John Dee on Astronomy: Propaedeumata Aphoristica (1558 And 1568 Latin and English)

137 Pages·1978·10.412 MB·English

by  John Dee

JOHN DEE ON ASTRONOMY
·~ Preface
Our purpose is to make John Dee's PropaedeumatAa phoris
tica (1558-1568) accessible ·to modern readers and to relate
it to Dee's career and to intellectual history, specifically, to
the history of science.
Apart from the brief Parallaticaceo mmentationipsr axeosque
,_nucleusq uid~ <aiorf Dee's published works now
become available in English/rhe other major Latin work, the
Monas hieroglyphica(1 564), has been twice translated into
English in recent years, by J. W. Hamilton-Jones i~ 1947 and
by C. H. Josten in 1964./ht and the Propaedeumatat,o gether
with the "Mathematical1 Preface" and addenda to Sir Henry
Billingsley's translation of Euclid's Elements( 1570), make up
Dee's published contributions to natural philosophy.hhe
Monas was not understood when published and r/mains
largely ,qp..a_g~Ien.' general, discussions of Dee as mathemati
cian and scientist have hitherto drawn very heavily upon the
"Mathematicall Preface" but hardly at all upon the Euclidean
addenda or the Propaedeumataw, hich have equal or greater
importance. We hope that this imbalance can now be~tified.
· We have tried, through the" Introduction" and "General
Notes," to make the Propaedeumatcao mprehensible in and for
itself. This is not easy, for much is not immediately intelligible
to readers whose preassumptio;ns and education differ enor-
viii / Preface Preface / ix
;
mously from the author's/ Besides changing the language occultist who talked to angels, a mathematician consulted by
(though the original Latin is retained on facing pages) and
navigators and geographers, a mystical alchemical adept and
attempting to penetrate the "veiled utterance" traditional
a~ teacher of arithmeti~a~ become a test case
among occultist writers, we have brought to bear upon the
for the new interpretation of the Renaissance roots of the
text other pertinent information about Dee's life, his other
scientific movement/bee's admirers emphasize his mathe
writings, J.1nd the intellectual habits of the mid-sixteenth · matics and the fruitful tendencies of his hermeticism; his
century/~lthough some difficulties remain unresolved (for
detractors point to his unintelligible hieroglyphic tI!.Onad,h is
instance, the baffling initials of Aphorism XVIII), the major
chats with angels, and an insufferable vanity that duped both
obstacles have been surmounted. Our interest in relating Dee
himself and his latter-day admirers into inflating his impor
to his period ha~had, however, a seco1;1da spect. tance. In fact the major texts-the Propaedeumata(f irst pub-
~H i-~s-·t-·o--·r-·-i-a·--n-,--s-, ., 1"-h,a~v,e long disputedJabo~ut the relation ~ lished i~_m&t.0!; Monas (15_§4~th,e ~tic~l PE~'·'
between the Renaissa ce and the scientific revolution of the
(1570),a nd the records of angehc conversat!9ns and alchemical
,:,r1
seventeenth '~~~tury;>I.hLRI~ilmg~i;-th~hue nine
experimerus (beginning in 1581)-show a continuous progress
'ii'j
teenth century was hat the Renaissance dispelled the fog of
II . toward the occ~f-anc[ilie]ir~IJli~ firs~ ~f tne s~nes,
scholasticism and prepared unprejudiced minds to receive the
l the Propaedeumatai,s , in the mam, a fully mtell1g1~~~s of
\ clear light of science/A generation later, when Pierre Duhem
r_ecipesf or aJ;1_t;2ly~g,ai:itbE:etaicn a geometry to a standard
and those he inspired. came to read the scholastics, they found ancf
~cholastic physics asrrfrnomy: /(rhe implied conclusion is'
much that sounded like Galileo; and it began to appear that
that Dee's mathematics did not grow from or together with
the Renaissance, rather than llii"urishin.Ethi e scientific revolu
his occultism but, rather, p_recededi t, and that ~e
tion, delayed its1 appearance for two hundred years.JThis dev~mself to occult stucfi.esh e moved off the high road
interpretation was challenged in the 1930sb y both soci'l and ~o-fc -th--e-, ,,s.c--i~e·n--tific revolution. -I/ - ~
intellectual historiansJ~~-e former, the Renais It remains to indicate the division of work between the
sance created protoscientists in the form of artist-engineers,
collaborators. Wayne Shumaker established the Latin text
improving artisans, surveyors, navigators, and other applied
and made the translation, to which he has added "General
mathematicians, a miscellaneous class of semileamed,
Notes." John Heilbron wrote the "Introduction," references
practical men, disdainful of the disputations of the schools and
to which are included among the" General Notes." Each has
eager for a science capable of improving man's estate/~
profited from the comments of the other. The "Preface" has
ing to the latter, ·the Renaissance spawned Pythagoreans,
been written jointly.
