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ResetDoC - Dialogues on Civilizations
The translation of scientific texts from Greek and
Arabic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is both
a symptom and a cause of one of the greatest shifts
in Western science, comparable in importance with the
parallel importation of scientific works into Arabic
in Baghdad in the ninth century and the Scientific Revolution
in seventeenth-century Europe.
The motivation for the translations was the perceived
lacunae in Latin scientific education. There were three
principal areas in which the Latins were felt to be
particularly lacking. The first was mathematics, especially
geometry and astronomy. These were two of the seven
liberal arts, which had formed the framework for the
rhetorically-based Latin education since Late Antiquity
and had been revived first by Gerbert d’Aurillac
at the turn of the millennium, then, more generally,
in the twelfth century. The other five liberal arts
were well represented, mostly thanks to the translations
of Boethius (d. 529), who had sought to provide Latin
readers with a complete curriculum of Greek studies.
But geometry and astronomy lacked comprehensive text
books.
For geometry Boethius had only translated a small portion
of Euclid’s Elements. Stephen the Philosopher,
working in Antioch in the early twelfth century, lamented
the poor knowledge of geometry among the Latins, and
John of Salisbury reckoned that the only place where
the study flourished was in (Islamic) Spain. Thus, the
pioneer in the twelfth-century translating movement,
Adelard of Bath, devoted a text to the description of
the seven liberal arts (his On the Same and the Different),
but also made the first translation of the Elements
from Arabic.
For astronomy no translation by Boethius has survived,
but the Latins were aware that the most important Greek
text was the Almagest of Ptolemy, and it is specifically
for this text that Gerard of Cremona is said to have
gone to Toledo, while the slightly earlier translator
of the Almagest from Greek had rushed to Sicily from
Salerno because he heard that a copy of the Almagest
had just been brought there from Constantinople. How
the new translations filled gaps in the traditional
curriculum can be seen in the important ‘Library
of the Seven Liberal Arts’ put together by Thierry
of Chartres (d. 1151) in the early 1140s (the Heptateuchon)
which included both Euclid's Elements translated from
Arabic and astronomical tables by the ninth-century
Arabic mathematician al-Khwarizmi.
The second lacuna was in physics (i.e., the investigation
of the workings of nature). In this case we are dealing
with a subject that was not one of the rhetorically-based
seven liberal arts, but had been part of the curriculum
in philosophy in ancient Alexandria, and which continued
to be taught (with interruptions and revivals) in Byzantium
and (more continuously) in the Islamic world. In the
West the interest in physics pre-dates the knowledge
of the texts of this curriculum, and is based on “natural
questions” and Late Antique Latin works such as
Calcidius’ translation of Plato’s Timaeus
and Macrobius’s commentary on the Somnium Scipionis
of Cicero. However, during the course of the twelfth
century, the fact that Aristotle, aside from being an
authority on logic, was also the authority on natural
science became known. Burgundio of Pisa, James of Venice,
and William of Moerbeke were directly aware of the corpus
of Aristotle’s natural science from contemporary
Greek scholars who were teaching and writing commentaries
on it, and Gerard of Cremona knew the same texts in
Arabic and as described by Alfarabi in the Catalogue
of Sciences, which he translated.
The third area was medicine. In this subject Galen was
the master, and the titles of the sixteen basic texts
of his that formed the curriculum at Alexandria were
known. Constantine the African (d. before 1098/9) listed
them in his preface to the Pantegni and translated two
of them from Arabic; several more were translated by
Burgundio of Pisa and Gerard of Cremona.
If the goals of the translators were to restore the
ancient learning of Euclid, Ptolemy, Aristotle, and
Galen, they had two sources: the centres of Greek and
of Arabic learning. The Byzantine Greeks on the whole
had preserved the ancient texts without substantially
altering them; there had been little scientific development,
and a twelfth-century commentary on a work by Aristotle
could easily be taken for a second-century commentary
on the same work. Among the Greeks, therefore, the Latins
sought and could find their copies of Ptolemy’s
Almagest, Aristotle’s libri naturales, and Galen’s
works, just as Arabic scholars had done in the ninth
century. For the Latins, manuscripts that the Greeks
could provide were more important than scholarly expertise.
