Annotations on the Life, Notes 1-11

Marginal label: Note 1. Albert was born in the year 1193. This is established from the year of his age in which he died, the year of Christ 1280, in which all assert that he was then eighty-seven years old: Trithemius; Malvenda at the year 1222, chapter 15, page 413; John Henry Heister in the syntagma of the suffragans of Cologne, published at Cologne in 1641 in octavo, where he recalls the age and deeds of our Albert, arranged over various years, to a sufficiently legitimate chronology by better conjectures; our Peter of Prussia, who wrote the life of Albert around the year 1487, although it was published only in the year 1621 in octavo, to be read chapter 45, page 330; and before all these Louis of Valladolid in his Table of our authors, which he was writing at Paris in the year 1413. Hence both the Vallisoletan himself and Peter of Prussia and others must be corrected, when they report that a vision of the Blessed Virgin was made to Albert when he was only in his sixteenth year, by which she thus warned him: Albert, flee the world, enter the Order of Preachers, etc. For he had already reached twenty-three years of age before the Order was established and confirmed; therefore this vision, if there was one, must be brought forward to later years.

Marginal label: Note 2. He obtained from nature an intellect most apt for the disciplines. This will soon be proved; hence it is a fable invented by I know not whom, which John Antony Flaminius, and from him Leander Albertus and others, report: that Albert in his adolescence was not of very sharp intellect; wherefore, in those first months after embracing the Order, since he was dull in intellect and was considered inferior to his companions, he thought about deserting the monastery and throwing away the habit, but was deterred from the plan by a heavenly dream, the Mother of God promising him that thereafter he would be an outstanding philosopher; of this vision or dream there is no memory among the ancients.

Marginal label: Note 3. Then in Gaul at Paris. So the cited Heister by a sufficiently probable conjecture, since to that royal city there flowed together from every side not only Gauls but also foreigners, especially Teutons, who pursued letters rather eagerly and desired to excel in them. So the two Henries of Cologne, so Albert the son of the count of Falkemberg, so Jordan himself and others who afterward gave their name to the Order.

Marginal label: Note 4. Then in Italy at Padua. Concerning Padua Albert himself speaks thus in On the Nature of Places, tractate 3, chapter 2: "Padua, which is now called Padova, in which the study of letters flourished for a long time." That he was in that city and made certain experiments is proved by what he relates in Meteorology, book 3, tractate 2, chapter 12: "But I saw in Padua, a city of Lombardy, that a well closed from ancient time was found; when it was opened, and someone entered to clean the well, he died from the vapor of that cavern, and likewise a second died; and a third, who wished to know why the two were delaying, bent toward the well and was so weakened that over the space of two days he scarcely returned to himself; but when the vapor putrefied in the well had breathed out, it became good and drinkable." These things show him to have been a young man not only staying at Padua, but also noting experiments, and consequently already of some age beyond adolescence. Still clearer is what he has in On Minerals, book 2, treatise 3, chapter 1: "I wish first to narrate the things which I myself saw and experienced, and afterward to show the cause and the mode through which an image is produced by nature, etc. I say, therefore, that when I was at Venice, when I was young, marbles were being cut by saws for adorning the walls of a temple; and it happened in one marble already cut, with the cut slabs applied to one another, that the most beautiful head of a king appeared depicted, with a crown and a long beard; nor did the picture seem to be defective in anything except in this alone, that the forehead seemed in the middle to have too great a height rising toward the crown of the head. But all of us who were present knew that this had been painted in the stone by nature. And when the cause of the disordering of the forehead was asked from me, I said that that stone had been coagulated from vapor, and that in the middle, through stronger heat, the vapor had ascended inordinately beyond measure. The picture, moreover, was of the same color as the stone." It is more probable that this happened before he gave his name to the Order, since, as will soon be said, he was then already twenty-nine years old; from this it is proved that as a young man and still detained in the world he was learned in physical matters and was especially given to examining them; by these things that fable is overthrown concerning Albert's dull intellect when he gave his name to the Order, and concerning the plan therefore undertaken by him of throwing away the habit. Note also here that work was being done, while Albert was young, on adorning with marble the walls of the distinguished Venetian basilica begun by Duke Zeno in the year 1170.

