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THE NEW MIDDLE AGES

Alchemy and
Exemplary
Poetry in Middle
English Literature
Curtis Runstedler
The New Middle Ages

Series Editor
Bonnie Wheeler
English and Medieval Studies
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX, USA
The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies
of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s
history and on feminist and gender analyses. This peer-reviewed series
includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.
 Curtis Runstedler

Alchemy and
Exemplary Poetry
in Middle English
Literature
Curtis Runstedler
University of Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany

ISSN 2945-5936     ISSN 2945-5944 (electronic)

The New Middle Ages
ISBN 978-3-031-26605-8    ISBN 978-3-031-26606-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26606-5

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For Poppa and my parents. Per ardua ad astra.
 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my parents for supporting me there and back again.
Mom, thanks for being you and loving and supporting everything I do,
even if it doesn’t make sense sometimes. Dad, my first hero, I really appre-
ciate all the tough love and thanks for always being there for me. You are
the best aviator I know and one of my greatest inspirations each day. I
would also like to thank Poppa, my other great hero, who is possibly the
wisest, most interesting, gifted storyteller I ever knew. One of my favorite
memories with him was at the Thanksgiving dinner table, hearing stories
about Prometheus getting his liver ripped out by the eagle, and I think he
really ignited my active imagination that night. He was a great person, and
his stories transcend time. I wish he was still here to see the final copy. This
one’s for you, Poppa. To my brothers, Ryan and Avery, you guys are
awesome!
Many thanks to Professor Elizabeth Archibald, who was not only an
amazing supervisor, grammarian, and medievalist, but also a wonderful
person. Thank you for being so supportive and thorough with my work
when I needed it most. I would also like to thank Professor Corinne
Saunders for such joyous meetings and feedback. From werewolves to
astronomy to alchemy, we had some good times.
I would also like to thank the good folks at St Chad’s College, the
Department of English, and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern
Studies at Durham University, as well as my friends and colleagues at
Tübingen University, University of Stuttgart, and beyond. I extend my
heartfelt gratitude to Matthias Bauer and Angelika Zirker at Tübingen

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

University for their enduring support and guidance, as well as Sibylle

Baumbach, Jessica Bundschuh, and Geoff Rodoreda at Stuttgart University
for their endless kindness and excellent leadership. Much love for the
Ambiguity research group, especially Asya Achimova, Selina Bernarding,
and Ellie Schedel. Also, special thanks to Allie Troyanos, VinodhKumar
Venkitesan, Chandralekha Mahamelraja, Brian Halm, Sylvia Anand, and
the peer reviewer for their understanding and much-appreciated comments.
Special thanks to Robert Pain, Ted Finnigan, Peter Stuurman, Arya
Aryan, Sercan Hamza Bağlama, Leo Kirchhoff, Sophie Franklin, Henrik
Rydéhn, Koren Kuntz, Frank McCarron, Hannah Piercy, Alexander
J. Wilson, James Harland, Harry Mawdsley, Sree Roy Chowdhury, Mike
Huxtable, Stephen Regan, Michael Snape, Siobhain Bly Calkin, Richard
Firth Green, Nick Barton, Mervyn Ellis, Bill Apedaile, Margaret Masson,
Chris Diming, Chris Eaket, Rebecca Merkelbach, Doug Leatherland,
Damon Lycourinos, Michael Baker, Jessica van’t Westeinde, Sotiris
Dandanas, the Hirte family, Clau Cruz, David Tibet, Dana Durkee, Bob
Yeager, Deborah Moore, Larry Principe, Eoin Bentick, Nicola Polloni,
Charlie Rozier, Stanton J. Linden, Siân Echard, Ronald Hutton, and
Laurens de Rooij. And lastly but certainly not least, my dear Annika!
Thanks for everything you do. May your many days be filled with glorious
transmutations and distillations!
 Praise for Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle
English Literature

“Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature is a daring book.

Focusing on the moral uses of alchemy as it appears in narratives of late four-
teenth- and fifteenth-century poets in England, Curtis Runstedler argues vigor-
ously that late medieval writers grasped the transformational power of alchemy and
alchemical practices to effect positive changes in the character and behavior of the
fictive practitioners they created, and through them of real-life readers as well. This
book uncovers surprising new ways to understand the work of Chaucer, Gower,
and Lydgate, as well as several anonymous romances—a true turning of the famil-
iar—but here-to-fore overlooked—into gold.”
—R. F. Yeager, Professor Emeritus, University of West Florida

“Curtis Runstedler casts a fascinating light on attitudes to alchemy in the Middle

Ages and its literary potential for moral instruction; he examines texts by well-
known writers such as Chaucer and Gower, but also little-known dialogues featur-
ing unexpected speakers such as Merlin and the Queen of Elves. Runstedler
succeeds in making this arcane subject accessible. His book will be useful not only
to medievalists, but also as a prequel to the increasing interest in alchemy in Early
Modern English literature.”
—Elizabeth Archibald, Professor Emerita, Durham University

“Good scholarly books are often characterised by mixing different ingredients in

new ways. This one pioneers the blending of three - the history of alchemy, medi-
eval English poetry, and medieval exemplary literature - and the result is a set of
valuable new insights.”
—Ronald Hutton, Professor, University of Bristol
 Contents

1 Alchemy and Exemplarity  1

Introduction   1
Reading Middle English Alchemical Poems as Exempla   4
The Medieval Exemplum and the History of the Exemplary
Narrative   7
Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry  13
References  18

2 A
 Brief History of Alchemy 21
Introduction  21
Alchemy in the Classical World  22
Medieval Alchemy in the Arabic World  24
Alchemy in Latin Christendom  27
Fourteenth-Century Alchemy and Poetry  39
Alchemical Poetry in Fifteenth-Century England  50
References  58

3 Alchemy
 and Labor in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis 65
Introduction  65
John Gower’s “New Exemplum” and Alchemy  68
Alchemy and Fraud in the Mirour De L’omme  70
Promethean Ambitions and Alchemy in the Confessio Amantis  72
References  85

xi
xii Contents

4 Alchemists
 Behaving Badly in Chaucer’s Canon’s
Yeoman’s Tale 89
Introduction  89
Reading Chaucer’s Alchemical Tale as Exemplary  92
Chaucer’s Canon and Yeoman  95
The Leaden Yeoman and the Hellish Laboratory 100
“Elvysshe” Alchemy and the Failure of Language 102
Pars Secunda as Exemplary 107
Alchemy Redeemed? Revisiting the Final Section of the
Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale  112
Alchemical Connections in Other Chaucer Tales 116
References 126

5 John
 Lydgate and the Alchemical Churl and the Bird131
Introduction 131
Lydgate and Alchemy: Secrees of Old Philisoffres  134
Lydgate and the Churl and the Bird  135
Harley MS 2407 and the Alchemical Churl and the Bird  143
References 156

6 Merlin
 and the Queen of Elves: Alchemical Dialogues
in the Fifteenth Century159
Introduction 159
Alchemical Morienus and Merlin in the Fifteenth Century 160
Albertus Magnus and the Secrets of the Elf Queen 175
Conclusion 182
References 188

7 Conclusion193
References 198

Index201
 CHAPTER 1

Alchemy and Exemplarity

Introduction
Medieval alchemy and the alchemist have long conjured exciting images of
smoky laboratories, magical secrets, and colorful transmutations.1 While
medieval alchemy is now regarded as a pseudo-science, or to a lesser extent
the foundation or prelude to chemistry, its concepts and themes have seen
a resurgence in literature within the last century, particular in recent liter-
ary and popular culture franchises such as Harry Potter and Game of
Thrones, for example. In J. K. Rowling’s wildly popular debut novel Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997), for instance, the nefarious
Voldemort and his accomplice Professor Quirrell actively seek out the
existing Philosopher’s Stone as a means of prolonging Voldemort’s life
and restoring his power (Rowling 2001, 213–6). Echoing the failings of
the medieval alchemists who also fail in their trade due to their shortcom-
ings and human fallibility, he cannot acquire what he seeks to acquire.
George R. R. Martin also includes alchemists in his A Song of Ice and
Fire series, although alchemy in these books features to a much-lesser
extent than in Harry Potter. In Martin’s medieval universe, the alchemists
practice both alchemy and pyromancy. They are part of an ancient guild,
in which the alchemical adepts are known as “wisdoms,” and their appren-
tices help them in their art. The queen mother of Westeros (Cersei
Lannister) also commissions the alchemists to produce significant