~erologists, ·and cabalists-number-magi
cians who inspired the scientific revoltJtionaries to build a BerkeleyC, alifornia
quantitative, anti-Aristotelian physics./The latest proposal August 5, 1976
unites these schools of thought and looks to Renaissance
applied mathematicians ,inspired by Platonizing or occultist
philosophies as the true and necessary precursors of the
scientific revolution.
John Dee is the exemplar of both sorts of precursors. An
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
~
by J. L. Heilbron
·~ Abbreviations Used Dee's Role in the
in Footnotes Scientific Revolution
I. DEE'S CARBBR
I
AT John Dee. AutobiographicalT racts. Ed. James
JohnDee(1527-1608)wasageometer, physicist, astrologer~
Crossley. Manchester, 1851.
antiquarian, hermetist, and conjurer, a mixture of mathe
DNB Dictionaryo f National Biography.
matician and magician, of scholar and ent~usiast, of s~hemer
·DSB Dictionaryo f ScientificB iography.
and dupe/ He began to acquire his stock in trade, great
"Preface" John Dee. "Mathematicall Preface." In Euclid,
erudition and a reputation for it, at St. John's College, Cam
Elements of Geometrie. Ed. Henry Billingsley.
bridge, where he was an undergraduate from 1542 to 1545.
London, 1570.
~"I was [then] so vehemently bent to studie," he later wrote,
Reprinted as The Mathematical Preface to the ·1
"that for. those yeares I did inviolably keepe this order: o?l
Elementso f Geometry.E d. Allen G. I).ebus. New
to sleepe four houres every night; to allow to meate and drink
York, 1975.
(and some refreshing after) two houres every day; and of the
Thorndike Lynn Thorndike. History of Magic and Experi
other eighteen houres all (except the tyme of going to and
mental Science.8 vols. New York, 1923-1958.
being at divine service)w as spent in my studies and learning. "1
1
Dee drew up this account of his undergraduate labors in 1592,
as part of a CompendiousR ehearsalo f his achieven_ientsa nd
sacrificesi n the cause oflearning; he hoped thereby to refute
the charge -of conjuring often brought against him, and to
persuade Queen Elizabeth that he merited a place or pension
from a grateful nat.ion//One would have to be more gullible
than Dee himself to credit his Rehearsall iterally; but one
!. Dee, AT, p. 5. Most of what is known about Dee's life is sum
marized in DNB, V: 721-729,
! .
2 / Introductory Essay Dee's Career / 3 ..
\
would correcrly infer from it that, from the beginning, he of a London grocer, perhaps· a purveyor to the royal house-
based his career on knowing, or appearing to know, more hold, precisely the sort of person with whom Rowland Dee
than anyone else.2 would have associated.5
In Dee's Cambridge days the academic fad was Greek. Dee's ambitions e:ltended far beyond the reach of a don.
He studied it vigg_rou~ probably under the guidance of Even in respect of learning. neither English university could
John Cheke, Fellow of St. John's and Regius Professor of Greek, contain him. However excellent in Greek and Divinity, they
then ~ngaged in )the exciting and. dan_g~ous_ attempt to had little to offe r in mathematics, in which Dee early had an
impose a )iew proni.ii:icTanoii"upont he members oCthe interest; and, if we credit the "Preface," a considerable skill;
universityf Although neither Cheke nor Dee was a great "in my youth," he wrote the~7':;:iinuented a way, How in
. Greci~ each drew much from his study of the language. In any Horizontall, Murall OF Aequinoctiall Diall, etc., At all
1544 the professor became tutor in ancient languages to the howers (the Sunne shining) the Signe and Degree ascendent,
vt ..
