الحملات الصليبية - الرهبانية - الفتح المعاكس .. السيمياء تنتقل من الشرق الى الغرب

The Crusades - Monasticism - The Reverse Conquest
.. Alchemy Moves from East to West

The Crusades

The Crusades brought something new to Europe: absolute and legalized fanaticism. On their way to the Holy Land, they massacred Jewish communities in France and England along the way. As if the Christians remaining at home wanted to do their share of the jihad, they organized mass massacres in the ruins of the Crusades. By the twelfth century, the Crusades had mobilized against Europeans themselves, against the pagan Slavs, and against the Wends. The Crusades then turned north to confront the Prussians and the peoples of the eastern Baltic, forcing them to convert to Christianity.

The new wave of fanaticism led to anti-Semitism and paganism becoming an integral part of European culture, which led to the tolerant Islam adopting strict positions, which had repercussions in the history of alchemy. However, the Crusades brought unity and strength to the Christian Church, so that when the revival of alchemical teachings arose, the Church was the first to react.

Monasticism
The monastic movement that originated in Egypt was the foundation upon which the revival movement was based. Christian monasticism underwent many changes as an institution, making it isolated from worldly leaders and able to follow its own system. To remain independent, monasteries had to provide for themselves, so there were monks who were farmers, doctors, and craftsmen alongside the medieval monks who leaned their backs on manuscripts. Professional monks who could read and write were able to record the oral transmission of alchemical techniques inherited from the Roman Empire, which had entered with the conquests. One such monk was Theophilus of Benedict.

Theo-Philas

Theophilus may have been the pseudonym of a skilled metalsmith named Roger of Helmarshhausen. He was the one who made a painted and engraved portable altar that still stands in the Franciscan monastery at Paderborn, Germany. In addition to being a skilled practical craftsman, the scholar Theophlas composed a comprehensive compendium of the crafts known at the beginning of the twelfth century, entitled "On the Arts of Hunting." In his three-volume work, he provides a clear and detailed description of oil painting, wall painting, dyeing, gilding, manuscript illumination, and the arts of ivory, glass, and metals, including glass. Here is his recipe for making red mercury sulfide pigment:
Take the sulfur and crush it on a stone, then add twice its weight of mercury weighed on a scale. After carefully mixing them, put them in a glass container. Cover it with clay and seal the mouth tightly so that no fumes escape. Place it near a fire to dry. Then bury it in hot coals. When it is hot, you will hear a crackling sound inside as a result of the mercury and the burning sulfur combine. When the noise stops, remove the test tube, open it, and extract the dye from it (1).

Since these techniques were recorded, they have barely changed or evolved. Theophilus's practical alchemy became the practical alchemy of medieval Europe. Alchemists made dyes, soaps, and metals, but they kept the methods they used secret. They passed them on untouched and unaltered. What could have evolved in Europe was alchemy. In the twelfth century, alchemy was in the process of being discovered.

The Counter-Conquest

In Spain, the Arabs welcomed Christian monks as researchers in their libraries and schools. Contact with the Arabs fueled the European revival movement. By the end of the eleventh century, some European nations felt they had become powerful enough to push the Arabs back from where they had come. Europeans were fully aware of the treasures of knowledge available in the Arabic language. Therefore, when they defeated the Arabs, they were careful not to harm these treasures. The Normans conquered Arab Sicily in 1091, but Muslim doctors and scholars remained at the Norman court. After the conquest of Toledo, Spain, in 1085, a translation center was established that employed bilingual or trilingual Arabs, Christians, and Jews.