Note 429 — Chapter IV · THE SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD 1100–1250 A. D.

A marginal note in a Nuremberg manuscript of the Meteorology 402indicates that the first three books were translated by Gerard of Cremona from the Arabic, the fourth by Henricus Aristippus (see above, p. 398, note 32) from the Greek, and the last three chapters by Alfred the Englishman (Alfred of Sareshel) from the Latin. See V. Rose, in: Hermes: Zeitschrift für classische Philologie, vol. i, Berlin, 1866, p. 385.

Another translation of the Meteorology was done entirely from the Greek and is dated 1260. See Fobes, Mediaeval Versions, 1915, pp. 297–314.

It is very doubtful whether the fourth book is really the work of the Stagirite. Hammer-Jensen (Das sogenannte IV. Buch, 1915) attributes it to Strato, a Greek Peripatetic philosopher of the third century before Christ. The last three chapters (those translated from the Arabic by Alfred of Sareshel) were referred to as Liber de congelatis by their translator and in printed editions (see Bibliography under Alfred of Sareshel, II, below) were ascribed either to Avicenna or to Geber (see Baeumker, Alfred von Sareshel, 1913, p. 26, note 2, and Hammer-Jensen, op. cit., p. 131). These three chapters deal with: (1) the origins of stones, (2) the growth of mountains through earthquakes and through the influence of water and winds (see above, pp. 213–214), and (3) minerals.

Alfred of Sareshel was one of the most enthusiastic Aristotelians of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. His De motu cordis “shows a wealth of Aristotelian citation such as we cannot find in any other Latin author of its time.” Alfred was active in introducing a knowledge of Aristotle’s natural science and metaphysics into England. See Haskins, Reception, 1915, pp. 68–69; the same, Studies, 1924, p. 129.