Marginal label: Note 5. Jordan, master of the Order, came to him. It is certain that he received the habit from the hands of Jordan. But Jordan was enrolled in the Order only in the year 1220 on Ash Wednesday; he was indeed present at the first chapter of St. Dominic at Bologna, but did not then preach. In the following year, 1221, he was not present at the second chapter convened there by St. Dominic; nevertheless in that chapter, though absent and acting at Paris, he was appointed provincial prior of the province of Lombardy, and when he entered Italy for the sake of fulfilling his office, Dominic had already died on the eighth day before the Ides of August. I admit that Jordan could have brought Albert to the Order between August 1221 and the following Pentecost; but since this is commonly ascribed to Jordan already as master of the Order, and he was assumed to that prefecture only in the assemblies of the Order celebrated at Paris at Pentecost 1222, either he accomplished it in that year alone, provided that he returned to Italy before the end of the year and did not remain in Gaul longer for arranging its affairs, or in the year 1223, in which he was bound to come to Bologna for the general chapter. From these things it is established that Albert, born in the year 1193, gave his name to the Order only when he had completed his twenty-ninth year, or at most his twenty-eighth; at which age, surely, human beings are whatever they are going to be. In the Lives of the Brethren there is a place which is commonly interpreted of Albert, which reads thus (Part IV, chapter 10): "A certain brother of exceptional fame and of excellent state, and great in the science of philosophy, while still a young man studying at Padua, from the admonitions of the Brethren and especially from the preachings of Master Jordan, had the will of entering the Order of Preachers, but not a full one; for his uncle contradicted him, whence he also compelled him to swear that for such a time he would not go to the house of the Friars Preachers. After that time had passed, he often came to the same Friars, and confirmed his purpose; but fear lest he should leave made him waver many times. But one night he saw in dreams that he had entered the Order and afterward had left it; waking, therefore, he rejoiced wonderfully because he had not entered, saying in his mind: Now I see that the thing which I feared would happen from it if I ever entered. But it happened on the same day that he attended a sermon of Master Jordan, who, speaking among other things about the temptations of the devil, said how subtly he deceives some. For there are, he says, some who propose to leave the world and enter an order, but the devil makes impressions on them in dreams that they enter and afterward leave, riding in red garments, or that they find themselves left alone, so that in this way, namely, he may strike into them fear of entering, as though they could not persevere. Then the young man, vehemently astonished after the sermon, approached the master and said: Master, who revealed my heart to you? And he set forth to him all his thoughts and the dream. But the master, with firm confidence received from God, comforted him in many ways against temptations of this kind. He, however, wholly converted by his words and cutting off every delay, entered the Order. And all these things that brother himself narrated." From that narration Peter of Prussia infers that Albert was enrolled in the Order as a young man; and he also confirms this from his oration on the Gospel of Septuagesima, in which he speaks thus: Lord Jesus Christ, highest householder, who called me into your vineyard in the first morning, when from my youth you hired me to labor in religion for the denarius of eternal life, etc. But however that may be, Peter of Prussia himself, who sets Albert as dead at the age of eighty-seven and as admitted to the Order by Jordan, is compelled, as we also are, to acknowledge that he was clothed with the habit at the age of twenty-nine. Nor indeed is it strange, especially in schools in which there are venerable old men, that companions who have not yet completed the thirtieth year are called young men, indeed very young men.

Marginal label: Note 6. At Padua or Bologna he devoted himself for some years to theology. Our conjecture is taken from the custom of the Order. For since Albert was already excellent in philosophy, it remained for him to apply himself to theology. But if someone wishes that he rather heard it at Cologne, I will not readily contend.

Marginal label: Note 7. Thomas of Cantimpré among his disciples. Thomas himself, in On Bees, book 2, chapter 57, section 550, glories that he was a hearer of Albert for a long time. But since Thomas entered the Order around 1232, it is truer that this happened in the following years, certainly before the young Thomas of Aquino was led to Cologne.

