Of all the technological dreamers of the Middle Ages, none dreamed more prophetically than the thirteenth century Franciscan scholar Roger Bacon. In a letter addressed to one of his pupils, Bacon enumerated certain « marvels » wrought through the agency of « art using nature as an instrument ». His aim was to show that technology was superior to magic, yet his famous list resembled the dreams of the magus:
« It is possible that great ships and sea-going vessels shall be made which can be guided by one man and will move with greater swiftness than if they were full of oarsmen. It is possible that a car shall be made which will move with inestimable speed, and the motion will be without the help of any living creature.
It is possible that a device for flying shall be made such that a man sitting in the middle of it shall cause artificial wings to beat the air after the manner of a bird’s flight. Similarly it is possible to construct a small-sized instrument for elevating and depressing great weights. It is possible also to easily make an instrument by which a single man may violently pull a thousand men toward himself in spite of opposition, or other things which are tractable. It is possible also that devices can be made whereby, without bodily danger, a man may walk on the bottom of the sea or of a river. Indefinite other such things can be made, as bridges over rivers without columns or supports, and machines, and unheard-of enqines »[[Roger Bacon, Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis de secretis operibus artis et naturae, et de nullitate magiae, ed. J. S. Brewer, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, vol. I (London, 1859),523. ]].
No medieval writer was so unambiguous in insisting that technology and magic were distinct activities. Nevertheless, it was on the basis of these and other « marvels » attributed to Bacon that he gained a notorious reputation as a powerful magician[[See, for example, « The honorable history of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay », in The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene, ed. J. Churton Collins, vol. II (Oxford, 1935), 17-18. In addition, see A. G. Molland, « Roger Bacon as a Magician », Traditio, 30 (1974), 445-60. ]].
Is it any wonder, then, that medieval people, so thoroughly imbued with magic, were yet so innovative in their exploration of technology? Is it surprising that some of the most inventive technicians of the Middle Ages actually considered themselves magicians?[[For examples, see William Eamon, « Technology as Magic in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance », Janus, 70 (1983), 171-212. ]]. I am referring to men like Conrad Kyeser of Eichstatt, an eccentric military engineer who designed, among other things, a
multiple-firing cannon. In his engineering treatise, Bellifortis (dated 1405), Kyeser declared that the artes theurgices, or magical arts, were a branch of the mechanical arts, and he ranked them just below the military arts[[Conrad Kyeser, Bellifortis, ed, G. Quarg, 2 vols. (Dusseldorf, 1967). ]]. The subjects treated in his work reflect this attitude, for the Bellifortis is saturated with astrology and magic, and his treatment of machines often borders on the fantastic. Yet Kyeser was by no means untypical of medieval engineers, who often cultivated, rather than shunned, reputations as sorcerers[[See, for example, Christian Heulsen, « Der ‘Liber instrumentorum’ des Giovanni Fontana », Festgabe Hugo Blumner (Zurich, 1914), 507-15. ]].
In a similar vein, the most popular magical treatise of the Renaissance the Natural Magick (1558) of Giambattista della Porta, was really a collection of technological recipes. As della Porta wrote, magic « is the practical part of natural philosophy » :
« The art of magic opens unto us the properties and qualities of hidden things, and the knowledge of the whole works of nature, … whereby we do strange works, such as the vulgar sort call miracles, and such as men can neither understand nor sufficiently admire »[[John Baptista Porta, Natural Magick, facs. ed. D. J. Price (New York, 1957), 2. ]].
Magic was conducive to medieval and Renaissance technology not because its methods were effective, but because, to paraphrase Malinowski again, it generated the hope of conquest of nature rather than fear of nature, a faith in progress rather than resignation, and a confidence that from knowledge comes power.
Not surprisingly, the Renaissance magus became a symbol for his age, for the magus represented a new attitude concerning the relation of man to the cosmos. No longer did he conceive of himself as a humble, passive agent at the mercy of his environment, but as a willful and proud operator on the universe.
Yet there is a darker side to this image, just as there is a darker side of the Renaissance itself. It is the part embodied in the terrifying myth of the tortured Dr. Faustus, whose thirst for power led him to penetrate the deepest recesses of the imagination. To Valdes and Cornelius, his magician accomplices, Faust confesses:
« Your words have won me at last
To practice magic and concealed arts ;
Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy,
That will receive no object for my head
But ruminates on necromantic skill.
Philosophy is odious and obscure ;
Both law and physick are for petty wits ;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile :
’Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me »
The tragedy of Faust was that his unquenchable thirst for knowledge and power led him into a pact with Satan, and his blatant disregard for the moral consequences of his deed consumed him.
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