Event Description

The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) will be given by Jennifer Rampling (Princeton University) on “Alchemy behind Bars”.

This talk explores a neglected but fascinating theme in the history of alchemy—the strategies used by alchemical practitioners to extricate themselves from prison. In early modern Europe, alchemists found themselves incarcerated for various reasons: some failed to make good on their gold-making promises, some were suspected of practicing magic, and others simply fell into debt. Once confined, some drew on their practical and rhetorical skills to write their way out of trouble, addressing petitions and alchemical treatises to princes and highly-placed figures in government. Perhaps surprisingly, they often ended up being released.

It will focus on English practitioners, starting in the fourteenth century when John of Walden fell foul of Edward III, and moving into the sixteenth century, when at least two alchemists were arrested as suspected conjurors under Henry VIII. Finally, the notorious Edward Kelley, best known for his collaboration with the mathematician John Dee, wrote a series of elaborate treatises to Emperor Rudolf II while imprisoned in Bohemia. Although Kelley’s “prison writings” have not been previously studied, they offer new evidence for his alchemical activities—and show how the promise of transmutation might offer a “get out of jail free” card for beleaguered alchemists.

Thursday 1 October 2020, 17:00–18:00 BST

Source: https://www.ambix.org/shacs-online-seminar/

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