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Medieval cademy of merica

An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft by Anneliese MaierReview by: Stuart MacClintockSpeculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Jul., 1958), pp. 423-425Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2851476 .Accessed: 03/03/2014 03:48

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Reviews 423

more; t meant that payment by transfer n bank was final nd completely is-charged he debtor, ven if the bank failed before he creditor ad collected heamount written o his credit.

Money-changers, n eleventh-century enoa, did not belong to the leadingfamilies nd their ctivities emained ocal, although hey occasionally nvestedmoney n overseas ventures. After 200 it becomes much harder o distinguishmoney-changer rom merchant-banker. s yet there was little specializationand diversification as the rule. However, he term banker was still restrictedto licencedmoney-changers ho ran a bank or mensa nummularia. Merchantswho did not head such an establishment ere not called bankers, notwithstand-ing the fact that they might eal extensively n exchange, eal and fictitious, ndextend credit by means of instrumenta x causa cambii, r bills of exchange nnotarial form. he Genoese bankers n the thirteenth entury reatly xpandedthe scopeof their businessby entering he same field f foreign anking nd byincreasing heir nvestments n overseas nd overland rade. They also developedtheir nterest n minting, ither s mintmasters r as dealers in bullion whichtheir gents went o fetch n Tunisia or Morocco. nstead ofbeingnative Genoese,the leading bankers round 1250 were Placentines, uch as GregorioNegrobonoand GuglielmoLeccacorvo,who went bankrupt n 1256 and 1259, respectively.

The war between Genoa and Emperor Frederick I (1238-1250) and thecrusade of Saint Louis (1248-19252) reatly timulated hip building, ndustry,and credit xpansion. Unfortunately, he boom was followed y a severe slumpand a period of contraction layed havoc among the Genoese banks. Amongothers, he Leccacorvobank was forced o suspend payments, robably becauseof a run. Its financial ondition was not. unsound, since creditors ventuallycollected 8s. n the ? or ninety er cent of their laims. t could have been worse.

More than one hundred documents, ll notarial contracts, re published assupporting vidence.As usual, Professor opez has done an amazing ob in piec-ing together mall bits of information. erhaps he has left out one or two smallpoints, but the essential ob is done and well done.

RAYMONDDE ROOVERBoston College

ANNELIESE MAIER, An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft. econd edition. Rome:Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 952. Paper. Pp. 388.

A review t this date of a book published riginally n 1943, and in a secondedi-tion no more recently han 1952, may be justified f the volume at hand is im-portant. That happens to be the case here. Half a century go Pierre Duhempioneered n the study of late mediaeval physics, inding here nticipations fseveral of the fundamental oncepts ong thought o have been the special con-tributions f modern lassical mechanics.WhileDuhem's workhas been qualified,supplemented, nd corrected n various ways by M. Clagett, E. A. Moody, E. J.Dijsterhuis, H. L. Crosby, C. Wilson, nd a few thers, y far he most extensiveand significant dditions have been made by Dr Anneliese Maier. In her ZweiGrundprobleme er scholastischen aturphilosophie, er Die Vorldufer alileis m

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424 Reviews

14. Jahrhundert, hehas reported roadcast etmeticulous xamination f theenormous ulk of manuscript aterial ontaining ourteenth- nd fifteenth-century iscussionsf crucial roblems f physics.

In the present olume hree ssues rominentn the ate mediaeval iteratureonphysics re xplored yDr Maier:1) the onstitution f ompoundubstances,2)thedynamics ffreely-fallingodies, nd 3) themathematicalnalysis f lter-ations n qualitative ntensity. everal raditions f exposition nd solution reset out n great etail,with opious itations rom he ources. r Maiermakesclear hat hese hree iscussions reparts f single omplex f rgument hich,becoming used n the fourteenth entury t the hands f Dumbleton, eytes-bury, wineshead,ndOresme, ulminatesuccessfullyn clear-cut nderstand-ing nd proof f the fundamental awrelating cceleration otime n the ase offreely-fallingodies. Stated hen s onefourth f he distance eing raversednthe first alf f the time, nd the remaining hree uarters n the econd alf.)

Some ummary ight e madeof speciallymportant oints resent oth x-plicitly nd implicitlyn Dr Maier's book:

1. Theenunciation f he orrect awgoverninghe ccelerationffreely-fallingodieshas often een aken s the ndex f Galileo's reaking ith he retrograde ristotelianismof degenerate cholastic ualitative hysics. ctually, s seems vident n the materialset out here, nd as Ernest Moodyhas pointed ut Galileo nd Avempace, ournalof he istory f deas, iI [19511,63-193, 75-422), his ourteenth-centuryre-discoveryis madewithin hecontext f n attempt o saveAristotle, o make he very estofhisPhysics. ut the matter syet more omplicated,or he ntire iscussion oes, n a verydefinite ay, epresent breakwithAristotle. ith Aristotle imself, owever,nd notAristotelianismf the fourteenth entury. or in Aristotle he possibility f dealingquantitatively ith ualitative hange eednot arise t all. Fundamental n the Stag..irite's niverse s motion r process, hich nvolves,oosely, ontinuous assagefromstates f ncompletenessostates f completeness,rom ndeterminacyodeterminacy.The statement f the particular ondition r degree f determinacy hich an arrestprocess uring hehistory f ts developments madeby specifyingorm nd matter, nwhich pecification substance r entity ecomes dentified. ut the form-matternalysisis not usefulwhen t comes o giving n account f he continuing ehavior f a motionor process.