Marginal label: Note 8. Among these years also to Paris. Besides the reason brought forward, what the same Cantimpratanus reports in the same chapter, section 34, persuades me of this, in these words: "In almost a similar way Master Albert the Theologian, a Brother of the Order of Preachers, narrated to me that at Paris he at last appeared to him in the form of a certain brother, in order to call him back from study, but soon departed by the virtue of the cross." For since you would understand these things with very great difficulty of the years in which he was taking up the mastership, for by then he was already emeritus, fifty-two years old, and was not so much studying as drawing forth the richest fruits of studies, you will more easily refer them to the earlier years, say 1230 or 1232, in which he was wholly applying himself to studies. Perhaps someone will wonder that I have not remembered the vicariate of the Order, which they say he exercised in 1236, when Jordan was crossing over into the Holy Land, and from Jordan's death to the assemblies of the Order held at Bologna in the year 1238, in which they also wish that the voters were divided between him and Hugh of Saint-Cher. Whether Albert was appointed vicar by Jordan, I dare neither affirm nor deny, since I have found nothing about it in ancient monuments. That he acted as vicar after the death of Jordan I certainly deny, since this right belonged to the provincial of Lombardy according to the constitutions; finally, that division of the voters between Albert and Hugh we have struck out above, where we dealt with St. Raymond, as a mere fable. If Albert was present at this Bolognese chapter, which is not certain to me, he was present as a definitor or lector for Teutonia, not by any other title.

Marginal label: Note 9. In the year 1245 he was sent to Paris to be advanced to degrees. That Albert was enrolled among the Parisian masters cannot be doubted, since he himself bears witness concerning himself thus (On Minerals, book 2, tractate 3, chapter 1) after the place cited above: "But after this, a long time later, when I was at Paris from the number and company of the doctors, it happened that the son of the king of Castile came to the study. When the cooks of the aforementioned noble's servant were buying fish, they bought a fish which in Latin was called Peccet, in the vernacular Pleis, and it was of very great quantity in that kind of fish. But when the fish was gutted, in its belly there appeared the shell of a very large oyster, which the remembered noble, because of affection, caused to be adapted to me. Therefore that shell, in its hollow, which is flat and polished, had the figure of three serpents with lifted mouth, very well made, so that not even the figure of the eyes was lacking, although they were very small. But exteriorly, in the convex part which was rough, it had the figures of many, namely ten and more, serpents made in all things by similar workmanship, except that all the exterior ones seemed to be tied by a certain knot at the neck, while their heads and bodies were nevertheless separated; nor was there any one of those images which was not perforated by a hole beginning from the mouth of the serpent and going out below at the tail of the serpent; and the hole was so small that it seemed to have been made by a thread. This shell I had for a long time, and showed it to many, and afterward I sent it as a gift to someone in Teutonia." That prince without doubt was one of the sons of Ferdinand III, king of Castile and León, who reigned from the year 1217 to 1252. If the year in which that prince came to Paris were known, the time would also be known certainly in which Albert took up the mastership of the Parisian sacred faculty. James or Diego de Castejon y Fonseca, in his Primacy of Toledo (volume II, page 557), narrates that John IV, according to others II, Archbishop of Toledo, came in the year 1245 to Lyons for the First General Synod celebrated by Innocent IV, and, when it was finished, hastened as far as Paris in order to visit the two infantes of King Ferdinand, Philip and Sancho, both canons of the said Church of Toledo, studying in the University of Paris. These things, moreover, agree entirely both with Albert's narration and with those things which we know about the years in which Albert was completing the time of mastership at Paris. But that matter can also be fished out from elsewhere, namely from the sentence already indicated of Odo, cardinal of Châteauroux, against the Talmudic books, rendered on 15 May 1248; but two things first must be established, known to few and yet necessary to know. The first is that, from the time when the Order, that is, of Preachers, was joined to the University of Paris, this law was observed inviolate in the gymnasium of Saint-Jacques, that bachelors and licentiates should be assumed alternately from other provinces and from the province of France; when from other provinces, they called him external, when from the province of France, internal. Indeed Brother John Ægidius the Englishman, who had already embraced the Order as a laureled master of sacred theology in the year 1228, first taught with his right preserved and from necessity, for it was necessary that a master preside over the theological school; but under