Medieval lore : an epitome of the science, geography, animal and plant folk-lore and myth of the middle age : being classified gleanings from the encyclopedia of Bartholomew Anglicus On the properties of things / edited by Robert Steele ; with a preface by William Morris.

  • Bartholomaeus, Anglicus, active 13th century.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medieval lore : an epitome of the science, geography, animal and plant folk-lore and myth of the middle age : being classified gleanings from the encyclopedia of Bartholomew Anglicus On the properties of things / edited by Robert Steele ; with a preface by William Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Of T HUNDER, Cap. xiij. Cap. XV. Of those THINGS THAT ARE REOUIRED TO THE PeR- FECTION OF Nature, Lib. IIL, Cap. xxij. Of impressions that are gendered in the air of double vapour, the first is thunder, the which impression is gendered in watery substance of a cloud. For moving and shaking hither and thither of hot vapour and dry, that fleeth its contrary, is beset and constrained in every side, and smit into itself, and is thereby set on fire and on flame, and quencheth itself at last in the cloud, as Aristotle saith. When a storm of full strong winds cometh in to the clouds, and the whirling wind and the storm increaseth, and seeketh out passage: it cleaveth and breaketh the cloud, and falleth out with a great rese and strong, and ali to breaketh the parts of the cloud, and so it cometh to the ears of men and of beasts with horrible and dreadful breaking and noise. And that is no wonder : for though a bladder be light, yet it maketh great noise and sound, if it be strongly blown, and afterward violently broken. And with the thunder cometh lightning, but lightning is sooner seen, for it is ciear and bright ; and thunder cometh later to our ears, for the wit of sight is more subtle than the wit of hearing. As a man seeth sooner the stroke of a man that heweth a tree, than he heareth the noise of the stroke. The lightning which is called Clarum is of a wonder- ful kind, for it catcheth and draweth up wine out of the tuns, and toucheth not the vessel, and melteth gold and silver in purses, and melteth not the purse. As wits and virtues are needed to the ruling of kind, so to the perfection thereof needeth needly some spirits, by whose benefit and continual moving, both wits and virtues in beasts are ruled to work and do their deeds. As we speak here of a spirit, a spirit is called a certain substance, subtle and airy, that stirreth and exciteth the virtues of the body to their doings and works. A spirit is a subtle body, by the strength of heat gendered, and in man’s body giving life by the veins of the body, and