Alchemical Promise, the Fraud Narrative, and the History of Science from Below: A German Adept’s Encounter with Robert Boyle and Ambrose Godfrey

Abstract

Until now, the only known source on a curious incident in Robert Boyle’s life was the account of his laboratory assistant Ambrose Godfrey regarding one anonymous “Crosey-Crucian.” It survives only in excerpts and paraphrases published in 1858. Based on the recent identification of this adept as Peter Moritz, a German alchemist and religious dissenter, this paper presents his own perspective as expressed in an epistolary document originally addressed to Boyle. It emerges that the stock tale of alchemical fraud dominating Godfrey’s account does not do justice to the episode’s complexities. Instead, it becomes possible to perceive how the fraud narrative itself – construed as an implicit and increasing scepticism towards the claims of alchemical practitioners – affected events as they unfolded. Boyle initially offered modest support yet soon reduced it, as he observed that Moritz’s behaviour did not correspond to that expected of a paid labourer. Despite this, most of the experiments Moritz conducted in London clearly reflected Boyle’s long-standing interests. As Godfrey had promised financial assistance without Boyle’s backing, Moritz accused the laboratory assistant of embezzling funds and of undermining his livelihood by extracting arcana for payments that were subsequently discounted or withheld altogether.

Acknowledgements

I presented early versions of parts of this paper at the Royal Institution, London, 29 June 2018, and at Wolfson College, Oxford, 7 November 2018. I am grateful to the convenors of these events, Megan Piorko and Tarje Nissen-Meyer, and to the audiences for their stimulating feedback. Many thanks to Samuel Dooley, Jane Elias, Rob Iliffe, Leigh Penman, Michelle Pfeffer, Lawrence Principe, Sonja Noll, Lana Zuber, and two anonymous readers for their comments on the paper at various stages of completion.

Notes

1 Throughout, I use the term “adept” not to insinuate that Peter Moritz was a possessor of the philosophers’ stone or a superior practitioner of alchemy. Rather, I intend to draw attention to the fact that Moritz’s self-fashioning was moulded by relevant cultural conventions and, correspondingly, that his contemporaries perceived him to conform to certain expectations surrounding adepthood during the late seventeenth century. Moritz himself used some of the other terms employed in this paper, which are introduced as such.

2 Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 111–37; Noel Malcolm, “Robert Boyle, Georges Pierre des Clozets, and the Asterism: A New Source,” Early Science and Medicine 9 (2004): 293–306; Lawrence M. Principe, “Georges Pierre de Clozets, Robert Boyle, the Alchemical Patriarch of Antioch, and the Reunion of Christendom: Further New Sources,” Early Science and Medicine 9 (2004): 307–20. For a recent biography, see Michael Hunter, Boyle: Between God and Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

3 Joseph Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” Pharmaceutical Journal, 1st ser., 18 (1858): 126–30, 157–62, 215–22. On Godfrey, see R. E. W. Maddison, “Studies in the Life of Robert Boyle, F.R.S. Pt. V. Boyle’s Operator: Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz, F.R.S.,” Notes and Records 11 (1955): 159–88.

4 Tara Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 172.

5 Mike A. Zuber and Leigh T. I. Penman, “Robert Boyle’s Anonymous ‘Crosey-Crucian’ Identified: The German Alchemist and Religious Dissenter Peter Moritz,” Notes and Records 74 (2020): 95–103. For Moritz’s self-fashioning, see London, British Library: Sloane MS 2703, fols. 3v, 214r, 278v: “Theos. et Medic. Practicus”; “Mystischer Sal Operarius.”

6 Sloane MSS 2698–2715, excluding the unrelated mss. 2705 and 2710. For the “Memorial,” see Sloane MS 2701, fols. 91r–104v.

7 This is not to be taken in the sense of science within popular culture but in that of taking seriously lesser practitioners; see Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority, 10. Other recent studies have also contributed to our understanding of female, lesser known, or nameless figures in the history of alchemy and chemistry, e.g. Tara Nummedal, Anna Zieglerin and the Lion’s Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019); Alisha Rankin, Panaceia’s Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); Anke Timmermann, “Doctor’s Order: An Early Modern Doctor’s Alchemical Notebooks,” Early Science and Medicine 13 (2008): 25–52.

