SOURCE: An introduction to Book of Minerals, by Albertus Magnus, translated by Dorothy Wyckoff, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1967, pp. xiii-xlii.

[In the following excerpt, Wyckoff presents an overview of Albert's life and discusses the nature of his scientific writings, specifically of his Book of Minerals.]

LIFE OF ALBERT

Albert was a famous man even in his own time but, as so often with famous men of the Middle Ages, contemporary biographers omitted much that we should like to know about him. Modern scholars have had to piece together the sometimes contradictory statements in medieval chronicles and histories of the Dominican Order, local traditions, surviving documents of business transacted in many different places, and casual references to times and places in Albert's own writings. The most comprehensive reconstruction is that of H. C. Scheeben, on which this sketch is chiefly based.

Nothing is known about Albert's parentage or childhood. The chonicles say that he was born of a family of the official class (ex militaribus), but there is no record of his father's name. The claim that he was the son of a Count of Bollstadt does not appear until the late fifteenth century and seems to be unfounded. He was known as Albert of Cologne and Albert of Teutonia, and various laudatory epithets were attached to his name, but Albertus Magnus, 'Albert the Great', became common only in accounts of him written by the later scholastics. The earliest documents bearing his signature and seal show that he then called himself Albert of Lauingen, a little town on the Danube about half-way between Ulm and Regensburg. Henry of Lauingen, who became prior of the Dominican house at Würzburg, is supposed to have been Albert's brother.

The year of his birth is unknown. Dates ranging from 1193 to 1206 or 1207 have been suggested, on the basis of conflicting statements as to his age when he died in 1280, or when he entered the Order of Preachers. The earlier date is rather more likely. Nor is anything known of his boyhood. An interest in natural history usually develops early, and some of the observations recorded in his scientific works, especially about animals, are certainly his own memories of a country life, but these cannot be dated with any accuracy.

Nevertheless, the earliest reliable date is given us by Albert himself, in describing as an eye-witness the earthquakes which in midwinter 1222-3 caused wide-spread destruction in Lombardy (Meteora III, ii, 9). What brought him to Italy and how long he remained there we do not know. Tradition mentions an uncle, whom he may have accompanied on some official mission. Or he may have been travelling by himself, for it was probably during this period of his youth that he visited mining districts in order to learn about metals, as he said in the Book of Minerals (III, i, 1). In the same work (II, iii, 1) he recalled a visit to Venice, when his companions asked him to explain a natural picture in a slab of marble—evidence that even as a young man he had a reputation for knowledge of such things. He was also in Padua (Meteora III, ii, 12), where he is said to have been an Arts student, though his familiarity with medical writings seems to point to some medical education as well. At that time, indeed, the medical curriculum was the nearest approach to a 'scientific' training, and therefore might have had a special attraction for a man of Albert's tastes. He did not, so far as is known, take any degree.

Whatever his plans may have been, he abandoned them to join the Order of Preachers, founded by the Spanish monk Dominic in 1216. After Dominic's death in 1221 Jordan of Saxony, the second Master General of the Order, devoted much effort to recruiting young men from the universities. Histories of the Order say (and the story probably came from Albert himself) that Albert first became acquainted with the Dominicans in Padua and was deeply moved by Jordan's preaching, but that his decision to enter the Order was not made quickly or easily: his uncle opposed it and persuaded him to delay for a while, and he himself seems to have hesitated before so total a commitment. Several years may have passed while he continued his studies or his travels, for it was probably not until 1229 that he was received and 'clad in the habit'.

The preaching friars were generally trained for service in their own countries, where they were familiar with the language and local customs. Since Albert came from the German-speaking part of Europe he was assigned to the Teutonia province; and thus began his long association with Cologne. The Dominicans had been established at Cologne since 1221 and already had an important school, where for the next few years Albert devoted himself to theology and moral philosophy, the course of study leading to ordination as a priest.

Every Dominican house had its lector, who read and explained the texts that were studied; but it was customary for the more advanced students to help the others, and no doubt Albert's gift for teaching was discovered before he had finished his training. He was then given the duties of lector and sent to teach in other Dominican houses, going first, perhaps, to the newly founded one at Hildesheim (opened in 1234), then to that at Freiburg-im-Breisgau (opened in 1235 or 1236). Later, having proved himself, he taught in older and more important schools in Regensburg and Strassburg, and still later returned to Cologne.

In 1238 he may have revisited Italy as one of the representatives of the Teutonia province at the General Chapter meeting in Bologna. Jordan of Saxony had died in a shipwreck off the coast of Syria, and a new Master General was to be chosen. Tradition says that on the first ballot the votes were evenly divided between Albert of Cologne and Hugo of St. Cher. Perhaps this reflects a rivalry between the German and French provinces; if so, a compromise was reached on the second ballot, when Raymond of Pennafort, a Spaniard, was elected. (Raymond, however, served only two years and was succeeded by John of Wildeshausen.)

Albert remained a lector for some years after 1238. He may have taught at other schools beside those mentioned above, for he recorded that he was in Saxony when he saw the great comet that appeared in 1240 (Meteora I, iii, 5); and he seems to have been in Cologne again for a time. About 1243 he was sent to the University of Paris, where the Dominicans had maintained a school for advanced studies since 1217. After taking the degree of Master of Theology (probably in 1245) he held a professorship there until 1248.

