What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive?

Remarks on the Modalities of the Twelfth-Century Translation

Movement in Spain 1
Dimitri Gutas (Yale)

The translation movements from Greek into Arabic during the 8th to the 10th
centuries, and from Arabic into Latin from the 12th to the 13th, are complex
historical processes. Different from individual translation activities of solitary
scholars that prove not to have had historical agency, they do not easily lend
themselves to analysis, as I tried to argue a few years ago in my ,Greek Thought,
Arabic Culture. A key element in the attempt to arrive at some satisfactory
understanding of these processes - and I use the term ,understanding in its
Aristotelian sense of coming to recognize its causes - is asking the right kind
of questions of the historical evidence we possess, and especially discriminating
among the many different aspects of the problem - identifying its major modal-
ities, so to speak - and avoiding confusing issues that need to be kept separate.
Before I start with the question of my title, then, I need to make some major
discriminations. First of all, the noun ,Latins in the question is equivocal -
which Latins and when? For it certainly makes a difference, as Arabic-Latin
transmission was much more diffuse than Graeco-Arabic, and the centers and
foci of translation, let alone of reception, were more varied, both geographically
and temporally. Thus, briefly - and roughly - to review the well-known facts
without going into details, there are the initial translations of Gerbert and the
other earliest translations in Spain 2 at the turn of the 11th century 3; then there

1 Apart from some minor corrections and adjustments and the addition of references, this is
essentially the text of the lecture delivered during the evening session of the conference. The
contents and especially the style of the lecture, geared for an after-dinner evening delivery, have
been retained. I am grateful to Charles Burnett for graciously sending me pre-publication copies
of some of his articles - indispensable for anyone working in this field - and for his unflagging
willingness to share information; and to Dag Hasse for his customary helpful hints and sugges-
tions.
2 While treating of this subject, it is necessary to be precise with nomenclature. By Spain (and as
the occasion requires, Portugal) I will be referring to those parts of the Iberian peninsula under
Christian control, while by al-Andalus to those parts of the same peninsula under Muslim
control.
3 Cf. J. M. Millas-Vallicrosa, Las mas antiguas traducciones arabes hechas en Espana, in: Convegno
di scienze morali storiche e filologiche. Tema: Oriente ed Occidente nel Medio Evo, Rome
1957, 383-390.

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4 Dimitri Gutas

is the activity of Constantinus Africanus in Italy in the 11th century 4; then the
12th-century translations in Sicily but especially in Spain, a long period which
may be divided into a number of stages (Richard Lemay, perhaps rightly, divided
it into three): the beginnings, at the beginning of the century, with Petrus Alfonsi
and Adelard of Bath; then the great period of translations, starting right after
the reconquest of Saragossa in 1118 and lasting until the appearance in Toledo
of Gerard of Cremona, and covering an area, from east to west along the valley
of the Ebro up to and including Barcelona, and from north to south from
Pamplona to Toledo; and then, the latter third of the century, the work of
Gerard and Gundissalinus in Toledo 5. Then follows the even more complicated
13th century, when the work of translation goes on in Spain and continues in
Sicily with greater vigor, etc. - to say nothing of the later translations during
the Renaissance 6.
All these pre-Renaissance translation activities, spanning more than two cen-
turies, cannot be ascribed to the same motivations, the same goals, and the same
type of participants. Each stage, each period, has to be studied independently
in order for their differentiating qualities not to be leveled under the general
rubric of ,Arabic-Latin translations. It is necessary to discriminate the qualita-
tively different Arabic-Latin translation movement of the 12th century from the
previous incidental translation activities as well as from those that came in its
wake and as secondary responses to it. For let us consider: although there had
been sporadic translation activities from Arabic into Latin before the 12th cen-
tury as already mentioned, mostly of astrological, mathematical, and medical
nature (just as there had been sporadic translations from Greek into Arabic
before the Abbasids), this translation activity became a movement only in the
12th century. The Latins were quite aware of the cultural and scientific superior-
ity of the Arabs at least since the days of Charlemagne, if not earlier, and though
the Arabs were already in the Iberian peninsula where borders between the
Islamic and the Christian world were always porous, there was no transfer of
knowledge, much less any translations, in the 9th and 10th centuries. The 10th
century itself was decisive for the development of the Arabic sciences in al-
Andalus: during the reigns of the caliphs Abdarrah man III and his son al-
H akam II which lasted from 912 to 976, a significant portion of the philosophi-
cal and scientific knowledge of the East was brought to al-Andalus. And it is
precisely toward the end of the 10th century that we witness the first attempts
to translate some mathematical and astronomical material into Latin in northern
Spain 7, where perhaps the first western astrolabe was also made after Arabic

4 See in general Ch. Burnett/D. Jacquart (eds.), Constantine the African and Al Ibn al-Abbas
al-Magus. The Pantegni and Related Texts (Studies in Ancient Medicine 10), Leiden 1994.
5 Cf. R. Lemay, Dans lEspagne du XIIe siecle. Les Traductions de larabe au latin, in: Annales.
Economies, Societes, Civilisations 18 (1963), 639-665.
6 For a detailed account, with geographical localization, of both pre-Renaissance and Renaissance
translations see the contribution by Dag Hasse in this volume, 68-86.
7 Cf. Millas-Vallicrosa, Las mas antiguas traducciones (nt. 3).