future l[dward and two years later the student received a may be knowen .". 6 (What this signifies will be made clear
foundation fellowship and appointment as under-reader in later.) Dee doubted that he could go much further unaided;
Greek at Trinity College, Cambridge, then newly established and since, in his judgment, no one at .Q.!P..!$i~nd, eed no·one
by Henry Vill.3 t · in England, was prepared to "set furtii.1iisf ote or shew his
The Court already knew something about Dee. His hand" .in the higher mathematical sciences,7 he had perforce
father, Rowland Dee, a ~. .R. .ft rade, was a "gentleman to visit the Continent.
sewer," or maitre d'hotel, to Henry, from whom he had His quest for foreign knowledge began. in the Low'
received several tangible marks offavor. In 1544, for example, Countries in 1547. He found what he wanted, and the following
Rowland Dee began· to enjoy a curious monopoly'. in the year, after bringing back to England some excellent astrono
freight-forwarding business: the right to supervise, for a fee, mical instruments, he returned for protracted .study at the
the packing of all merchandise shipped abroad from London. University o.f_~. The institution was then at its prime.
This plum was sweetened on at least two occasions by the It had financial support' from the Pope and the Emperor
award of income from confiscated Church lands. 4 It came . Charles V; its student body, drawn from many parts of·
naturally to Rowland Dee's son, who later tried to trace his Charle~isv ast dominions, was reckoned the largest in Europe
lineage to the ancient kings of Wales, to center his expectations outside Paris; and its faculty, especially of civil law and
on princes. John Dee was a courtier by nature and nurture, as mathematics, had acquired an international reputation. 8 Dee
the eugenicists used to say. Eventually he married into the studied both subjects, chiefly mathematics, in which he had
group of high~placed hangers-on. His third wife was the the guidance of Gemma Frisius~p rofessor of medicine, and of
daughter of a lady-in-waiting. He had begun with the widow
5. C. F. Smith,John. Dee (1909), pp, 13, 46; E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor
Geography (1930), pp. 75-76, 107.
2. For other pertinent examples of upward mobility conferred by · 6. "Preface," sig. d.yr. Dee's invention apparently showed the
reputation for learning, see J. Burckhardt, Civilization( 1958), I: 27-28, rising point of the ecliptic; see chap. II: 3 below. For the few mathematical
22.9-235; Nauert, Agrippa( 1965), p. 33. students at Cambridge circa 1550, see Cal4er, Dee, I: 198; II: 99,
3.AT, p. 5; J, Strype, Life of Chfke, 2nd ed. (1821), pp. 12-13; A. 7. Dee to Cecil, 1563, cited by Calder, Dee,I : r98-.
Tilley, Engl. Hist. Rev. 53 (1938): 445-454. 8. L. van der Essen, Rev. gen. belge;n o. 43 (May, t949): 38-39, .57;
4.I. R. F. Calder,John Dee (1952), II: 90--91. Louvain University, L'Universite(t 9.oo),p p. x0-:-16.
4 / Introductory Essay Dee's Career / 5
Gemma's student, Gerard Mercator, already a well-known work.1~/The Louvain group, despite a strong interest in
cartographer./rhese gentlemen were more than fountains of astrology, did not draw its inspiration from Pythagoras./
technical information. They showed where mastery of Jpi\~al_l_yD, ee identified himself with them and with other
Renaissance mathematics might lead. Both were welcome at 1eaaing applied mathematicians, particularly the hard-headed
the imperial court at Brussels, where they advised on geo Portuguese cartographer Pedro Nunez (1502-1578), professor
graphical matters and did a good business in globes and other of mathematics at the University of Coimbra, chief technical
mathematical furniture. 9 advisor to the King of Portugal, scourge of circle-squarers and
"Mathematics" in Dee's time included many subjects . of fuzzy-minded astrologers.13 Gradually, however,~}.
that have since become branches of physics or engineering, or ( sympathy for Platonizing_philosQJ2hies intensified, and he
\ entirely separate disciplines: Q1rtig.d!!'_c_h,i,!<;_sstuurrvee, ying, ended closer to th~pl~!o~-~- al},Dico della
fortification, cartography, ~~tronOJJ,!Ln avigation. The asso Mirandola than to Nufiez an.Gcel mma Fnsius .
