Note 427 — Chapter IV · THE SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD 1100–1250 A. D.

Grabmann (Forschungen, 1916, pp. 16–17) argues that “this ‘reflet de la Physique d’Aristote’ which Duhem sees is in no way demonstrated by actual citations of Aristotle” but that it results from a general similarity of thought and ideas only. Grabmann believes that Alan of Lille, who appears to have known Aristotle’s books on logic only, could not possibly have been ignorant of the Physics and De caelo if these two works had been known in the West before his time. While we may agree with Grabmann that it cannot be proved definitely that the Chartres scholars made direct use of Aristotle’s Physics, his arguments should not be interpreted to mean that the scholars of the Chartres school were altogether uninfluenced by Peripatetic physical doctrines. Schneider (Abendländische Spekulation, 1915), though he holds that Duhem was mistaken in his interpretation of William of Conches’ views regarding the Peripatetic physics (see below, p. 418, note 28), supports the French savant in maintaining that there was in existence “a specific Aristotelian trend in astronomic and cosmologic thought” at this period and that Theodoric and Gilbert may not have been uninfluenced by it. He maintains that the latter may well have been familiar with Aristotelian theories introduced through new Oriental sources and suggests as evidence of the probability of this the connections established by Hermann the Dalmatian and Rudolph of Bruges between the Chartres scholars and the group of translators at Toledo. He even goes so far as to add (p. 40): “Nicht ausgeschlossen ist, dass ihnen [Theodoric and Gilbert] als solche indirekte Quellen für die Kenntnis der aristotelischen Naturphilosophie die kurz gefassten und verhältnissmässig leicht verständlichen Paraphrasen Avicennas zur Physik und zur De caelo et mundo des Aristoteles gedient haben.” See below, p. 419, note 32.

Aristotelian influence seems also to have been apparent in the Quaestiones naturales of Adelard of Bath (see above, p. 154–155, and below, p. 426, notes 110, 111). Adelard even cites “Aristoteles in phisicis et alii in tractatibus suis,” though Grabmann and Haskins claim that this reference is too indefinite to be used to identify any particular works of the Stagirite or to indicate first-hand acquaintance with them (Grabmann, op. cit., p. 16; Haskins, Studies, 1924, pp. 38–39).