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 5

models (the Carolingian astrolabe, according to Kunitzsch 8). Thus the introduc-
tion from the East of Arabic science and philosophy into al-Andalus, whose
borders with Latin Spain were, as I mentioned, porous, created a situation where
a significant amount of Arabic learning was theoretically available to the Latins
in close proximity to home. And yet, despite these few translation activities
which took place at the end of the 10th and during the 11th centuries, there was
no translation movement like the one we see in the 12th. Marie-Therese dAl-
verny recognized the problem explicitly: in her magisterial summation of the
scholarly developments on the 12th-century renaissance since Haskins, she said:
Why this promising prelude was not followed immediately by an increasing
stream of translations during the eleventh century is a question still unsolved. 9
This was in 1982, and though great advances have been made on numerous
matters of detail, the overall picture still evades us. In order to solve this prob-
lem, it is necessary to view the 12th-century translation movement in Spain as
something qualitatively distinct from the rest, and it is this movement that I will
be talking about. My purpose is not to discuss and explain the entire movement,
nor to review all the available literature on the subject - in other words, not to
attempt to write the book, ,Arabic Thought, Latin Culture -, but to make the
discriminations I mentioned and raise certain questions whose investigation may
lead to its eventual composition.
A second major discrimination I will be making is in the form of a disclaimer:
I will be talking only of the Arabic-Latin transmission of scientific and philo-
sophical texts in 12th-century Spain. Not only am I not competent to speak
about literary and artistic interactions between the medieval Arabic and Latin
worlds, but I am convinced that such interactions followed different patterns of
transmission and responded to social needs different from those of the scientific
and philosophical. Similarly, I will not be talking about the study of Islam and
of the Arabic language in medieval Europe, a subject which, though clearly
related to the broader issue under discussion, is yet a different problem and has
been addressed, to some degree, by dAlverny and others 10.
To come, then, to my subject thus circumscribed, the question of what there
was in Arabic for the Latins to receive has a number of components which
need to be answered or at least investigated separately in order to avoid the

8 Cf. P. Kunitzsch, The Role of al-Andalus in the Transmission of Ptolemys Planisphaerium and
Almagest, in: Zeitschrift fr Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 10 (1995/96),
147-155, here: 153-154, and cf. his references to related literature there.
9 Cf. M.-Th. dAlverny, Translations and Translators, in: R. L. Benson/G. Constable (eds.), Renais-
sance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Mass. 1982, 421-462; repr. in her La
transmission des textes philosophiques et scientifiques au Moyen Age, ed. by Ch. Burnett, Alder-
shot 1994, no. II, here: 440.
10 See her Variorum volume, La connaissance de lIslam dans lOccident medieval, ed. by M.
Gibson, Aldershot 1994; but there are earlier studies like the useful one by U. Monneret de
Villard, Lo studio dellIslam in Europa nel XII e nel XIII secolo (Studi e Testi 110), Vatican
1944, repr. 1972.

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6 Dimitri Gutas

confusion I mentioned earlier. Here I wish to concentrate on three of them, as

follows: (I) first, what there was for the Latins to receive and translate as texts
that were physically available, in the form of concrete manuscripts; (II) second,
and an inalienable concomitant of the first question, what there was in Greek
for the Latins to receive, and what determined their choice of the one over the
other; (III) and third, what the Latins were able to receive in concrete terms,
i. e., were able to translate. (IV) I will conclude with a general remark on a major
difference between the Graeco-Arabic and Arabic-Latin translation movements,
and what it tells us about the possible social and ideological causes of the latter.

I.

The first question, what there was physically available for the Latins to receive,
has a seemingly obvious and easy answer: everything - that is, the entire Arabic
corpus of writings until the 12th century - was theoretically available to all who
would have wanted to translate it. But this is certainly not what happened, which
means that there were factors in operation which enforced a certain selection
in the material that was eventually received. In order to identify these factors
we have to specify the question some more before we can answer it: we have
to ask, what there was available of such writings in the localities where the
Latins would be looking for manuscripts to translate, and of which they had
knowledge. Since I will be speaking of the 12th-century translation movement
in Spain, it is natural to start by looking at the situation with Arabic manuscripts
in al-Andalus and inquiring into what was available there. Two 11th-century
Arabic works from al-Andalus give us information on this matter: the first is
Ibn H azms essay on ,The Excellence of al-Andalus (R. f fad l al-Andalus),
which gives a selective bibliography of what the author considers the most
important works composed by Andalusian authors. Ibn H azm cast his net wide
and included all disciplines, Arab and foreign alike: he listed first the Ma-
lik religious scholars and their works, then the Safis and then the Z ahirs. Next
he moved on to lexicography and philology, and then to poetry and history.
Having completed the Arab sciences he went on with the foreign sciences,
medicine, philosophy, and mathematics, and closed with theology 11. The Anda-
lusocentric 12 stance which is implied by the very composition of the work is
made explicit toward the end where Ibn H azm concludes by saying that the
works by Andalusian authors which he cited have no equal in the entire Islamic

11 See the discussion and translation of the work by Ch. Pellat, Ibn H azm, bibliographe et apolo-
giste de lEspagne musulmane, in: Al-Andalus 19 (1954), 53-102.
12 I must apologize for this rather barbaric sounding neologism, but it is made imperative by the
need for a one-word adjective (and eventually, also a substantive, to come later) describing the
attitude of Andalusian scholars which considered al-Andalus as the focal point of historical
development and the culmination of world civilization.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 7