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
C. Runstedler, Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English
Literature, The New Middle Ages,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26606-5_1
2 C. RUNSTEDLER

quantities of wildfire in preparation for the Battle of King’s Landing in A

Clash of Kings (Martin 2003; see also Runstedler 2020, 129–43). Although
the alchemists claim that their alchemy and their wildfire work, there is no
evidence of any successful transmutation of the metals, and their influence
upon the Seven Kingdoms is dwindling. Cersei’s dwarf brother Tyrion is
suspicious of their talents, and Martin points out that even the most expe-
rienced members of the guild “no longer even pretended to transmute
metals” (Martin 2003, 701), suggesting a connection between deception
and alchemical practice. Alchemy continues to have a lasting power and
give an impression of the medieval world, or at least our imagined medi-
eval world. These alchemical narratives can also be read for the moral, and
moreover show the different ways in which alchemy can be used as a sym-
bol for human imperfection and fallibility, continuing the medieval theme
of the postlapsarian decline.
Alchemy is the study of the transmutation and formation of inanimate
objects, particularly metals (Read 1933, 251). The practice has two goals:
firstly, it aims to produce gold or silver from the transmutation of base
metals (this goal is most prominently discussed in the primary sources
examined in this study), and secondly, to create an elixir vitae that can
prolong the life of its user (Krebs 2003, 177). Gold was considered incor-
ruptible; it could not be destroyed in the fire, but could only be dissolved
in aqua regis (nitric and hydrochloric acid), and it was considered noble
because it did not rust (Bucklow 2009, 126, and Pearsall 1976, 11).
Medieval alchemists saw alchemy as a means of accelerating natural pro-
cesses rather than merely copying them (Karpenko 2003, 209–10). In
their search for the Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemists improved tools
and apparatus for experimentation, such as furnaces and stills, which con-
tributed to chemical experimentation in later centuries (Kieckhefer 2014,
134). The etymology of the term “alchemy” itself is subject to debate.2
The Philosopher’s Stone was a transmuting agent which could change
base metals into gold, and it was also a means of making the imperfect
perfect, which made it much sought after (Read 1936, 118). While such
an agent would be invaluable in late medieval England, however, there are
no confirmed medieval success stories of its discovery.
The medieval study of alchemy also relied on understanding matter and
form on a metaphysical level. Medieval alchemists believed that the goals
of alchemy could be achieved through the successful transmutation of dif-
ferent substances (specifically metals), which are comprised of matter and
form. Aristotelian metaphysics deals with primary substances, proposing
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 3

that all substances are comprised of matter and form. In his Metaphysics,
Aristotle argues that the natural world is the genesis of all living things,
and the cause of the primary elements (Aristotle 1995, 2:I.980a25.1–6).
These incorruptible substances could be created through the perfect bal-
ance of elements, based on Empedocles’s theory of the four elements (all
things are made of earth, air, fire, and water) (Read 1936, 9). Each of the
elements has four qualities, which are moist, dry, hot, and cold (Aristotle
1995, 1:IV.378b1.10–15). Aristotle describes the primum mobile, or
prime mover, as the first cause of being, causing form to be naturally
attracted to matter, so that they unite to create a substance. Similarly, a
body has the potential to become a living being, that is a composite of
matter (the body) and form (the soul). The body Is corporeal, yet it
requires a soul to activate its intellectual faculties. Both matter and form
have the potential to create substance, with the perfection of a substance
being its final cause (Aristotle 1995, 1:VII.1037a1.5–6). Moreover, the
alchemists believed that all things were composed of prime matter (prima
materia), which could be constituted into higher forms (Saunders 2010,
107). Aristotle also developed the concept hylomorphism, which recog-
nizes that “all things have shape and substance” (Bucklow 2009, 78–9).3
Citing these material principles concerning the unity between substances,
the alchemists believed that they could transmute base metals into gold
since the properties of the inferior metals could be altered. While these
alchemical principles had a practical dimension, especially in terms of met-
allurgy and laboratory experiments, medieval alchemy, particularly the
Mercury-Sulphur theory, was also deeply philosophical in its experimenta-
tion. These principles notably feature in Geoffrey Chaucer and John
Gower’s alchemical depictions in Chaps. 2 and 3, as well as fifteenth-­
century poems.
Alchemy can also serve metaphorical purposes in other seemingly unre-
lated disciplines, symbolizing the “perpetually abstruse processes of the
commercial economy” (Epstein 2014, 209). The modern phenomenon of
cryptocurrencies and their blockchain-based technology are arguably
modern equivalents to the ancient promise of making gold from base met-
als. The real-life case of OneCoin, for example, comprised of three scams
in one (a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme, and fake cryptocurrency), took
advantage of ignorance and credulity on an international scale (Bartlett
2022). OneCoin’s founder Ruja Ignatova, who called herself the
Cryptoqueen, persuaded investors to invest billions into what she deemed
a rival cryptocurrency to Bitcoin (Bartlett and Byrne 2022). Like Chaucer’s
4 C. RUNSTEDLER

shady canon in the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, however, Ignatova disappeared

along with billions of dollars and remains at large (Bartlett and Byrne
2022). Ironically, OneCoin continues to be sold all over the world, show-
ing lessons not learned. Like medieval alchemical fraudulence, many digi-
tal currencies today, such as OneCoin, are scams that deliberately exploit
the unwary by playing on popular credulity and ignorance about technol-
ogy and its jargon. The Singapore-based payment provider Alchemy Pay is
even named after the ancient art and has seen a recent spike in crypto
prices (Bitcoin.com 2022). While Alchemy Pay appears legitimate com-
pared to OneCoin, for example, this trend suggests that the monetary
goals of alchemy and its use as a metaphor remain popular today. Such
contemporary parallels also anticipate differences between apparently
benign examples of such disputed activities and those intended to be
exploitative.
Alchemy as a metaphor is not solely limited to finance and cryptocur-
rencies, however. Richard E. Rubenstein’s reassessment of terrorists and
terrorism, for example, is titled Alchemists of Revolution (1987), which is
taken from Karl Marx’s comparison between the follies of terrorists to the
ancient alchemists. According to Marx, both terrorists and alchemists
“throw themselves on discoveries which should work revolutionary won-
ders; incendiary bombs, hell-machines of magical impact” (Rubenstein
1987, 157) instead of achieving scientific political organization. The term
“alchemy” even lends itself to titles such as Petra Ahnert’s Beeswax Alchemy
(2015), which describes how to make beeswax soaps, candles, balms, and
creams. In this way, beeswax is “transmuted” from a raw substance into
these refined products. In many of these titles, however, alchemy becomes
a buzzword and risks losing the specificity of its medieval and classical
core themes.

Reading Middle English Alchemical Poems

as Exempla

These contemporary examples of the use of alchemy are clearly informed

by medieval alchemy and alchemical themes. Yet my focus is not on con-
temporary depictions of alchemy or the “alchemy” of finance, but rather
the moral uses of alchemy in Middle English poetry. The exemplarity of
these poems challenges the controversial nature of late medieval alchemi-
cal practice, and in some cases, it even validates such experimentation. My
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 5

main argument is that literary representations of alchemy in fourteenth-

and fifteenth-century English writing, such as John Gower’s Confessio
Amantis and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, function as
exemplary narratives which directly address the ambiguity of late medieval
English practice (Gower 2004–2013, and Chaucer 1988). Consequently,
alchemy’s practical and metaphorical aspects in the narration effect trans-
formation in the practitioner and/or reader. While medieval alchemical
poems were also written in France, Germany, and other countries in the
late Middle Ages, I will primarily focus on alchemy in Middle English
poetry since, as Didier Kahn argues, medieval England was where alchemi-
cal poetry “developed most fully” (2010a, 254) as well as where most
surviving medieval alchemical poems were produced. The study of alchemy
in medieval poetry also helps to understand and answer questions about
how Middle English writers used alchemy for moral purposes to offer
examples of ethical or unethical practice in Middle English poetry.4 In
addition, this literary approach shows how late medieval English authors
such as Chaucer, Gower, and anonymous poets were thinking about and
responding to scientific practices, particularly alchemy.
Alchemical poetry (or the use of alchemy in Middle English poetry),
which brings together medieval science and imaginative literature, remains
largely unexplored in medieval studies. The best-known examples of
alchemy in Middle English poetry include Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canon’s
Yeoman’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales and to a lesser extent John Gower’s
alchemical section in Book IV of the Confessio Amantis. While these two
examples are highly influential and form the contents of the Chaps. 2
and 3, there are other less well-known Middle English poems containing
alchemy, such as an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s poem The Churl
and the Bird in British Library, Harley MS 2407, as well as anonymously
written alchemical dialogues/recipes between Merlin and Morienus and
between Albertus Magnus and the Queen of Elves that I will discuss in my
fifth and final chapter. These examples reveal the ways in which these
Middle English authors used alchemy for moral purposes or to make moral
points about alchemical practice.
The primary source texts that I will be examining use alchemy both
within literary frameworks as well as independently from them. Chaucer
and Gower, for instance, present their alchemical passages as part of a liter-
ary and social framework, and show the growing interest in writing about
English alchemy in the vernacular, which would become even more wide-
spread in fifteenth-century England. I argue that Gower’s alchemical
6 C. RUNSTEDLER