8 The “Memorial” is dated 30 January 1688 but also mentions the following month; Sloane MS 2701, fols. 102v–3r. Moritz’s dates are based on the Julian calendar (Old Style) with the year starting on 1 January, rather than 25 March, as was customary in England.

9 On Moritz’s first trial, see Benjamin Berthold, “Kritik an der lutherischen Beichtpraxis in Gottfried Arnolds Unparteiischer Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (1699/1700) am Beispiel von Peter Moritz aus Halle,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 36 (2010): 11–48. The main sources for the other two trials may be found in Sloane MSS 2699–2700 and 2704.

10 Sloane MS 2709, fols. 180v–81r. For an alchemical contract dated at Amsterdam, 11 June 1682, see Sloane MS 2700, fol. 149r/v.

11 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 91r: “ein sonderbahrer Liebhaber Naturlicher ^^Künste, sonderl. der Edlen Chymia, oder Spagyrica.”

12 Cf. Michael Hunter and Lawrence M. Principe, “The Lost Papers of Robert Boyle,” Annals of Science 60 (2003): 269–311.

13 Sloane MS 2701, fols. 91v–92r; Sloane MS 2702, fols. 145r–48v.

14 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 91v: “E. L. Laboranten”; “Naturl. Dingen”; “aus guter affection und umb sonst”; “Es soll ein wenig gut ☉. sein, denn ich seine Tinctura extrahiret und das Corpus weiß und fix sein solte, und die Tinctura à parte mit darbey übersänden.” E. L. or Euer Liebden is a commonly used German form of address in correspondence; I translate it as “my lord” or simply “you” and “your” depending on the context.

15 Claus Priesner and Karin Figala, eds., Alchemie: Lexikon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft (München: Beck, 1998), s.v. “Anima Solis.” On Boyle’s familiarity with the concept and associated processes, see Principe, Aspiring Adept, 82–86, 248–53. It also appears as part of an alchemical process in fifteen steps, signed with Boyle’s initials, in Oxford, Bodleian Library: MS Locke c. 44, pp. 156–58, on 157: “ ☉is Extractio” (extraction of the sulphur of gold).

16 Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 114.

17 E.g. The Workdiaries of Robert Boyle, ed. Michael Hunter, “Workdiary 12,” fol. 140r, entry 4 (http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/wd/view/text_ed/WD12_ed.html); William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chemistry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 135, 245–46, 266; Principe, Aspiring Adept, 81. For more on Starkey generally, see William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994).

18 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 92r: “unsere weitere bekantschafft.”

19 Sloane MS 2703, fol. 138r: “die Gold Käffer, die ☉ und ☽. machen wollen, welche sich Alchymisten nännen.”

20 Sloane MS 2703, fol. 140v: “Saltz-Macher oder kunstler.” Sloane MS 2702, fol. 2v: “teuffl. Goldmacherschen künsten.”

21 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 92r: “E. L. hatten aus Christl. liebe und Mildigkeit beschloßen, […] mir sechs wochen unterhalt [zu] geben, die woche 2. Cronen.”

22 Jeremy Boulton, “Wage Labour in Seventeenth-Century London,” Economic History Review 49 (1996): 268–90, on 279, 289.

23 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 116–17, 121–23.

24 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 92r: “mit Dank an genommen; Nach etl. wochen […] und gefraget ob ich nicht etwas, wüste M[o]nsi[eur] Boyle zu communiciren.”

25 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 92v: “ob ich nicht im Metallischen -eis was thun könte, etwann ^^ex ♂ et ♀. […] Meine Particular wege.”

26 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 92v: “Meine modas den Metal. ex Metallis zu scheiden; […] noch ein vermischt und nicht ein purer  .”

27 See Lawrence Principe, “‘Chemical Translation’ and the Role of Impurities in Alchemy: Examples from Basil Valentine’s Triumph-Wagen,” Ambix 34 (1987): 21–30.

28 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 179.