For the most part, the interpretations of the ancient
texts were ancient themselves: those of Proclus and
Themistius, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and John Philoponus.
Among the Arabs, however, the Latins could and did find
these same Greek works, but they were also confronted
with the results of a tradition of scholarship which
had not only absorbed new elements from other cultures
(particularly those of India and Persia), but had also
developed, refined, and changed the learning of the
ancients. Thus, the astronomical models of Ptolemy had
to contend with those of Indian astronomers, and his
measurements of the movements of the planets were repeatedly
corrected and often replaced, ever since the official
“testing” sponsored by the caliph al-Mamun
in the early ninth century. Aristotle’s libri
naturales together with the ancient commentaries on
them were transmitted, but Alfarabi, Avempace (Ibn Bajja,
late eleventh century to ca. 1139), and Averroes wrote
new commentaries, and Avicenna recast the whole of Aristotle’s
philosophy. Perhaps even more radical was the replacement
of the original works of Galen by new texts on medicine,
each generation of Arabic doctors trying to improve
on the work of their predecessors.
Arabic learning, then, differed from the Greek in that
it resided in masters as much as in books. Adelard and
Stephen the Philosopher both refer to their Arabic magistri,
which they encountered in the Principality of Antioch.
Other translators benefited from the diaspora of Jewish
scholars who had cultivated Arabic learning, following
the expulsion of the Jews from Islamic Spain by the
Almohads in 1160 (in much the same way as Renaissance
Italian scholars benefited from the exile of Jewish
scholars from Spain in 1491). In some cases translators
appeared to have used those scientific works promoted
by their Arabic masters: an example is Constantine the
African, who transmitted the medical tradition of his
masters in Qairawan, and Gundissalinus, who translated
works of Avicenna, Algazel, and Avicebron, the favored
authors of his collaborator, Avendauth (Abraham Ibn
Daud). Gerard of Cremona, while translating several
important works by Arabic scholars (especially in the
field of medicine), appears to have made a more deliberate
effort to recover the ancient texts from amongst the
Arabs. But his translating activity coincides with a
reaction against “modern” developments also
on the part of a group of Islamic scholars in Córdoba
(the chief of them being Ibn Rushd), who tried to restore
a pure Aristotle both for natural science and for astronomy.
For translations to be made, either the Latin scholar
must go in search of the texts, or the texts must be
sent or brought to the Latin centre of learning. Scholars
might be part of the booty captured by pirates, as stated
in one story concerning how Constantine the African
arrived in Salerno (MS British Library, Sloane 2426,
fols 8r–v). Other scholars arrived in Latin centres
as the result of persecution or religious differences,
such as the Arabic-speaking Christians (Mozarabs) who
left Islamic Toledo for the Christian North of Spain
in considerable numbers in the ninth century. After
its reconquest, Toledo was the natural place of refuge
for the Jews and Mozarabs who were driven out of Islamic
Spain in the mid-twelfth century by the Almohad regime,
and the flourishing study of the works of Averroes outside
Islamic territory in the early thirteenth century may
have been partly caused by intolerance towards the philosophical
sciences among the later Almohad jurists.
But while enforced exile and the closing of doors brought
about some contacts, the opening up of the Mediterranean
to the Latins through conquest and trade brought more.
It is no coincidence that the translation movement took
off soon after the reconquest of Toledo, which opened
up the heart of Islamic Spain (1085), the Norman conquest
of Sicily with its Greek and Arabic-speaking population
(1072–91), and the fall of Antioch, which opened
up the Islamic and Greek culture of the Eastern Mediterranean
(1098). The attempts at reunifying the Greek and Latin
Churches also brought East and West closer together,
and resulted in scientific translations as well as theological
writings. Political leaders exchanged scholars as well
as books: the Ayyubid Sultan, al-Malik al-Salih (1232-9)
sent Frederick II one of the most distinguished Muslim
scholars, Siraj al-Din al-Urmawi (d. 1283), to help
him interpret Arabic logic.
