The pursuit of the elixir was one of two main tracks pursued by medieval alchemists, second in popularity to the transmutation of metals. Chrysopoeia and argyropoeia (transmutation of base metals into gold or silver, respectively) were the subjects of most medieval alchemical texts. The term elixir is derived from the Arabic al-iksīr, itself a translation of Greek xērion, a term used to describe the agent that transforms one substance into another.1 Initially in Arabic alchemy the term “elixir” had nothing to do with healing human bodies, but rather with perfecting metals. Metals were understood to exist in a hierarchy, with gold at the top, followed by silver.2 Medieval people generally differentiated metals phenotypically, that is, based on their appearance and observable characteristics, but medieval scholars also understood metals to have different elemental compositions related to primary qualities. Aristotle described four primary qualities (hot, dry, wet, cold) from whose interactions were made the four elements (fire, earth, air, water), which in turn, according to philosophers and physicians of antiquity, combined to make up the four humors. Hence, an al-iksīr perfected a metal by purifying it of its base qualities, but also by changing its primary qualities.3 For instance, tin is primarily dry, but gold is hot and silver is cold. An elixir can change those qualities. A medical elixir worked according to the same logic. It both purified the body and balanced or redistributed the body’s humoral qualities into a better arrangement.
While Western, Christian alchemists drew on the general idea of the elixir, they elaborated on its powers and production in ways not anticipated by their Islamic forebears. They seized particularly on the power of the elixir to heal and augment the human body. The justification for the potency of the elixir came from many sources, and the three elixirs presented in this chapter have very different alchemical and medicinal genealogies. Indeed, “elixir” was not a standard term for alchemical medicinals in the medieval period. Rather, authors named compounds “inestimable glory,” “burning water,” and “quintessence.” Still, the logic of purification and balancing or transforming humors was characteristic of these substances. Therefore, “elixir,” as I am using it, is simply a taxonomic term to denote an alchemical compound that has salubrious effects on the human body. That said, the terms used by the authors are important, and will be discussed in due course.
Knowledge about the elixir, and alchemy in general, emerged sporadically throughout the twelfth century. The first complete alchemical text to be translated from Arabic into Latin was likely the Morienus, completed by Robert of Ketton in 1144.4 Its preface states that it includes knowledge on alchemy “our Latinity does not yet hardly comprehend.” Evidence of the unfamiliarity of Latin authors with this new science comes from the occasional use of Western vernaculars as “intermediary” languages. Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek texts often found their way into local dialect prior to being translated into Latin.5 Rather than diffusing alchemy into vernacular culture, these intermediary translations were a means of coping with what must have seemed entirely new concepts.
As important as the translation of Arabic alchemical texts was the translation of the Aristotelian corpus, by which I mean of course not only the works of Aristotle, but works ascribed to him and commentaries on all these. One of the key texts was the Meteorologica. Gerard of Cremona had translated its first three books early in the twelfth century, and Henricus Aristippus the fourth in 1156. But the work did not take its full shape in the Latin West until after 1200, when Alfred of Sarashel added to the manuscript a copy of Avicenna’s De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum (On the congealing and joining of stones), a part of his Book of Remedy.6 What was probably the first original Latin treatise on alchemy, the 1257 Book on the Secrets of Alchemy of Constantine of Pisa, relied heavily on the fourth book of the Meteorologica, which included Aristotle’s theory of metals.7 Likewise Paul of Taranto, a Franciscan lector, authored early alchemical treatises that lean on Aristotle and his commenters.8 Paul (under his own name as well as that of “Geber”) also transmitted a theory on the generation of metals that linked them to the heavens. Contemporary astrological theory held that terrestrial objects were governed by heavenly bodies for which they had an affinity. For metals, the sun was related to gold, the moon to silver, and, predictably, Mercury to mercury. The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy includes this idea, but also holds that the celestial bodies were the origin of these metals.9 The idea was that heavenly rays penetrated the earth and congealed within it as metals, helping to explain the affinity between celestial and terrestrial.10 The celestial-terrestrial relationship would prove fertile ground for future alchemical speculation.
Roger Bacon and Inestimable Glory
In 1268, Bacon completed his Opus tertium (The Third Work), as part of a hastily written collection of texts that responded to a 1266 command of Pope Clement IV. The Opus tertium was a recension of the Opus minus (The Lesser Work), itself a recension of the Opus maius, a hastily written but voluminous tome he had sent to the pope probably in 1267. In this third work, Bacon writes that, for fear of alchemical secrets falling into the wrong hands, he has consigned some of the most vital secrets to his aide, John, from whom the pope can have this knowledge transcribed.11 He also says that in addition to what John can convey verbally, there are two other sections Bacon had written obscurely, one in code (enigmatas) and the other in philosophical language so that a reader would assume Bacon was discussing medicine or natural philosophy rather than alchemy.12
We should not take this to mean that Bacon is short on detail or secretly skeptical about alchemy. In the short period since he had written the Opus maius after promising the pope he had already completed it, Bacon seemed more sanguine about alchemy, a notion bolstered by his later writings.13 In fact, he had taken a cautionary tone regarding alchemy in his Opus maius. Speaking about the medicinal use of alchemical gold, a substance Constantine of Pisa believed might be capable of halting the spread of leprosy, Bacon opined that the gold produced by alchemists was not of a particularly high grade.14 Interestingly, however, he said the same thing about gold found in nature, allowing that certain scientific arts might allow for the production of an even higher grade of gold. No doubt one of the reasons Bacon felt the need to create the Opus minus and Opus tertium was his evolving notion of alchemy.
In the Opus maius, Bacon had yet to align the practice of alchemy with what he called scientia experimentalis, troublingly translated with the cognate experimental science. By the time he wrote the Opus tertium, however, Bacon had divided the practice of alchemy into what he called “speculative” and “operative” alchemy. Operative alchemy was practiced, but not (fully) theorized. Operative alchemists could be skilled practitioners, but they did not comprehend the primary goal (finem principalem) of alchemy.15 Speculative alchemists, of whom Bacon said there were but a handful, understood the uses to which alchemy could be put in regard both to inanimate matter, such as metals, dyes, and tinctures, but also to animate or living matter. Living matter, chiefly the human body, was the province of the speculative alchemist.16
Living matter corresponded to inanimate matter, but was more complex.17 Like other Aristotelians, Bacon understood the four basic elements as arising from the four primary qualities (cold, dry, hot, wet).18 From the elements come the simple humors, which correspond to the standard humoral model: phlegm, choler, melancholy, and blood. The simple humors have “conjoined natures” (conjungentes naturae) of the elements, that is, one element and its particular qualities (cold and dry, hot and dry, cold and wet, and cold and dry) dominate.19 These humors, however, are not the same as bodily humors. The bodily humors are themselves a combination of simple humors. Each is dominated by one of the simple humors. So, bodily phlegm is a secondary humor, made up of four primary or simple humors, with primary phlegm dominant. Bacon’s system, then, makes animate bodies more complex expressions of humoral interaction than those found in inanimate bodies.20 To make true blood, one had to purify bodily blood of