ciation of mathematics with practical application gave philo .•, ...F. rom Louvain, Dee made his way to~~!~ and then to
sophers who did not understand it a pretext to despise it, and ~ris, where he sought out the mathematicians: Petrus Mon
well into the seventeenth century mathematics was often tau;eus (Pierre Mondore), the King's librarian, who lent him
depreciated for its odor ·o f practicality !10 /Cons~q:!!,Jntly, a copy of Diophantus; Oronce Fine, professor of mathematics,
Renaissance mathematicians sometimes sought to fegitimize astrologer, c~t()graph~r, and circle-squarer, to whose "impu
their study by reference to -~nizing phi~s that gave dent, false ;:i,;di gnorant" claims Nufiez had devoted an entire
numbers ~pecml, pp_werrsn.ii.s ed geometrical proof1:o a level book;14 Antoine Mizauld {Antonius Mizaldus), who styled
just ben~th God's own way ofieasoning; arid niade·numerical himself" physician and mathematician," and taught medical
relations th~~~}nt for the construction ~1:1clmaint~nanc~ astrology; the famou~~eri:-ede la Ramee (Petrus Ramus);
ro f the universe/In some cases, appeal to Plato or Pythagoras and a dozen:more. Dee. began to-deinoiistrate his prowess
might be Jittle more than an r academJcmftk_ori literary ___ before -his new acquaintances in September 1550, in well
Y1:L2ili<=.~,
' ~ 1 Pythagoreanism ~ay have provided ~he attended lectures on the first two books ofEuclid's Elements1.5
motivation and, more rarely, the gmde, to mathematical -iJ
.22.great a curios!!Y_~~sl _l:~~i_s!im~~~ understood geometry
(I deserved attention. Dee was advertisectand encouragea by ·
9. P. Gilbert and B. Lefebvre, Rev. quest. sci. 12 (1927): 20-21.
10. P. Allen,]. Hist. Ideas 10 (1949): 219-253; C.]. Scriba in Roy. Soc. 12. For example, Joannes Caeserius, epistle dedicatory to a collec
of London, Notes and Records2 5 (1970): 17-46; J. Webster, Academiarum tion of mathematical tracts (1507): "[numbers] non esse res leves aut
examen (1654), pp. 41-42; Calder, J?ee,I : 288, citing Lord Herbert of omnino vulgares (quamquam et vulgus quoque numerare novit), sed
Cherbury, A Dialogueb etweena Tuter and his Student (London, 1768), p. 2: plenos divinorum mysteriis et divina quadam ratione .... " E. Rice, ed.,
the ends of mathematics are'" ignoble ... as tending only to the measur PrefatoryE pistles( 1972), p. 171.
ing of heights, depths and distances," which, however useful, "can be in 13. Nunez, De crepuscitlis( 1542), letter c!edicatory; DSB, X: 160-162;
no way esteemed, as obj'ects adequated or proportioned to the dignity F. Gomes Teixeira, Historia (1934), pp. 100-190.
of our souls." 14. Dee, "Preface," sig. *W,a nd AT, p. 8; R. P. Ross, Studieso n Fine
11. For example, Ramus writes in the preface to his Euclid (1544): (1971), pp. 262-263; Nunez, De erratis Promtii [!] Finaei( Coimbra, 1546);
" ... minime mirandum est Pythagoram, Platonemque huius admi Thorndike V: 299-301.
. ratione disciplinae [i.e., mathematics] captos, maius in ea diviniusque 15. Dee gave the title of the lectures, now l9st, as "Prolegomena et
quiddam deprehendisse, quam ut humanis sensibus tribuendum dictata Parisiensia in Euclidis Elementorum Geometricorum librum
arbitrarentur." Ramus, Praefationes( 1599), p. 120. primum et secundum," in AT, p. 25.
6 / Introductory Essay Dee's Career . / 7
several_frlJow countrymen, notably Sir William Pickering the sublime when recommending the study of the Elements.
(1516-1575), a diplomat vy-ith a strong interest~ Everytlung necessary had long laii;t ready to hand in prolix
mathematics, who had7 ngaged him as a tutor in Louvain and Proclus's Commentari.eosn Euclid's first book: by study of
remained a friend.1o/Young Dee's willin~to set forth mafiiematics the soul can climb from Plato's cave into full \
uclid in the stronghoicfofmen.like Ramus, Fine, and ~~~:~;;::r~c~:0,~t~:~f~~~~~;~Jefr"~~~~~~~~f >.
