A Reputation History of John Dee, 1527-1609: The Life of an Elizabethan Intellectual

208 Pages·2009·6.339 MB·English

by  Robert W. Barone

F JTLTION HISTORY OF Jeri':
1527-1609
The Life of an Elizabethan Intellectual
Robert W. Barone
With a Foreword by
Nicholas I-I. Clulee
The Edwin Mellen Press
Lewiston.Queenston•Lampeter
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barone, Robert W.
A reputation history of John Dee, 1527-1609 : the life of an Elizabethan intellectual I
Robert W. Barone ; with a foreword by Nicholas H. Clu lee.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-4667-0
ISBN-10: 0-7734-4667-2
1. Dee, John, 1527-1608.2. Dee, John, 1527-1608--Public opinion. 3. Intellectuals--Great
Britain--Biography. 4. Occultists—Great Britain--Biography. 5. Scientists--Great Britain--
Biography. 6. Scholars--Great Britain--Biography. 7. Astrologers--Great Britain--
Biography. 8. Alchemists--Great Britain--Biography. 9. Great Britain—Intellectual life--
16th century. 10. Great Britain--History--Elizabeth, 1558-1603--Biography. I. Title.
BF1598.D5B37 2009
130.92--dc22
2009028140
hors sdrie.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Front cover: Painting of John Dee, c. 1594
Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England
Copyright © 2009 Robert W. Barone
All rights reserved. For information contact
(cid:9)
The Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press
(cid:9)
Box 450 Box 67
(cid:9)
Lewiston, New York Queenston, Ontario
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USA 14092-0450 CANADA LOS ILO
The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales
UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT
Printed in the United States of America
To
My dear wife, Deborah
and
my wonderful son, William
Contents
Foreword by Nicholas H. Clulee
Chronology(cid:9) iii
Acknowledgments(cid:9) vii
Preface(cid:9) ix
Part I. The Making of a Reputation(cid:9) 1
Chapter I.(cid:9) Dee's Early Life: 1527-1553(cid:9) 3
Chapter II.(cid:9) Uneasy Times: Dee's Fortunes during(cid:9) 13
The Reign of Mary: 1553-1558
Chapter III. The Queen's Philosopher: The Apex of a Career (cid:9) 37
1558-1583
Chapter IV. Contact with Angels and Travels Abroad:(cid:9) 63
Waning Fortunes and Desperate Hopes: 1583-1589
Chapter V.(cid:9) Twilight Years: Broken Promises and Broken(cid:9) 81
Dreams: 1590-1608/9
Part II. The Evolution of a Reputation(cid:9) 93
Chapter VI. Seventeenth Century Reception: Casting the Die(cid:9) 95
Chapter VII The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries:(cid:9) 111
A Reputations Journey from the Age of Reason
through the Victorian Age
Chapter VIII. The Twentieth Century to the Present Day:(cid:9) 137
A Reputation Revised
Conclusion. Dee's Place in History(cid:9) 169
Bibliography(cid:9) 177
Index(cid:9) 187
Foreword
In 1971, while still a graduate student at the University of Chicago finishing a
draft of my dissertation on John Dee, I attended the Thomas Harriot Symposium
at the University of Delaware. Edward Rosen concluded his talk on "Harriot's
Science: The Intellectual Background" by quoting from the preface to Andreas
Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (Basel, 1543) lamenting the long separation
of the practice of dissection from those who expounded the treatises of anatomy.
Rosen suggested that the reunification of "hand and brain" which marked
Vesalius' reform of the study of anatomy was also the key to the fruitfulness of
Harriot's work.' It struck me that Rosen could have made the same point more
appropriately with reference to John Dee's "Mathematical' Praeface" to the first
English edition of Euclid's Elements of Geometry of 1570. More appropriate,
because Dee, with whom Harriot was acquainted, treated the mathematical
sciences and advocated the cultivation of both mathematical theory and its
application in the practical mathematical arts, which mapped onto Harriot's
endeavors more clearly than anatomy. When I asked Rosen about his choice, his
reply was an illuminating challenge. Although he acknowledged the textual
appropriateness of Dee's "Praeface," he admitted that he did not want the issue of
Dee's "angelic conversations," with all that implied about Dee's gullibility, occult
vs. scientific proclivities, and irrationality, to confuse or taint the discussion of
Harriot's science.
As I did in 1971, every modern scholar who has devoted any significant
attention to John Dee has had to confront, at least implicitly, some aspect of Dee's
reputation. My approach, as has been the case with other scholars before and
after me, was to confront this reputation indirectly by reviewing the record of
I Edward Rosen, "Harriot's Science: The Intellectual Background," in Thomas Harriot,
Renaissance Scientist, edited by John W. Shirley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 14-15.
Ii
Dee's career and to establish the historical value of Dee as an entrée into
significant aspects of Elizabethan and early modern European culture.
Robert Barone's A Reputation History of John Dee is the first book to
confront directly the formation and history of Dee's reputation. There are the two
strands of Barone's treatment: a narrative and analysis of the formation and
evolution of Dee's reputation, and his own largely negative assessment of Dee's
place in history framed primarily in terms of his contribution to the development