29 Joachim Telle, Alchemie und Poesie: Deutsche Alchemikerdichtungen des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), vol. 2, 952–55. Those practitioners who focused on sal nitrum could be seen as a related but more specialised sub-group; William R. Newman, “From Alchemy to ‘Chymistry’,” in The Cambridge History of Science, 8 vols., vol. 3: Early Modern Science, ed. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 497–517, on 513–15. On Khunrath, see the publications of Peter J. Forshaw, e.g. “Subliming Spirits: Physical-Chemistry and Theo-Alchemy in the Works of Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605),” in Mystical Metal of Gold: Essays on Alchemy and Renaissance Culture, ed. Stanton J. Linden (New York: AMS Press, 2007), 255–75.

30 Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 392.

31 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 93r: “weil mir denn, auch Deutsch zu sagen: England nicht wol anstande”; “gedachte ich eines Baln. Mariæ, oder Digestiv-ofens.”

32 Sloane MS 2715, fol. 4r: “unßern drey-Einigen-Sophischen-Ofen.”

33 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 93r: “ich will es M[o]nsi[eur] B. sagen, der wird euch wol ein 2. Gunies darfür geben. […] 3. ☽.”

34 Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” 160.

35 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 93v: “die Principia, sonderl. der  . aus den Animal. nebenst dem öle zu scheiden […] die resuscitation der Vegetabilien.”

36 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 94v: “einige rahre dinge in das B. M. zu sätzen. [1.] So ließ ich eine große Distel, auch eine große wermuth staude, zu der resuscitation der vegetabl. ein sätzen. 2. Von den Elstern, die Principia zu scheiden. Item, 3. 2. retorten das Stercus Vaccinum, zu einer wol rüchenden Materie ^^{Sonderbahren Medicin} zu bringen. 4. Dem ☿. ex ♄no zu machen.” The underlining could have been intended as a deletion; in unambiguous cases within the same document, Moritz struck through words and at times rendered them illegible.

37 Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” 160.

38 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 98–99, 199, 264–65, 267.

39 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 216.

40 Salvatore Ricciardo, “Robert Boyle on God’s ‘Experiments’: Resurrection, Immortality and Mechanical Philosophy,” Intellectual History Review 25 (2015): 97–113, on 100, 104–6.

41 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 208–12, on 208.

42 Robert Boyle, The Correspondence, ed. Michael Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio, and Lawrence M. Principe, 6 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2001), vol. 2, 164; vol. 3, 231. See also Robert Boyle, The Works, ed. Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis, 14 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999–2000), vol. 12, 249, no. 187.

43 Theophrastus Paracelsus, “Decem libri Archidoxis,” in Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johann Huser, 10 vols. (Basel, 1590), vol. 6, 1–98, on 71: “Wie ein Kůhdreck der stinckt/ so der Eleuirt wird/ gleicht sich der Ambren.” See Sophie Read, “Ambergris and Early Modern Languages of Scent,” The Seventeenth Century 28 (2013): 221–37.

44 Sloane MS 2703, fols. 110r–46v, on fol. 126r. Seeing as Moritz—who hardly ever acknowledged the writings of human authorities—also referred to the pseudo-Paracelsian work De tinctura physicorum (e.g. Sloane MS 2701, fol. 93r), it is possible that the book in question was the sixth volume of Huser’s edition quoted above, which contained this treatise alongside the Archidoxae.

45 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 136.

46 Sloane MS 2701, fols. 100r, 102v.

47 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 102v: “Ich habe das Stercus Vaccinum Anatomiret, und habe daraus 2. dinge gemacht, als 1. Liecht, und 2. Fünsternis. […] 1. einen ^^also Volatilischer-Salnyter ☿. Seu spiritus. 2. ein . oder phlegma. 3. ein . oder Liquorisch-Sulphur. 4. einen  . gelb und trocken, als Schweffel. 5. ein [salt symbol]. Sal, oder Saltz, und Fix. 6. und eine ^^{Terra, oder} Erde .” Moritz used an unusual symbol for salt, similar to the one for sulphur yet with the triangle inverted so that it points downwards.