world except perhaps in Iraq 13. Here Ibn H azm placed al-Andalus culturally
second only to Iraq in a gesture which is due more to traditional respect toward
the seat of the caliphate than to sincerity of opinion. It is a tremendous boast,
and one that is hardly justified by historical reality, especially in the fields of
science and philosophy, which is our main concern here, and especially in his
time, early 11th century, when there was hardly any philosophy in Andalus. But
the attitude is what is important.
The second work is S aid al-Andaluss ,Categories of Nations (T abaqat al-
umam), which presents a very interesting picture of the cultural history of the
world from the point of view of Islamic Toledo: according to S aid, the march
of civilization starts from its beginnings with the Chaldeans, ancient Persians,
and Hindus, proceeds successively through the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyp-
tians, and the Abbasid Muslims, and it finally culminates with the Andalusian
Muslims and Jews in Toledo in the middle of the 11th century 14. In the course
of his discussions of the contributions of each nation, S aid enumerates all the
sciences that were transmitted - essentially all the sciences in the Greek curricu-
lum of higher studies established in late antiquity and passed on to the Muslims.
The largest number of scholars cited by S aid is the Andalusians: he refers to
69 of them. It is to be noted, however, that the vast majority of those cited
were proficient in the mathematical sciences and logic. Very few are named who
mastered the physical sciences and metaphysics. As a matter of fact, S aid him-
self mentions this explicitly: As far as natural science (al-ilm al-tab) and
metaphysics (al-ilm al-ilah) are concerned, no one in al-Andalus showed any
great interest (inaya) in them. 15 The same applies to medicine. S aid says: As
far as medical science is concerned, there was no one in al-Andalus who mas-
tered it completely or was able to equal any of the ancients. 16 This corresponds
very well with the sciences that we know were translated in Spain in the first
half of the 12th century, during the crucial beginning phase of the translation
movement: almost no physics, metaphysics, or medicine. This outlook presented
by S aid, written in Toledo in 1067 - less than twenty years before the re-
conquest of that city -, was shared by his townspeople, and that is the outlook
that one can also observe in the Arabic-Latin translators. We find striking con-
firmation of this in a statement by Daniel of Morley who says, upon his return
13 I will cite the translation by Pellat, Ibn H azm (nt. 11), 91: Malgre la distance qui separe notre
pays de la source ou jaillit la science et tout eloigne quil soit de la demeure des savants, nous
avons pu citer un tel nombre douvrages dus a la plume de ses habitants que lon en chercherait
en vain lequivalent en Perse, a al-Ahwaz, aux Diyar Mudar, aux Diyar Raba, au Yemen ou en
Syrie, bien que ces pays soient proches de lIrak, qui est le centre ou emigrent lintelligence et
les grands esprits, le rendez-vous des connaissances et des savants.
14 See M. G. Balty-Guesdon, Al-Andalus et lheritage grec dapres les Tabaqat al-umam de S aid
al-Andalus, in: A. Hasnaoui/A. Elamrani-Jamal/M. Aouad (eds.), Perspectives arabes et medi-
evales sur la tradition scientifique et philosophique grecque, Leuven-Paris 1997, 331-342.
15 S aid al-Andalus, Kitab Tabaqat al-umam, ed. L. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 77; French translation
by R. Blachere, Livre des Categories des Nations, Paris 1935, 142.
16 S aid, ibid., 78; Blachere, ibid., 143.

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8 Dimitri Gutas

to England from Spain late in the 12th century, that at present the instruction
of the Arabs [] consists almost entirely of the arts of the quadrivium 17. I
will return later (in Section IV) to Daniels views about the Muslims; for the
time being it is enough to point out that Daniels statement is not true, of
course, but Daniel thought that it was because the choices for translation that
had been made in Spain up to the time of his visit had been preponderantly of
books of the quadrivium, since that was the secular Arabic Andalusian curricu-
lum, as S aid informs us. Finally, of particular significance is S aids incorpora-
tion of the Jews in his classificatory historical scheme: the sciences culminate
with the Muslims and Jews of al-Andalus. This is important evidence for the
self-view of the Jews at the time but also for how the Muslims viewed them,
and it accords well with the major role played by Jewish scholars in the transmis-
sion process from Arabic into Latin.
The Andalusocentric attitude of Ibn H azm and S aid which I just described
was decisive in the determination of which books to translate in 12th-century
Spain. Thus, although theoretically the entire Arabic corpus could have been
available for translation, the works actually selected were those that were appre-
ciated and cultivated by the Arabic-writing Andalusians of the 11th century.
This explains a number of puzzles about the 12th-century translation movement,
notably the fact that in the sciences, and especially in the fields of the quadrivium
that both S aid al-Andalus and Daniel of Morley talk about, what was translated
was essentially the astronomical and mathematical works of al-Battan and
al-Khwarizm, which were already out-dated and surpassed in the Islamic
world 18; by the 12th century scientists in the East had left behind such works.
What does this indicate about the selection of books to translate? Haskins had
suggested that in this process of translation and transmission accident and
convenience played a large part. No general survey of the material was made,
and the early translators groped somewhat blindly in the mass of works suddenly
disclosed to them 19, while more recently Charles Burnett took another ap-
proach: for the early 12th-century translations of Adelard and Hermann of Ca-
rinthia he said: The Arabic works which were singled out for translation either
filled gaps in knowledge of which Latin readers were aware, or fitted in with
the kind of philosophy they were sympathetic towards. 20 These suggestions
are all to a certain extent valid, though I doubt that they are of primary impor-
tance; rather I would put the matter differently: it was not so much the blind
groping, lack of awareness, or philosophical leanings of the Latin scientists and

17 Doctrina Arabum, que in quadruvio fere tota existit ; the passage is in Daniels ,Philosophia, cited
by Ch. Burnett, The Institutional Context of Arabic-Latin Translations of the Middle Ages: A
Reassessment of the ,School of Toledo, in: O. Weijers (ed.), Vocabulary of Teaching and Re-
search between Middle Ages and Renaissance, Turnhout 1995, 214-222, here: 218.
18 D. A. King, Reflections on Some Studies on Applied Science in Islamic Societies (8th-19th
Centuries), in: Islam and Science 2 (2004), 43-56, here: 53.
19 C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, Cambridge, Mass. 21927, 18.
20 Ch. Burnett, Hermann of Carinthia, De Essentiis, Leiden 1982, 21.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 9