him Brother Roland of Cremona from the province of Lombardy was the first bachelor and licentiate. Under Roland, after he had been given the laurel of mastership, Brother Hugh of Saint-Cher or of Saint-Theudary from the province of France was promoted and read the Sentences, and so thereafter alternately from the external provinces and from France. Thus when those great disturbances were stirred up against our men by William of Saint-Amour, Brother Bonhomme the Breton from France ruled the first of our schools, and Brother Elias Bruneti of Périgord from the province of Provence ruled the second, together. This alternation was so constantly preserved that when at some time, namely in the year 1316, the general chapter of Montpellier tried to interrupt it, commanding under the graver penalties that bachelors should be promoted without regard for the alternation but only for antiquity, so great a tumult was stirred up from this that in the following assemblies of the Order at Pamplona in 1317 it was necessary to restore all things to their original state. For thus it is read in the acts of that chapter: Likewise we ordain that, in the Parisian bachelors ordinarily presented, the alternation of internal, that is, from the province of France, and external, that is, from the other provinces, be inviolably observed according to the custom commonly approved in the Order and observed up to this point, and that no other license be awaited concerning this. Where what it says, observed up to this point, indicates that it had flourished from the beginning and had grown established by use. And these are the things which, both in the general chapters and in the diplomas of the masters of the Order, are called the two great schools; to these, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, two small schools were added, specially assigned to France, and afterward also a fifth, but here we are dealing only with the first two. The other thing especially to be noted is by what method our men in the thirteenth century and the following century were promoted at Paris to the mastership. For many historians, since they see in this later century that, for someone to become a master of sacred theology, nothing more is desired than that he sustain certain scholastic contests, or acts as they call them, over a certain space of years, and when these have been completed he is presented with the rod and the laurel, even if he has never given and is never going to give any lecture from the chair; and since they see that certain selected men from these, once they have obtained a theological chair in some school, possess it as a certain benefice for life and teach in it perpetually if they wish, think that matters once had themselves in the same way, although there is the greatest difference. Therefore in the thirteenth century this was established in the University of Paris: that no bachelor in the theological faculty should be promoted to a chair, that is, should become a master, unless first he had examined himself, at least by diligently reading some glossed books and the Sentences in the schools of some master actually regent. See Boulæus (History of the University, volume III, page 245), who reports that this was renewed in the month of February 1251, when it had at another time been treated among the theological doctors and harmoniously prohibited. And among the statutes of the theological faculty observed from antiquity and collected in the fourteenth century, which may be seen in manuscript codex 645 of the Library of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and in D'Achery's Spicilegium (volume VI, page 582), this is read: Likewise note that bachelors in theology who must read the Sentences ought to make their beginnings, that is, preludes to the four books of the Sentences, between the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the feast of Blessed Dionysius, etc. And afterward: Note that those who wish to read their courses in theology ought to make in each book one beginning solemnly in some schools. I say that these were collected in the fourteenth century, because in the calendar of the university joined to the same statutes the feast of St. Thomas of Aquino is prescribed to be solemnly celebrated. But from these things it is held both that some master of theology always presided over every school, and that no bachelor in those centuries was promoted to the mastership who had not earlier read the Sentences publicly in the school of some master. Among our men, however, this course of mastership was concluded in three years. In the first year the bachelor, named either by the general chapter or by the master of the Order, read the Sentences in the school of some master. At the end of the year the Parisian prior with the masters actually reading offered that bachelor to the chancellor, those masters affirming, even under oath, that they believed him worthy to receive the license, that is, the faculty of teaching as master. When the public examinations and the other things that were to be observed had been observed, that licentiate held a solemn beginning in the episcopal hall, at which all the masters were present; whence they said that he had his hall, or received the assembly in theology, and, after being given the laurel, in