Such rendering f Aristotle side,however, here s little oubt hat ate mediaevalsdid consider uch nalysis o be useful, nd ndeed ecessary. ndthus wehavethe ex-tended rguments et forth y Dr Maier on what happens othe forms f the com-ponent lements hen ompound ubstances re synthesized, n what happens o theform-matter elationship hen he qualities f substances ecomemore ntense r moreremiss questions hat do not arise for Aristotle, orwhom he form-matter cheme salways elative o a particular rrestedmoment uring hehistory f a motion), nd soon. n such modificationf the original ense f Aristotle, t became ossible othinkseriouslyf mployinguantitative ategorieso dealwith ualitative hange. ndwithinthis onception,nce he further uggestiononeof everal, s Dr Maiermakes lear) smade hat ualitative lteration anberegarded s involving he ddition r subtractionof measurablencrements f the quality, t then becamemeaningfulothink f dealingwith hangemathematically. nd hus, n the particular ase of change hat s free all,the physicists f he fourteenth entury ere edto the orrect awof cceleration.

2. It is essential o remember hat his iscovery smade n a philosophicaltmosphereempty f ny feeling f he mportance f xperimentalesting r verification. hisresultjust happened o appear n the nalysis f n abstract mathematicalssue rising ut of









Reviews 425

Aristotle's hysics, nd little or nothing esembling n understanding f the value of em-pirical onfirmation s evident n these ogicians nd natural philosophers.

3. Finally, countless attempts to apply quantitative analysis to cases of qualitativealteration an be found hroughout he iterature f the fourteenth nd fifteenth enturies(medicaland elsewhere), ut nowhere s the outcome o spectacular s in the case of ocalmotion. The submergence f one solution n many fantastic ailuresmay well contributeto Galileo's originality.

The text here under review was first published at Essen in 1943, but that edi-tion was largely destroyed during the war. The edition of Rome, 1952, adds somemore manuscript information in the notes, replies incidentally to some adver-saries, and makes available again some of the important fruits of Dr Maier's re-search.

STUART MACCLINTOCKIndiana

UniversityMisceldneade estudios rabesy hebraicos. upplement to Boletinde la Universidad e Granada, v

(1955).Paper. Pp. 9270.

THISvolume, dited by Luis Seco de Lucena Paredes and David GonzaloMaeso,consists of two nearly equal parts: Islam y arabismo 125 pages) and Filologiahebraica, iblia, udaismo (144 pages).

Part I contains three valuable contributions o our knowledge f the historyof the Muslims n Spain, and particularly n the Granada region: Luis Seco deLucena Paredes, Embajadores granadinos n el Cairo, and Nuevas notas detoponimia rabigogranadina ; Darlo Cabanelas, O.F.M., Federico I de Siciliae Ibn Sabin de Murcia (1216-1270):las 'Cuestiones Sicilianas'; J. de M. Car-riazo, Los moros de Granada en las actas del Concejo de Jaen de 1479. Thetext s important or he knowledge t givesof the relations etween los moros ylos cristianos hirteen ears before he capitulation of Granada on 2 January1492.

In Part II David Gonzalo Maeso deals with Los acentos hebreobiblicos elarte de la lectura, and writes with sympathy nd at some length concerningAlonsode Madrigal (Tostado) y su labor escrituaria recordatorio loa en el V

centenario e su muerte). This worthy ishop of Avila, born about 1400, eftveritable cean of wordsboth n Latin (of whichhe was a master) and in Castil-ian, without real, concrete meaning: en todo momento estaba dispuesto arazonar y discutir de omni re scibili. He was present t the council of Basel,which asted from July 1431till May 1443,and died at the age of fifty-five. c-cording o an epitaph, escriviopara cada dia tres pliegosde los dias quo bivio,much in the same way as the Andalusian philosopher bn IHazm(1094-1164).

Jeronimo ubio writes n Antonio Enriquez Gomez,el poeta judaizante, amarrano orn n Segoviaabout 1600-1602,who emigrated o Holland where hedied after 660,having returned oJudaism.

The closing article, by David Gonzalo Maeso, is devoted to El lenguajefigurado n el libro de Isalas.

A. R. NYKLEvanston, llinois







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