of science. While I have reservations about the second, he does a useful service
in foregrounding the issue of Dee's reputation. In the first part he reviews Dee's
career in a clear, broad, non-technical fashion, highlighting the various images
Dee presented and the key episodes of his life that shaped his negative reputation.
Barone's second part then follows the evolution of this negative reputation from
the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, culminating in a synopsis and
assessment of the scholarly work on Dee from the 1950's to the present. Barone
also brings out how, during the long period when Dee's negative reputation was
dominant, the gradual publication of many of Dee's autobiographical records as
well as his serious philosophical works provided an interesting counterpoint that
built the foundation for the modern scholarly approach to Dee. In sum, Barone
provides a clear introduction to Dee's life and career and a useful guide to the
historiography to date.
Nicholas H. Clulee, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Frostbburg State University
Chronology of John Dee's Life
1527 John Dee Born, July 13, in London, son of Rowland and Jane Wild.
c. 1535-1542 Student at Chelmsford Grammar School.
1542 Entered St. John's College, Cambridge.
1546 Received B.A. Appointed Fellow and Under-Reader of Greek at Trinity
College, Cambridge.
1547 Visited Low Countries. Produced Aristophanes' Peace at Trinity.
1548 Received M.A. Went to Louvain (December).
1550 Lectured in Paris on Euclid's Elements.
1551 Returned to London. Visited Cecil.
1552 Enterd service of Earl of Pembroke; later entered service of Duke of
Northumberland.
1553 Granted Rectories of Upton-upon-Severn and Longleadenham. Edward
VI died (July 6). Execution of Northumberland (August).
1554 Offered post to "read the Mathematical Sciences" at Oxford (refused).
1555 Birth of Jane Fromond. Dee arrested and placed in custody of Bishop
Bonner. Took part in the examination of John Philpot as Bonner's
chaplain.
1556 Wrote preface to John Feild's Ephemeris anni 1557.(cid:9) Wrote a
"Supplication to Queen Mary."
1558 Published Propaedeumata Aphoristica. Death of Queen Mary
( November 17)
1559 Invented "paradoxall compass" for the Muscovy Company. January 15,
coronation of Elizabeth I, the date was calculated by Dee at the request of
Robert Dudley.
1562 At Louvain and Antwerp.
1563 Visited Gesner in Zurich. Went to Venice and Urbino.
iv
1564 Published Monas Hieroglyphica in Antwerp. Granted Deanery of
Gloucester. (December 8)
1565 First marriage to Katherine Constable. (She died at some point prior to
1575.).
1566 Took up residence at Mortlake.
1568 Second edition of Propaedeumata Aphoristica presented to the Queen.
Audience with the Queen.
1570 Published the "Mathematicall Preface" to Billingsley's Euclid.
1571 Traveled to Lorraine.
1573 Published Parallaticae cotnmentationis praxeosque nucleus quidam (lost).
1574 Visited Wales.
1575 Dee's second marriage to unknown wife.
1576 Death of second wife.
1577 Met with Leicester, Sidney, and Dyer Wrote the General and Rare
Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation.
1578 Married Jane Fromond (February 5.)
1579 Birth of son Arthur (July 13).
1580 Death of Dee's mother (October 10).
1581 Birth of daughter Katherine (June 7). Began Angelic Conversations.
(December 22).
1582 Talbot (Kelley) at Mortlake (March 9). March 10, first session with
Kelley.
1583 Dee worked on Calendar reform. Birth of son Rowland (February) Met
Laski (March 18). Met Laski at Greenwich (May 13). Laski at Mortlake
(May 18). Departed from Mortlake (September 21). In Briel (September
30). In Bremen (October 22). In Lubeck (November 7). In Stettin
(December 25).
1584 In Poznan (January 19). In Lasko (February 13). In Cracow (March 13).
In Prague (August 9). Had audience with Emperor Rudolf (September 3).
V
1585 Birth of son Michael (February 22). Left Prague for Cracow (April 5).
Had audience with King Stephen (April 17). Back at Prague (August 6).
Dee made Doctor of Medicine at Prague University.
1586 Met Roanberk. Left Prague (May 6). Banished from Prague (May 29).
At Erfurt (June). In Trebona (September 14).
1587 Last Action with Kelley (May 23).
1588 Birth of son Theodore. (February 28).
1589 Left Trebona (March 11). In Nuremberg (March 18). In Frankfurt am
Main (March 26). In Bremen (April 19). Sailed for England (November
29). Landed in England (December 8).
1590 Birth of daughter Madinia (late February)
1592 Birth of daughter Frances. (January 1). Queen's commissioners, Sir
Thomas Gorge and John Walley, at Mortlake.
1594 Dee presented the "Compendious Rehearsal" to the Queen. Death of son
Michael. (July 13).
1595 Received Wardenship of Manchester from Archbisop Whitgift (January
8). Birth of Margaret (August 14).
1596 Arrived at Manchester (February 15).
1599 Published A Letter, containing a most briefe Discourse Apologeticall.
1601 Death of son Theodore.
1602 Marriage of son Arthur.
1603 Death of Queen Elizabeth I (March 24).
1604 Dee petitioned King James I (June 5). Petitioned Parliament (June 8).
1605 Death of Jane Dee (March). Deaths of daughters Madinia and Margaret.
(March). Forced to relinquish his post by the Fellows of Christ's College,
1608 Traditional date of Dee's death (December)
1609 New possible date of Dee's death (March 26).