that second year as master he continued reading the Sentences in what was then his school. In the third year he still ruled the school, treating certain questions as he pleased, holding general disputations, or responding on quodlibets, and at the same time he had in his school under his guidance a bachelor reading the Sentences, to whom at the end of the year he gave testimony, as it had formerly been given to him, and presented him to be licensed, just as he himself had formerly been presented by his own master. That the whole course of mastership was completed in this three-year period, especially among the externals, that is, in those who were assigned at Paris from other provinces, I prove from the things which historians report, both concerning Brother Roland of Cremona, who, when he had begun under Brother John Ægidius in the year 1228, had completed the course in the year 1231 and was sent to Toulouse to rule the study; and concerning St. Thomas of Aquino, whose three-year mastership Ptolemy of Lucca mentions several times; and from the acts of the general chapters, in which nothing more is required. But since the statutes of the faculty required more preparatory things for that three-year mastership in the internal men, such as that they had expounded some books of sacred Scripture and had sustained so many public contests, hence I conjecture that for those externals the faculty counted toward the matter the acts which they had completed in the solemn studies of their Provinces. Add that those externals had generally been assigned at another time in the gymnasium of Saint-Jacques for advancement, as we have already mentioned concerning Albert, and in these earlier years they without doubt endured many academic contests. It is scarcely necessary that I warn that that reading of the Sentences to which they were bound in those centuries is not to be taken as though they read to their hearers their own writings from a quire, as is now done, and dictated them, which was granted and permitted only from the Tuttavillæan reform of the year 1452. The custom of those ancients was plainly another: they delivered from memory their lectures, first composed with the greatest study, and in that manner in which sermons are said, as though no one took them down in writing; yet certain hearers, strong with a hand swift for writing, took down the things that were said, which were called reportata or reportationes, several of which I have seen among the manuscript codices of the Sorbonne. Hence let the upright appraiser of matters weigh how instructed in every part he had to be who undertook to read the Sentences at Paris; and for that reason no men were nominated to fulfill that office unless they had already been exercised for a long time and had elsewhere taught for several years already with praise, and that not mediocre. Having set these things down beforehand, I return to Albert the Great, whom I maintain, from these unconquered testimonies, to have been sent to Paris in the year 1245 to read for form and degree, as they say. The first testimony is that of our Cantimpratanus, who was among his first disciples in Germany. For he, in book 1 of Bees, chapter 20, section 10, speaks thus about the young Brother Thomas of Aquino: "He came to Cologne Agrippina and studied in that place until the illustrious lector of the Friars there, Brother Albert, was transferred to Paris and, on account of his incomparable knowledge of theology, obtained the chair." From these things it is most certainly established that Albert did not ascend the Parisian chair before the young Aquinas came to Cologne and studied there for some time; therefore, since he reached that place only toward the end of the year 1244, it must be held as known that Albert did not teach at Paris before 1245. But that in the year 1245 he was sent to Paris to read, either by the general chapter then celebrated at Cologne on the fourth of June at Pentecost, or by the master of the Order, Brother John the Teuton, I gather from the sentence rendered on 15 May 1248 by Odo the cardinal legate against the Talmudic books, which we shall soon give here entire. For in that sentence the names of all those are reported whose counsel the legate used in rendering it; and among the masters of theology these three from the Order of Preachers are reviewed in this sequence: Brother John Punginsasinum, Brother Albert the Teuton, Brother Stephen of Auxerre. This indicates that these three alone were then masters present in the gymnasium of Saint-Jacques and ruled our schools; for if other masters had been present, they without doubt would have been summoned to the council, since others were summoned who were not masters but were called good men, such as Brother John of Montmirail, formerly the great archdeacon of Paris and then enrolled among our men, Brother Henry the Teuton, a preacher celebrated at that age and especially pleasing to the holy king Louis, and others. Therefore, from the laws then observed as we have warned beforehand, it must be said that Brother Stephen of Auxerre, an internal from France, was in his second year of reading the Sentences, as being a master; that Albert the Great, the Teuton, an external, was in his third year, namely older than Brother Stephen, for then only one was licensed