translators that were responsible for the selection of outdated books, but the
leanings and Andalusian bias of the Arabic ,experts and native informants
whom the Latin scholars and translators consulted. For the translations done in
Spain in the 12th century were done on the basis of Arabic manuscripts available
in Spain at that time, and upon the recommendation, apparently, of such local
experts, all of whom naturally must have shared the Andalusocentric bias we
see in Ibn H azm and S aid.
This is best illustrated by an example drawn from an early 13th-century deci-
sion of a book to translate, the astronomy of the Andalusian al-Bitrug (the
Latin Alpetragius). Michael Scot completed his translation of al-Bitrug as late
as 1217 21 - late in the sense that the Arabic-Latin translation movement had
been going on for over a century, during which time Ptolemys ,Almagest had
already been translated. What was the purpose in translating the curiously ana-
chronistic and, for its time, unscientific treatise of al-Bitrug 22? Haskins men-
tions that the treatise was of considerable importance as a source of Aristo-
telian cosmology in the thirteenth century 23. This it certainly was, but I doubt
that this was the reason why it was translated, i. e., so that it would become a
source for Aristotelian cosmology; I would rather think that al-Bitrug was trans-
lated because he represented Andalusian astronomy over other astronomy, that
of the Eastern Arabs and even of Ptolemy, and Michael Scot was translating on
that date in Toledo for Toledan patrons and on the advice, apparently, of Toled-
ans. The choice of an astronomical book to translate manifestly was not his;
when later in life, while in Sicily, he composed his own work on astrology, the
,Liber introductorius, the astronomy he presented there was not that of al-
Bitrug but of al-Fargan and the ,Almagest 24.
The same Andalusian bias can be observed in the philosophical works trans-
lated into Latin in 12th-century Spain 25. First of all it should be noted, as also
can be gleaned from the implications of the texts of both Ibn H azm and S aid,
that philosophy made its appearance late in al-Andalus and when it did appear
it had a profile very different from that in the East. The first philosopher of
note was Ibn Bagga (Avempace) in the first half of the 12th century ( 1139),
and he mostly engaged in rewriting and commenting on Alfarabi. Al-Kind ( af-
ter 870) also was known in al-Andalus, and indeed to Ibn H azm, for we have a
criticism of al-Kinds metaphysics by his pen 26. If we now look at the Latin
21 Cf. Haskins, Studies (nt. 19), 273-277.
22 For the nature of al-Bitrugs astronomy see A. I. Sabra, The Andalusian Revolt against Ptolem-
aic Astronomy: Averroes and al-Bitruj, in: E. Mendelsohn (ed.), Transformation and Tradition
in the Sciences, Cambridge 1984, 133-153.
23 Haskins, Studies (nt. 19), 277.
24 Cf. ibid., 288.
25 For a complete list see Ch. Burnett, Arabic into Latin: The Reception of Arabic Philosophy
into Western Europe, in: P. Adamson/R. Taylor (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Arabic Phi-
losophy, Cambridge 2005, 370-404, list at 391-404.
26 See H. Daiber, Die Kritik des Ibn H azm an Kinds Metaphysik, in: Der Islam 63 (1986), 284-
302.

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10 Dimitri Gutas

translations of philosophical texts in 12th-century Spain, we see a reflection of

the situation on the Andalusian side. In the first place, until well after the middle
of that century and the appearance of the works of Gerard of Cremona and
Gundissalinus, there are virtually no translations of philosophical texts by the
early translators - Adelard of Bath and Hugo of Santalla and Robert of Ketton
and Hermann of Carinthia, etc. -, a lack of interest in philosophy reflecting
that of Andalusian scholars in general. As far as we can tell, there is only the
essay by Qusta b. Luqa, ,On the Difference between the Spirit and the Soul,
translated by John of Seville 27. The climate slightly changed only with the ap-
pearance on the scene, in Toledo, of Gerard of Cremona and Gundissalinus in
the 50s and 60s of the 12th century, both of whom translated philosophical
texts. They translated al-Kind and Alfarabi, predominantly, though of al-Kind
only some works on natural science and not the Neoplatonic treatises on first
philosophy and the One, works that we consider hallmarks of the Arabic al-
Kind; and of Alfarabi they translated quite a few varied treatises on logic, ethics,
physics, and the classification of the sciences, but again, not the major Neopla-
tonic emanationist treatises like ,The Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabi-
tants of the Excellent City and ,The Principles of Beings - choices that clearly
reflect Arabic Andalusian tastes in philosophy, especially in Alfarabi. This is also
indicated by the highly selective and diffident, one could almost say, translations
of Avicenna by Gundissalinus and some others; Gundissalinus, in any case, is
known to have been influenced in his selection of philosophical material to
translate by his native informant, Avendauth (Ibrahm b. Dawud) 28. Averroes,
who was writing his commentaries in Cordoba at the same time that Gundissali-
nus and Gerard were translating philosophical treatises in Toledo, echoed this
distaste for Avicenna - indeed one could characterize Averroes work as moti-
vated by his reaction as much to Avicenna as to al-Gazzal. By the same token,
is it just a coincidence that the first large-scale Arabic-Latin translations of philo-
sophical texts were being done in Toledo at the same time that Averroes was
himself engaged in furious philosophical activity in Cordoba, commenting on
Aristotle? This is not the place to go into the history of Arabic philosophy in
al-Andalus, but clearly any general assessment of it must take seriously into
consideration the 12th-century translations of philosophical texts into Latin and
27 It should be added that the translation of this work needs explanation in the context of the
translations in Spain in the first half of the 12th century. I have not seen the Ph. D. dissertation
of Judith Wilcox, The Transmission and Influence of Qusta ibn Luqas On the Difference
between Spirit and the Soul (City University of New York 1985), so I do not know whether
she dealt with the issue; in general, and following the lead of Thomas Ricklin, Der Traum der
Philosophie im 12. Jahrhundert. Traumtheorien zwischen Constantinus Africanus und Aristo-
teles (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte XXIV), Leiden 1998, it may have had something to
do with the new understanding of the body-soul relationship that was ushered into Latin scholar-
ship through the creative translations of Constantinus Africanus.
28 See Ch. Burnett, Translation and Transmission of Greek and Islamic Science to Latin Christen-
dom, in: The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 2: D. C. Lindberg/M. H. Shank (eds.), Science
in the Middle Ages, forthcoming.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 11

