, a fact that only reinforces to what great danger he had been exposing himself in the intervening years, during which he never moved a foot from the observance of his duties. The Latin reads as follows: "[...] pro Licentia disputavit, die 3. Julii, anno 1601 & anno eodem 10.  Daniel Sennert's Corpuscularian Reforms to Natural Philosophy. *Histories* 3: 245–260. https:// doi.org/10.3390/histories3030017

Academic Editors: Jon Mathieu and Simona Boscani Leoni

Received: 31 March 2023 Revised: 4 July 2023 Accepted: 11 August 2023 Published: 16 August 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

fuit. [...] Chymiam primus in Academiam Wittenbergensem introduxit [...] Quantum periculi, peste septies, imo saepius Wittebergae & in vicinis locis, ab anno 1602, usque ad diem mortis, satis vehementer grassante, necnon aliis serpentibus crebro contagiosis morbis sustinuerit, obitus ejus insperatus simul atque celer denique testatur. Quibus tamen temporibus ipse nunquam pedem loco moverit: utut sui juris undiquaque, minimeque obstrictus fuit. [...] At vero noster hic diem suum obiit, & in Christo placide acquievit die 21. Juli, anno 1637 quo ipso tempore etiam suis contagium vehementer grassabatur, & ipsum mors haec peremit, rebusque humanis exemit, aetatis suae 55" (Sennert 1676, pp. 10\*b–11\*a). For a more detailed biography, see (Lüthy and Newman 2000, pp. 262–66).

In this essay, I am mostly interested in one among Sennert's interconnected personas, that of the natural philosopher. I believe that the flexibility and staying power of that early modern intellectual discipline are well demonstrated by the reforms Sennert undertakes within it. I hope to show two things: The first is that though Sennert was a genuinely innovative thinker, scientist, and natural philosopher, his innovations are built upon a deep appreciation and knowledge of the Aristotelian tradition. The second is that Sennert played a part in reforming both the methodology and the content of natural philosophy, and that these two aspects are intimately connected. Methodologically, Sennert's most important contribution lies in furthering the integration of empirical evidence from chemistry and biology into the highly theoretical discipline of natural philosophy. As we shall see in more detail below, this integration of the empirical into the theoretical is made possible by a very unusual conjunction of claims in Sennert's philosophy, in particular in his matter theory. In short, it is a combination of the Aristotelian theory of the substantial form with the ideas of atomism, producing atoms with substantial forms. What is more, even though Sennert is challenging fundamental notions of Aristotelian philosophy, the problems he is engaged in solving had long been discussed by Aristotelian scholastics.

I begin from the methodological side, by describing how Sennert fits into the landscape of natural philosophy in his time and place. As will become apparent, he was a typical natural philosopher in many ways, though of a certain type: An Aristotelian scholastic natural philosopher and professor of medicine, working in a Lutheran context. I then move on to explain the various non-Aristotelian visions of natural philosophy that were current in early seventeenth-century Europe and that influenced Sennert. This leads into a discussion of one of the main points of opposition between Aristotelians and atomists, namely the constitution of the so-called mixed bodies from the four elements. With the benefit of all this context, I am then able to explain why Sennert's matter theory is at once very innovative and rooted in Aristotelian tradition.

#### **2. Sennert's Natural Philosophy in Context**

The division of his collected works may give an indication of Sennert's interests: Of the six tomes that comprise the *Opera omnia* published in Lyon in 1676, only the first one deals with natural philosophy in the narrow sense. Volume two contains two works on theoretical medicine, while the entirety of volumes three to six is taken up by treatises on practical medicine (the monumental *Medicina practica*, together with shorter works on particular diseases like the plague and arthritis). As this division suggests, the topics treated in the first volume (which on its own is 300 folio-sized pages thick) are both introductory and fundamental: They give Sennert's audience, i.e., the medical students of Wittenberg, a framework within which to situate the medical knowledge that was the objective of their studies. At the same time, Sennert also directs these more general works in natural philosophy at his international audience. This double character is particularly evident in the *Epitome naturalis scientiae*, which began its life as a series of student disputations supervised by Sennert in the academic year 1599/1600: This "proto-*Epitome*" (Newman 2006, p. 87) was then revised multiple times and extended into a full-length course in natural philosophy, dedicated to principal physician to the king of Bohemia, Severino Schato of Schattenthal. In the preface to the reader, Sennert describes the book as "that juvenile work"—"laborem hunc juvenilem", a set of student exercises held "almost twenty