each year, so to speak; and consequently that already from the year 1245 he had begun to read the Sentences as a bachelor, so that in the year 1246 he became master, and in the year 1247 he continued to teach in the restoration of the schools for the third year, and had under his guidance a bachelor reading the Sentences. Egasse Boulæus is not far from the things said (History of the University of Paris, volume III, page 162); for there, after he reported the opinion of certain men who wished that Albert had taught at Paris in the year 1236 and had exercised that office for three years, note the three-year mastership, he immediately corrects it from the place of Cantimpratanus praised by us, and asserts that he was given the laurel only in the year 1247. Therefore the three-year mastership of Albert must be recalled to these years, and it cannot be numbered otherwise than as we have done. Peter of Prussia agrees, having testified from the same place of Cantimpratanus that Albert did not ascend the Parisian chair before the young Thomas of Aquino was brought to Cologne, whom Albert led with himself to Paris. I do not think it necessary to warn that it is a fable chanted by certain men and invented by I know not whom that Albert expounded the books of the Sentences with so great a gathering of hearers that, since the school did not hold the disciples, he was compelled to teach in the public square, which for this reason is even now today called the square of Master Albert, in the vernacular, la place Maubert. For it is known to all Parisian citizens that that square is so named from the ancient fief Maubert in which it is situated, which also our Natalis Alexandre already noted in his Church History. Moreover, that there were very spacious schools among our Saint-Jacques brethren, and schools which created envy toward them at the university, is held from the archives of the convent; the continuator of Nangis narrates that these were destroyed in the year 1358 for closing the city: "In the same year," he says, "there were destroyed the lodgings and houses which the Friars Preachers had outside the walls of Paris. For the Preachers had infirmaries and chapels, noted halls, and other honorable, royal, and solemn houses; and they very dutifully entered those houses through the houses of the city, and likewise to the gardens which they had outside, most beautiful and pleasant; and they lost not only the houses which they had built outside, but also houses within the walls, and those which were joined from within to the walls, so that between their dwelling and the said walls there might be an approach and a road, etc." Among those noted, honorable, royal, and solemn halls our schools must be understood, which without doubt the holy king Louis IX had erected as a dining room or refectory, and which sufficed for the huge crowd of Albert's hearers, so that it was not necessary for him to teach in the square; this is reported neither by any of the ancients nor by the Vallisoletan himself, who was writing in the year 1413, so that the fable was invented later than he, and Peter of Prussia has it when writing in the year 1487. But enough now about these things; behold the promised sentence of Odo the cardinal legate against the Talmud, which I present from the manuscript codex of the Sorbonne, whose title is Extractions from the Talmud, of that age. "Odo, by divine mercy bishop of Tusculum, legate of the Apostolic See, to all who shall inspect the present letters, greeting in the Lord. Let your whole body know that we at Paris, in the year of the Lord 1248, on the Ides of May, concerning certain books of the Jews which are called Talmud, with the masters of the Jews present and called for this, brought forth a definitive sentence in this manner. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Certain books which are called Talmud having been exhibited to us by apostolic authority by the masters of the Jews of the kingdom of France, which we inspected, and which we caused to be diligently inspected by discreet men experienced in such matters, fearing God and having zeal for the Christian faith: because we found them to contain innumerable errors, abuses, blasphemies, and wicked things, which should be a shame to those reporting them and a horror to those hearing them, to such an extent that the aforesaid books cannot, according to God, be tolerated without injury to the Christian faith, by the counsel of good men whom we judged should be specially summoned for this, we pronounce that the aforesaid books are not to be tolerated, nor ought they to be restored to the masters of the Jews, and we condemn them by sentence. But concerning the other books not exhibited to us by the masters of the Jews, although they were requested by us several times concerning this, or also not inspected, we shall know more fully in place and time, and we shall do what will have to be done." "The names of those by whose counsel the aforesaid sentence was rendered are these: The venerable father William, by the grace of God bishop of Paris. Acelinus, abbot of Saint-Victor of Paris. Radulphus, former abbot of the same place. Lucas, dean of Paris. And the masters of theology, namely: Master Walter, chancellor of Paris. Master Aimeric of Veire, canon of Paris. Master