rooted was the belief in this figment that sailors, while steering by the compass, were forbidden the use of these vegetables lest by their breath they might intoxicate the "index of the pole" and turn it away from its true pointing. More reasonable than this prohibition was the maritime legislation of certain northern countries for the protection of the lodestone on shipboard. According to this penal code, a sailor found guilty of tampering with the lodestone used for stroking the needles, was to have the guilty hand held to a mast of the ship by a dagger thrust through it until, by tearing the flesh away, he wrenched himself free.

It was only at the time of the Crusades that people in Europe began to recognize the directive property of the magnet, in virtue of which a freely suspended compass-needle takes up a definite position relatively to the north-and-south line, property which is serviceable to the traveler on land and supremely useful to the navigator on sea.

It is commonly said that the compass was introduced into Europe by the returning Crusaders, who heard of it from their Mussulman foes. These, in turn, derived their knowledge from the Chinese, who are credited with its use on sea as far back as the third century of our era.[1]

Among the earliest references to the sailing compass is that of the trouvère Guyot de Provins,[2] who wrote, about the year 1208, a satirical poem of three thousand lines, in which the following passage occurs:

The author was a caustic and fearless critic, who lashed with equal freedom the clergy and laity, nobles and princes, and even the reigning pontiff himself, all of whom should be for their subjects, according to the satirist, what the pole-star is for mariners—a beacon to guide them over the stormy sea of life.

Guyot traveled extensively in his early years, but later in life retired from a world which he despised, and ended his days in the peaceful seclusion of the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny.

An interesting reference, of a similar nature to that of the minstrel Guyot, is found in the Spanish code of laws known as Las Siete Partidas of Alfonso el Sabio, begun in 1250 and completed in 1257. It says:

"And even as mariners guide themselves in the dark night by the needle, which is their connecting medium between the lodestone and the star, and thus shows them where they go alike in bad seasons as in good; so those who are to give counsel to the king ought always to guide themselves by justice, which is the connecting medium between God and the world, at all times to give their guerdon to the good and their punishment to the Wicked, to each according to his deserts."[3]

It will be necessary to give a few more extracts from writers of the first half of the thirteenth century in order to show how little was known about the magnet and how crude were the early appliances used in navigation when Peregrinus appeared on the scene.

Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, who lived in the East for some years, wrote his "History of the Orient" between the years 1215 and 1220, in which he says:

"An iron needle after touching the lodestone, turns towards the north star, so that such a needle is necessary for those who navigate the seas."

This passage of the celebrated Cardinal seems to indicate that even then the compass was widely known and commonly used in navigation.

Neckam (1157-1217), the Augustinian Abbot of Cirencester, wrote in his "Utensilibus":

"Among the stores of a ship, there must be a needle mounted on a dart which will oscillate and turn until the point looks to the north; the sailors will thus know how to direct their course when the pole-star is concealed through the troubled state of the atmosphere."

This passage is of historical value, as it contains what is probably the earliest known reference to a mounted or pivoted compass. Prior to the introduction of this mode of suspension, the needle was floated on a straw, in a reed, on a piece of cork or a strip of wood, all of which modes of flotation, when taken in conjunction with the unsteadiness of the vessel in troubled waters, must have made observation difficult and unsatisfactory.

Brunetto Latini (1230-1294) makes a passing reference to the new magnetic knowledge in his "Livres dou Tresor," which he wrote in 1260, during his exile in Paris.

"The sailors navigate the seas," he says, "guided by the two stars called tramontanes; and each of the two parts of the lodestone directs the end of the needle that has touched it to the particular star to which that part of the stone itself turns."

Though a statesman, orator and philosopher of ability, the preceptor of Dante in Florence and guest of Friar Bacon in Oxford, Brunetto has not got the philosophy of the needle quite right in this passage; for the part that has been touched by the north end of a lodestone will acquire south polarity and will not, therefore, turn towards the same "tramontane" as the end of the stone by which it was touched.

Dante himself admitted the occult influence on the compass-needle that emanates from the pole-star when he wrote:

The next writer on the compass is Raymond Lully (1236-1315), who was noted for his versatility, voluminous writings and extensive travels as well as for the zeal which he displayed in converting the African Moors. Lully writes in his "De Contemplatione": "As the needle after touching the lodestone, turns to the north, so the mariners' needle directs them over the sea."

This brings us to the last of our ante-Peregrinian writers who make definite allusions to the use of the compass for navigation purposes, viz., Roger Bacon, one of the glories of the thirteenth century as he would be of the twentieth. It was at the request of his patron, Pope Clement IV., that Bacon wrote his "Opus Majus," a work in which he treats of all the sciences and in which he advocates the