years ago"—"ante annos quasi viginti", which he has now edited and made available to the public after correcting some of its errors (Sennert 1618, pp. 10\*–11\*). In fact, the revisions between the first two editions are substantial, since the edition of 1618 introduces the textbook structure that subsequent editions follow. Two further editions of the *Epitome* were published during Sennert's lifetime: One in 1624 and one in 1633. In both of these, the dedication and preface from 1618, as well as the concluding paragraphs at the very end of the work, were reprinted without comment, but Sennert did make some revisions and additions to the main text with each edition. The most complete overview of Sennert's writings and their chronology is given by (Lüthy and Newman 2000; cf. also Michael 2001, p. 339). A comprehensive comparison of all the changes between the various editions of the *Epitome* does not yet exist.

In the editions from 1618 onwards, the first chapters of the *Epitome* examine the nature of philosophy in general and of natural philosophy in particular. This is followed by sections on the philosophical concepts that are needed to grasp the natural world: The Aristotelian principles of form and matter, quality and quantity, space, time, and motion. The subsequent books and chapters after these preliminaries consist in a systematic account of all natural bodies. The text is structured on the basis of two fundamental distinctions, namely those between simple and composite bodies, on the one hand, and between living and non-living things, on the other. Simple bodies are either the four elements or the celestial bodies, so these two categories are treated first. All non-celestial bodies are composed of the four elements, so the treatment of these composites is further divided into sections on non-living and on living things. The non-living bodies include *meteora*, i.e., phenomena taking place between the surface of the earth and the moon, and minerals, gems, and metals below the earth. Having treated all of these bodies, Sennert then spends the second half of the *Epitome* discussing animated things, that is, plants, animals, and humans. He moves through these three realms in ascending order from the simplest organisms (mosses and mushrooms, in his opinion) to the most complex ones (humans). In between, he has occasion to discuss such details as the distinction between cabbages and sorrel, the formation of butterflies, and the existence of basilisks (Sennert 1676, vol. I, pp. 3, 66, and 80). Since the three types of living things are distinguished by the kinds of souls they have, Sennert begins each section with an introduction on the specific soul in question: The section on plants is prefaced by a discussion of the vegetative soul, that on animals with one on the sensitive soul, and the section on humans begins with a short treatise on the rational soul. Overall, therefore, Sennert's introduction to natural philosophy begins with a brief look at the very top of the Great Chain of Being, the celestial bodies, but then proceeds methodically from the bottom up, from the most basic and ignoble types of body to the human rational soul.

The vision of natural philosophy expressed in the structure of the *Epitome* is not unusual for the time and place in which it was written. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, the men who wrote about nature *ex professo* were scholastic Aristotelian natural philosophers, meaning that they worked in the context of the medieval university, used textbooks based on Aristotle's writings to structure their teaching and research, and viewed their investigation into nature as a *scientia* producing universal necessary truths. Strictly speaking, the natural philosopher is only occupied with one half of a proper Aristotelian investigation of nature, namely the causal structure of the world. It is accompanied by natural history, which is tasked with establishing what things actually exist (Pliny the Elder being the most important reference for natural history).

In theory, the subject matter of natural philosophy encompasses absolutely everything and is designed to provide a complete map of the physical universe: everything that there is (or can be) has its place in the system and can be assigned a specific set of powers and properties that make its relations to other created things transparent. From a modern perspective, however, natural philosophy in its scholastic Aristotelian form provides a rather limited image of nature, despite its pretension to universal necessary knowledge. Firstly, its objects are almost exclusively located within relatively close proximity to human

experience, and the phenomena that natural philosophy is set up to explain are roughly identical to those that can be observed with the unaided senses. As a consequence, the celestial or superlunar realm (i.e., everything above the moon) was taken to be so perfect and regular that its associated science, astronomy, was seen as a branch of mathematics. The second way in which Aristotelian science is limited, as has often been noted, is that there is an anthropomorphic stamp on it: The distinction between the unchanging, perfect heavens and the changing realm below the moon is linked to a cosmology that puts humans at the literal center of the universe. Living beings and humans in particular are also the paradigmatic subject of scientific investigation for Aristotle. This last aspect is apparent from the fact that the teleological structure of human and animal behavior is part of the basic and most general scheme for understanding all of nature, since explaining a physical process according to the standards of Aristotelian natural philosophy includes giving a so-called final cause, i.e., an account of the aims for which that process occurs (Dear 2019, pp. 24–30).

