Philosopher and translator, lived early 12th century (Bath, England).
Little is known about Adelard's early life. He studied in Tours in the Loire region of France and taught for a while at Laon in northern France. He then travelled for seven years, beginning with a visit to the medical school at Salerno, the first university of medieval Europe which attracted students from many countries.
From Salerno Adelard travelled to Sicily and then to Cicilia in Anatolia (Turkey) and to Syria and Palestine. Sicily had been under Arab rule during the 10th century but had been conquered by the Normans during 1061 - 1088. When Adelard visited the island it was still under Norman control, but Arabic traditions were still strong. Adelard thus came into close contact with Arabic science and became fluent in Arabic. Some time before 1130 he returned to Bath.
Adelard was a gifted scholar who wrote several works on philosophy. The first work that he is known to have written is a philosophy text written before 1116 and dedicated to the bishop of Syracuse, one of the most important cities on Sicily. It deals exclusively with the philosophy of Plato and does not indicate any knowledge of Arabic sources. He also wrote a book on arithmetic based on the work of Boëthius.
Adelard's fame rests, however, mainly on his many translations of philosophical and scientific texts from Arabic into Latin. His translations of Euclid's Elements from Arabic sources served as textbooks for geometry in Europe for centuries. It appears that he undertook three separate translations of the Elements.
Adelard also translated al-Khwarizmi's tables and wrote on the abacus and on the astrolabe. His translation of al-Khwarizmi's tables were the first Latin astronomical tables of the Arabic type with their Greek influences and Indian number symbols. According to a date at the end of chapter 4 the translation was completed on A.H. 520 Muharram 1 of the Muslim calendar (26 January 1126 AD).
Another work of five books has also been attributed to Adelard. The first three books cover arithmetic and are based on the Indian methods as presented in Arab writings; they may be translations of an arithmetic book by al-Khwarizmi which is now lost. The remaining two books cover geometry, music, and astronomy. The treatment of geometry and music is based on Greek methods, while the astronomy, like the arithmetic, is Arabic in style.
Adelard's Quaestiones naturales give insight into his motivation and approach to science teaching. They present 76 scientific discussions with his nephew based on Arabic science and promote the use of experimental data. Adelard states that he "prefers reason to authority." The following text is from his introduction to the work:
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On my return the other day to England, in the reign of Henry - it was he who had long maintained me abroad for the purpose of study - the renewal of intercourse with my friends gave me both pleasure and benefit. After the first natural inquiries about my own health and that of my friends, my particular desire was to learn all I could about the manners and customs of my own country. Making this then the object of my inquiry, I learnt that its chief men were violent, its magistrates wine-lovers, its judges mercenary; that patrons were fickle, private men sycophants, those who made promises deceitful, friends full of jealousy, and almost all men self-seekers: this realised, the only resource, I said to myself, is to withdraw my thoughts from all misery. Thereupon my friends said to me, "What do you think of doing, since you neither wish to adopt this moral depravity yourself, nor can you prevent it?" My reply was "to give myself up to oblivion, since oblivion is the only cure for evils that cannot be remedied; for he who gives heed to that which he hates in some sort endures that which he does not love." Thus we argued that matter together, and then as we still had time left for talking, a certain nephew of mine, who had come along with the others, rather adding to the tangle than unravelling it, urged me to publish something fresh in the way of Arabian learning. As the rest agreed with him, I took in hand the treatise which follows: of its profitableness to its readers I am assured, but am doubtful whether it will give them pleasure. The present generation has this ingrained weakness, that it thinks that nothing discovered by the moderns is worthy to be received -the result of this is that if I wanted to publish anything of my own invention I should attribute it to someone else, and say, "Someone else said this, not I." Therefore (that I may not wholly be robbed of a hearing) it was a certain great man that discovered all my ideas, not I. But of this enough. Since I have yielded to the request of my friends so far as to write something, it remains for you to give your judgment as to its correctness. About this point I would say that I felt less anxiety, for there is no essay in the liberal arts, no matter how well handled, to which you could not give a wider range. Grant me, therefore, your sympathy. I shall now proceed to give short answers to questions put by my nephew. |
Main text based on: O'Connor, J. J. and E. F. Robertson, Adelard of Bath.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Adelard.html (accessed 30 December 2003).
Quotation from Adelard's work based on: Halsall, P. (1996), Internet Medieval Source Book: Adelard of Bath: The Impact of Muslim Science ,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/adelardbath1.html (accessed 30 December 2003).