the rationale behind their selection, something which is lacking in accounts of

Andalusian philosophy.
The translators of the 12th century, then, looked for their Arabic manuscripts
in al-Andalus and were influenced by Andalusian tastes and biases in their selec-
tion of works to translate. This would indicate to me that one of the reasons, if
not the main reason, that they engaged in this translation movement was to
imitate the Andalusians and appropriate their knowledge - become like them,
essentially. That this was among their motivations rather than any desire to
improve their ,scientific knowledge or ,advance science is also indicated by the
fact that they selected outdated works to translate and did not look around the
Islamic world for the latest developments in the sciences concerned. Because,
theoretically, they had an excellent opportunity: large parts of Syria and Palestine
were in the hands of the Crusaders at the beginning of the 12th century, and in
Syria, at that time, there could have been found almost the entire production of
Arabic scholarship from the beginning of Islam. But, paradoxical as it might
seem, and without going into details 29, Syria was not mined by the Latins for
its manuscript treasures, in spite of, or rather exactly because of the fact that
parts of Syria and Palestine were under Crusader occupation. We have reports
of pillaging, looting and destruction of libraries by the Crusaders, but not of
their wholesale acquisition or purchase 30. Some cultural contacts between East
and West there certainly were, but their overall contribution to the Arabic-Latin
translation movement is far from being evidently substantial, despite the best
efforts of some recent studies 31.
Thus, the translation movement of the 12th century in Spain appears to have
been a local affair, with local concerns and local ideological motivations. It is

29 Adelard of Bath presumably was there at about this time, but we have no information that he
sought, much less carried away, any Arabic manuscripts. It is possible that he may have found
there a manuscript of the ,Elements which he translated, but he could have procured that
manuscript just as easily from Spain. Philip of Tripoli and Stephen the Philosopher from Pisa
apparently did find the manuscripts of the works they translated in Syria, but we are not yet
sure if this was exceptionally so. Again, Master Theodore, Frederick IIs philosopher, could have
presumably requested manuscripts to be sent to him in Sicily from his home town Antioch, but
in this we are in the realm of speculation and we have no concrete evidence. Pisa, which had a
quarter in Antioch and apparently must have procured Arabic manuscripts from there, never
developed, apart from some incidental translations, a translation movement like that in Spain
in the 12th century. For all this see the material collected by Ch. Burnett, Antioch as a Link
between Arabic and Latin Culture in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, in: I. Draelants/A.
Tihon/B. van den Abeele (eds.), Occident et Proche-Orient: contacts scientifiques au temps des
croisades (Actes du colloque de Louvain-la-Neuve, 24 et 25 mars 1997), Turnhout 2000, 1-66.
30 See L. Cochrane, Adelard of Bath, London 1994, 33, citing the Damascus Chronicle of Ibn al-
Qalanis in H. A. R. Gibbs translation, London 1932, 89; but cf. S. J. Williams, Philip of Tripolis
Translation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum Viewed within the Context of
Intellectual Activity in the Crusader Levant, in: Draelants e. a. (eds.), Occident et Proche-Orient
(nt. 29), 79-94, here: 84 and note 20.
31 See now the articles collected in Draelants e. a. (eds.), Occident et Proche-Orient (nt. 29), and
the Introduction, i-iv, with references to earlier bibliography.

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12 Dimitri Gutas

the exception that proves the rule, they say, and in this case it is an exceptional
case that would seem to support this statement. If the Latin translators in Spain
looked no farther afield than al-Andalus for their manuscripts and their knowl-
edge, this does not mean that others - very few others - did not, like Ramon
Marti in the 13th century. If at the one extreme we have someone like Daniel
of Morley who thought that the Arabs had written only on the quadrivium, then
at the other extreme we have someone like Ramon Marti 32 who learned Arabic
well enough to read widely in Arabic sources and acquainted himself with the
religious literature of his time. In his works he quoted not only from al-Gazals
,Autobiography (al-Munqid ) 33, a work not normally known in Latin, but also,
and quite astonishingly, from Fahr al-Dn al-Razs al-Mabah it al-masriqya
(which he called, very appropriately, ,Liber investigationum orientalium). But
Ramon Marti was, as I said, one of the very few exceptions. The Latin translators
of the 12th century clearly had other priorities in mind than the discovery of the
latest scientific advances in the various fields of the quadrivium, the philosophy,
or indeed the philosophical theology of the Muslims.

II.

The first aspect of the question, What was there in Arabic for the Latins to
receive? which I just discussed cannot be answered satisfactorily unless we take
into account also the related question, What was there in Greek for the Latins
to receive? In every case where the former question is asked so also must be
the attendant one, viz, whether there was any alternative to translating from the
Arabic, i. e., whether any Greek manuscripts and translators who knew Greek
were readily available. This is the technical, factual aspect, of the question, about
which surveys of Greek manuscripts in Spain and generally in Europe will in-
form, but I am not interested in this aspect of the problem. What is significant,
rather, in this connection, is to understand the attitudes behind the choice of
translating from the Greek as opposed to the Arabic. Before I discuss the signifi-
cance of the choice, let me give a brief impressionistic picture of what normally
happened.
A statistical analysis of the actual choices made about which books to translate
will inform us relatively accurately about culturally conditioned motivations and
preferences. And naturally, such examination of actual choices made will be
specific as to the sciences concerned; we cannot mix together indiscriminately
information about different sciences. We do not as yet have complete statistics

32 Cf. M.-Th. dAlverny, Algazel dans lOccident latin, in: Academie du Royaume du Maroc, session
de novembre 1985, Rabat 1986, 125-146; repr. in her La transmission des textes philosophiques
et scientifiques au Moyen Age, ed. by Ch. Burnett, Aldershot 1994, no. VII, 11.
33 In his Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos; see V. M. Poggi, Un classico della spiritualita
musulmana, Rome 1967.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 13