This worldview was almost universally accepted in the medieval university, and it was still pervasive enough in 1632 for Galileo Galilei to spoof it in the person of Simplicius in his *Dialogo*. For example, this is how Simplicius introduces the natural motions upward and downward, ridiculously using unnecessary Latin phrases without actually explaining anything: "Now who is there so blind as not to see that earthy and watery parts, as heavy things, move naturally downward—that is to say toward the center of the universe, assigned by nature itself as the end and terminus of straight motion *deorsum*? Who does not likewise see fire and air move directly upward toward the arc of the moon's orbit, as the natural end of motion *sursum*? This being so obviously seen, and it being certain that *eadem est ratio totius et partium*, why should he not call it a true and evident proposition that the natural motion of earth is straight motion *ad medium*, and that of fire, straight *a medio*?" (Galilei 1967, p. 32; 1890, vol. VII, p. 57).

When, how, why and with what this worldview was replaced are some of the most debated questions in the history of philosophy and science. One way to capture the longterm development of early modern thinking about nature is to view it as a shift in the professional personas involved. Under that perspective, it is a shift from the scholastic Aristotelian natural philosophy as practiced in the medieval universities to norms of education and research within which one can be a distinguished natural scientist without being a philosopher, and vice versa. Though there is still much overlap between these personas even in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, eventually, Aristotelianism in particular and even natural philosophy in general fell from the status of unquestioned orthodoxy to that of relics. By about 1750, few philosophers and scientists of any note were either scholastics or Aristotelians or natural philosophers, at least not in the same sense. Aristotelianism as a scheme for education was kept for much longer in some places, for example at the *Academia Juliana* in Helmstedt.

In the interim period, however, some of the most important contributions to natural philosophy continued to be made by authors who retained part of the characteristics of medieval science, that is, they either still based themselves substantially on Aristotle's writings, still worked in universities, or still followed a deductive model for natural philosophy undivorced from experimental science. Throughout the seventeenth century, and especially in its earlier decades, some of the most successful new approaches to nature let go of only one or two of the three ideas that seem so closely entwined in medieval science. In particular, the mounting critique of Aristotelianism did by no means always carry with it an attack on the discipline of natural philosophy itself. One notable example is provided by Descartes and his followers. Descartes himself, despite his opposition to Aristotelianism in many questions of philosophy and methodology, conceptualizes the aspiration of natural philosophy in a way with which Aristotle would not have disagreed: The ultimate aim is to give deductions of the causal structure of the natural world, endowed with metaphysical necessity. Not all Cartesians followed Descartes in this: When Christiaan Huygens and Jacques Rohault prepared their respective systems in the 1660s, for instance, they chose to conceptualize the principles of physics, which Descartes had wanted to prove as necessarily true, as mere hypotheses. But others, like Pierre-Sylvain Régis, carried on the metaphysical ambition for natural philosophy (Dear 2019, pp. 151–58). One clear example of the "deductive" type of Cartesianism is (du Roure 1654; cf. Schmaltz 2018, p. 580). Cartesianism also illustrates another fact about philosophical innovation in the seventeenth century, namely that it did not always take place outside the university. Among other things, Cartesianism is a movement toward new standards of university education; for some time, there even existed such a thing as a Cartesian scholastic. See (Cellamare and Mantovani 2022) for a number of contributions on the interactions between Cartesian philosophy and teaching institutions. For the Dutch reception of Descartes, see (van Bunge 2001, chp. 2) and (Verbeek 1992). At the same time, the existing scholastic traditions continued to produce diverse and influential works, as evidenced by the current flourishing of studies of post-medieval scholasticism—see e.g., (Dvoˇrák and Schmutz 2019).

In other words, the developments of the seventeenth century, while they certainly constituted a deep transformation of natural philosophy, were not its abolition. Especially in the earlier parts of that transformation, there was a dizzying amount of variety, a proliferation of competing, incompatible models for how natural philosophy should be conducted. Many of these new models were not based on Aristotle's writings in the same way as it had been standard at the medieval university, though the influence of Aristotle's writings on higher education of all kinds was still great. On an institutional level, some (but not all) of the most influential new models were formulated by writers outside the universities. On the whole, the development was a widening of the spectrum: Non-Aristotelian, non-scholastic natural philosophies were introduced, without replacing the previously existing ones.

#### **3. Aristotelian and Paracelsian Matter Theory**