exegesis in the Confessio Amantis launches a pattern of alchemy within an

exemplary framework, representing a new style of literary alchemical nar-
ratives. Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale continues this trend, further
extending his moral contemplation to communication and improving lan-
guage. Chaucer’s exemplary tale connects to the wider framework of The
Canterbury Tales while also stressing the validity of alchemical practice and
clarifying the tale’s alchemical imagery and themes. The fifteenth-century
Middle English poems discussed in this analysis, however, are much
shorter and independent from a wider framework, and suggest the increas-
ingly literary appeal of alchemy. Literature containing alchemy during this
period was no longer necessarily confined to obscure alchemical treatises
in a workshop or laboratory but could also reach a wider literate audience
and thus provide a wider context and meaning (Timmermann 2013, 18).5
The alchemical version of Lydgate’s The Churl of the Bird found in British
Library, Harley MS 2407 exemplifies the advancements and innovations in
vernacular English alchemical poetry of the fifteenth century, revealing the
growing audience, changing alchemical authorship, and increase in ver-
nacular production. Moreover, it continues to explore the failure of lan-
guage and loss of communication shown in the previous fourteenth-century
poems. The two alchemical dialogues examined in Chap. 5 (one between
Morienus and Merlin, and another between Albertus Magnus and the
Queen of Elves) illustrate that the dialogue format supports exemplary
reading, as well as how the appropriation of real-life figures provides clar-
ity to the narratives of such poems and suggests validity to their alchemical
pursuits. The primary sources featured in the following chapters are also
connected through their interest in using alchemy within fictional narra-
tives, which provide a suitable medium to explore their exemplary ideas
and themes.
The study of alchemy in medieval poetry and morality prompt the fol-
lowing questions—“What should one make of the use of alchemy in medi-
eval poetry?” and “How does the poet situate alchemy as a topic within
the controversies of its time?”—as well as literary questions: “What is the
good of including alchemical examples in medieval literature?” and “How
is this author using alchemy within an exemplary framework, or how does
he subvert the exemplum?” These alchemical narratives are predominantly
morally driven and form exemplary narratives; as this study reveals, they
are not always solely about alchemical practice, but also about bettering
human behavior and labor.
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 7

The following chapters analyze the ways in which these Middle English
poems containing alchemy are presented as exemplary narratives, and
these poets use them to make moral points about human fallibility, the
decline in language and understanding, and moral blindness. Functioning
as a narrative, poetry is also an effective and creative medium for critiquing
and drawing attention to late medieval scientific practices and experimen-
tation, in this case alchemy. Commenting on the benefits of narratives for
scientific study, Randy Olson comments that such narratives can show
“how to do science better” (2015) by using the creative process to point
out shortcomings, such as questionable outcomes, and blind spots, such
as unclear approaches or understandings, with science. I suggest that these
poetic narratives are also effective tools for recognizing these issues in late
medieval science and society. Alchemy as a (pseudo) scientific practice
lends itself to literary storytelling by not only providing a model for moral
frameworks, as shown in Gower’s Confessio Amantis and the two alchemi-
cal dialogues, but also exposing dubious scientific practices, as Chaucer’s
tale and the Harley 2407 version of the The Churl and the Bird reveal. The
poems examined in the following chapters all address these concerns,
hopes, and limitations; from a failing Canon’s Yeoman to an allegorical
bird and churl to an Elf Queen and Albertus Magnus, and more.
Reading these Middle English poems as exempla provides diverse ways
of thinking about the intersections between medieval science, ethics, and
poetry. While alchemy itself does not work in the view of many of these
authors (for example, the transmutations of metals are not successful, and
gold is not produced), Middle English poems containing alchemy can
offer the possibility of individual human transformation (or lack thereof)
and the potential for moral improvement.6 These poets use alchemy to
write about moral behavior, pointing out the use and misuse of alchemical
and scientific knowledge within a moral context.

The Medieval Exemplum and the History

of the Exemplary Narrative

When reading poems containing alchemy as exemplary narratives, it is also

important to understand the history of the exemplum in medieval England
and its secular uses in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England. J. Allan
Mitchell points out that the term exemplum originates from the Latin verb
eximere, “to take out, to cut” (2004, 14), signifying excising a section
8 C. RUNSTEDLER

from a greater whole. He further stresses that the exemplum is one in

which “we recognise what we should be doing” (2004, 14), or what not to
do, as Chaucer’s exemplum illustrates. I define exemplum as a short narra-
tive with the purpose of moral instruction. The ethics of the exemplum by
this definition seems quite clear: the exemplum seeks to improve or prompt
a course of action for self-improvement by illustrating these moral points.
Alchemy may not work, but literary alchemists can be examples for moral
improvement or cautionary tales of greed and covetousness, as well as
helpful starting points for navigating the uncertainties of contemporary
science. Most importantly, how does one achieve the alchemical ideal, that
is transmuting base metals into gold, or uncover the secrets of nature?
These Middle English poets were interested in exploring these questions
and their possibilities, and my aim is to draw attention to this aspect of
their work.
The medieval exemplum drew from the Bible, particularly (but not
exclusively) the New Testament. Christ used the parable as a means of
moral instruction to his followers, and in the Middle Ages he would
become the ideal figure for exemplary storytelling. As Leah Sinanoglou
comments, the exemplum was so effective because good exempla could
convince even Doubting Thomases of the faith, acting as effective preach-
ing aids (1973, 491). The exemplum served to “educate and persuade, not
to analyze or test doctrines” (Gelley 1995, 4), and could be used as a
powerful demonstrative tool. The exemplum also featured in the stories of
the Desert Fathers, notably in Athanasius of Alexandria’s early hagiogra-
phy of St Antony, and in the writings of Gregory the Great.7 The first
exempla to appear in medieval England were from the writings of Gregory
the Great in his Pastoral Care and Dialogues, which were translated by
Alfred the Great into Old English in the ninth century. Gregory the Great
draws predominantly from the Old Testament for his exempla, including
the stories of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hezekiah, and Balaam.
Gregory believed that the exempla were “more effective in doctrine than
in inspiring audiences” and the narrative itself as a “memorial activity”
(Ferster 1996, 17, 19). Not only is this type of narrative memorial, but it
is also contemplative and interactive, causing the audience member or
reader to react and respond to the story in a transformative way. In the
case of religious exempla, the audience responds to follow and conform to
the model of Christ. Gregory’s writings were highly influential and helped
promote more exemplary sermons and devotional literature.
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 9

Gregory’s exempla mark a distinct shift in the history of the exemplum.