During this stay in Paris Albert, already learned in theology, turned to the broader aspects of philosophy, and was drawn into the scholastic movement centring on the revival of Aristotle, in which he was to be involved for many years. Greek philosophy and science were still in the process of being rediscovered, but already it was possible to read in Latin translations many works that were to become the foundations of later science—the medicine of Hippocrates and Galen, the geometry of Euclid, the astronomy of Ptolemy, and most of the Aristotelian corpus, as well as commentaries and original works on these subjects by Muslim writers. All this 'new' knowledge was exciting and disturbing—Aristotle perhaps most disturbing of all, with his marvellously complete and persuasive philosophical system, presenting novel ideas about the world of nature and doctrines quite at variance with the accepted teaching of the Church. The possible dangers of conflict between intellectual curiosity and religious faith were recognized in 1210, and again in 1215, when the teaching of Aristotle's metaphysics and science was forbidden at the University of Paris. How far this ban was, or could be, enforced is uncertain. But in 1231 Pope Gregory IX again forbade the use of Aristotle's books until they had been 'examined and purged of all suspicion of error'. Thus by the time Albert came to Paris many scholars must have been reading Aristotle, and his ideas were becoming more familiar, if not yet systematically taught.

Within a few more years, however, certainly by 1254, many of Aristotle's works were required reading for a degree—a change due in part at least to Albert and his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, who advocated not censorship and suppression but study and interpretation, with a view to reconciling Aristotle's teachings with those of the Church. Albert began this task at the request of members of his own Order (Physica I, i, 1), probably while he was still at Paris.

In 1248 the General Chapter, meeting in Paris, decided to establish a studium generale—a higher school, of university grade—in each of the four provinces of Lombardy, Provence, England, and Teutonia. Albert was appointed lector—a title in this case equivalent perhaps to Regent of Studies—at the school for the Teutonia province in Cologne. His return to Cologne must have more or less coincided with the beginning of the building of the present cathedral, though the pious legend that he was its architect can be rejected. Plans for enlarging the old cathedral must have been made while he was still in Paris; at an early stage in the work fire broke out and totally destroyed the church and many of its treasures. But Albert must have been in the city when the debris was being cleared away and new foundations were being dug, and it was probably then that he saw a Roman pavement discovered deep below the surface of the ground (De Causis Proprietatum Elementorum I, ii, 3).

The school at Cologne was already an excellent one, but Albert seems to have broadened the curriculum, himself lecturing on the theology of the pseudo-Di-onysus and the Ethics of Aristotle. Among his students, three may be especially mentioned here, although there is some uncertainty about the dates of their attendance at Albert's courses. One was Thomas of Cantimpré, author of a well-known encyclopedia. Another was Ulrich of Strassburg, who became a lifelong friend of Albert. The third was Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian, who had entered the Order very young and had been much harassed by the opposition of his family in Italy; perhaps it was for this reason that he was sent to Germany for his training. One of the legends says that he was a silent youth, nicknamed 'the dumb ox' by his fellow students, but that Albert quickly recognized his quality and predicted that his voice would be heard in the world; and apparently it was at Albert's instigation that he was sent to Paris in 1252, where he became a famous professor.

But Albert was not entirely immersed in academic affairs. The year 1252 also saw the beginning of another task that went on for many years—that of composing the turbulent quarrels of the citizens of Cologne with their archbishops. Cologne, the most important centre of manufacture and trade in the Rhineland, had in the preceding century gradually won most of the rights of a free city, with the citizens themselves in control of such matters as coinage of money, customs duties, and other trade regulations. When Archbishop Conrad von Hochstaden, an autocratic nobleman, attempted to curtail these rights, bloody fighting took place before both sides agreed to accept arbitration. The agreement drawn up by Albert, and signed before him and the Papal Legate, Hugo of St. Cher, in April 1252, put an end to the strife for a time, but Albert's intervention was to be invoked again and again in the future.

In 1254 the Provincial Chapter, meeting in Worms, elected Albert Prior Provincial of Teutonia, an office he held until 1257. These were years of heavy responsibility and arduous travel, for it was the duty of the Prior Provincial to visit as many as possible of the Dominican houses under his charge. The Teutonia province then included all Catholic Europe north of the Alps and east of France, with the exception of Scandinavia and the British Isles—that is, Alsace, Lorraine, Luxemburg and the Low Countries, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia, and parts of Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. There were about forty Dominican houses in 1254, and several more were founded in the next few years.

The course of Albert's journeys is a matter of conjecture, though some documents exist to show where he was at certain times. The Provincial Chapter generally met in late summer, and after leaving Worms in 1254 he seems to have returned to Cologne. In February 1255 he went to profess the first nuns at the Paradise Convent near Soest, and preached to them. He then went on into northern Teutonia, visiting Dominicans in Saxony and Brandenburg, perhaps going as far as Lübeck, or even Riga. The Provincial Chapter met that year in Regensburg, where Albert presided; after which he would presumably have made visits in south Germany and Austria. In January 1256 he was again in Cologne. He could have visited houses in Holland and Belgium in the spring, before going on to the General Chapter at Whitsun in Paris. He returned to Teutonia in the summer for the Provincial Chapter at Erfurt; but by the end of September he was at the Papal Curia at Anagni.

Travel in medieval times was slow and toilsome. Moreover, the Dominicans were vowed to poverty— mendicant friars who had no money, begged for food and lodging except when entertained in the houses of their Order, and were forbidden to use wagons or horses except in direst emergency. Albert's long journeys on foot are an amazing achievement: he covered hundreds of miles and must have been on the road almost continuously for weeks on end. He can have had little opportunity for study or writing, but many things that he saw or heard on the way he remembered and later put into his scientific books.