separately for all disciplines, but let me give one example from one discipline
for which we do, mathematics (in the broad sense of the quadrivium, excluding
music). In a significant article, Richard Lorch gave the numbers of how many
works on mathematics were translated from Arabic and how many from Greek,
as follows:
Greek works translated from Arabic into Latin: 16, three of them in more
than one version (Euclids ,Elements, Theodosius ,Spherics, Archimedes ,Di-
mensio Circuli).
Greek works translated directly from Greek: 6, if we exclude the versions by
William of Moerbeke, which came later, at a time when the dynamics of the
question Greek versus Arabic had changed from the original one in the 12th
century, which is our concern here.
Original Arabic works on mathematics translated into Latin: 34 (six of them
in more than one version) 34.
What this statistics indicates is this: in the 12th century, European scholars
preferred to translate Greek mathematical works from an Arabic intermediary
translation almost three times more than from the original Greek (16:6), and, in
addition, they preferred original Arabic works on mathematics almost six times
as much as they did the original Greek works (34:6). Such overwhelming ratios
in favor of Arabic texts, both of Arabic translations from the Greek and of
original Arabic works, cannot be accidental: the preference was deliberate and
indicates the cultural predilection.
Let me continue with some further facts along these lines. The famous
Michael Scot finished his translation of Aristotles ,Zoology while still in Toledo,
early in the 13th century, on the basis of the Arabic version. In comparison with
the Greek text, Michaels translation was clearly deficient, yet it remained in
constant use until the fifteenth century 35. Why was there not sought another
translation, from the Greek?
And again: Averroes Middle Commentary on the ,Poetics was translated by
Hermann the German in Toledo by 1256, while William of Moerbekes transla-
tion of the ,Poetics itself from the Greek original was finished some twenty
years later, in 1278. But it was Hermanns translation of Averroes work that
was used and quoted in medieval literature rather than Williams translation of
Aristotle: Hermanns work survives in 24 manuscripts, Williams in only two 36.

What all this evidence taken together indicates is that the order of preference
of source material to translate was, first, Arabic works popular or appreciated
in al-Andalus, second, Arabic works from the East, and only third, Greek works.

34 See the tables in R. Lorch, Greek-Arabic-Latin: The Transmission of Mathematical Texts in the
Middle Ages, in: Science in Context 14 (2001), 313-331, here: 316-319.
35 Cf. Haskins, Studies (nt. 19), 278.
36 Cf. H. A. Kelly, Aristotle-Averroes-Alemannus on Tragedy: The Influence of the ,Poetics on
the Latin Middle Ages, in: Viator 10 (1979), 162-209, here: 161-162.

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14 Dimitri Gutas

This Andalusocentrism and relative disdain of Eastern Arabic accomplishments

is consistent with the perspective presented by S aid al-Andalus in his ,Catego-
ries of the Nations 37, while the even lesser demand for works in Greek is
indicative of the lack of appreciation of them by Europeans, for reasons yet to
be studied and socially analyzed. Incidentally, and not at all irrelevantly, it should
be added that this negative sentiment vis-a-vis the original works in Greek was
not restricted to the Latin world. The Byzantines themselves, when they started
becoming interested in ancient science again in the ninth century - as a direct
result of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, I claimed -, preferred
translating Arabic works into Byzantine Greek rather than simply reading the
originals in Greek and avoiding translation altogether 38!
There is clearly a historical problem here. The question of which sources to
translate, Greek or Arabic, was doubtless a matter of cultural contest and self-
identification for the Middle Ages; studying it gives us an opportunity to dis-
cover the motives and ideology behind the translation movements, both Arabic-
Latin and Greek-Latin - indeed the politics of the choice, Greek or Arabic,
appears to have been very important in the formation of popular and scholarly
ideologies in the Middle Ages from the 12th century onwards. We are well in-
formed about the politics of learning Greek as it manifested itself in the Refor-
mation and beyond, and the role it played in the public career of someone like
Erasmus - I am reminded of a recent study by Simon Goldhill with the won-
derful title, ,Who Needs Greek? (and the subtitle, ,Contests in the Cultural
History of Hellenism, Cambridge 2002). We need similar studies for the Middle
Ages, and not only for Greek but also for Arabic 39.

III.

My third question, what the Latins were able to translate, from the perspective
I want to raise it, has been treated only tangentially in studies such as those by
dAlverny on translations ,a quattro mani or, in her terms, ,traductions a deux
interpretes 40, and in other studies of individual translations and their accuracy 41.
37 Cf. Balty-Guesdon, Al-Andalus (nt. 14), 342.
38 Cf. D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in
Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries), London-New York 1998,
175-186. For a brief discussion of the Byzantine preference, in the case of medicine, for Arabic
works over Galens Greek texts see my review of Mavroudi in: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 97
(2004), 610.
39 See on this subject the contribution to this volume by Charles Burnett, 22-31.
40 M.-Th. dAlverny, Les traductions a deux interpretes, darabe en langue vernaculaire et de langue
vernaculaire en latin, in: Traduction et traducteurs au Moyen Age (Colloques internationaux du
CNRS, IRHT 26-28 mai 1986), Paris 1989, 193-206; repr. in her La transmission des textes
philosophiques et scientifiques au Moyen Age, ed. by Ch. Burnett, Aldershot 1994, no. III.
41 See, e. g., Ch. Burnett, The Strategy of Revision in the Arabic-Latin Translations from Toledo:
The Case of Abu Mashars On the Great Conjunctions, in: J. Hamesse (ed.), Les Traducteurs
au travail: leurs manuscrits et leurs methodes, Turnhout 2001, 51-113, 529-540.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 15

But the questions that I need to have answered are, how much Arabic the
translators knew, where they learned it, and most importantly, how much they
relied on ,native informants for their versions. For let us consider: apart from
the Jews of Spain, both orthodox and converted, like Petrus Alfonsi, John of
Seville, and Abraham ibn Ezra, who can be expected to have grown up speaking
and reading Arabic, most (if not all?) of the other, Christian, translators worked
through intermediary native informants: Gundissalinus worked with ,Avendauth
israelita; Plato of Tivoli with Savasorda; Michael Scot with ,Abuteus levita; the
famous translation project of Peter the Venerable employed a certain Muh am-
mad; and even the great Gerard of Cremona worked with Gallipus (Galib) 42. It
would be worth our while to draw up as complete an inventory as possible of
these ,native informants, who, to call them by their real name, were nothing
else but shadow translators.
Very much to the point is the case of Hermann the German, who confessed
to Roger Bacon that he did not know Arabic well and that he was much more
of an assistant in the translations rather than a translator himself, because he
employed Arabs in Spain who were the real authors of his translations 43. Now
it is to be noted that Hermann is saying this some time in the middle of the
13th century (Bacon, who is reporting this statement, adding that he used to
know Hermann well, wrote his ,Compendium studii philosophiae in 1272) 44.
That is almost a century and a half after the first translations of the Arabic-
Latin movement at the beginning of the 12th century. Why was there no rush
in Europe for translators to improve their Arabic, as there was in Baghdad with
regard to Greek, where, after the initially clumsy Graeco-Arabic translations, the
generation of H unain achieved a very high level of competence in Greek 45?
So there is another serious problem here, for, looked at closely, the evidence
we have even about allegedly skilled translators raises many questions. Let us
take Gerard of Cremona again, a perfect example to make the case: he translated
the ,Almagest in 1175 and he employed for this translation the services of his