Montaureus, each of w om a .eit er published or had in
hand an edition of the Elements,a rgues both competence and pure thought."19 In his edition of .Euclid published in 1516,
courage; his work withG~a had added information to Lefevre endorses.~ as the Greek way to the con
the confidence he never lacked. templation of divtnig.; "it has no trace of the filthy, of any-
Dee made much of this episode in the Compendi.Qus ~~" he says, "~,C-of
Rehearsa;l1 7 • .J?,hil.Q~oEhizing~,e r=_ex~L.!l!.:W. Pythagor~s, Plato and
__b.ristotle::2_0 'Melanchthon, in his preface to the Basel Euclra !
At the request of some English gentlemen, tuade unto me to doe of I537, explains that Plato insisted upon geometry as a pre
somewhat there [Paris] for the honour of my country, I did , requisite for entrancCitffo his academy chiefly because its
undertake to read freely and publiquely Euclide's Elements '\ study raises our gaze, which is usually fix~d on the ground, to
GeometricallM, athematice,P hysice, et Pythagorice;a thing never.
the heavens and their Creator. Simon Grynaeus in introducing
done publiquely in any University of Christendotne. My 1
the first printing of the Greek text (1533), likewise invokes
auditory in Rhemes College [the insiicant College de Reims]
was so great, and the most part elder than my selfe, that the Plato, and rates geometry as the best possible study for the
mathematicall schooles could not hol, them; for many were "pious mind devoted to things ~iyiP,;t-O::n. e can hardly avoid
faine, without the schooles at the windowes, to be auditors and the conclusion that J;:)ee's(Rl!h~&<l~eanJelucidationo f 1550
spectators, as they best could help themselves thereto. I did also
was but a reworking of the traditional.iiplfftintprolegomena
dictate upon every proposition, beside the first exposition.
to ~hes tudy of Euclid.
1
Now Dee h'\a d lectured on only the first two of Euclid's As for the reading "physice," that too probably did not
advance beyond the ordinary. Fine, in lils widely used version
thirteen books, not upon "every proposition," and his treat
of Euclid's first six hooks, item~ the .rrts and sciencesb ased
ment' was by no means u recedented. To speak only of
on geometry; and most later six~effith-century editors,
Paris, Fine ha een ecturing on Eu idpublicly and mathe
including Stephanus Gracilis, Commandino, Clavius, and Dee.
matically for many years, and the famous Jacques Lefevre
~'Etaples had taught how to read him "pythagorice."18 It himself, copied, extended, or_e mbellished the list.21_T he fact r
that no contemporary reference to bee's lectures has been
wa~ already a commonplace t<frefer to Pythagoras, Plato, and
found, not even in ~he lengthy preface on the dignity of'
16. Ashniolean MS ·423, ff. 294-195 (Bodleian); J. W. Burgon, Life uf 19. Proclus, Cummentaireesd, . ver Becke (1948), pp. 16-17, 40.
Gresham (1839), p. 459; DNB, XV: u30-1131; Dee to Cominandino 2.0, Also in Rice, PrefatoryE pistles,p p. 380-381. Compare the
· [l56a?], in Euclid, Elements,e d. Leeke and Serle (1661), p. 6o8: "[that] similar sentiments of Lefevre's students Charles de Bovelles and Josse
singular patron of all good Arts, and specially of the Mathematicall, Sir Clichtove in prefaces to mathemati~al books published in 1503 (Rice,
William Pickering Knight, my exceeding good friend.'' ibid., pp. 93, 108-109). ·
17. AT, p. 7• 21. For a bibliography of the editions mentioned, see C. Thomas
18. Ross, Studies,C hap. 6. Stanford, EarlyE ditions( 1926),. nos. 6-10, .Ilh 18-19, 30, 41,
' .