The reason for his journey to Italy was probably the trouble that had been brewing for some years over the right of the mendicant friars—the Franciscans and Dominicans—to teach at the University of Paris. In 1254 William of St. Amour had published a violent attack on them, and the matter had been discussed at the General Chapter in the spring of 1256. It is almost certain that Albert was then selected, as a distinguished member of one of the embattled Orders, and a former professor at Paris, to go and testify before the Commission of Cardinals that was to meet at Anagni in the autumn. The case was finished in October, when the Pope, Alexander IV, condemned William's book; but Albert remained with the Papal Curia, which moved in December to Rome, and in May 1257 to Viterbo. During this winter he lectured at the Curia on the Gospel of St. John and the Epistles of St. Paul, and collected material for his tract (not finished until much later) On the Unity of the Intellect: against Averroes. In May, when the General Chapter met at Florence, he obtained release from his office as Prior Provincial; and in the summer he set off, by way of Bologna, on the long journey back to Cologne.

There he resumed his duties as lector and his studies of Aristotle. In 1259 he attended the General Chapter at Valenciennes, serving on a committee that included also Thomas Aquinas and Peter of Tarantaise (later Pope Innocent V), to consider revisions of the curriculum in the Dominican schools.

In Cologne his services as negotiator and peacemaker were again in demand. He took part in another attempt to resolve the conflict between the citizens of Cologne and Archbishop Conrad von Hochstaden. A settlement was signed in June 1258; and, as an aftermath of this, negotiations over the liability of Cologne for damage done in Deutz during the fighting went on until 1260. There was also a trade dispute between Cologne and Utrecht, settled in 1259.

Meanwhile events in Regensburg on the Danube were about to give Albert's life a new direction. The citizens were having trouble with their bishop, Count Albert von Peitengau, who was more soldier than priest, constantly involved in war, and had been paying little attention to his diocese. In 1259, after an appeal to the Papal Curia, he was forced to resign. The Cathedral Chapter elected in his place their Provost, Henry of Lerchenfeld, who (perhaps prudently) declined the honour. The naming of a bishop then became a matter for the Curia, who chose Albert of Cologne.

This seemed to many a surprising choice, though it may have been suggested by Hugo of St. Cher, who was then at the Curia; and of course Albert was personally known to the Pope from his stay in Italy three years earlier. But Albert was now in a somewhat difficult position: the regulations of the Order forbade any Dominican to accept such office in the Church without the permission of his superiors; and when the Master General, Humbert of Romans, heard the news, he wrote to Albert begging him, for the good of the Order, to decline. The notification of his election and Humbert's letter of remonstrance must have reached Cologne at about the same time, near the beginning of February 1260. Albert seems to have taken some weeks to make up his mind, but in the end he accepted. In mid March he was consecrated as a bishop (where and by whom is not known) and set out for Regensburg. He arrived on March 29, spent the night at the Dominicans' house of St. Blaise, and next day went in procession to the cathedral to be enthroned. On the same day he began to look into the affairs of the diocese.

These were in a sorry way, and a reformer is seldom popular. No doubt he met with opposition and even ridicule: Regensburg hardly knew what to make of a bishop who walked the streets in the crude sandals of a begging friar. Surviving documents tell something of his activities during the next year. In August he consecrated an altar at Lerchenfeld, and in September he attended a conference of bishops at Landau. He struggled with debts and financial reforms, seeing that tithes were collected and properly used, devising means for the support of parish priests and a hospital.

When spring came he seems to have felt that he had done what he was sent to do, and that it was time to give the diocese back to a locally chosen bishop. In May he set out for Italy to present his resignation to the Pope in person. He arrived at Viterbo just about the time of Alexander IV's death (25 May 1261); nothing could be done until after the election of a new Pope. Urban IV was elected in August, but it was not until the following May (1262) that he confirmed the election of Leo, former dean of the Cathedral Chapter at Regensburg, as Albert's successor.

Finally freed of his office, Albert might have been expected to return to the Dominican Order, but he did not do so, probably because the new Pope had other plans for him. In fact, there is no evidence as to his where-abouts during most of the years 1261 and 1262. It has been conjectured that he returned for a while to Regensburg, or that he travelled to southern Italy or even to Greece. What is most likely, perhaps, is that he remained at the Curia, where Urban IV gathered a group of scholars and theologians including Thomas Aquinas, summoned from Paris in 1261, and no doubt others whom Albert had known in 1256-7. There he could devote himself again to writing, and it is not improbable that it was there that he finished his commentary on St. Luke and perhaps some of his commentaries on Aristotle.

At the beginning of 1263 Urban IV appointed Albert Preacher of the Crusade in Germany and Bohemia, giving him the powers of a Papal Nuncio, and providing him with letters commanding all bishops to assist his mission. Once again the prospect of long journeys lay before him, and Albert was growing older. These journeys are much better documented than those of 1254-6, because at many places along the way he consecrated altars or churches, granted indulgences, or settled local disputes. He is thought to have been in Orvieto when Hugo of St. Cher died there on March 19, and to have remained to celebrate Easter on April   1. But he must have left soon afterwards and travelled by way of the Brenner Pass, for on May 5 he was at Polling in Upper Bavaria. He can then be traced to Augsburg (May 10), Donauwörth (May 13), Würzburg (May 27), Frankfurt-am-Main (June 5), and back again to Würzburg (June 28). He reached Cologne about the end of July.

Once again there was trouble in Cologne. Archbishop Conrad von Hochstaden had died in September 1261; but the new archbishop, Engelbert von Falkenberg, was no more able to get on with the citizens than his predecessor had been. On 25 August 1263 Albert witnessed another agreement; but in November, after he had left Cologne, fighting broke out again, and Engelbert was taken prisoner. There was talk in December, and again in the following May (1264), of getting Albert to come back. But he did not come back, and a new settlement was attempted by the Bishops of Liège and Müster.