William of Cramant. Master Peter called Archbishop. Master Radulphus of Montdésir. Master Stephen, archdeacon of Meaux. Master Robert of Coton or Cocon. Brother William of Meliton, of the Order of Friars Minor. Brother John Pungensasinum, Brother Albert the Teuton, Brother Stephen of Auxerre, of the Order of Friars Preachers. And the masters of decrees, namely: Master Peter Ligerii, Master Geoffrey, cantor of Daurat. Master John, archdeacon of Trecenensis, read Trecensis. Master Philip, archdeacon of Bourges. Master William of Bray. Master Richard of Tabulis. Master Girard of Corion. Master Theobald of Dijon. Master Henry, canon of Reims. Master Stephen of Lorris. Master Peter of Viret. Master John of Sulhiac. Master Nicholas of Pondearche. Likewise other good men: Master Nicholas, archdeacon of the Church of Rouen. Master Garin, archdeacon of the Church of Beauvais. Master Thomas, archdeacon of Bayeux. Master Hugh, archdeacon of Bayeux. Master of the schools of Angers. Brother John of Montmirail. This man, as is read in the book On the Seven Gifts, from being great archdeacon of the Church of Paris became a companion of the Order of Preachers. Brother John, guardian of the Friars Minor. Brother Odo of Romaco. Brother Reginald of Chartres. Brother Henry the Teuton. Brother Theobald of Saxony. Brother Simon, minister of Saint-Mathurin at Paris. Their seals are attached to the presents together with ours in testimony of this matter. Given in the year of the Lord 1248 in the month of May." From these things, according to what has been premised, you may conclude that these three began in the sacred faculty in this order: Brother John Pungensasinum the Parisian in the year 1244, Brother Albert the Teuton in 1245, and Brother Stephen of Auxerre in 1246; for thus all things are established and agree.

Marginal label: Note 10. Toward the end of the same year he returned to Cologne. For as, from the sentence just praised, we hold Albert present at Paris on 15 May 1248, so toward the end of the same year we know no less certainly, from the testimony of all authors who speak of William, count of Holland, emperor-elect, that he had returned to Cologne and was regent of the theological study. They assert that this William, on the following Day of the Kings, which by the old style was still numbered as the year 1248, by the new as 1249, came to the cell of Albert the Great, regent at Cologne. Here Brietius, otherwise sufficiently accurate in the Annals, gravely stumbled and comes to be corrected, referring that conversation of the Emperor with Albert to the preceding year because he did not attend in that place to the distinction of the old and new style. To set this before the eyes, behold the sequence of events. Henry the Thuringian Emperor dies in the month of March 1246 by the old style, 1247 by the new. On the following third of October, William of Holland is substituted for him; he spends almost the whole following year, 1248, in the siege of Aachen, and, having obtained it, is crowned there on 1 November. Hence, going into Holland, he makes his journey through Cologne, celebrates there the feast of the Three Kings, patrons of this city, and visits Albert. That day, as all know, was still numbered 1248 by the old style; by the new it must be called 1249. See Vincent of Beauvais, a contemporary, and Odoricus Raynaldus at the year 1248, number 14.

Marginal label: Note 11. He was visited by the same man. John of Beka, an author from the fourteenth century, narrates in his Chronicle, which he was writing up to the year 1346, that the Emperor William was then received by Albert the Great with a magnificent banquet, in which Albert changed the very harsh winter in that year into a flowery spring and fruitful summer, and that, when the dishes had been completed with wonderful delight, all things vanished as if phantasms, and the winter savage with frost soon returned; and hence he does not fear to call Albert great in necromancy. But that this banquet is a mere fable is proved, not only because Ptolemy of Lucca and Bernard Gui do not remember it, whose testimonies concerning Albert, entirely contrary to these, we shall give at the end of these Annotations, but also because, as Peter of Prussia rightly warns, no one was more hostile to necromancies or a more capital enemy of demons, as the cited Brietius rightly says. For thus Albert says in the Speculum of Astronomy, chapter 10: These are two modes of necromantic images which presume to usurp for themselves the noble name of astronomy, and concerning them it has long been the case that I inspected many books; but because I abhorred them, there does not exist for me a perfect memory concerning their number, titles, beginnings and contents, or their authors: for my spirit never rested in them. Hence I wished only to have seen them in passing, so that at least I would not be ignorant in what way their wretched followers were to be mocked, and so that I would have something from their own material by which I might repel their excuse; and, what is most important, so that concerning similar things hereafter I might not be tempted (or should it be read: might not be tested), since I judged their persuasions invalid and not to be admitted. From these things you may gather that he read books of necromancy indeed