48 Cf. e.g. Sloane MS 2701, fol. 9r; Sloane MS 2703, fol. 140r; Sloane MS 2704, fols. 70v–71r; Sloane MS 2708, fols. 38v–39r. For a brief discussion of Boehme’s principles and an example of their intrusion into cosmological debates, see Mike A. Zuber, “Johann Jacob Zimmermann and God’s Two Books: Copernican Cosmology in Lutheran Germany around 1700,” in Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Beck (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2015), 83–99, on 88–89.

49 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 102v: “die Trina Essentia von dem Ster. Vac. […] eine Plusquamperfecte Medic.”; “eine hohe und kräfftige Medicin, vor die Hectica und Consumptio.”

50 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 103r: “herrl. Medicin, aus gemeldeten Subjecto.” On Slare, see Marie Boas Hall, “Frederick Slare, F.R.S. (1648–1727),” Notes and Records 46 (1992): 23–41.

51 Georgiana D. Hedesan, “Theory Choice in the Seventeenth Century: Robert Boyle against the Paracelsian Tria Prima,” in Theory Choice in the History of Chemical Practices, ed. Emma Tobin and Chiara Ambrosio (Cham: Springer, 2016), 17–27.

52 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 95r: “E. L. Schuldener”; “Phosphorus an einen Apoteker in Amsterdam mit geben, der wirde mir bahr gelt darfür geben.”

53 Werner Loibl, “Johann Daniel Crafft (* Wertheim 1624–† Amsterdam 1697): Ein Chemiker, Kameralist und Unternehmer des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Wertheimer Jahrbuch (1997): 55–251, on 180–81; F. Krafft, “Phosphorus: From Elemental Light to Chemical Element,” Angewandte Chemie: International Edition 8 (1969): 660–71, on 660–61.

54 Boyle, Works, vol. 9, 441–46. See also J. V. Golinski, “A Noble Spectacle: Phosphorus and the Public Cultures of Science in the Early Royal Society,” Isis 80 (1989): 11–39.

55 Boyle, Works, vol. 12, 163–64.

56 Sloane MS 2715, fol. 98r: “^^{so genante} Phosphorus […] der nun so viel nutz schaffet, als das 5. Rad an einen Wagen; das ist: Er ist zu gar nichts Nutze, weder zu der Medicin noch anderen nutzbahren dingen.”

57 Ambrose Godfrey, An Account of the New Method of Extinguishing Fires (London, 1724), x–xi; Ambrose Godfrey Hanckewitz, “An Account of some Experiments upon the Phosphorus Urinæ,” Philosophical Transactions 38 (1733): 58–70, on 65.

58 Sloane MS 2709, fol. 95r.

59 Sloane MS 2701, fols. 101r–2r.

60 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 95v: “als hätten wir einander unsere tage nicht gesehen.”

61 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 104r: “Anno. 1687. den 27. Octobr. da wir von Hollandt wieder hier gekommen; […] den 2. tag, das wir in London gewesen. Und den 8. Nov[em]br. […] da wir in diesem hause waren, da wir annoch sind.” The same dates appear in Moritz’s private notes in Sloane MS 2709, fol. 95r.

62 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 95v: “weil sie [E. L.] sich meiner ^^{also fort im Anfange} entzogen, und mir die hülffe, die mir so wohl mündlich, als Schrifftl. ist Versprochen; nicht Continuiren ^^wolten, als wie ich bin her gekommen.”

63 Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” 160.

64 Hunter, Boyle, 78. For a more favourable assessment, see Principe, Aspiring Adept, 185–86.

65 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 95r/v; cf. Sloane MS 2701, fol. 104r/v.

66 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 97r; Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” 159.

67 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 104r: “keine lebens mittel.”

68 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 96v: “rechnung, worüber heyden und Türken, ich geschweige Christen, sich entsätzen solten […] Darinnen hat er mir die Steine und leim an gesätzet, auch die gläßer ^^{und 20 sh.}, als wären es ^^{meine Eigenen sachen, und} Meinet wegen angefangen ^^{unkosten an kohlen, p.} […] und alle unkosten, die er auf die eingsätzten Sachen rechnet, mir zu gerechnet.”

69 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 97v: “einige wißenschafften […] die Medicin aus dem Zucker und andern Süßen dingen zu machen.”