More important over a longer period were the quarters
set up by the Pisans and Venetians in cities throughout
the Mediterranean, which, aside from their commercial
function, offered opportunities for Latin scholars to
work in the midst of Arabs and Greeks. Pisan quarters
were set up in Antioch in 1108 and Constantinople in
1111. While James of Venice is attested in the Pisan
quarter of Constantinople in 1136, Leonard of Pisa (Fibonacci)
acquired his knowledge of Arabic mathematics in the
Pisan debot of Bougie (Algeria).
In the case of the mathematical translations made from
Arabic into Latin a significant role may have been played
by a single royal library, that of the Banu Hud in Saragossa.
Yusuf al-Mutaman ibn Hud, king from 1081 to 1085, had
written a comprehensive book on geometry, al-Istikmal,
which exploited a large collection of Greek and Arabic
works on the subject. In 1110 the Banu Hud were driven
out of Saragossa by the Almoravids, and settled in the
fortress of Rueda de Jalón in Aragon. But they
took their library with them, for Hugo of Santalla specifically
says (in a rare example of the mention of a source)
that his patron, Michael bishop of Tarazona, acquired
the Arabic manuscript of a work on astronomical tables
in this library (“in Rotensi armario”).
In 1140, the last of the Banu Hud, Abu Jafar Amad III
ayf al-Dawla (d. 1146), exchanged his property in Rueda
de Jalón for a house in the cathedral quarter
in Toledo. It may be no accident that only after this
move are mathematical works by Greek and Arabic authorities
translated from Arabic in Toledo.
Ever since the publication of a fundamental article
by Valentin Rose in 1874, it has been thought that the
archbishops of Toledo were directly responsible for
sponsoring and promoting a “school of translators”
as a quasi-university. The evidence is not decisive,
however, since only two translations are dedicated to
archbishops. Nevertheless, cathedral clergy appear to
have played the leading role in the Toledan translation
movement, and the locus of this activity must have been
in the Cathedral quarter and the adjacent Frankish quarter
of the city, the only districts in which foreigners
and Latin learning were dominant—also, apparently,
where the remains of the library of the Banu Hud were
located, as we have seen.
The process by which this translation occurred can,
however, take a variety of forms.
In some cases it involved the fixing in Latin of a text
transmitted orally. That whole books could be dictated
by scholars (especially those of Jewish origin) is not
implausible. However, most medieval translations imply
the existence of a written text in the original language,
even if this text has been interpreted orally for a
Latin writer.
The source text need not be written in a conventional
book form. It may be a schematic diagram of a sheep’s
shoulder blade with the significance of each of the
parts written on it, or an astrolabe with the names
of prominent fixed stars and various figures inscribed
on it. Hindu-Arabic numerals at first seem to have spread
through Europe on the beads of the “Gerbertian
abacus.” Nor is the text in the book merely the
author’s words: it may include diagrams and illustrations,
as well as marginalia, and its layout may influence
the choices of the translator. It matters, then, whether
the Latin translator has confronted a text in the original
manuscript directly, or has merely relied on an oral
interpretation of that text. Both situations occurred.
Oral interpretation is best attested in respect to Arabic
texts. A well-known description of the process is given
by Avendauth, in the dedication of his translation of
Avicenna’s De anima to the archbishop of Toledo:
Here you have the book translated from Arabic: I took
the lead and translated the words one at a time into
the vernacular language, and Archdeacon Domenicus turned
them one at a time into Latin.
Since this translation was made in Toledo, the “vernacular
language” could have been either the Arabic dialect
spoken in Toledo, or a Romance language. According to
Roger Bacon, many people understood the spoken forms
of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, even if they could not
read and write the languages. Other translators are
also said to have had the help of Arabic speakers, whether
Mozarabs (such as the “Galippus” who helped
Gerard of Cremona), or Jews (such as the “Salomon
Avenraza” whom Alfred of Shareshill mentions as
his teacher, and the “Abuteus levita” who
helped Michael Scot).
