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Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History
“To Multiply Corn Two-Hundred-Fold”: The Alchemical Augmentation Of Wheat Seeds In Seventeenth-Century English Husbandry, Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
“To Multiply Corn Two-Hundred-Fold”: The Alchemical Augmentation Of Wheat Seeds In Seventeenth-Century English Husbandry, Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
Arts and Communication Faculty Publications
Agricultural reform movements proliferated in seventeenth-century Europe. For many who sought to make farming more economically productive, the practices of chymistry offered a way to accomplish these goals. Placed in the context of the development of a “vegetable philosophy,” or a theory of generation and growth across mineralogical and botanical domains, this article examines the application of chymical techniques in the attempt to enhance wheat seeds through seed-steeping and “fructifying” experiments among seventeenth-century agricultural reformers, particularly in England. I focus on three main sources: instructional husbandry manuals describing how to create “fructifying waters” to fertilize these seeds, the writings of …
"Rusticall Chymistry": Alchemy, Saltpeter Projects, And Experimental Fertilizers In Seventeenth-Century English Agriculture", Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
"Rusticall Chymistry": Alchemy, Saltpeter Projects, And Experimental Fertilizers In Seventeenth-Century English Agriculture", Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
Arts and Communication Faculty Publications
As the primary ingredient in gunpowder, saltpeter was an extraordinarily important commodity in the early modern world. Historians of science and technology have long studied its military applications but have rarely focused on its uses outside of warfare. Due to its potential effectiveness as a fertilizer, saltpeter was also an integral component of experimental agricultural reform movements in the early modern period and particularly in seventeenth-century England. This became possible for several reasons: the creation of a thriving domestic saltpeter production industry in the second half of the sixteenth century; the development of vitalist alchemical theories that sought a unified …
"Sapiens Dominabitur Astris": A Diachronic Survey Of A Ubiquitous Astrological Phrase, Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
"Sapiens Dominabitur Astris": A Diachronic Survey Of A Ubiquitous Astrological Phrase, Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
Arts and Communication Faculty Publications
From the late thirteenth through late seventeenth centuries, a single three-word Latin phrase—sapiens dominabitur astris, or “the wise man will be master of the stars”—proliferated in astrological, theological, philosophical, and literary texts. It became a convenient marker denoting orthodox positions on free will and defining the boundaries of the scientifically and morally legitimate practice of astrology. By combining the methodology of a diachronic historical survey with a microhistorical focus on evolving phraseology, this study argues that closely examining the use of this phrase reveals how debates about the meanings of wisdom, free will, determinism, and the interpretation of stellar influence …