70 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 98r: “^^{so ich einen bißen Brodt habe begehret, so hat er erst mein Blut dafür mir aus Meinem hertzen Saugen oder ziehen und freßen wollen, p.} Und darbey hat er mir vor der zeit alle Meine wißenschafften, wollen abschwätzen und fragen, wie mann den Narren, oder Kindern, umb 10 bißen Brodt, oder 1. p.”

71 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 96v: “ich […] ein Bettler bey meinen wißenschafften bleiben und hungers sterben mit meinem weib und Kindern verderben.”

72 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 98r: “letzl. nach den Christagen, und die selbe woche noch, da er mir den Proceß von dem ☿. ♄. wolte abfragen, und den wolte er selbst machen.”

73 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 96r: “Capit. Richwell, der hätte es auf den Bley-process geben wollen, […] und hätte mir Mr. G. solches auf recht geschrieben, auf was für Contition und dem Mann, so hätte ich solches Nimmer acceptiret.”

74 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 96v: “Ists allen andern Menschen zu gelaßen, daß sie sich von ihren Ehrl. wißenschafften und Künsten zu ernähren ^^{suchen, je} so werde mirs Ja nicht alleine gewehret seyn, das sey ferne.”

75 Sloane MS 2702, fols. 2r–4v. On Moritz’s patron, see Kerrin Gräfin von Schwerin, Otto von Schwerin: Oberpräsident und Vertrauter des Großen Kurfürsten (Berlin: vbb, 2016).

76 Sloane MS 2698, fols. 170r/v, 173r/v. Incidentally, Moritz also called this much shorter letter to Schwerin a memorial: “Unterthänigstes Gehorsambstes Memorial.”

77 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 98r. “So ^^er mir nun alle Meine wißenschafften vor der zeit und wieder billigkeit auslockte und ab fragete, was soll ich denn dar für haben, denn ich ein benöthigeter mann ^^wäre, wie ers wol wüste; und so ich alles auf solche arth solte sagen, was ich wiße, so müste ich doch ein Betteler bleiben wie ich anietzo bin, und darnach so möchte ich hin lauffen, und möchte als denn sterben und verderben, p. und sonderl. wirden mir meine dinge verachtet, so mann sie weeg hätte, damit mann mir nichts geben dörffe, welches sich Genungsam albereit er öffent hat.”

78 Ince, “Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,” 160.

79 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 99r: “Laborynthium.”

80 William John Hardy, ed., Calendar of State Papers Domestic: William and Mary, 1693 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1903), “March 1693,” 53–88, on 64 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/will-mary/1693/pp53-88); William A. Shaw, ed., Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland, 1603–1700 (Lymington: Huguenot Society/Charles T. King, 1911), 231.

81 Sloane MS 2712, fols. 49v, 73r.

82 Cf. Sloane MS 2711, fols. 136v, 145r, 147r–48v; Sloane MS 2712, fols. 130r–48v; Sloane MS 2702, fols. 75r–76v, 82r–84r.

83 Sloane MS 2715, fol. 43r/v: “grillen, oder hauß heimen, […] Neuen ungebrauchten destil-ofen”; “der aller größeste Schatz aller Schätze ^^{dieser welt}.”

84 Sloane MS 2701, fol. 16v: “der hohen Medicin.”

85 Sloane MS 2715, fol. 102v: “den 23. Octobr. 1691. ist mier durch Gottes Verhängnus und zulaßen, ein Schatz über alle Schätze zu der gesundheit, etc. Entkommen […] O des unvergeßlichen Schadens!”

86 Sloane MS 2712, fol. 129v; Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Chart. B 962, fol. 56v.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this paper was supported by an Early Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship (2017/2018, no. 174781) of the Swiss National Science Foundation. A Herzog Ernst Scholarship (2019) of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation allowed me to do further work at the Research Centre Gotha.

Notes on contributors

Mike A. Zuber

Mike A. Zuber is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. He previously held an Early Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Oxford. Working mostly on unprinted sources, he specialises in early-modern alchemy and religious dissent. Address: Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Level 5, Forgan Smith Building, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected].