Alexander Neckam (8 September 115731 March 1217) was an English magnetician, poet, theologian, and writer. He was an abbot of

Cirencester Abbey Cirencester Abbey or St Mary's Abbey, Cirencester in Gloucestershire was founded as an Augustinian monastery in 1117 on the site of an earlier church, the oldest-known Saxon church in England, which had itself been built on the site of a Roman str ...

from 1213 until his death.

Early life

Born on 8 September 1157 in St Albans, Alexander shared his birthday with

King Richard I Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...

. For this reason, his mother,

Hodierna of St Albans Hodierna of St Albans (fl. 1150–1210) was the mother of Alexander Neckam and wet nurse of Richard I of England. Hodierna is also known as Audierne. According to legend, Richard I and Alexander Neckam were born on the same day. The astrologica ...

, was hired by the royal household under Henry II to serve as a

wet nurse A wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeds and cares for another's child. Wet nurses are employed if the mother dies, or if she is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cu ...

for the future monarch. As a result, Alexander was raised as Richard's foster-brother in their early years.

Works

''Speculum speculationum''

The ''Speculum speculationum'' (edited by Rodney M. Thomson, 1988) is Neckam's major surviving contribution to the science of theology. It is unfinished in its current form, but covers a fairly standard range of theological topics derived from

Peter Lombard Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus; 1096, Novara – 21/22 July 1160, Paris), was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of '' Four Books of Sentences'' which became the standard textbook of ...

's ''Sentences'' and

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North A ...

. Neckam is not regarded as an especially innovative or profound theologian, although he is notable for his early interest in the ideas of St. Anselm of Canterbury. His outlook in the ''Speculum'', a work written very late in his life, probably in 1215, and perhaps drawing heavily on his teaching notes from the past decades, combines an interest in the

Platonic Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It ...

writings of earlier 12th-century thinkers such as

Thierry of Chartres Thierry of Chartres (''Theodoricus Chartrensis'') or Theodoric the Breton (''Theodericus Brito'') (died before 1155, probably 1150) was a twelfth-century philosopher working at Chartres and Paris, France. The cathedral school at Chartres promoted ...

and

William of Conches William of Conches (c. 1090/1091 – c. 1155/1170s) was a French scholastic philosopher who sought to expand the bounds of Christian humanism by studying secular works of the classics and fostering empirical science. He was a prominent member ...

, with an early appreciation of the newly translated writings of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

and Avicenna. Neckam was a firm admirer of Aristotle as an authority in natural science as well as in the logical arts, one of the first Latin thinkers since antiquity to credit this aspect of the Stagirite's output. In the ''Speculum speculationum'' Alexander identifies one of his key purposes as combating the Cathar heresy, particularly its belief in dualism. He spends a large part of Book 1 on this, and thereafter passes on to focus on his other key purpose, the application of dialectic logic to the study of theology.

''De utensilibus'' and ''De naturis rerum''

Besides

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

, Neckam was interested in the study of

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

and natural history, but his name is chiefly associated with nautical science. In his ''De utensilibus'' and ''De naturis rerum'' (both written at about 1190), Neckam has preserved to us the earliest European notices of the magnetized needle as a guide to seamen and the earliest European description of the

compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself wit ...

. Outside China, these seem to be the earliest records. It was probably in Paris that Neckam heard how a ship, among its other stores, must have a magnetised needle, mounted on a pivot, which would rotate until it pointed north and thus guide sailors in murky weather or on starless nights. Neckam does not seem to think of this as a startling novelty: he merely records what had apparently become the regular practice of many seamen of the Catholic world. This has an extended footnote listing several sources. However, ''De naturis rerum'' itself was written as a preface to Neckam's commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, itself a part of a wider programme of biblical commentary encompassing the Song of Solomon and the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, representing the three branches of

wisdom literature Wisdom literature is a genre of literature common in the ancient Near East. It consists of statements by sages and the wise that offer teachings about divinity and virtue. Although this genre uses techniques of traditional oral storytelling, it w ...

. It was not intended as an independent and free-standing encyclopedic work in its own right, and indeed it is mostly filled with fanciful moralising allegories rather than a detailed natural philosophy. See Thomas Wright's edition of Neckam's ''De naturis rerum'' and ''De laudibus divinae sapientiae'' in the

Rolls Series ''The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages'' ( la, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores), widely known as the is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources publish ...

(1863), and of the ''De utensilibus'' in his ''Volume of Vocabularies''. Out of all Neckam's writings on natural history, the ''De naturis rerum'', a sort of manual of the scientific knowledge of the 12th century, is by far the most important: the magnet passage referred to above is in Book 2, Chapter 98 (''De vi attractiva''), p. 183 of Wright's edition. The corresponding section in the ''De utensilibus'' is on p. 114 of the ''Volume of Vocabularies''.

Other works

Neckam also displays a keen interest in contemporary medical science. In particular he draws many ideas from the philosophical writings of the Salernitan medical master Urso of Calabria, particularly ''De commixtionibus elementorum'' on humoral theory. Neckam also wrote ''Corrogationes Promethei'', a scriptural commentary prefaced by a treatise on grammatical criticism; a translation of

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales c ...

into Latin

elegiac The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in ...

s (six

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse (poetry), verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphized, and that illustrat ...

s from this version, as given in a Paris manuscript, are printed in Robert's ''Fables inedites''); commentaries, on portions of Aristotle and

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

'', which remain unprinted, and on

Martianus Capella Martianus Minneus Felix Capella (fl. c. 410–420) was a jurist, polymath and Latin prose writer of late antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education. He was a nati ...

, which has recently received an edition, and on other works. His version of Aesop's fables in elegiac verse, called ''Novus Aesopus'', is a collection of 42 fables taken from the prose ''Romulus''. He also composed a shorter ''Novus Avianus'', taken from

Avianus Avianus (or possibly Avienus;Alan Cameron, "Avienus or Avienius?", ''ZPE'' 108 (1995), p. 260 c. AD 400) a Latin writer of fables,"Avianus" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 5. identified as a pagan. The ...

. A supplementary poem to ''De laudibus divinae sapientiae'', called simply the ''Suppletio defectuum'', covers further material on animals and the natural world, as well as cosmology, free will, astrology and the human soul. An edition of this and several of Neckam's minor poems, edited by P. Hochgurtel, was published as a part of the Brepols Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis series in 2008. It has been speculated (Spargo, ''Virgil the Necromancer'', 1934) that Neckam might also have been unwittingly responsible for starting the late medieval legends about

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's alleged magical powers. In commenting on Virgil, Neckam used the phrase "Vergilius fecit Culicem" to describe the writing of one of Virgil's earlier poems, ''

Culex ''Culex'' is a genus of mosquitoes, several species of which serve as vectors of one or more important diseases of birds, humans, and other animals. The diseases they vector include arbovirus infections such as West Nile virus, Japanese encep ...

'' ("The Gnat"). This may have been misinterpreted by later readers as "Virgil made a gnat" and formed the basis for the legend of Virgil's magic fly which killed all other flies it came across and thus preserved civic hygiene.

Selected publications

* * *

Notes

References

External links

ARLIMA biography and bibliography
(newadvent.org) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Neckam, Alexander Augustinian canons 1157 births 1217 deaths 12th-century English writers 12th-century Latin writers 13th-century English writers 13th-century Latin writers English Christian theologians Medieval Latin poets Magneticians People from St Albans People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire Canonical Augustinian scholars Canonical Augustinian theologians Canonical Augustinian abbots and priors