From Cologne Albert probably travelled through Holland and north Germany. At the end of October he was in Brandenburg, where he carried out a special mission: the local clergy, unable to agree on the choice of a bishop, had appealed to the Pope, who had sent Albert to deal with the case. After this he may have continued eastwards to the Saxon-Polish frontier, but by the end of the year he was at Adelhausen, near Freiburg-im-Breisgau. On 20 February 1264 he was in Speyer, and on March 18 in Regensburg. There are no records for the next few months, but it is likely that he was then carrying out his mission in southern Germany and Bohemia. In late summer he was in Mainz, where a document of 20 August 1264 is the latest one known bearing his signature as praedicator crucis.

It is strange that we have no information about the actual preaching of the crusade; but this is perhaps because it was not very successful. The Age of Crusades was nearly over and men's minds were turning to other interests. Albert's commission came to a sudden end with the death of the Pope and the next Pope did not renew it.

Urban IV died on October 2, but it may have been some weeks before the news reached Albert. When it did, he seems to have gone at once to Würzburg, for by December 4 he was engaged in mediating a dispute there. One of the witnesses to the agreement was Albert's brother Henry, Prior of the Dominicans; and it was perhaps because his brother was there that Albert remained in Würzburg (so far as we know) until May 1267. Numerous documents show that he took part in the settlement of local cases, but there is little to tell of his private life and occupations.

He lived with the Dominicans, but his status is not entirely clear. During his years in the papal service he had been released from the rule of the Order—that is, he owed obedience not to the Master General but directly to the Pope; and the Pope had granted him some property or revenues for his support, which he still retained and finally disposed of by will, in contravention of the vow of poverty. It may also be noted that he never again held any office in the Order, and was perhaps free to choose his place of residence. Yet in other respects he certainly returned to the Order and was identified with it for the rest of his life.

In the early summer of 1267 Albert left Würzburg, probably visited Regensburg, and then went to the Rhineland. In July he consecrated an altar in Burtscheid, near Aachen, and in August and September was in Cologne. Later in the autumn he arrived in Strassburg, which was to be the centre of his activities for the next few years. The Dominican school had grown in importance since Albert had taught there many years before, and was now second only to Cologne in the Teutonia province; and the lector was Ulrich of Strassburg, a former pupil of Albert's. Whether Albert himself resumed any teaching at this time is unknown; he may have lectured occasionally, but he was often away. Again there are records of churches consecrated and indulgences granted in many places not very far from Strassburg, as well as in Strassburg itself, where on 7 April 1269 he ordained a large group of clergy.

He undertook one more long journey at the command of the Pope, Clement IV, probably in the summer of 1268, to settle a dispute in Mecklenburg over property which had been given to the Knights of St. John in 1229 and was later claimed and seized by other nobles and the Abbot of Colbaz. Albert was now an old man, and efforts seem to have been made to save his strength. He was accompanied by two assistants, John of Freiburg (a young Dominican, probably a pupil of Ulrich's) and Albert of Havelburg. He was also permitted to use a vehicle; but the springless carts of those days could hardly mitigate the badness of the roads or shorten by very much the time spent on the way. This must have been an exhausting journey, and Albert may well have felt that it was in vain, for after his return the agreement he had arranged was broken, and he had to excommunicate the Abbot of Colbaz and his party, who were again trying to dispossess the Knights of St. John.

Another claim on his services came from John of Vercelli, now Master General of the Order, who wrote asking him to go to Paris and teach again at the university. It was unusual to recall a man to a post he had already held, but the mendicant friars were once more under attack, this time by Gerhard of Abbeville and Siger of Brabant, and the Master General no doubt wanted the Order's most distinguished teacher in Paris just then. Albert, however, excused himself, saying that he felt unequal to the work and he had no assistant; and he may have suggested the recall of Thomas Aquinas, who returned to Paris early in 1269. All this can be inferred from a letter of John of Vercelli, apparently written in 1270, in which, after mentioning the earlier call to Paris, he urged Albert to go to Cologne. This time an assistant was provided, probably Gottfried of Duisburg, who remained with him to the end.

The political situation in Cologne had been going from bad to worse. When the Papal Nuncio, Bernard of Castaneto, had tried to intervene and failed in 1268 he had excommunicated all parties to the quarrel, and the citizens had appealed to the Pope in vain. The fighting did not stop, though Engelbert was still a prisoner; and in the summer of 1269 the severity of the interdict was increased. Another appeal was sent to Rome; but Pope Clement IV died in 1269 and there was a delay of almost two years before his successor was elected. We may surmise that a message was sent through the Cologne Dominicans to the Master General, or to Albert himself, begging him to help as he had helped in the past.

The exact date of Albert's return to Cologne is uncertain—presumably about the end of the year 1270. Nor is it known just how he opened negotiations. But by spring Engelbert had been released, and on 16 April 1271 he signed a document declaring his complete reconciliation with his enemies, and agreeing to submit any future points of dispute to an arbitration commission headed by 'Brother Albert of the Order of Preachers, formerly Bishop of Regensburg'. Peace was at last restored, though the interdict of excommunication was not finally removed until after Engelbert's death and the election of his successor, Siegfried von Westerburg, in 1275.

For the remaining years of his life Albert lived with the Dominicans of Cologne. He contributed money for enlarging their church and is said to have laid the cornerstone of the choir in 1271, and to have given a large crucifix and some sacred relics. Very likely he still took an interest in the school, but he was no longer responsible for it, and he was busy finishing several theological works and revising earlier ones. His eye-sight was beginning to trouble him, but he had his helper, Gottfried of Duisburg, to read to him or write at his dictation.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that Albert had now 'retired' from active life. His name appears on many documents, not only in Cologne and near-by places, but as far away as Utrecht and Nijmegen in Holland. And he still kept in touch with larger affairs. Ulrich of Strassburg was elected Prior Provincial of Teutonia in 1272, and records of his term of office show that he several times consulted Albert and went to see him. It was probably on one of these visits to Cologne that Ulrich and John of Vercelli, Master General of the Order, met Rudolph of Hapsburg 'in the Church of the Friars'. Rudolph was crowned at Aachen on 24 October 1273, and in November spent some time in Cologne. He may have known Ulrich and Albert in Strassburg, and very probably he would have wished to enlist the support of these eminent Dominicans. If so, he evidently succeeded, for a letter of Ulrich's mentions him with enthusiasm, and tradition says that Albert spoke in his favour at the Council of Lyons.

The spring of 1274 was saddened for Albert by news of the death of Thomas Aquinas in March at Fossanova, on his way to the Council of Lyons. As to Albert's attendance at the Council, the evidence is conflicting. The earliest chronicles of his life do not mention it, and his name does not appear in the records of the assembly, which opened on May 6. This however, might be explained by his late arrival, if he travelled with the German Dominicans who attended the General Chapter of the Order, also held in Lyons that year, and opening on May 13. The Council had many important matters to discuss and the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg was not taken up until June 6. On that occasion, at least according to a fifteenth-century account, Albert was present among the bishops, and spoke on the text 'Behold, I will send them a saviour and a defender, and he will deliver them'. If we may judge his sentiments from the text, Albert, like many of his contemporaries, saw in the Hapsburg prince the best hope of ending the long interregnum which, ever since the decline of the Hohen-stauffens, had kept Germany in turmoil.

In August Albert was in Cologne and from there went to Fulda, on a commission from Pope Gregory X to look into the election of the Abbot of Fulda. In September 1276 he was in Antwerp, where he consecrated the Dominican church and attended the Provincial Chapter, at which Ulrich of Strassburg presided. This may have been his last meeting with Ulrich, who died in Paris a year or two later.

A legend of Thomas Aquinas relates that when, in 1277, some of his opinions were included in Bishop Tempier's condemnation of 219 theses ascribed to Siger of Brabant, Albert went to Paris and successfully defended them. This is extremely improbable. Albert was a remarkably vigorous old man—indeed he is not known to have suffered any illness during his whole life. But by 1277 he is said to have become very bent with age and to have begun to fail mentally.

Yet in January 1279, when he made his will, he described himself as 'of sound mind and body' (sanus et incolumen). The will is known to us in a copy made 'word for word' in 1408 by a Dominican, Narzissus Pfister, at Cologne. It is of interest because Albert appears to have feared that some question of its validity might arise, since the rules of the Order did not permit the friars to own or bequeath property. He therefore stated at the beginning that he had been exempted from this rule by the Pope, and wished to record his wishes while still able, so that no doubt be felt after his death. He left everything to the Order: his books to the library; his bishop's vestments to the sacristry; bequests in money to three Dominican nunneries; the rest of his property to be used for completing the choir of the Dominican church, to which he had already contributed. As executors he named the Prior Provincial, the Priors of Cologne and Würzburg (the latter his 'dear brother Henry'), Gottfried 'the physician', and Gottfried of Duisburg. The will was witnessed by the Prior of Cologne and two laymen, respected citizens of Cologne.

In February of that year he was still well enough to take part in the ceremony of translating the relics of St. Cordula to the Chapel of the Knights of St. John in Cologne; and in the summer he authenticated two more documents; so his decline seems to have been gradual. The end finally came on 15 November 1280. He died peacefully in his own cell, and was deeply mourned by the Dominicans, who buried him three days later in the choir of their own church, which he himself had helped to build. The funeral mass was attended by a sorrowing crowd of clergy and citizens of Cologne.

Albert's memory was honoured for five centuries in the Dominican church. Many people came to visit his grave and he was soon regarded locally as a saint. In 1483 his remains were transferred to a reliquary and placed upon an altar. But after the French Revolution, when Alsace was invaded, the Dominicans were expelled and their buildings put to secular uses. The church was torn down in 1804, and the cloister, where the friars had lived, after serving as a barracks during the Prussian occupation, was later demolished. Albert's bones had already been removed to the near-by church of St. Andrew, where in the nineteenth century they were kept in an ornate gilded shrine. During the Second World War this church was severely damaged in the bombing of Cologne. When it was being restored, the ancient crypt beneath the choir, long ago filled in, was re-excavated and made into a simple white-walled chapel, and in 1954 Albert's relics were placed there in a plain stone sarcophagus that rests beneath the high altar.

Even during his lifetime legends had begun to gather around Albert's name and this process was accelerated after his death. On the one hand, it was told of him— as of his contemporaries Michael Scot and Roger Bacon—that he had been a great magician skilled in the black arts; and books on magic, astrology, and alchemy were falsely attributed to him. On the other hand, there were stories of a saint's miracles. A cult was already forming in the fourteenth century, and in 1484 Pope Innocent VIII gave permission to the Dominicans of Cologne to celebrate Albert's Feast each year on November 15. This permission, equivalent to beatification, was extended by later Popes, and in 1670, by a decree of Clement X, became world-wide. Albert was canonized in 1931, and in 1941 Pope Pius XII declared him the patron saint of scientists.

ALBERT'S SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS

Albert's works are so numerous and cover so wide a range of interests that we can only wonder how, even in a long life, he found time to write them all. The scientific treatises, taken all together, are but a small part of his complete works, which include also commentaries on many books of the Bible and on texts used in the schools, and original theological treatises. For Albert himself there was no conflict between science and religion: his study of Aristotle's science was undertaken in order to understand Aristotle's philosophy as a whole and to reconcile it with the Christian faith. He began his commentary on the Physics (I, i, 1) in these words:

Our intention in natural science is to satisfy, to the best of our ability, the Brothers of our Order, who have been asking us, for several years now, to compose for them the kind of book on Physics that should give them a complete natural science and make them really competent to understand the books of Aristotle. Although we do not consider ourselves capable of this task, yet we cannot withstand the entreaties of the Brothers; and so at last we accept the task that we have often refused. Persuaded by their entreaties, we undertake it, first of all for the honour of Almighty God, the Fount of Wisdom and the Creator, Founder, and Ruler of nature; and also for the benefit of the Brothers, and of any others who read it with the desire of acquiring natural science.

