Gerbert

Pope Sylvester II (c.  946–12 May 1003), originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac, was a French-born scholar and teacher who served as the bishop of Rome and ruled the Papal States from 999 to his death. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab and Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Latin Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He is said to be the first to introduce in Europe the decimal numeral system using Hindu-Arabic numerals.

Gerbert studied under the direction of Bishop Atto of Vich, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. Like all Catalan monasteries, contained manuscripts from Muslim Spain and especially from Cordoba, one of the intellectual centres of Europe at that time: the library of al-Hakam II, for example, had thousands of books (from Science to Greek philosophy). This is where Gerbert was introduced to mathematics and astronomy. Borrell II was facing major defeat from the Andalusian powers so he sent a delegation to Córdoba to request a truce. Bishop Atto was part of the delegation that met with al-Ḥakam II, who received him with honor. Gerbert was fascinated by the stories of the Mozarab Christian bishops and judges who dressed and talked like the Arabs, well-versed in mathematics and natural sciences like the great teachers of the Islamic madrasahs. This sparked Gerbert's veneration for the Arabs and his passion for mathematics and astronomy.

The legend of Gerbert grows from the work of the English monk William of Malmesbury in De Rebus Gestis Regum Anglorum and a polemical pamphlet, Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae contra Hildebrandum, by Cardinal Beno, a partisan of Emperor Henry IV who opposed Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy.[citation needed] According to the legend, Gerbert, while studying mathematics and astrology in the Muslim cities of Córdoba and Seville, was accused of having learned sorcery. Gerbert was supposed to be in possession of a book of spells stolen from an Arab philosopher in Spain. Gerbert fled, pursued by the victim, who could trace the thief by the stars, but Gerbert was aware of the pursuit, and hid hanging from a wooden bridge, where, suspended between heaven and earth, he was invisible to the magician.

He was also reputed to have had a pact with a female demon called Meridiana, who had appeared after he had been rejected by his earthly love, and with whose help he managed to ascend to the papal throne (another legend tells that he won the papacy playing dice with the Devil).

As the Christians esteem Toledo, so do

they hold Hispalis, which in common they call Seville, to be

the capital of the kingdom ; there practising divinations and

incantations, after the usual mode of that nation. Gerbert

then, as I have related, coming among these people, satisfied

his desires. There he surpassed Ptolemy with the astrolabe, f

and Alcandraeus in astronomy, and Julius Firmicus in judi-

cial astrology ; there he learned what the singing and the

flight of birds portended ; there he acquired the art of call-

ing up spirits from hell : in short, whatever, hurtful or salu-

tary, human curiosity has discovered. There is no necessity

to speak of his progress in the lawful sciences of arithmetic

and astronomy, music and geometry, which he imbibed so

thoroughly as to show they were beneath his talents, and

wliich, with great perseverance, he revived in Gaul, where

they had for a long time been wholly obsolete. Being cer-

tainly the first who seized on the abacus J from the Saracens,

father with the royal diadem and the principality of Boetica, and contracted

an alliance with Ingnndis, daughter of vSigebert, king of Austrasia. Ingun -

dis was persecuted, and at length killed by her husband's mother, on

account of her Catholic faith. Leander, archbishop of Seville, easily per-

suaded Hermenegild to resent the treatment of his bride, and assisted him

in an attempt to dethrone his father. Hermenegild was taken and sen-

tenced to death for his rebellion. The inflexible constancy, with which he

refused to accept the Arian communion, from which he had been con-

verted by Leander, as the price of his safety, procured for him the honour

of being enrolled among the saints of the Romish church. — Hardy.

• Isidore was bishop of Seville in the sixth century.

f An instrument for making celestial observations. The reader who is

conversant with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments will remember its be-

ing frequently mentioned in that amusing book.

t The abacus was a counting table : here it seems used metaphorically

for arithmetic, Gerbert having written a treatise on arithmetic ^vith that title.

The authors of the Hist. Litt. de la France, t. vi. understand him literally, n«

stealing a book containing the principles of the science, and then con-

found this supposed book with the conjuring treatise mentioned below.

They also seem very much displeased with Malmesbury for relating these

he gave rules which are scarcely understood even by laborious

computers.