A Wonder in an Age of Theology
It is a great wonder that in an age so absorbed in theology and old learning two of the most eminent figures of science, Copernicus and Vesalius, should have appeared, and a still greater one that the books containing the essence of their thought and lives should both have been published in one "miraculous year," 1543. Some conditions did encourage the growth of science. The discovery of America, researches in Asia, the needs of industry and the spread of trade turned knowledge against old beliefs and drove it toward new thoughts. Translations of Greek and Arabic books, the printing of Apollonius of Perga's Conics (1537), and the Greek text of Archimedes' writings (1544) stirred mathematics and physics. On the other hand, many of the researchers and explorers were liars or careless; the printing press issued more nonsense than works of science and learning; and scientific instruments, though of great variety, were almost all primitive. The microscope, telescope, thermometer, barometer, micrometer and micro-chronometer were still waiting for the future to come into the world. The Renaissance, in love with literature and architecture, politely interested in philosophy, was almost indifferent to science.
Popes and Reformers
The popes of the Renaissance were not hostile to science. Leo X and Clement VII listened with open mind to the Copernican teaching, and Paul III, without trembling, accepted the dedication of Copernicus's world-shaking work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. But the religious reaction under Pope Paul IV, the establishment of the Inquisition in Italy, and the decisive decrees of the Council of Trent made scientific research gradually harder and more dangerous after 1555.
Protestantism could not support science, since it was itself founded on the infallible word of Scripture. Luther rejected Copernicus's astronomy, since, as the Bible says, Joshua commanded the sun, not the earth, to stand still. Melanchthon leaned toward science: he studied mathematics, physics, astronomy and medicine, and spoke on the history of ancient mathematics; but his broad mind was squeezed under the domination of his master's nature and into the narrow mold of Lutheran doctrine. Calvin had little to do with science, and Knox none.
The Hold of the Occult
The drowsy influence of the occult sciences continued its obscure sway, and at times, as with Cardan and Paracelsus, threatened the mental health of future scholars. The magical learning of Thoth from Egypt, the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysteries from Greece and the secrets of the Kabbalah from Judaism bewildered and dazed thousands of inquiring minds. Legends and miracles damaged the historian; travelers brought back accounts of dragons breathing flame from their mouths and ascetics who made a rope stand upright and climbed it to heaven. Almost every unusual event in public or private life was interpreted as the design of God or the devil, whether for warning or salvation, or to deceive and ruin mankind. Many believed that comets and meteors were flames of God's wrath. Cheap publications entered the house of every literate person and gave readers the hope that base metals could be turned into pure gold; and according to a report of the time, "all the tailors, shoemakers, servants and maids who hear or read about these matters gather up all their pennies to give to ... the swindlers and wanderers who have a hand in such arts." In a trial in England in 1549, a swindler named William Wycherley (the name is garbled in the source) declared that five hundred others of his kind lived on that island.
Wandering students in Germany sold amulets and talismans against the harm of sorcerers and spirits; the belief in carrying charms to turn aside enemy bullets was common among soldiers. The Mass in church was often used as a charm to bring down rain, or make the sun shine, or win a war. Prayer for rain was very common and sometimes too successful, in which case the church bells were rung to let heaven know it must hold its hand. In the years 1526 to 1531 the monks of Troyes formally excommunicated the caterpillars that were plaguing their crops, but added that this ban covered only the worms of fields whose peasants had paid their tithe to the church.
Perhaps more events were ascribed to the devil than to God. In 1563 a Protestant writer complained: "Hardly a year passes without the terrifying report spreading from many principalities, cities and towns that the lord of hell has taken bodily shape in a man in some shameful and horrible way, or has appeared to people in other forms, and has tried to put out the new, brilliant light of the holy Gospel." Luther, by ascribing many illnesses to the entry of demons into the human body (which, after all, is not wholly unlike our modern scientific theory), followed popular belief. Many thought that the evil eye or the influence of magical means caused illness, and therefore sought the only cure in magical potions, which again is not very far from our modern practice. Most medicines were prescribed according to the position of the planets, and therefore medical students studied astrology as well.
Astrology
Astrology, claiming to rest on a law governing the universe and to deal mostly with experience, took its place beside science. Although belief that the motions and positions of the stars determine human destiny was not as general as in earlier ages, in the sixteenth century 30,000 astrologers were to be found in Paris (the book's figure), all ready to cast a horoscope for a coin. Almanacs containing astrological predictions were the best sellers; and Rabelais, in the chapter of "Pantagruelian predictions," with the creation of Master Alcofribas, satirized them all. Luther and the Sorbonne agreed with him on this point, and counted astrology invalid in every form.
The Church officially expressed its disgust at such predictions, because they implied determinism and made the Church subject to the position of the stars; yet Paul III, one of the greatest minds of that age, according to one of the papal court's ambassadors, "neither convened a major council nor set out on a journey without observing the constellations and choosing a lucky day." Francis I, Catherine de Medici, Charles IX, Julius II, Leo X and Adrian VI consulted astrologers. Melanchthon changed the date of Luther's birth to give him a more auspicious horoscope, and asked him not to travel at the start of a new moon.
Nostradamus
One astrologer of that period is still famous. Nostradamus, or in French Michel de Notredame, claimed to be a physician and astronomer; as a semi-official astrologer he won the favor of Catherine de Medici, who built him an observatory at Les Halles. In 1564 Nostradamus predicted a ninety-year life for Charles IX, who ten years later died at twenty-four. After his own death (1566) he left a book of prophecies so skillfully wrapped in ambiguity that every line could be fitted to almost any event of future history.
The Fear of Witchcraft
Because sixteenth-century Christians believed in the possibility of supernatural powers passing from devils to men, and because the fear of devils had been bred into their very constitution, everyone felt it a duty to put witches to death. Luther and Calvin supported Pope Innocent VIII's decision to pursue and kill witches. Luther said he had no pity for that class of people. According to the book, fourteen of them were executed at Wittenberg on 29 June 1540, and thirty-four more suffered the same fate at Geneva in 1545. The Reformers of course had Scriptural warrant for such acts, as the Protestants' strict obedience to the letter of the Bible made it necessary to apply Exodus 22:18. The Catholic practice of exorcism itself helped spread belief in sorcery and in the possibility of a devil entering a human body. Luther claimed that Johann Eck, his adversary at Leipzig, had signed a pact with the devil, and Johannes Cochlaeus answered in kind with equally abusive claims about Luther. Accusation of witchcraft was sometimes an effective way to be rid of one's personal enemies. The accused had either to endure a long period of pressure to confess, or to perish after confessing; and in the sixteenth century there was in Europe an organization equipped for such coercion, with a ruthless severity unknown even among peoples without religion (the book's wording). It appears that many victims confessed to guilt, the guilt of dealing with devils. Some of the accused took their own lives; one French judge recorded fifteen such deaths in a single year. Civil judges often outran the clergy in pursuing such accusations. The laws of Henry VIII (1541) made several kinds of acts attributed to witchcraft punishable by death; but the Spanish Inquisition treated rumors and confessions of witchcraft as the vain fancies of weak minds, and advised its agents (1538) to disregard the popular insistence on burning witches. Few voices rose to defend witches, as few did to defend heretics; and heretics themselves believed in witches.
But in 1563 Johann Weyer, a physician of Cleves, published a treatise, On the Deceptions of Demons, which timidly dared to argue for some relief from the madness of witch-hunting. He did not doubt the existence of devils, but said that witches were innocent victims of devils who entered their bodies and that it was by the devil's deception that they came to believe the nonsense they invented. In his view women were physically and mentally sick, particularly those over whom the devil easily gained control. Weyer concluded that witchcraft is not a crime but a kind of illness, and appealed to the rulers of Europe to stop the execution of these poor women. A few years later Weyer returned to the spirit of his age by writing a book describing the details of hell, its administrators, organization and activities.