Albert wrote commentaries on other works of Aristotle—on the logical works, the Ethics, Politics, and Metaphysics. But those on natural science form a special group, since Albert considered them as one closely related series, and listed them all together, rather elaborately classified in logical order, near the beginning of his Physics (I, i, 4). Here is his list:

• Physics (Physica)

• The Heavens (De caelo et mundo)

  The Nature of Places (De natura locorum)

  Properties of the Elements (De causis proprietatum elementorum)

• Generation and Corruption (De generatione et corruptione)

• Meteorology (Meteora)

  The Book of Minerals (Mineralia)

• The Soul (De anima)
• Life and Death (De morte et vita)

• Youth and Age (De iuventute et senectute)

  Nourishment (De nutrimento et nutribili)

• Sleep and Waking (De somno et vigilia)
• The Senses (De sensu et sensato)

• Memory and Recollection (De memoria et reminiscentia)

  Movement of Animals (De motibus animalium)

• Breath and Breathing (De spiritu et respiratione)

  The Intellect (De intellectu et intelligibili)

• Plants (De vegetabilibus)
• Animals (De animalibus)

Those marked with an asterisk (*) are directly based on corresponding works in the Aristotelian corpus. But we must remember that Albert never had a 'complete edition' of Aristotle. Various treatises or groups of treatises circulated in separate manuscripts: some were available in two or more different translations, and some were embedded in Arabic commentaries. Critical scholarship hardly existed, but an intelligent man like Albert could see that some of the works generally received as Aristotle's were not entirely satisfactory; and some that he had heard of could not be found.

The Properties of the Elements is now known to be a Muslim work; and Albert had to add a good deal to it to make it fit into his Aristotelian scheme. Nourishment and The Intellect probably correspond to the spurious De alimentiis and De intelligentia that appear in medieval lists of Aristotle's works; and Albert acknowledged that he had not seen Aristotle's own books on these subjects but only writings by his followers (De intellectu, I, i, 1). He was in the same difficulty when he wrote the Movement of Animals (De motibus animalium); he later referred to this as if it were largely his own composition (ea quae ex ingenio proprio diximus), and wrote a new commentary, De principiis motus processivi, after he found a manuscript of Aristotle's Movement of Animals in Italy. The Nature of Places and the Book of Minerals were put together by Albert himself, when he failed to find any Aristotelian treatises on geography and mineralogy.

In doing this he did not feel that he was taking unwarrantable liberties with his author; he did not think of himself as a scholar editing a text but as a teacher explaining new and difficult ideas. He justified this, too, in the Introduction to his Physics (I, i, 1):

Our method in this work will be to follow the sequence of Aristotle's thought, and to say in explanation and demonstration of it whatever may seem necessary; but without any quotation of the text. And also we shall put in digressions, so as to clarify difficulties as they arise or to add whatever may make the Philosopher's thought clearer to anyone. And we shall divide the whole work by chapter headings: where the heading simply gives the contents of the chapter, this means that the chapter is one of those in Aristotle's own books; but wherever the heading indicates that there is a digression (digressio), there we have added something in the way of supplement or demonstration. By such a procedure, we shall make our books correspond, in their numbering and titles, with those of Aristotle. And we shall make additions wherever books are incomplete, and wherever they have gaps in them, or are missing entirely—whether they were left unwritten by Aristotle or, if he did write them, they have not come down to us. But where this is done, the ensuing tractate will say so clearly.

Thus Albert's treatises are more original than the term 'commentary' might suggest. If there was a basic text, it was paraphrased and interwoven with his own contributions—sometimes exposition or refutation of the opinions of previous commentators, sometimes new illustrations, drawn from his own wide reading and experience, which reveal his life-long interest in science and his quality as an observer. If there was no basic text, as for the Book of Minerals, the selection and arrangement of materials offered even more scope for the development of his own ideas. His aim was a complete account of all nature, and the titles of his treatises indicate the broad scope of the undertaking. But the individual treatises are not independent, they are all parts of one continuous and coherent 'natural history', and the reader is constantly reminded that points explained in the earlier books are necessary for understanding the later ones.

At the end of the Animals (which he expanded from nineteen to twenty-six books) Albert says that this is the end of the series on natural science. But he so often mentions astrology and alchemy that we may inquire whether or not he ever wrote anything on these subjects. Both lie outside the true 'Aristotelian' tradition (though the pseudo-Aristotelian Properties of the Elements contains some astrology), but they were an important part of medieval science.

Astrology was, of course, closely linked with astronomy; in fact the words astrologia and astronomia were used interchangeably by thirteenth-century writers. The two-fold character of the science of the stars is shown by the Mirror of Astronomy, or astrology (Speculum astronomiae). This was attributed to Albert as early as the fourteenth century, and has been printed in his collected works (Borgnet, Vol. X), although this attribution has been challenged. The author, if he was not Albert, certainly held views very similar to Albert's. He recognized the two aspects of astronomia and listed books dealing with both: first, the science that observes and describes the movements of the heavenly bodies; and second, the application of this knowledge to predicting the future or invoking celestial influences for various purposes. In the latter science he carefully distinguished licit from illicit practices; and this sort of distinction, together with some of his citations of authorities, we find also in Albert's discussion of astrological images (Mineralia II, iii).

Scientists of today who scorn astrology as mere superstition perhaps forget that at one time it included several subjects which have since become respectable fields for scientific research—weather and weather forecasting, the relation of climate to latitude, and the effects of climate on plants, animals, and men. But if all these things were influenced by 'the aspects of the heavens', medieval astrologers thought, the stars must surely affect men's lives in still other ways. Albert, for all his remarkable intelligence and his sturdy common sense, was, after all, a child of his time. He may well have written the Mirror of Astronomy. But other astrological works bearing his name are certainly spurious.

The same may be said of the alchemical treatises attributed to Albert, with the possible exception of the Little Book on Alchemy (Libellus de alchimia), also known as the Straight Path (Semita recta), which has been printed with his other works (Borgnet, Vol. XXXVII) and translated into English by Sister Virginia Heines (1958). It contains anachronistic references to Geber and Jean de Meung, but these may be later interpolations. The title De alchimia in a fourteenth-century list of Albert's writings has been taken to mean this work, but it may refer to a part of the Book of Minerals. The Little Book on Alchemy is a practical 'laboratory manual', giving good advice to the novice, and describing the apparatus, materials, and procedures of the art; and it is quite free of the obscurity and mystification common in alchemical books.

Whether or not Albert wrote this, he had, according to his own statement (Mineralia III, i, 1), investigated alchemy. But he could have studied alchemical texts, talked with alchemists, and even visited their laboratories, without being an adept himself. He certainly was much interested in alchemical theories, and, as the Book of Minerals makes clear, he realized that 'chemical' explanations were needed for many natural phenomena. But in my opinion his style and his expressed views on transmutations are unlike those of the author of the Little Book on Alchemy.

THE ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK OF MINERALS

The Aristotelian corpus contains almost nothing on mineralogy. The only discussion of the subject, some thirty lines at the end of Meteora, III sets forth a theory that there are underground two 'exhalations': one of these, a 'dry smoke', produces earths and stones, the other, a 'watery vapour', produces metals. The passage ends with the remark that each of these kinds of mineral must be taken up separately and in detail; and this seems to point to some work no longer extant. When Albert came to write the Book of Minerals he tried to find this missing work. He believed it existed, because he had heard of a Lapidary or Book of Stones by Aristotle, but he could obtain only a few excerpts from it (Mineralia I, i, 1; II, iii, 6; III, i, 1). He was therefore forced to draw up his own plan for dealing with minerals. The result is of unusual interest, in that it shows us not only the contemporary state of mineralogy, but also Albert's idea of what a science of mineralogy should be.

The Book of Minerals is a typical scholastic treatise, and since this form of presentation is rather unfamiliar today, a brief summary of its argument may be useful.

Albert's model is, of course, Aristotle, who says at the beginning of his Physics that data gained from direct observation of nature are of concrete particulars, but are often confused and difficult to understand. Science concerns itself with analysing the data, in order to arrive at general principles, to make things understandable by explaining their causes. For Albert, then, a science of mineralogy must be based on a discussion of the causes of minerals, that is, 'the four causes' distinguished by Aristotle as material efficient, formal and final.

First the material cause, the matter of which minerals are made; Albert's 'chemistry' is based on what is said of the elements (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth) in The Heavens, Generation and Corruption, and Meteorology (especially Book IV). And the material cause is the basis of his general classification of minerals into three groups—stones (Books I-II), metals (Books III-IV) and 'intermediates' (media, Book V). He treats stones first because they are 'simpler' than metals, being mixtures of Earth and Water; metals are made up of Sulphur and Quicksilver, which are themselves mixtures, Quicksilver containing Earth and Water, Sulphur something of all four elements. (The Sulphur-Quicksilver theory is not Aristotle's; Albert got it from Avicenna and other alchemists.) The 'intermediates' are neither stones nor metals, but have some characteristics of both.

Next, the efficient cause, the process by which minerals are made: here Albert adopts the two-exhalations theory of Meteora III and extends it, for metallic ore deposits, by equating the 'dry smoke' with Sulphur and the 'most vapour' with Quicksilver. These exhalations, confined within the earth, are converted into minerals by the direct action of heat and cold; but heat and cold are merely the 'instruments' of the real efficient cause which is a 'mineralizing power' (this concept also came from Avicenna). Just how this power acts Albert can explain only through an analogy drawn from Aristotle's biology (especially Generation of Animals): the female supplies only the matter of which the embryo is made (material cause), and the male semen is the efficient cause of its development. For minerals, too, the process of development must be started somehow, and the impulse, according to Albert, is the 'influence' of the heavenly bodies, though this may be modified by the nature of the material and the place where the minerals are forming.

Then, the formal cause, that which makes a thing what it is: here the biological analogy is pushed still further, for Aristotle said that the male also contributes the form of the offspring, its species (e.g. the offspring of a dog is a dog and not any other kind of animal). In the same way, Albert argues, the forms of minerals are due to a 'formative power' that descends from the heavens through the influence of the stars—and this is what determines the particular kind of mineral that will be formed at any particular time and place. (The best-known example of this belief is the supposed formation of the seven metals under the influences of the seven planets.)

Last, the final cause, that for the sake of which a thing exists: this is hardly mentioned, presumably because Albert agrees with Aristotle that inanimate things like minerals can hardly be said to have an 'end' or 'purpose' of their own.

This whole account is un-Aristotelian in its emphasis on astrology. Yet to some extent it had its roots in Aristotle's cosmology, as described in the Physics, The Heavens, Generation and Corruption, and Meteorology: a spherical universe, with the earth at the centre, and as it were the focus, of all the motions, transmitted inwards from one etherial sphere to another, that cause all the changes in the atmosphere, sea, and land, in the life of plants and animals, and even in the growth of minerals underground. But in the course of centuries this scheme had been elaborated and fused with the notions of neo-Platonists and astrologers, who assigned to each of the heavenly bodies more specific and more varied influences than Aristotle ever did. Albert believes in these 'powers', but he always maintains that they are subject to God's will.