8 / Introductory Essay Dee's Career J 9
mathematics published by his friend Montaureus in 1551, During the same promising years, 1551-1553,D ee served
provides further evidence that they contained little unfamiliar Edward's master, the domineering head of goverl1ment, the.
to the Parisians. It appears that the aging Dee, dissatisfied Duke of Northumberland, "a man for,.v hom no one has ever
with the reception of his life's work and pressed to defend it, ,had a good word." 26 Dee tutored the Duke's children
misrepresented the commendable but unexceptional Eucli- including Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester and a favorit;
. dean lectures of his youth as. a spectacular and unprecedented · ofElizabeth's. 27H e also instructed the Duke's wife, whom he
achievement.22 '- "'"' ~· improved with tracts on the narries and configurations of the
Dee returned to England in 1551. He set up as a mathe constellations, and the causes of the tides. As for the greedy
matical co11sultant with a stock that included astronomical Duke, Dee helped him to promote a search for northern
instruments designed by Gemma, "two great globes of routes to the riches of the orient.28 Dee's confidence, enthu
Gerard Mercator's making,"23 and instructions for the use of siasm, and mathematics, not to mention his training by
the celestial globe, written by him~,elf and dedicated to Gemma and Mercator, were just what was wanted to re
Edward VI. Dee had access to the studious boy king through assure uneasy investors in expensive voyages through un
/r.o known seas.
their common mentor Cheke, who saw jt that his charge
understood, and even wrote upon, the)mportance of astro Dee favored the route to the east, above Norway and
nomy.24 Dee's offering was favorably received. Another Russia, against that to the west. He may have known that
followed, a tract on subjects intently pursued at Louvain, the Norsemen routindy sailed east as far as the White Sea, and
sizes of planets and stars and their distances from the earth. he certainly knew that Greenland opposed a vast and un:
Edwar9 rewarded its author with an annuity of__10c0r owns. certain barrier to the west. Whatever. the ground of his
Dee improved this gift in 1553 by exchanging it for two a?vocacy, it went against the geographical opinion of his day.
absentee rectorships, the combined income of which, some First, the maps of 1550, greatly exaggerating the eastern
£So, was twice the salary that Cheke had had as royal extent of A.sia, placed "Cathay" about 2ro0 east of London,
Cantabridgian professor. 25 and hence nearer by the west than by the east. Second, the
most important ~ontemporary maps of the polar regions
offered no hope of a northeast passage. Fine's world map of
22. Calder, Dee; II: 148; Montaureus, Euclidis Elementorum liber
decimus (1551). Regarding Dee's large auditory, note that students pre
senting themselves for degrees at the University of Paris were required
to have heard, or rather to swear that they had heard, lectures on the one may guess from some that have survived that many may have been
first six books of~uclid. Hearing Det:rnight have eased their c9ns,ciences fragments, drafts, or outlines. Their titles can nonetheless serve as a
and their burden. Fine, Dempnstrationes (1536), epistle dedicatory~Eoss, guide to his concerns. The fullest published list (which does not include .
Studies, p. 93. the titles Dee mentioned casually) is in C. H. Cooper and T. Cooper,
·23. AT, p. 5. Athenae cantabrigienses, II (1861): 505-509; cf. AT, pp. 24-27, 74-77; Taylor,
24. B. and H. Hellyer,]. Br. Astr. Ass. 82 (1972): 362-366; "The study Tudor Geography, App. 1A; DNB, V: 721-729.
of this art requires the greatest diligence and desire for knowledge, and 26. G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors, 3rd ed. (1969), p. 209.
sometimes a unique divine inspiration." That is not Dec but Edward, 27. Dee remained close to the Dudleys and their relatives the
praising astronomy in a Latin exercise set him by Cheke c. 1551. Sidneys; he later taught chemistry to Philip Sidney and his friends. P. J. ':l
25. AT, p .. 9; Strype, Life of Cheke, pp. 22-26. Like most of Dee's ~rench,John Dee (1972), pp. 126-131.
tracts, those dedicated to Edward were not printed, and are now lost. 28. .E lton, England under the Tudors, pp. 334-335; Taylor, Tudor
Often the· only authority for the existence of manuscripts is Dee himself; Geography, pp. 89-90.
r
10 / Introductory Essay Dee's Career II
the 1530s shows an open polar se;t,.d.Q.§..(~e xcept for com~ fled the country,31 It was soon the tum of our consulting
bya EE!
