The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution

372 Pages·2008·21.27 MB·English

by  Deborah E. Harkness

THE JEWEL HOUSE
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THE JEWEL HOUSE
Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
Deborah E. Harkness
Yale University Press
New Haven Ó London
Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2007 by Deborah E. Harkness.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108
of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Set in ElectraLH and Trajan type by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Harkness, Deborah E., 1965-
The Jewel house : Elizabethan London and the scientific revolution /
Deborah E. Harkness.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-11196-5 (cloth : alk. paper) i. Science—England—London—History
—loth century. 2. Natural history—England—London—History—loth century.
3. Science, Renaissance. 4. London (England)—Social conditions—loth century.
5. London (England)—Social life and customs—loth century. 6. London (England)
—Intellectual life—loth century. I. Title.
Qi27.G4H37 2007
509.421'09031—dc22
2007002683
ISBN 978-0-30014316-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO 739.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper). It contains 30 percent postconsumer waste (PCW)
and is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 32
For Karen Halttunen
— the sine qua non —
It is the manner of men first to wonder that any such thing
should be possible, and after it is found out to wonder again
how the world should miss it so long.
— Francis Bacon, after Titus Livius, Valerius Terminus (1603)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Conventions xiii
A Note About "Science" xv
Prelude. London, 1600: The View from Somewhere i
ONE Living on Lime Street: "English" Natural History
and the European Republic of Letters 15
TWO The Contest over Medical Authority:
Valentine Russwurin and the Barber-Surgeons 57
THREE Educating Icarus and Displaying Daedalus:
Mathematics and Instrumentation in Elizabethan London 97
FOUR "Big Science" in Elizabethan London 142
FIVE Clement Draper's Prison Notebooks:
Reading, Writing, and Doing Science 181
s i x From the Jewel House to Salomon's House:
Hugh Plat, Francis Bacon, and the Social Foundations
of the Scientific Revolution 211
Coda: Toward an Ethnography of Early Modem Science 254
vn
vin Contents
Notes 261
Bibliography 299
Index 331
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the years it took to research and write this book, I was privileged to re-
ceive the support of the Huntington Library, the National Science Foundation
Grant 80813, the University of California at Davis, the University of Southern Cal-
ifornia, the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Humanities Cen-
ter. Additional thanks go to the National Endowment for the Humanities (which
supported my time at the Huntington Library), the University of California at
Davis Chancellor's Fellows Program, and the Mellon Foundation (which sup-
ports the John Sawyer Fellowship I received at the National Humanities Center).
While writing I enjoyed the intellectual benefits associated with being part of
not one but several intellectual communities. My students Celeste Chamber-
land, Michèle Clouse, Brooke Newman, and Christina Ramos helped me to
keep my perspective. They are all fine historians, and it has been a privilege and
pleasure to work with them over the years. At the University of California at
Davis my colleagues Joan Cadden, Fran Dolan, Margie Ferguson, and Cathy
Kudlick were enormously supportive of this project. At the University of South-
ern California, I am surrounded by gifted urban and cultural historians who
have been generous with their enthusiasm and feedback, and I especially thank
Phil Ethington, Joan Piggott, and Vanessa Schwartz for their interest in a city
and time far distant from those that they study. At USC I am fortunate to be
among a diverse cadre of British historians, and I am deeply grateful for the
intellectual companionship of Judith Bennett, Lisa Bitel, Cynthia Herrup,
Philippa Levine, Peter Mancall, and Carole Shammas —each of whom has in-
fluenced this project. My special thanks go to Cynthia Herrup, who told me
when I began this project that studying science in the age of Elizabeth was prob-
ably sufficient for a single book, and who shared her insightful comments with
me when the manuscript was completed.
IX