Having thus dealt with the essential causes of stones (I, i) and metals (III, i), he next considers their 'accidental' properties, those features which, according to Aristotle (Metaphysics, VI, ii, 1026 a 33 ff.) are not really essential nor always present, but occur in some individuals and not in others. Again there are two parallel tractates: the one on stones (I, ii) deals with texture, colour, hardness, fissility or cleavage, density, structure, and fossils; the one on metals (III, ii) with fusibility, malleability, colour and lustre, taste and odour, and various chemical reactions. The systematic discussion of a list of physical and chemical properties seems to have been suggested by a similar list in Meteora IV, and much of the material is drawn from that work and from Generation and Corruption; the account of colours, tastes, and odours, from the treatment of senseperceptions in The Soul and The Senses. To all this Albert adds field observations of his own and, in the tractate on metals, information from alchemical sources.

These two tractates (I, ii and III, ii) make vivid to us the difficulties that hindered the development of modern chemistry and mineralogy. The Peripatetic doctrine of elements and qualities was, in fact, quite inadequate for developing any sort of chemical classification of minerals. With metals, particularly, it is plain that if we regard fusibility, malleability, colour, etc., as 'accidentals' (because these can be altered by alloying, bronzing, annealing, etc.), we are left asking: But then what is it that is essential—the real difference between one metal and another? It was this uncertainty that fostered the hope of transmutation, which Albert does not entirely reject although he knows that many alchemists' claims are fraudulent (III, i, 9). On the strength of Aristotle's account of the transmutation of the elements in Generation and Corruption he accepts the theoretical possibility, and reasons that something of the kind must occur in nature, in the formation of ore minerals (III, ii, 6). But he seems to be doubtful whether the natural processes can be imitated successfully in the laboratories of the alchemists.

Finally, in Books II, IV, and V, he carries out still further his plan for system and completeness, naming stones, metals, and 'intermediates', one by one, and describing each one, some of them in considerable detail. This kind of 'catalogue' is not found in Aristotle; but it was familiar in the popular medieval herbals, bestiaries, and lapidaries. The tradition goes back at least as far as Pliny and was still followed by the thirteenth-century encyclopedists.

In the tractate on stones (II, ii) Albert incorporates an alphabetical lapidary, which is similar to, and probably partly based on, those of Arnold of Saxony, Thomas of Cantimpré, and the 'Dyascorides' cited by Bartholomew of England. Such unacknowledged use of others' works was not in those days regarded as plagiarism: Albert similarly incorporates a bestiary in his book on Animals and a herbal in his Plants. Compilations of this type seem to have been regarded as common property, at the free disposal of anyone who had occasion to write on topics animal, vegetable, or mineral. Albert, in fact, was doing just about what anyone today might do in writing an elementary book on mineralogy—taking data from standard works familiar at the time.

The compilers of popular lapidaries transmitted some factual information; but their chief interest was the curative or magical powers of stones. Albert therefore prefaces his 'lapidary tractate' (II, ii) by another tractate (II, i) in which he endeavours to account for these wonderful powers. In order to understand his explanation, we must consider again the Aristotelian notion of form. To the mineralogist of today this term may suggest the 'crystal form' or 'habit' of a mineral; but to Aristotle, form was something more than shape or structure—it was the essential being, or identity of a thing; in living things, the 'life' or 'soul'.

This is why Albert (I, i, 6) engages in what seems to us a needless argument, denying that a stone has a soul (anima) or is in any sense 'alive'. But even an inanimate thing has form, that which makes it distinctively what it is and able to do whatever it does (e.g. the form of an axe is what makes it able to cut). In this sense, then, the forms of stones account for whatever effects they produce. An excellent example is the 'power' of magnetism, essential to our identification or definition of the mineral magnetite. And medieval lapidaries ascribed many other 'powers', medical or magical, to other stones—powers that Albert considers to be inherent in their forms and imparted to them by the formal cause, the 'formative power' of the heavens.

This theme is further developed in a third tractate in this book (II, iii) on the sigils, images, or markings, found in certain stones. Albert intends (II, iii, 1) to distinguish between those made 'by nature' (picture agates, mineralized fossils, casts and moulds of shells, etc.) and those made 'by art' (antique cameos and intaglios); but subsequent chapters show that he often confuses 'natural' and 'artificial' figures, and knows little about gemcutting. He recognizes the ancient practice of enhancing the powers of a stone by carving upon it some image or inscription, and gives his some-what cautious approval by inserting here (II, iii, 5) another brief lapidary, of engraved gems bearing astrological figures.

The parallel book on metals (Book IV) is shorter and simpler than Book II, since less information was available about metals than about stones. The first two chapters describe sulphur and quicksilver, and the others take up all the other metals then known—lead, tin, silver, copper, gold, and iron (including steel). Since Aristotle had said little about metals, the material here is drawn partly from alchemical books and partly from Albert's own observations on visits to mines, smelters, or brass foundries.

Book V, on minerals intermediate between stones and metals, is a brief compilation, mostly from alchemical or medical sources: it includes salt, vitriol, alum, soda, etc.—the chief 'chemical reagents' of the alchemists' laboratories.

Taken as a whole, the Book of Minerals is an impressive attempt to organize a science of mineralogy. Despite its background of medieval thought, its many errors of fact or interpretation of fact, there is something here that we recognize: the introductory exposition of general principles (the origin, physical and chemical properties of minerals), followed by descriptions of individual minerals (appearance, mode and place of occurrence, uses, etc.). This general pattern is still to be seen in our own textbooks.