42 Cf. Haskins, Studies (nt. 19), 15, 18; dAlverny, Les traductions (nt. 40), 198.
43 Magis fuit adiutor translationum quam translator, quia Sarascenos tenuit secum in Hispania qui fuerunt in
suis translationibus principales; quoted in Kelly, Aristotle-Averroes-Alemannus (nt. 36), 173, nt. 46,
quoting from Bacons ,Compendium studii philosophiae, c. 8, 472, in: J. S. Brewer (ed.), Opera
quaedam hactenus inedita, London 1859.
44 Cf. Kelly, Aristotle-Averroes-Alemannus (nt. 36), 172. Bacon, who apparently was under no
illusion about the translators competence, repeated his criticisms of them on numerous occa-
sions; see Ch. Burnett, Translating from Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages: Theory, Practice,
and Criticism, in: S. G. Lofts/Ph. Rosemann (eds.), Editer, traduire, interpreter: Essais de metho-
dologie philosophique, Louvain-Paris 1997, 55-78, here: 71 and nt. 42.
45 Cf. Gutas, Greek Thought (nt. 38), 136-141. To make matters worse for the lack of expertise
in Arabic by the Latins, it appears that even translators working in Antioch did not have a
proper command of technical Arabic. Stephen the Philosopher says in his introduction to the
,Regalis dispositio that at present [] we have no one who knows both languages [scil.
Arabic and Latin] ,well enough (Burnett, Antioch [nt. 29], 36); cf. Williams, Philip of Tripolis
Translation (nt. 30), 85-89.

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16 Dimitri Gutas

helper Galippus. Now this was made 13 years before Gerards death, when he
had been translating from the Arabic already for some twenty years; and this
was only the ,Almagest, a highly technical text, but easy once one knows the
mathematics of it; the Arabic itself could not have been any problem - one
can well imagine if this had been a literary text in Arabic! Hadnt Gerard learned
any Arabic? Or was he stupid? The answers of course are, yes, he had learned
some Arabic but not well, and no, he wasnt stupid; what therefore can account
for this evidence is that he didnt learn Arabic well enough because he didnt
need to; as long as he could find shadow translators like Galippus to help him
out - essentially do his work for him - he didnt need to spend the time and
energy to learn proper Arabic. He could employ his time much more gainfully
polishing the style of the versions in broken Latin (or vernacular) given to him
by his shadow translators. But this state of affairs means that the translations
were actually made by the shadow translators, and unless we know what they
knew and how well they knew it we will not be in a better position to answer
the questions I am asking.
And if the unidentified shadow translators in the employ of the Latin so-
called translators played such a major role in the translation process, how far-
reaching was their influence in the determination of what books to translate?
Even assuming that the Latin ,translator had in mind, or was requested, to
translate a particular book, if his shadow translators were not versed in that
particular science, could he have gone through with the project? It seems not.
Again in the case of Hermann the German, he says in the introduction to his
translation of the ,Rhetoric that both the ,Rhetoric and the ,Poetics [] have
been more or less neglected up to his day even by the Arabs, because of their
difficulty; and that he was scarcely able to find a single person to give him
serious help in interpreting them 46. Hermanns claim, for the Arabic side, is
just wrong, for Averroes wrote epitomes and middle commentaries on both
these works by Aristotle a century earlier, to say nothing of the other previous
works on the ,Rhetoric and ,Poetics in Arabic 47; so what Hermanns allegations
mean is that he is conveying his informants views on the subject. Thus, either
his informants - that is, his shadow translators - were ignorant of the many
Arabic works on the ,Rhetoric and ,Poetics, or they were not sufficiently
schooled themselves to dare tackle these subjects, or, and perhaps most likely,
they were not being paid enough for the amount of trouble to which they would
have to go to to translate these treatises; if they were more at home, say, with
mathematics, it would have been easier for them to translate mathematical works

46 Kelly, Aristotle-Averroes-Alemannus (nt. 36), 173.

47 On the ,Rhetoric in particular see now the magisterial work by M. Aouad, Averroes, Com-
mentaire moyen a la Rhetorique dAristote, Paris 2002; for thorough reviews of Arabic works
on both the ,Rhetoric and ,Poetics see M. Aouad, La Rhetorique. Tradition syriaque et arabe,
in: Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques, Paris 1989, I, 455-472, Supplement, 219-223; and
H. Hugonnard-Roche, La Poetique. Tradition syriaque et arabe, in: ibid., Supplement, Paris 2003,
208-218.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 17

rather than the ,Rhetoric and ,Poetics, if they were being paid the same amount
for both types of translations. And thus, if the education and cultural outlook
(and, a fortiori, the pay scale) of the native informants are also factors in what
was translated 48, we need to investigate with diligence these shadow translators.

IV.