munication with the North Sea) C2=I}!!!lll.QI1Wlm:_of mathematician. He went to prison in r555, on the charge of
formed of EyJ_Q.pAe,s ia, and America and blocking a northern "cakuling and conjuring"; but his association with Northum
rou~her. direction/Mercator's mappamundi of 1538, berland, and his impolitic advances to Princess Elizabeth, were .
and the Basel Ptolemy of~- have a large polar continent perhaps the chief causes of his difficulty. He cleared himself
joined to Europe and Russia that reduces the Barents,Sea to a by serving as chaplain and assistant inquisitor to Bishop ·
,.-f
narrow inlet without exit to the east. hese authorities, Bonner of London, a ferocious enemy of magic.a :a Thus
having nothing to guide them in the far north, had perforce purged, he memorialized Mary on the need to collect manu
consulted their imaginations/Dee wa.s quite correct in scripts scattered or endangered by the spoliation of the
regarding their guesses as no Herter than his own. · Catholic foundations, a greeqy, stupid thievery in which his
Northumberland's fellow investors wt'{e no doubt former patron, Northumberland, had been a ringleader.33
pleased to learn that the standard maps erred Itecisely where Mary did not support the project. Dee preserved whatever
their schemes were threatenedJ?nly a trial could decide. The he could. He gradually built up what was probably the most
promoters, later chartered as the Muscovy Company, sent extensive and important personal library of mathematical
Dee their pilots for instruction in cartography and navigation. and philosophical works in England. s~ ~ '01~
The first expedition, with Dee's advisee Richard Chancellor as Elizabeth's succession in 1558 again brought Dee a secure, · 0
,Q ·
chief pilot, reached the White Sea in 1553; three years later if peripheral, connection with the Crown. His former charge,
Stephen Borough, another alumnus of Dee's private maritime Robert Dudley, became a power in the realm; he hiinself
academy, penetrated to Novaya Zemlya and found the Kara performed small services for the Queen (such as "calculing"
Strait. At this point the Muscovy Company, which had been an astrologically appropriate day for her coronation) and
granted a monopoly on explorations to the north, settled occasionally advised or instructed her. 35 The first d~cade or so .
down to trade with the Russians, and abandoned the search of her reign were Dee's most productive years. He immediately
for a northeast passage for over twenty years. Dee remained made public the "chief Crop and Roote, of ten yeres his first
an occasional consultant. so J.. Outlandish ~slt-stu.die d exercisesp hilo.s ophicall,"36
Meanwhile, he had lost his royal protectors/ In 1553 namely the(!_r£l?~eumat horisti.ca;. six years later he \\
Edward died; Northumberland, who tried to keep Mary from h.. arvested a second crop~t he Monas l:!!.et<?,gl~,aznfd.!,j .a5f ter a
the throne, was beheaded; and several of Dee's sponsors, further six, his "very fruitfull Preface" to Sir Henry Billings- /)
notably Cheke, who had been elevated to Secretary of State, ley's translatio:iio:flfficiid's Elements. · '·· ..
29. A. E. Nordenskiold1F acsimile-Atla(s1 889), pp. 89, 91, and Plates 31. Strype, Life of Cheke,p p. 91-112..
XLI, XLID,X LV ; Nordenskiold, Periplus ( 1897), Plate XLIV; C. V. Langlois 32..A T, pp. 20,. 53, 57; French, Dee, pp. 6--8; K. Thomas, ~eligion
in Soc; amer. de Paris, ]!1Ur»a1l 5 (1923): 83-97. Cf. Taylor, Tudor Geog (1971), p. 307. The matter is thoroughly treated in Calder, Dee,I : 310-318,
raphy, pp. 80-81; H. Averdunk and J. Mliller~Reinhard, Gerhard andll: 157-165.
Mercator (1914), pp. 9-ro, 17-20. · - 33. Elton, Englandu nder the Tudor.r,p . 209; AT, pp. 46--49,
30, Taylor, Todor Geographyp, p. 89-9.7. Dee had at least one foreign 34. Yates, Theatre( !959), pp. I-19; James, List (1921).
student, the Portuguese pilot Anes Penteado; Teixera da Mota, Mar 35,AT, pp. 12,-23. '
(19.72), p. 60. Cf. A. Cortesao, Car,rografi(a1.9 35}, II: 264. 36. Ibid., p. 56.