David Jones links this shift in the exemplary audience to the decree from
the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which required “every Christian
man and woman to confess to their own parish priest and to take com-
munion at least once a year” (2011, 3). In the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, the exempla were used as preaching aids among the mendicant
orders, particularly the Dominicans. The exemplary mode became a staple
for Christian sermons until the twelfth century in medieval England, when
exempla started to become less overtly religious, particularly among the
friars, to appeal to a wider lay audience, where it was still used for moral
purposes (Mosher 1966, 24; Yeager 1982, 307). Yet the exempla also
developed roots within the secular tradition, and notable medieval preach-
ers such as Robert Rypon, Jacques de Vitry, Nicholas Bozon, and John
Bromyard successfully apply the secular exempla. The Gesta Romanorum
exemplifies this tradition because it is secular in content and its popular
entertainment is the moral instruction. Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s
Handlyng Synne “desires to hear ‘talys’ on the part of the common peo-
ple” (Owst 1961, 153; see also Kemmler 1984) demonstrating further
developments and shifts in the exemplary tradition.
In the late fourteenth century, Gower presented what R. F. Yeager
terms a “new exemplum” (1982, 308). While the confessional framework
of the Confessio Amantis retains the sermonizing aspects of the traditional
exempla, Yeager suggests that Gower’s use of secular exempla enables the
creation of a new type of exemplum. This “new exemplum” is characterized
by enabling its examples to have a more conversational format (the dia-
logue between Genius and Amans). In addition, and unlike the stories of
the Gesta Romanorum, for instance, Gower’s exempla form part of a wider
literary framework, specifically the ailing lover’s confession to the chaplain
of Venus, making them unique and novel. This “new exemplum” effec-
tively joins together a secular narrative with the moral storytelling in the
exemplary tradition, fitting Gower’s fictional framework and is a helpful
term for understanding the exemplary uses of alchemy in Middle English
poetry. As Yeager suggests, Gower uses the secular exemplum not only for
moral instruction, but also for a “paradigm for narration” (1982, 314). In
other words, Gower’s repurposing of exempla in the Confessio Amantis as
rhetorical devices forms networks of narratives on linked themes within
the framework of the seven deadly sins. Moreover, Gower constructs his
narratives as he does because he expects them to “work like exempla”
(Yeager 1982, 312). Gower takes on the role of the preacher and Genius
10 C. RUNSTEDLER

tells exemplary stories as a preacher would, but his Confessio audience is

secular rather than religious. Gower’s secular exempla also share an inter-
est in attaining and promoting human good, and the Confessio is framed
around this central idea. Chaucer and Lydgate use the secular exemplum
in complex ways too, and the “ensample” takes on different forms and
meanings in their work. In the Canterbury Tales, for instance, Chaucer’s
conversational format of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale and its placement
among the other Canterbury Tales enables a “new exemplum.” I extend
this understanding of the “new exemplum” to fifteenth-century poems
containing alchemy as well to understand how alchemy is being portrayed
and depicted in exemplary ways. As a result, I also explore how alchemy
fits this model in the work of late Middle English authors, and how
alchemy connects to this idea of attaining the higher good or moral ideal.
While this is the first study to focus on the use of Middle English
alchemy in the exemplary tradition, it is indebted to the scholarship of
F. Sherwood Taylor, H. Stanley Redgrove, J. R. Partington, John Read,
and the other founders of Ambix (the journal for the Society for the
History of Alchemy and Chemistry) for helping to reassess alchemy as an
academic study. More recently, Eoin Bentick (2022) and Alexander
N. Gabrovsky (2015) further explore recent scholarship on this topic.
Bentick’s Literatures of Alchemy in the Medieval and Early Modern Period
in particular examines the conceptualization of alchemy in the vernacular
English tradition during the medieval and early modern period (Bentick
2022; Gabrovsky 2015). My scholarly focus supports F. Sherwood Taylor’s
belief that alchemy was a practical science rather than purely phenomeno-
logical, and that “true alchemists were chemical technicians who devoted
long hours to laboratory work” (Simcock 1987, 133). While alchemical
narratives can be read for self-improvement and seeking the moral good,
the alchemical experiments were predominantly practical in nature. As the
alchemical literature and the archaeological record reveal, alchemy was
indeed a very practical science, whether it led to failure, new discoveries,
or improved distillation techniques (Bucklow 2009, 69).
In endorsing F. Sherwood Taylor’s more practical approach to medi-
eval alchemical study, my approach rejects Carl Jung’s psychological read-
ing of alchemy (Taylor 1951). Jung argues that alchemical experimentations
and their goals were phenomenological, offering metaphysical rather than
practical implications (Jung 1953, 1967). He further suggests that the
goals of alchemy and alchemical symbolism can be deciphered as a means
of understanding the collective unconscious, showing that alchemical
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 11

processes could be re-enacted in the dreams of his patients. While Jung

overlooks the practical aspects of alchemy, he does consider the use of
alchemy as analogy, which this research also recognizes. F. Sherwood
Taylor refuted Jung’s theory, claiming that it was “abstract,” although he
published one of Jung’s articles in Ambix (Simcock 1987, 134; Jung
1946, 182–91). Another issue with Jung’s alchemical readings is that they
leave all potential readings open to alchemical interpretation. One could
potentially read every story as alchemical to some degree, but eventually
the alchemical reading becomes so abstract and vague that it risks becom-
ing obscure or even nonsensical. For these reasons, the following chapters
will instead focus upon exploring poems containing alchemy that show
evidence of a practical alchemical narrative. Consequently, alchemy is pre-
sented as both practical and literal, although moral aspects are central to
the following alchemical readings as well.
Historical catalogues and volumes of alchemical content have also
proven invaluable for this study. Lynn Thorndike’s monumental ten-­
volume A History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923–1958) is cru-
cial to the contemporary study of alchemy in medieval literature,
particularly volumes 3 and 4. Thorndike rightly argues that medieval
magic and alchemy are intrinsically linked. While Thorndike was writing in
the early twentieth century, much of his information and case studies
remain useful. Similarly, Dorothy Waley Singer’s three-volume catalogue
on medieval alchemical manuscripts in England and Ireland (1928–1931)
is essential to this research, particularly in Chaps. 3 and 4, although she
omits certain manuscript entries. Linda Ehrsam Voigts and Patricia Deary
Kurtz (2000) provide a more recent and comprehensive catalogue of sci-
entific and medical writings in Middle English, including numerous
alchemical writings. Adam McLean (2022) also provides a helpful online
database of alchemical manuscripts and their contents.
While there has been no major study of reading Middle English poems
containing alchemy as exemplary narratives thus far, recent scholarship on
alchemical literature and the history of alchemy follows F. Sherwood
Taylor’s approach to alchemical interpretation and the Middle English
alchemical tradition. Stanton J. Linden (1996) argues that Chaucer’s
Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale begins an English tradition of alchemical satire that
extends into the Renaissance period. While Linden’s readings of Middle
English poems containing alchemy are helpful, he only devotes a few pages
to Middle English poems, aside from Chaucer.
12 C. RUNSTEDLER

Recent history of science scholarship, especially the renewed interest in

the history of medieval alchemy, also touches on literary alchemy. Lawrence
M. Principe and William R. Newman have emerged as two of the foremost
scholars of the history of alchemy and chemistry today. In a collaborative
article, Principe and Newman distinguish alchemy from chemistry, argu-
ing that the term “chemistry” emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries as a distinction from “alchemy” (1998, 38). Chemistry referred
to the “art of analysis and synthesis,” whereas alchemy referred to metallic
transmutation; they conclude that the term chymistry is best applied to the
history of alchemy before this time (c. 1500–1750) to avoid anachronisms
and inaccuracies. The terms “astronomy” and “astrology” follow a similar
historical trajectory; while used synonymously in the late Middle Ages and
early Renaissance, astronomy became based upon scientific practices and
evidence whereas astrology became recognized as a pseudo-science. While
Newman and Principe have written on medieval alchemy, their main aca-
demic focus is upon chymistry and early chemistry, and predominantly
from a history of science perspective rather than a literary perspective.
Newman’s recent scholarship (2018) also illustrates the alchemical contri-
butions of Sir Isaac Newton, known as the founder of modern scientific
practice. Newton was indebted to medieval alchemical practices and man-
uscripts, and his various alchemical works, which remained unpublished in
his lifetime, suggest the enduring influence of medieval alchemy.
Contemporary medieval literary scholarship has also explored the inter-
sections between alchemy and late medieval English poetry. Jonathan
Hughes (2002, 2012) has written two books which examine medieval
alchemy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England in manuscripts and
literature and attempts to link it to kingship. Anke Timmermann’s book
(2013) examines the fifteenth-century Middle English alchemical verses
known as the Verses upon the Elixir, and helps to reassess the role of
alchemical poetry in late medieval England. Theodore Ziolkowski’s recent
book The Alchemist in Literature (2015) also takes a literary approach to
medieval and early modern alchemy, focusing on the figure of the alche-
mist rather than alchemical imagery. His book offers helpful readings and
summaries of medieval alchemists or poets writing about alchemy, particu-
larly Chaucer, Gower, and Dante, but as with Linden, much of the book
is devoted to early modern alchemical literature. Jennifer M. Rampling has
also recently published The Experimental Fire (2020), which connects
medieval alchemical practices to English national history and identity.
Although her focus is predominantly upon the history of science, her
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 13

approach is helpful for understanding the historical context of the narra-

tives investigated in the following chapters. While her study concentrates
on Renaissance English alchemical poetry, Katherine Eggert (2015) also
explores how alchemy was attractive for non-alchemical authors because
of its potential allegorical mobility. She also coins the term “disknowl-
edge,” referring to the “deliberate means by which a culture can manage
epistemological risk” (2015, 8) and citing the paradox where the aspiring
adept knows nothing about alchemy yet is simultaneously expected to
know everything about it. While her literary examples and readings are
quite convincing, however, her study predominantly concentrates on
Renaissance literature rather than medieval. While these recent studies
explore the use of alchemy in medieval poetry, much more could be said
about how medieval English writers are using alchemy in moral and ethical
ways in their works, and particularly how they affect our understanding of
medieval alchemy and practice. The following chapters will explore these
aspects and ideas.

Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle

English Poetry
My emphasis upon reading alchemical poems as exemplary narratives
stems from the work of J. Allan Mitchell on exemplary reading and what
he terms the “ethics of exemplarity” in the works of Gower and Chaucer
in his book Ethics and Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer and Gower (2004).
Mitchell argues that Chaucer and Gower both use the exemplary mode,
albeit to different ends: Gower applies moral rhetoric straightforwardly in
his presentation of narrative exempla, whereas Chaucer uses moral rhetoric
subversively in order to stimulate moral action (2). While Gower’s
approach to moral rhetoric in Confessio Amantis seems more straightfor-
ward, Chaucer subverts the expectations and structure of the exemplary
form in the Canterbury Tales, particularly in his satirical tale of alchemy in
the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, which is also presented as an exemplary narra-
tive. Mitchell also argues for the value of examples, commenting that
“examples are meant to move or improve you” (1) and exemplary narra-
tives are “directed at improving the world” (3). His exemplary reading of
Chaucer and Gower also aims to help break down the traditional reading
of “moral Gower” and “genial Chaucer,” two epithets which have
14 C. RUNSTEDLER

dichotomized the reading of these authors and scholarship on them since

the fourteenth century (2004, 142; see also Woolf 1979, 221–45).
In my analysis, I marry Mitchell’s reading of exemplarity in Middle
English poetry with poems containing alchemy in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries, revealing their interconnectedness and, more impor-
tantly, their exemplary role. Chaucer and Gower, I argue, first explore the
possibilities of alchemy in the exemplary tradition with their early alchemi-
cal writing in the vernacular. These exemplary readings can extend not
only to the alchemical depictions of Chaucer and Gower, however, but to
other Middle English narratives containing alchemy as well, as I will show
in Chaps. 4 and 5. Naturally, most if not all medieval stories can be read as
moral, but like Mitchell, this book investigates how this ethics of exemplar-
ity applies to the work of Chaucer, Gower, and other Middle English
alchemical poems, and how they can be read as exemplary narratives to
improve or transform one’s life. In reading these poems as exemplary, the
reader can extend the ethical possibilities of medieval literature to the
realm of medieval science, particularly alchemical practice (Mitchell 2004,
141). Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature consid-
ers how alchemy can be used as an effective metaphor in alchemical poetry,
particularly within an ethical and exemplary framework. The authors
examined in the following chapters used alchemical examples for moral
reflection or as cautionary tales against covetousness and unethical practice.
While the public records inform our knowledge of alchemical writings,
I will focus upon the alchemical writings themselves, particularly in Middle
English alchemical poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that is
until the end of the medieval period in England in the late fifteenth cen-
tury. The fourteenth century establishes this vernacular tradition with
Chaucer and Gower’s work, and their moral and exemplary ideas further
evolve in the fifteenth century, as seen in the alchemical dialogues and the
alchemical version of Lydgate’s poem. Although the date remains uncer-
tain for some of the anonymously written alchemical poems in the final
chapter, they come from the latter half of the fifteenth century. While
Middle English alchemical poetry further develops in the Renaissance,
particularly with the influence of Paracelsus (c. 1493–1541) and John Dee
(1527–1608) in the sixteenth century, my focus is on its medieval
developments.
In Chap. 2, I provide a brief overview of the history of alchemy, includ-
ing medieval alchemy and its origins, as well as influential alchemical texts,
themes, and ideas. Chapter 2 effectively contextualizes the role of alchemy
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 15

within fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England from a historical, philo-

sophical, and literary perspective, as well as revealing its developments and
theories into that period, all of which are crucial to understanding alchem-
ical literature during this time. Beginning with its Western origins in the
classical world and then through the Arabic world and into Western
Christendom, I examine its reception and development in late medieval
England. From the thirteenth century, Latin alchemical translations and
adaptations begin to enter the vernacular. The second half of Chap. 2 cov-
ers the history of alchemy in medieval England. Chaucer, Gower, and to a
lesser extent Langland compose Middle English poetry containing alchemy
in the fourteenth century, yet they are not alchemical practitioners. This
tradition continues to develop into the fifteenth century in the form of
alchemical recipes and dialogues and alchemical versions of exemplary
poems, such as Lydgate’s The Churl and the Bird, and many of these are
written anonymously. Chapter 2 also surveys key figures and literature
which influences the production and thought processes behind these
Middle English alchemical poems.
Chapter 3 focuses on John Gower’s alchemical section in Book IV of
the Confessio Amantis. I argue that not only can this alchemical exegesis
be read as an exemplary narrative, but it also marks the beginning of
alchemy being used within the exempla framework to challenge or address
the ambiguities of its practice in vernacular English medieval literature.
Following R. F. Yeager’s definition of Gower’s “new exemplum” and
alongside Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, this alchemical narrative rep-
resents this emerging new style of vernacular alchemical exempla in the
fourteenth century, which continues to evolve and transmute in the fif-
teenth century. Chapter 3 also investigates the role of labor and alchemy,
particularly as a paradoxical model for perfect yet unattainable human
labor, recognizing it as an exemplary one that has been lost due to human
shortcomings and postlapsarian decline.
In Chap. 4, I examine Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale as an alchemi-
cal exemplum, arguing that this poem establishes this idea of the alchemi-
cal narrative as a “new exemplum” alongside Gower’s alchemical passage
in the Confessio Amantis. Like Gower’s passage, Chaucer’s exemplum sug-
gests a need to improve communication and language, while also present-
ing a seemingly paradoxical assessment of alchemy. Moreover, I contend
that reading the poem as an exemplum directly challenges its ambiguous
representation of alchemy, suggesting the validity of its practice while
acknowledging its seemingly divine secrets. The addition of the pilgrim
16 C. RUNSTEDLER

characters (the Canon and his Yeoman) provides a metadramatic dimen-

sion to the reading of alchemy in the poem, revealing Chaucer’s subver-
siveness as a “moral” poet as well as presenting the possibilities of
exemplarity through the Canon’s Yeoman’s confession, tale, and apparent
redemption.
In Chap. 5, I analyze an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s poem The
Churl and the Bird, which is contained in British Library, Harley MS
2407. I also discuss Lydgate’s poem and suggest reading both versions of
the poem as exemplary. The alchemical version, with its alchemical allego-
ries, symbolism, illuminations, and additional stanzas, initially offers a
seemingly ambiguous portrayal of alchemy and the poem’s very meaning.
Yet I argue here that this exemplary reading challenges this ambiguity
concerning the validity of its practitioners and the possibility of acquiring
the Philosopher’s Stone itself and provides a clearer reading and under-
standing of the poem and its moral implications. Elias Ashmole’s annota-
tions on the poem in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652)
support such a reading, and I argue that they function as a starting point
for the poem’s exemplarity. When read as an exemplary poem, the alchem-
ical version addresses the problems of misunderstanding, lack of knowl-
edge, and in this case, covetousness. This exemplum also represents the
increase in vernacular poetic production in the fifteenth century as well as
the increase in anonymous authorship.
The sixth and final chapter examines two fifteenth-century alchemical
dialogues, including one between Albertus Magnus and the Queen of
Elves (Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.14.44), and another between
Morienus and Merlin (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ashmole MS 1445).
While the readings of these texts and their alchemical views initially seem
ambiguous, I argue that reading these dialogues as exempla in fact pro-
vides clarity to the narrative, suggesting validity to their alchemical pur-
suits as well as their unlikely collaborations. In addition, the Albertus/
Queen of Elves dialogue is explicitly exemplary, which provides conclu-
siveness and a sense of clarity to the alchemical direction and goals by
means of achieving alchemical and spiritual success. The dialogue format
and their anonymous authorship also support these exemplary readings,
revealing the changes and evolution of the English vernacular alchemical
poem into the fifteenth century and towards the end of the Middle Ages
in England. Moreover, these poems reveal the appropriation of real-life
figures such as Albertus Magnus and Morienus as allegedly alchemical
adepts. Their literal and allegorical roles here support the poems’
 1 ALCHEMY AND EXEMPLARITY 17