Evidence of the use of dictionaries and grammars is
less easy to find. The earliest Arabic grammar composed
in a Western language is the one for the Arabic dialect
of Granada written in 1505 by Pedro de Alcalà.
Its purpose was to aid the conversion of the Arabic
speaking population, and much the same aim may underlie
the two extensive Arabic-Latin/Latin-Arabic glossaries
of the Middle Ages: that so-called “Leiden glossary”
and the Vocabulista in Arabico edited by Celestino Schiaparelli
(Florence, 1871). Potentially more helpful are the glossaries
of technical terms attached to certain texts of astronomy,
astrology and medicine. The most extensive of these
is the Synonyma of Simon of Genoa, a doctor at the papal
court at the very end of the thirteenth century, who
explained in detail the Greek and Arabic words in the
medical vocabulary of the Latins; he included some notes
on Greek and Arabic phonology. These technical glossaries,
however, were primarily for the use of readers, unfamiliar
with terms which had simply been transliterated from
Arabic or Greek.
Literal translation soon became the norm for scientific
and philosophical works. It’s aim was to represent
the words of the original author so accurately as to
make the original texts redundant. Such a view is already
apparent in the words of Boethius, that, “through
the integrity of a completely full translation, no Greek
literature is found to be needed any longer.”
Boethius’s aim for a “transfer of learning”
(translatio studii) from Greek into Latin in the sixth
century was cut short by his untimely death and lack
of immediate successors, but it was renewed and largely
fulfilled in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. The
rationale of a translatio studii is that scientific
culture passes from one people to another; once in possession
of that culture, the receiving people has no need to
return to its source.
But it is probably truer to say that we are dealing
here not so much with a transfer of learning as with
the internationalism of scientific learning. Already
Adelard of Bath had compared the world with a body in
which different parts have been assigned different functions:
in the same way different parts of the world are fertile
with different disciplines and what “the [world]
soul is unable to effect in a single part of the world,
she brings about within its totality.” In the
next century, Theodore of Antioch went from Christian
Antioch to Muslim Mosul where he studied the works of
Alfarabi, Avicenna, Euclid, and Ptolemy with the foremost
Islamic scholar, Kamal-al-Din ibn Yunus (1156–1242);
subsequently he studied medicine in Baghdad, before
serving a Seljuk ruler of Konya in Asia Minor, an Armenian
regent and finally a Christian Emperor in Sicily. Another
student of Kamal-al-Din, al-Urmawi, also spent time
at the same Emperor’s court, writing a book of
logic for him. A Jewish scholar, Juda b. Salomon ha-Cohen,
corresponded in Arabic from Toledo with the Emperor
Frederick II’s “philosopher” on questions
concerning geometry, and Frederick himself sent questions
on mathematics and philosophy to Arabic scholars throughout
the Mediterranean. Later in the same century, opinions
of Thomas Aquinas were incorporated into an Arabic apologia
for Christianity written by a Mozarab in Toledo and
an anonymous scholar wrote a Greek introduction to Aristotle’s
libri naturales in Sicily or South Italy on the basis
of Averroistic texts being taught in Paris. Meanwhile,
it has been suggested, astronomical information from
the observatory of Maragha in the Mongol realms arrived
at the Spanish court of Alfonso X. That such scholarly
exchanges and intellectual traffic were possible testifies
to the fact that, at least by the second quarter of
the thirteenth century, the Jewish and Islamic world
shared with Christendom a common knowledge of science
and philosophy; a commonwealth of scholars had come
into being, which transcended political and linguistic
borders. That such a state could come about is due,
in no small measure, to the achievement of translators
who raised the scientific culture of each linguistic
group to the point where all shared the same level of
excellence.
Beyond
Orientalism and Occidentalism
March 4th/6th 2006 - Cairo, Egypt
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