Beauvais, Vincent

Aiken, Pauline. Vincent of Beauvais and Chaucer s knowledge of alchemy. 

Berthelot, op. cit., p. 304. Vincent de Beauvais, Lib. VIII, cliap. XIII, gives as the seven tests for gold solution, the touchstone, density, taste, the action of fire, fusion, sublimation. 

This encyclopedia, appearing apparently a little before the more comprehensive works of Vincent of Beauvais and Albertus Magnus, evidently had much influence in its time. 

See also the chapter on Vincent of Beauvais in Professor Thorndike s Bistory of Magic and Experimental Science. 

Cf. extracts from Djaber s Book of Mercy, ante, pp. 178-180. Vincent de Beauvais, VIII, 00. 

The Doctrine of Alchemy and all authors cited by Vincent of Beauvais revolve in the same circle of doctrines and facts nearly as do modern scientific writers of any particular epoch. 47... 

Though there is no evidence that Albertus had any practical experience in subjects relating to chemistry, other than was acquired by a scholar who had traveled and talked with men who had some technical experience, yet he was a student of literary records and his writings in so far as they include related topics are valuable in the same way, if not to the same extent, as the encyclopedia of Vincent of Beauvais. As an earnest and sympathetic student of Aristotle, in his general views of the nature and changes... 

As to the body of this brief treatise, it is so conventional a repetition of Arabian chemistry and so similar in style to a great number of fourteenth century alchemical works published under the pseudonyms of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Hermes, etc., that there can not be a reasonable doubt of its fraudulent authorship— even if it did not contain as already noted references to writers of later date and refer to substances as sal-petrae not known to Albertus or to his contemporary, Vincent of Beauvais. 

This significance of Electrum is also met in Vincent of Beauvais, VIII, 36, ( hoc aurichalcum frequentis scripturae vocatur electrum ). 

In the thirteenth century, alchemical and scientific theories learned from the Arabs were incorporated into the encyclopaedias written by men such as Vincent of Beauvais (1190-c. 1264) and Albertus Magnus (1193-1280). These writers accepted the Aristotelian elements and the sulphur-mercury theory of the Arabs. They believed that transmutation was a possibility, but that it was very difficult to achieve. Albertus Magnus clearly doubted that a successful transmutation had ever been performed. These books acted as the starting point for many later European alchemists. 

Sulfuric acid was called "oil of vitriol" by medieval European alchemists. There are mentions to it in the works of Vincent of Beauvais and in the Compositum de Compositis ascribed to Albertus Magnus. A passage from Pseudo-Geber s Summa Perfectionis was long considered to be the first recipe for sulphuric acid, but this was a misinterpretation. 

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