exemplary reading, emphasizing the relationship between alchemical mas-

ter and apprentice as well as a metaphorical collaboration between seem-
ingly unlikely characters and values to achieve the “right path.”
While alchemy may not be successful, these poems under study explore
the ways in which it can be used for different literary purposes, expressing
ideas about alchemical experimentation, failures, success, and moral well-­
being. Although alchemy is the main subject in these poems, many of
these authors, such as Chaucer and Gower, do not focus primarily on
alchemy; rather, it becomes a means for them to express their ideas and
make moral points about alchemy, and in doing so, they question the
understanding and ambiguities of both its practice and literary reception.
Reading poems containing alchemy for the moral enables the modern
reader to reassess their understanding and expectations of medieval “sci-
ence” and “poetry.” The decline of language and the failure to communi-
cate or comprehend alchemical terminology, for example, is a notion that
remains prevalent in the following poems. Alchemy is more than pseudo-­
science or the foundations of chemistry; it is valuable as a literary device
and a useful motif for exemplary purposes.

Notes
1. I use the term “alchemy” according to its late medieval understanding, that
is transforming matter. I further discuss the term “alchemy” and its conno-
tations in Chap. 1.
2. John Read and E. J. Holmyard argue that it possibly stems from the Greek
khem, which refers to the coming of the black alluvial soil along the Nile
(Read 1936, 4, 12, 17; Holmyard 1957, 17). The Arabs interpreted it as
al-kimiya (“from the black land,” which also likely refers to the Nile), and
when the practice was rediscovered in the Western world it was Latinized as
“alchemy.” Read suggests, however, that is more likely that the term kimia
comes from the Greek chyma, which means fusing or casting a metal, relat-
ing to metallurgical processes (1936, 4, 12, 17). More recently, Lawrence
M. Principe convincingly links the term “alchemy” to cheimeia, which he
suggests derives from the mythical founder of alchemy Chemes or Chymes
whom the Greek alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis mentions (2013, 4, 23).
3. Hylomorphism is the philosophical view that all things are composed of
matter and form. In the Middle Ages, this concept was also applied to
alchemical study. According to Bucklow, biblical Adam exemplifies hylo-
morphism because he is created in the image of God from dust (matter)
before reaching his potential (form) as a human being.
18 C. RUNSTEDLER

4. As I will explain in Chap. 2, medieval “science” or scientia refers to the study

of natural philosophy in the late Middle Ages rather than the modern under-
standing of science.
5. In fifteenth-century England, Middle English alchemical poems were read
by university scholars, craftsmen, noblemen, and the literate public.
6. Throughout this book, “transmutation” refers to the alchemical processes
of changing base metals into gold, whereas “transformation” refers to the
changes in the human individual through their experience of reading these
narratives.
7. The medieval exemplum could also employ the fable as a rhetorical device to
raise moral points and exemplary truths; I explore this aspect in greater
detail in Chap. 5.

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
started a canal, but they found so much in the way that they were not
able to go far with it.

Fig. 38. Mount Royal Station, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,

Baltimore
The plan for a canal came up again twenty years after
Washington died, and in 1823 a charter was given for building the
Chesapeake and Ohio canal. New York had then been six years at
work on the Erie canal and would finish it in two years more. If the
Virginia and Maryland people had known that most of them would be
dead before their canal was half done, and that it would never be
really finished, they would not have undertaken it.
 Fig. 39. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Cumberland
They did not begin the work until five years later, in 1828. Then a
great crowd came together at Georgetown, now a part of
Washington, on the Potomac, to see the first earth thrown out.
President John Quincy Adams made the principal speech and then
took a spade to begin the digging. The spade hit a root and would
not go into the soil. The President set down his foot more firmly, but
still the spade would not move. At last, determined to succeed, he
pulled off his coat for the job. The crowd liked this and cheered
loudly, while Mr. Adams accomplished what he had set out to do.
On this very day something else was going on at Baltimore, forty
miles away. Baltimore was not on the Potomac, but her people did
not propose to be left out of the western trade on that account. After
much disputing a charter had been granted for building what became
one of the most famous, as it is one of the oldest, American railways,
—the Baltimore and Ohio. Hence Baltimore had a celebration of her
own on this same Fourth of July, 1828.
They did not have the President of the United States to help
them, but they fared very well. They had great faith in what they
were doing, and doubtless would have shouted even louder had they
known what a great railroad they were starting and what a hard time
the canal people would have.
There was only one man remaining of all the patriots who had
signed the Declaration of Independence almost fifty years before.
This was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and he was the guest of
Baltimore on that day. A prayer was offered, the Declaration was
read, and after an officer of the railway company had spoken Mr.
Carroll removed the first earth. As if nature would be kind to an old
man, no root made his work hard; and the superstitious may say that
the President’s toilsome digging over in Georgetown was a bad
omen for that enterprise. It is easier to look back than to see into the
future.
Both canal and railway went on building, but as they needed
nearly the same route in some places, they did not get on well
together. The canal was located in the state of Maryland, along the
north bank of the Potomac. This was done in some measure
because a large part of the water which would be needed for the
canal came down from the uplands on the north side. It took twenty-
three years to dig the trench as far as Cumberland, so that it was
1851 before boats could run between Cumberland and tide water.
The original plan of carrying the canal beyond Cumberland and
across the mountains was never carried out.
Just below the point where Wills creek enters the Potomac there
is a dam, and from the pond so made the water is taken into the
upper end of the canal. Much traffic has passed up and down the
canal, but, on the whole, it has not paid for the cost of building and
repairing. Sometimes it has been out of use, and a few months ago
the state of Maryland sold it for a small sum to the Wabash Railway
Company.
 The North American Review has been published for a long time.
At least seventy-five years ago this magazine printed two articles on
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. By reading them we can see how
the intelligent people of that time felt about building it.
In favor of the proposed railroad they said, first, that it would not
be closed by ice for several months each year, as the Erie canal and
the rivers were. Secondly, they reminded the public that Baltimore is
two hundred miles nearer the Ohio navigation than New York is, and
one hundred miles nearer than Philadelphia. Thirdly, they argued
that New Orleans was a long way off, and its climate hot and
unhealthful. Provisions sent by that route would be likely to spoil, and
the traders taking the goods down the river might fall sick. Further,
the rivers in a dry summer would be too low for navigation.
 Fig. 40. Highest Point on Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, at Sand Patch,
Pennsylvania
Nor did Baltimore people think that the Erie canal could get
much trade except from regions close to lake Erie, and they had
noticed that lands not far from the canal still sent a good deal of
produce down the Susquehanna river to Baltimore. There was no
port south of them that was so good as theirs; in short, they showed
a very proper pride in their own home and a conviction that Baltimore
was as good as any other American city, if not, perhaps, a little
better.
They said also that the lime used for building in the city of
Washington was brought all the way from Rhode Island, while there
was a great abundance of good limestone in their own mountains,
although it could not be carried by wagons. There was coal also, in
seams so thick and wide that it could never be used up, but there
was no way of getting it down to the sea where it would run factories,
smelt iron, and propel the new steamships that so soon would make
the ocean a well-traveled highway. Slate also was to be had, and
marble, and gypsum, and timber, but these could not be brought to
the towns where they might be used. There was, moreover, much
iron ore all along the proposed route, and we all know that iron is the
most important of the metals.
It had long before been learned that there were many fish in
Chesapeake bay, and that New England was not to have the fishing
business all to herself. Better even than this, there were then, as
there are now, places under the shallow waters where countless
oysters lived and multiplied. It was said, even in 1827, that if there
could be a railroad to carry things quickly, oysters might be sent to
people living far from the sea.
Baltimore’s notion of swift carrying was much like that of the Erie
canal packet owners. Trains could go four miles an hour, and thus
goods might be sent from Baltimore to the Ohio river in sixty-two and
one-half hours. Some hopeful people thought that the speed might
even be raised to eight miles an hour. When cars run at that rate in
these days we begin to talk about getting out and pushing the
engine.
The builders of the railroad had what seem to us curious ideas of
laying a foundation for the track. They dug a trench in some places,
putting into it broken stone, and on this they laid long slabs of stone,
or “stone rails.” On these, in their turn, the iron rails were riveted
down. Until car springs were invented the jolting must have been like
that of a farm wagon.
 Even when the track was finished no decision had been made as
to how the cars were to be moved. Mr. Hulbert, in one of his stories
of historic highways, tells of several experiments which were made.
Some one invented a locomotive in which a horse was to tread an
endless belt and thus make the machine go, carrying with it the
horse and dragging the cars. On one trip, when several newspaper
men were present to report the trial, the train ran into a cow and they
were all tipped out and tumbled down a bank. The method did not
have much praise in the papers. Sails were also tried, and one car
which was thus moved by wind was called Æolus. This car, with its
mast and other ship-like rigging, made much talk, but that was all.
And no one could quite see how it would ever be possible to draw a
car on a curved track. This meant much, for it was out of the
question to build a railway through the mountains without many
curves, and some of them rather short ones. But there were those
who thought that if a curved road were possible, it would be a good
thing because the engineer could occasionally look back along the
line and see how his train was coming on.
 Fig. 41. Looking down the Potomac from Harpers Ferry
Maryland on the left; West Virginia on right and in foreground; Virginia in the
distance; Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Chesapeake and Ohio canal
at the left; Shenandoah river enters under bridge on the right

But steam was to win the day. Mr. Peter Cooper had a
locomotive, called Tom Thumb, built in 1829, and an old picture
shows an exciting race between this little engine and a horse car.
The steam car won the race, and it is now to be seen whether or not
electricity will drive steam out of business on the railways.
By 1833 the road was laid as far as Harpers Ferry, a place made
lively by armies and guns in the Civil War. It is a rugged old town,
built near the spot where the Shenandoah joins the Potomac, and
both together have cut a fine gorge through the Blue Ridge. To-day
as one stands in the upper part of the village and looks down
through the great gorge, he sees the bridge and tracks and trains of
the Baltimore and Ohio, and the channel of the Chesapeake and
Ohio canal (Fig. 41). The railway outstripped the canal, for the road
was finished to Cumberland in 1842, nine years before canal boats
floated into that place; and in 1853 the first train rolled into Wheeling,
on the Ohio river.
Another part of the road now runs farther north to Pittsburg and
leads on to Chicago, while yet another passes south to Cincinnati
and St. Louis. Eastward the main line runs to Philadelphia and stops
at the Whitehall terminal in New York City. These long lines, with
many spurs and side lines, make up the Baltimore and Ohio Railway
system, which, like the Pennsylvania and the New York Central, joins
the seaports of the Atlantic coast with the fields and cities of the
Mississippi, and carries in either direction the rich mineral products
of the intervening mountains.
Like her neighbors on the Atlantic, Baltimore stretches out her
hands to sea and land. The city was begun in 1730, at which time a
Mr. Carroll sold the land for it at forty shillings an acre. When
Washington first went to the Ohio there were only twenty-five houses
in Baltimore, but in 1770 there were twenty thousand people, and the
new city was drawing trade from Philadelphia. In 1826, when the
Erie canal was building, Baltimore had become a city of sixty
thousand inhabitants. Now it has more than half a million people,
and is the sixth American city. In foreign trade, however, it stands
third, and its docks are busy places. The Hamburg-American, the
North-German Lloyd, and the Red Star lines all send regular
steamers between Baltimore and Europe, and hundreds of others
sail to ports on our own coast, to the West Indies, and to South
America. Baltimore builds ships as well as sails them, to carry the
corn, flour, and meat of the prairies and the great plains to foreign
lands, and to bring back their products in exchange. Where there are
railways and ships there are always merchants and factories. Out of
the gains of trade a Baltimore merchant built one of the most famous
of our schools, the Johns Hopkins University.
 Fig. 42. Coke Ovens at Meyersdale, Pennsylvania
There has been no more important factor in the development of
the United States than is found in the great railway systems, which,
by linking all sections together, give unity and strength to the whole
fabric of our government. Washington’s dreams of his country’s
future are already overtopped by her actual achievements, and the
most hopeful among those who first saw the advantages of steam
engines could hardly have looked forward to the swift transportation
of to-day.
In the year 1901 an American ship and American railway trains
ran a great race to London over land and sea. The start was from
Australia and the distance was more than thirteen thousand miles.
The race was not against other ships and other trains, but against
time. The mail from Sydney in New South Wales usually went by the
Red sea and the Suez canal, a route which is a thousand miles
shorter than is the Pacific route, and which took thirty-five days and a
few hours. It happened on August 13, in the morning, that three
hundred and sixty-seven sacks of important mail for London were
piled on the dock, beside which lay a new American ship, the
Ventura. Because no good British ship was at hand that morning, the
post-office authorities thought that they would let the vessel with the
Stars and Stripes carry the mail. She did carry it, and on the evening
of September 2 she laid down the bags on the pier at San Francisco.
The American railroads tried their hand at carrying the British
mail. The Southern Pacific took it swiftly across to Ogden, in Utah.
The Union Pacific seized it, two hours late, and said that the time
should be made up. The train raced a thousand miles to Omaha and
made up some of the time but not all. Then it was off for Chicago,
where the Lake Shore road had a “special” ready to overtake the
Fast Mail. It ran two hundred and forty-four miles in two hundred and
sixty-five and a half minutes, and did overtake it. Then came Buffalo,
New York, Queenstown, and London. The carriers in that great city
started out with the mail early in the morning of September 14. If the
bags had come by the shorter route under the British flag, they
would not have reached London until September 16. This is what
great railways and great ships do in our time,—they make neighbors
of all men.

Fig. 43. The Observation End, Baltimore and

Ohio Railroad
 CHAPTER X
CITIES OF THE OHIO VALLEY

If we look at a map, we shall see that the Allegheny river flows

southward from New York into western Pennsylvania. The
Monongahela river, rising among the rough highlands of West
Virginia, sends its waters toward the north, and the two great
streams join to form the Ohio, which flows on far to the southwest.
All together they are like wide-spreading branches of an apple tree
uniting with the gnarled old trunk.
In the great crotch of the tree Pittsburg is snugly placed. A
narrow point of flat land lies between the rivers just before they come
together to make the Ohio, and back of this point, to the east, rise
steep hills. Across the Allegheny and across the Monongahela the
banks rise sharply for several hundred feet, and there too, wherever
the slope is not too steep for houses to stand, tens of thousands of
busy people have their homes.
 Fig. 44. Old Blockhouse, Pittsburg
The rivers are crossed by many bridges and are full of boats. Up
and down for miles their banks are smoky and noisy with furnaces,
and at night the iron mills light up the valley with wonderful torches of
flame leaping into the black sky. If the great towns clustered within
an hour’s ride were counted in, Pittsburg would now have a million
people. Only a hundred years ago she was, like many other cities in
the New World, a humble village between two rivers. As early as
1730 white men journeyed here to trade with the Indians, who could
come from any part of the western country in their canoes.
Washington stood here November 24, 1753, and in his description of
the place wrote, “I think it extremely well situated for a fort, as it has
absolute command of both rivers.” Men were to need forts for a long
time in that country, and the one which was soon built on this site
had a stirring history. In 1758 it was recaptured from the French and
named for England’s prime minister, Pitt. Hence we have Pittsburgh,
which is the old spelling, but it is now common to drop the h, and
write it Pittsburg.
 The old blockhouse of brick, which is still standing, was built in
1764. Washington came back to the spot in 1770, and found here
about twenty houses, used by men who were trading with the
Indians. Arthur Lee, in 1784, thought that the place would “never be
very considerable,” but he was not a good prophet. In 1816 it had
become a city and has been steadily gaining in importance since that
time. Not much more than fifty years later an historian of Pittsburg
said that if Mr. Lee could then come back, he would find a city bigger
than the six largest cities and towns in the Old Dominion.
The secret of Pittsburg’s success is in its location. Many years
ago it was called “the gate of the West,” and through it has gone
much of the trade between the East and the lands beyond the
mountains. Even from New York the pioneers came by land and
water to the head of the Ohio, an undertaking by no means easy in
those days. A prominent man in Pittsburg once contracted with the
government to send provisions to Oswego, and as he wished to
make the long journey as profitable as he could, he packed the
provisions in strong barrels that would hold salt. When these were
emptied they were filled for the return trip with Onondaga salt and
carried by lake Ontario to the Niagara river below the falls. They
were then taken around the falls and across the lake to Erie, up
French creek, over the portage, and at length by boat to Pittsburg. It
was a roundabout way, but the enterprising dealer sold salt in
Pittsburg for half the price charged by the packers who brought it by
rough mountain roads from the East.
Improvements in methods of transportation caused an increase
in business activity. By the Pittsburg pike, by the canal with its
Portage Railway, and finally by the Pennsylvania Railroad, trade was
coming from Philadelphia. Not less promptly did the men of
Baltimore and the Virginians reach Pittsburg by the trail, the National
Road, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Because Pittsburg stood
at the head of the Ohio it was a door to the whole Mississippi valley,
and men and goods quickly found their way to it. Once there a boat
would take them over thousands of miles of river, or to New Orleans
and the open sea.
 Henry Clay used to tell in Congress a good story about Pittsburg.
He said that a ship built at Pittsburg sailed down the river, through
the gulf, across the Atlantic, into the Mediterranean, and anchored at
Leghorn. The captain handed his papers to the officer of the
customhouse, who did not credit them. “Sir,” said he, “your papers
are forged; there is no such port as Pittsburg in the world; your
vessel must be confiscated.” Though the captain was frightened, he
pulled out a map and taught the Italian official a lesson in geography,
making him understand at last that one could sail a thousand miles
up the Mississippi and another thousand up the Ohio, and that there
was such a port as Pittsburg.

Fig. 45. Pittsburg

The first boats on the Ohio river were the light bark canoes of the
red men. These could sail in almost any water, but they were easily
broken and could carry only light loads. When white men began to
throng the river and wanted to carry their families, household
furniture, tools, grain, and all the produce of the land, they needed
something larger and stronger. At first they built barges, which were
little more than great boxes made water-tight. These they loaded and
steered down the stream as best they could. They did not expect to
bring them back, for such boats could not be pushed against the
current. Hence the barge builders at Pittsburg always had work, for a
new one had to be provided for each fresh cargo.
Later men began to make keel boats, in which they could not
only go downstream but could also, by poling, make a return voyage.
These boats were about fifty feet long and could carry twenty tons or
more. Along the sides were “running boards,” where the men went
up and down with their setting poles to drive the boat against the
current. The space between the running boards was covered over to
form a kind of cabin. It was not an easy task to pole one of these
boats up a rapid, and the life on the river was a life of toil.
During the last twenty years before 1800, or while Washington
was President, a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia took up traffic on
the Ohio. He sent dry goods and other merchandise overland to
Pittsburg, thence down the Ohio in a barge, and up the Mississippi to
Kaskaskia in Illinois, which was at that time an important town. Here
the cargo was exchanged for skins of bear, deer, buffalo, and other
animals, to be taken up the Ohio and sent from Pittsburg to
Philadelphia.
It took time to trade in this way. A summer was needed to go
down to New Orleans and back again with a keel boat or a barge.
When a boat came up “with furs from St. Louis; cotton from Natchez;
hemp, tobacco, and saltpeter from Maysville; or sugar and cotton
from New Orleans and Natchez, it was a wonder to the many, and
drew vast crowds to see and rejoice over it.”
One of the river men. Captain Shreve, once took his boat from
New Orleans up to Louisville in twenty-five days. The people
celebrated this remarkable achievement and gave the captain a
public dinner. No doubt they made as much ado as we should now
make if a ship should go from New York to Liverpool in three days.
They were quite right to make a feast in honor of the occasion, for
the time commonly allowed for the journey had been three months.
The flatboat, which for years was used in river traffic, was about
forty feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet deep. It had a flat
bottom and was handled by means of three oars on each side. Two
of these were called sweeps, and were almost as long as the boat
itself. At the stern was a still longer steering oar. When the water
rose in the autumn these boats carried loads of produce and bore
thousands of families who were seeking homes farther west.
Old and young with their household treasures, which often
included the cow, sailed down in these rude house boats to some
chosen spot in the distant wilderness. It was in a boat like these that
the tall and awkward young man, Abraham Lincoln, made a voyage
to New Orleans and first saw something of the outside world.
Redstone was an old name for Brownsville, where the National
Road crossed the Monongahela, and many boats started from here
in early days. It is said that an old boatman was once hailed by a
seeker after information. “Where are you from?” was the first
question. “Redstone,” was the answer. “What is your lading?”
“Millstones.” “What is your captain’s name?” “Whetstone.” “Where
are you bound?” “For Limestone.” The interesting part of the story is
that these answers were all true.
Large as the traffic was by the flatboats, it was greatly increased
when steamboats began to run on the rivers. No other craft could
hope to compete with these.
The boatmen owed a grudge to the steamboat, just as the pack-
horse men had hated the Conestoga wagon, for they saw that their
trade was lost, and it was hard to try to make a living in some other
way. For many years the great passenger boats reigned supreme on
the rivers of the West, but at last they in turn were forced to give way
to the railroads. Such boats still run on the Ohio and the Mississippi,
but men do not travel on them when they wish to go quickly.
Railroad cars, however, do not take the place of some boats on
the Ohio. Look out on the Monongahela at Pittsburg and you may
see large fields of boats,—many acres of barges, for there are
barges on the river still, though they do not look like the old ones.
They are of great size and are sometimes made of steel. The coal,
taken from the hill out of which it is dug, is run on a trestle along the
river and dumped into one of these boats. At Pittsburg the barges
wait for the water to rise to a “coal-boat” stage,—that is, until there is
a depth of at least eight feet all the way down the river Then a
number of barges are lashed together and a steamboat pushes them
down the stream. The water often comes up suddenly, and the coal
must be rushed to market while the high water lasts. A single
towboat sometimes takes to New Orleans several acres of coal from
the great Pittsburg coal seam. This lies flat under the hilltops and is
mined from the edges where the rivers have cut down through the
coal, far into the beds of rock that lie below.

Fig. 46. Coal Barges, Pittsburg

On the Monongahela the United States owns fifteen dams with
locks, and the river is thus “slacked” far up into West Virginia. The
dams change the river into a series of long, still ponds, which are
deep enough to float the coal barges. Below Pittsburg, in the Ohio, is
another dam which sets the water back and makes a harbor for the
city.
There is no coal to send down the Allegheny, but there are logs
to be rafted, and there is much oil, for the river flows through the
petroleum region around Oil City. Some of this is taken to refineries
at Pittsburg and made ready for use. Much natural gas is obtained
by boring and is used in the city for warming houses and for cooking.
 Fig. 47. Pittsburg at Night
A cloud of smoke from the soft coal burned in so many shops
and furnaces hangs over the lower parts of Pittsburg and has given it
the name of “The Smoky City.” James Parton says that on the first
morning of his visit there he felt sure that he was rising very early, for
the street lamps were all burning and he ate his breakfast in a room
lighted by gas. As the room was filled with people, he thought
Pittsburg was very enterprising, and himself along with it, but he was
quite taken aback when he looked at his watch and found that it was
almost nine o’clock. Darker even than the streets are the “rooms” in
which thousands of miners, within a few miles of the city, dig out coal
with their picks and shovels.
If one rides into Pittsburg by night, he will see something finer
than fireworks. The train is likely to whirl him past long rows of fiery
ovens in which coal is being made into coke. And in many towns
near by, as well as along the rivers by the city itself, the jets of flame
will show iron furnaces and steel mills, with grimy workmen moving
about in the strange light.

Fig. 48. Furnaces near Pittsburg

The iron ore for these furnaces is brought from many parts of the
country, but chiefly from the lands around lake Superior. It is shipped
down the lakes in large steamers and loaded into cars at Cleveland
or some other port on lake Erie. Instead of carrying the coal to the
ore, the ore is thus brought to the coal, without which it could not be
worked. The reason for this is that Pittsburg is much nearer the
places where most of the iron is to be used. If the coal of
Pennsylvania were taken to the iron mines of Minnesota and the
furnaces built there, much of the iron and steel would have to be