All of this - the discussion of the availability for translation of Arabic and
Greek works to the 12th-century translators, their criteria of selection, and their
reliance on shadow translators for their work - brings us inevitably to the big
question, why the translation movement, both from Arabic and from Greek,
started and thrived at all. But this may not be the right place to discuss the
social, political, and ideological causes of this translation movement. Dag Hasse
made a wonderful start in a mini essay which he published in the ,Neue Zrcher
Zeitung three years ago 49, Thomas Ricklin slightly before that gave some tanta-
lizing hints in the epilogue of his work on Latin dreams 50, and I am sure others
more knowledgeable than I in medieval European history and society will follow.
But since I offered earlier a hint myself by suggesting that the Arabic-Latin
translation movement proper began in the early 12th century in northern Spain
and that it was, above all, a local movement, a movement that eventually ac-
quired a pan-European significance, I will conclude by making a further point
in this direction while drawing on my experience with the Graeco-Arabic transla-
tion movement that took place a few centuries earlier.
Looking at the two translation movements, the Graeco-Arabic and the Ara-
bic-Latin one 51, we can see numerous differences between the two. In my view,
the most significant difference, and the one that led me to the realization of the
importance of Baghdadi politics and ideologies for the Graeco-Arabic transla-
tions and may lead to an equal appreciation of the same factors in the Arabic-
Latin translations, has to do with the relative stand of the two civilizations at
the time of the translations: in the case of the Graeco-Arabic transmission,
Islam was at the time of the early Abbasids the high civilization in comparison
with both Byzantium and the Europe of Charlemagne, and Islams turning to-
ward classical antiquity (and its Iranian Sasanian version, as I argued) meant the
willful resuscitation of a bookish tradition and indicated a kind of emulation
that consisted of comparing itself to and learning from past civilizations and

48 And thus the translators themselves did not exercise as much ,lively initiative or display as much
creativity in what they selected to translate as one is led to believe from T. Burtons romantic
portrayal of them in: M. R. Menocal/R. S. Scheindlin/M. Sells (eds.), Michael Scot and the
Translators, in: The Literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge 2000, 404-411, here: 407-408.
49 D. N. Hasse, Griechisches Denken, muslimische und christliche Interessen: Kulturtransfer im
Mittelalter, in: Neue Zrcher Zeitung, 18/19 August 2001, 78.
50 Ricklin, Der Traum der Philosophie (nt. 27).
51 And possibly also the Greek-Latin one, though this has to be verified independently.

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18 Dimitri Gutas

not from any currently in existence. Whereas in the case of the Arabic-Latin
transmission, Latin Europe was manifestly inferior to Islam in intellectual, eco-
nomic, and military terms, and thus this transmission can be ascribed to the
natural tendency, on the part of the Latin world, to follow the path of and
imitate the higher civilization - in essence, become the other civilization and
acquire for itself the glory and prestige that belonged to the Arabs and Islam in
general.
What this means, in terms of trying to understand the two movements as
historically significant processes ideologically responding to the needs of the
societies that generated them, is that the Graeco-Arabic translation movement
is rooted in, and is an expression of, internal political and social developments
in early Abbasid society (as I argued), for it could bring no immediate benefits
in the international political arena but was intended for internal ideological con-
sumption; while the Arabic-Latin translation movement must be seen in the
context of international politics and as an expression of ideological tendencies
that developed because of that.
To illustrate this statement I will cite as example a rather well-known passage
by Daniel of Morley to which I referred earlier, who visited Spain in search of
knowledge, as he claims, in the second half of the 12th century. After mentioning
his visit to Spain and his return to England with a precious collection of
books, he says:
Let no one be disturbed that, as I treat of the creation of the world, I call upon the
testimony not of the catholic fathers, but of the pagan philosophers, for, although the
latter are not among the faithful, some of their words ought nevertheless to be taken
over by our instruction when they are full of [Christian] faith. We too, who have been
mystically liberated from Egypt, have been ordered by the Lord to borrow from the
Egyptians their gold and silver equipment to enrich the Hebrews. Let us, then, in
conformity with the Lords command and with His help, borrow from the pagan
philosophers their wisdom and eloquence, and thus let us rob those infidels to enrich
ourselves in faith with their booty. 52
This passage is remarkable for the way in which it portrays the Europeans in
comparison with the Muslims. Daniel says that we, meaning the Christians of
Europe, have been mystically liberated from Egypt, and continues with the
metaphor from the Biblical Exodus, with the Christians being seen as the He-
brews and the Muslims as the Egyptians. But what is he actually referring to by
being mystically liberated from the Muslims? Given the international political
scene in the second half of the 12th century when Daniel was writing, this could
only refer on the one hand to the Crusader conquest of parts of the Holy Land
and on the other to the reconquest of parts of Spain, and especially of Toledo,
the city he had visited. And indeed, the wars of reconquest of Spain acquired a
new character in the 12th century: they were transformed into a crusade by the

52 G. Maurach, Daniel von Morley, ,Philosophia, in: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 14 (1979), 204-
255, here: 212-213.

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 What was there in Arabic for the Latins to Receive? 19

Popes who began to grant remission of sins to those who participated in the
fight against the Muslims in al-Andalus 53. These military and political advances
on the part of the Christians in Spain and the climate newly enhanced with
crusader ideology created an atmosphere in which cultural plunder, as Daniel
describes it, could be envisaged as well deserved spoils. The military conquest
of cities like Saragossa and Toledo by itself could not bring about - for the
victorious Christians of these cities and for the local bishops who led them and
sponsored the translations - the prestige which these cities enjoyed under Mus-
lim domination, because what was lacking was the cultural component. The
translations, and the appropriation of Muslim science and philosophy - but not
any Muslim science and philosophy, or all, or the most advanced Muslim science
and philosophy, but specifically the science and philosophy of al-Andalus, and
even more narrowly, those of Toledo and Saragossa - produced the required
addition of cultural prestige.
If this approach is going to be at all fruitful, it will need the micro-study of
the Muslim and Christian societies of the re-conquered cities - it will need the
study of the social implications of the translations themselves, of the eventual
expansion of such ideologies to the rest of Europe, and of the participation, at
first by proxy and then by deed, of the other Europeans in the newly acquired
glory and prestige of the Spanish cities.

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and Crusade in Medieval Spain, Philadelphia 2003.

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20 Dimitri Gutas

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