How did the vast range
of knowledge and
ideas that developed across the broad Islamic world
travel into Europe?
How did the works of figures such as a
Persian polymath, Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina, known in Latin
as Avicenna, or the writings of the jurist and philosopher
from Cordoba, Mohammed ibn Ahmed ibn Rushd, known as
Averroes
end up on curriculum lists
in the universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford?
These are the questions that guide
this section on translating knowledge.
But I want us to begin not in.
Baghdad, Cairo or Al-Andalus,
but in Canterbury.
In the Canterbury Tales, a frame tale
narrative poem by the late 14th century English
poet Geoffrey Chaucer,
we find a number of Arab, Persian.
And North African figures named in the General Prologue.
In a section that explains the pilgrim physician,
so the pilgrim doctor, his credentials.
Chaucer tells us that the character of the
physician has become the most
perfect practitioner.
of medicine, because he knows the work of not only the classical.
authorities,
Hippocrates and Galen, and contemporary work by physicians
such as Bernard, Gatesden and Gilbertine, but works in Arabic as well.
What's originally written in Arabic
by figures such as Haly, Razi, which refers to a
a passionate practitioner of medicine
Al-Razi, Avicenna and Averroes
and the North African translator
Constantine. In Modern English
the lines read as follows:
He knew well the ancient Asclepius and Disocorides, and also
Rufus, ancient Hippocrates
Haley and Galen Serapion, Razi and Avicenna,
Averroes, Damascus and Constantine
Bernard, Gatesden and Gilbertine.
So how and why did Chaucer,
writing in London in the late 14th century, include
such a broad range of figures
whose writings were all rooted in the Islamic world, in his poetry?
And how did the works of Al-Razi or
Avicenna find their way into Northern and Western
Europe?
Indeed, each of these figures
named in these lines of
poetry tells us a story about the complex ways
in which knowledge and ideas moved across languages.
Whether it was Greek, Arabic,
and Latin, as well as other
languages such as
Persian and Hebrew, and into the vernacular
languages of Europe, such as
French or English.
Across a broad
span of time from ancient Greece and Alexandria to ninth century
Abbasid Baghdad, to
14th century London.
In this video, I want to introduce you
to two places, Toledo
and Salerno, which are important to help us trace and
explore
these knowledge movements
of translating knowledge from the Islamic
world.
An Islamic world that was in and across the Mediterranean and then
was present in Northern and Western Europe.
We begin with
Toledo.
In 1187, the Englishman, Daniel of Morley, dismissed the University
Of Paris as a place of learning.
Instead, he said, he'd rather
travel and learn from
the wisest
philosophers in the world who are based in Toledo.
Why was Daniel of Morley so interested in going to Toledo?
And who is he referring to of the wisest philosophies
the wisest philosophers in the world?
The answer to these questions is relatively simple.
Daniel was drawn to Toledo, which by the 12th century
was under Christian control after its capture
by Alfonso VI, the so-called king of two religions, in 1085,
because it was a place where
he could gain access to Arabic material commentaries,
treatises
and translations of the Aristotelian corpus,
a minority of which was translated into Latin.
This material, along with a
sizable number of Arabic works on mathematics and astronomy,
including Ptolemy's Almagest and a smaller number of medical
works
had been available in or made at
al-Andalus for a little while.
The earliest astronomical and mathematical
tables by
Al-Jwarizmī, the mathematician from
Baghdad, have made their way to Cordoba by the
10th century and were adapted to
al-Andalus by
the renowned scholar Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī
and his pupil Ibn al-Ṣaffār
in 978
These astronomical tables were then brought to England in 1140
by Adelard of Bath. So we can already see
the ways in which knowledge was moving and being translated
from Baghdad to Cordoba
and then to England across a couple of centuries.
It was Toledo that became a
hub of translation activity from Arabic to Latin in the 12th century.
Figures such as
Gerard of Cremona, John of Seville and Dominicus
Gundissalinus translated a range of Arabic
Aristotelian mathematical and medical works,
including the works of Avicenna both his medical works and his Natural
Philosophy.
These names, Gerard of Cremona, John of Seville,
you'll find them
appending a number of Arabic to Latin translated material.
But they did not work alone.
They worked with both local
scholars, including the local population, the Mozarabs,
who were Christianized Arabs,
as well as Jewish philosophers who worked as translators
and in addition to foreign scholars like Daniel of Morley, who
traveled to Toledo to take
part in this translation activity.
This was a collaborative effort.
In order to produce translations in Latin that were
then copied and taken to cities and locations and
universities,
including places
such as Paris, Montpellier and Oxford.
But we can also move outside Toledo for a moment.
Outside of Toledo
new learning
and knowledge was being produced by Arabic and Muslim scholars,
work that was
also translated into Latin and circulated in Northern Europe.
In Cordoba,
the jurist and.
Philosopher Abū al-WalīdʾMuhammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Rušd, known as
Averroes produced a series of
commentaries on Aristotle's Natural
Philosophy, which he divided
into the short, middle and long commentaries.
He finished these translations in 1190, and within
50 years of their
production there were being translated
into Latin by figures such as Michael Scot, Hermann
of Carinthia and William of Luna.
In addition to
Averroes and his philosopher
and his philosophy,
we can, as we've already seen Cordoba, was an important place
for cultivating the astronomical and mathematical
sciences too.
Seen, especially in the figure of Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī and his
collaborative
team of translators and astronomers,
as well as the Toledan astronomer
az-Zarqālī, who was known in Latin as Azarquiel.
So from Toledo, I want to move
briefly to Salerno.
So we are moving across the Mediterranean.
Salerno is the port city southeast
of Naples that was connected to North Africa
and the near and Middle East, across the Middle Ages.
It was also a
place well known for its medical learning and practice.
At Salerno, early translations of medical texts from the Arabic
existed such as
such as the work
by the Nestorian scholar
Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq whose medical work known in Latin as the
Isagoge,
a compendium that synthesized
and summarized the work of
Galen formed part of a collection of texts known as the
Articella.
These commentaries and this collection of texts
was designed for students of medicine in the Middle Ages.
The translations of medical texts from Arabic
Were strengthened, however
with the arrival
Of the North African Benedictine monk Constantine, the African who came
to the neighboring monastery in Monte Cassino after leaving Kairouan
in modern day Tunisia, his homeland in the early 11th century.
Across the 11th century, until his death in 1087
Constantine was engaged in translation work.
He translated Arabic medical texts into Latin.
This includes a series of Arabic
compendia and medical encyclopedia, including one by
somebody called ʻAlī Ibn Al-ʻAbbās Al-Magūsī
who wrote a complete book of medical art, which is
translated and renamed in Latin as the Pantegni.
And another Arabic scholar known as Ibn al-Jazzār
Who wrote a text that
compiled diseases from head to toe
and was known as a "Provisions for the traveller
and the nourishment for the sedentary"
that was translated into Latin as the "Viaticum peregrinantes".
Constantine's translations were also disseminated widely
and were also found on
university curricula, and he himself became renowned as a
medical authority, which is what we
see on the screen, here,
this image of Constantine
checking
people's urine.
What I have provided here with both
Toledo and Salerno is just a snapshot of the complex and rich.
ways
that knowledge was translated and circulated from Arabic into Latin.
There's much more that could be
said and taken into consideration.
This includes a range of languages involved here, not only
Arabic, but, as I said, Persian,
and Hebrew.
And many other places, including Norman, Sicily, Crusaders Antioch, and
Pisa, places that also
saw contact and transmission and translation of knowledge.
As well as the vast
range of people who are involved
in the translation work and its later distribution and circulation.
I want to end, however
with some poetry, because that's how we began.
Poetry is
a crucial and interesting way of thinking about translating knowledge
because it's a way of thinking about the circulation of
ideas, texts and knowledge
that reach a wide range of audiences.
I want to end with Dante's Divine Comedy. In Inferno
for the Circle of Virtuous Pagans,
Dante places Avicenna,
Averroes, as well as the Ayyubid
Sultan Saladin into
this circle where they sit in a
philosophic family headed by Aristotle.
Here, he tells us, I saw the skilled, collective of simples.
I mean, Disocorides,
and I saw Orpheus, Cicero.
Linus and Seneca, the moralist,
Euclid, the geometer,
and Ptolemy, Hypocrates, Avicenna,
Galen and Averroes him, who made the Great Commentary.
Here,
just like in Chaucer's physicians. list of authorities
Dante acknowledges Avicenna and Averroes medical
philosophical prowess
here, and that placed in company with classical authorities,
and particular reverence is given to the Andalusian
Philosopher Averroes, who he
comments on as being the great commentator.
Averois
che il gran comento feo.,
who made the great commentary. Thank you.