The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

accuracy of the Aristotelian texts. 33 The majority of the curriculum still comprised of
Aristotelian study and humanist critiques of scholasticism appealed to the authority of
Aristotle. 34 For scholars at Tudor Cambridge, the study of alchemy and the occult
remained a natural development from an Aristotelian education.
Mathematics, increasingly the target of scholarly interest, was often associated with
the occult, to the extent that alchemical works were often categorised as mathematical.
The official mathematical curriculum also included elements of astrology. 35 Renaissance
humanists, influenced by Agrippa, emphasised the connection between astrological
influences and alchemical processes, because propitious astrological forces were required to
bring about alchemical changes. 36 Cambridge trained occult philosophers such as John Dee
would therefore attempt to integrate astrology and alchemy within a natural philosophy
that demonstrated the unity of creation through occult influences and correspondences. 37
Cambridge graduates thus perceived alchemy within this unified worldview, both as a
physical process and as an inner transformation linked to the perfection of the external
world. These changes corresponded to the occult effects of the macrocosm: the universe,
on the microcosm: man. 38 A Renaissance education encouraged intellectuals to seek an
integrated knowledge of nature, which for many included alchemy.
Records suggest that the English universities shared the state‘s official attitude
towards the pursuit of alchemical knowledge. Private study and practice was tolerated,
sometimes even subtly encouraged, as long as it did not result in the illegal debasement of
coinage. 39 University officials were clearly aware of the interest in the occult sciences
33 Ibid., p. 332.
34 W. Keith Percival, ‗Changes in the Approach to Language‘, in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny and
Jan Pinborg (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge, 1982, p. 813.
35 Feingold, ‗The Occult Tradition‘, pp. 78-79.
36 William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, ‗Introduction: The Problematic Status of Astrology and
Alchemy in Premodern Europe‘, in Newman and Grafton (eds.), Secrets of Nature, pp. 24-25.
37 Glyn Parry, The Arch-Conjuror of England: John Dee and Magic at the Courts of Renaissance Europe, Yale University
Press, New Haven, Forthcoming 2010.
38 Moran, The Alchemical World, p. 25.
39 Charles B. Schmitt, John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England, Montreal, 1983, pp. 118-19.
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