Chaucer’s vision of the impotence of the obscure language of alchemy, distilled and dramatised by Ben Jonson over two hundred years later, has become the most recognisable depiction of alchemy to a contemporary, postmodern readership. The word alchemy conjures images of superstition, duplicity, and bombast. In this vision of alchemy, puffed-up fools are duped on account of their yearning for riches and glory; it is only those who cynically manipulate the language of alchemy who can truly reap its benefits through deceit. This is a vision of alchemy that is particularly well suited to a disillusioned and materially focussed world of deconstruction and language-as-power. However, there was another, less sceptical approach to the impenetrable language of alchemy in the literature of the Middle Ages: in the works of Roger Bacon, John Gower, and Thomas Norton, the difficulty of alchemical language was a sign of the potential for social reform. The philosopher, the poet, and alchemist all believed that if the right person could understand the impenetrable secrets of alchemy, he could bring about a complete reformation of Christian/English society.

Roger Bacon’s Holistic Alchemy

Roger Bacon (c. 1219–1292), a Franciscan friar who flitted between the Universities of Oxford and Paris, was an advocate of ‘scientia experimentalis’ (knowledge from experience/experimental knowledge), a controversial theory of education drawn largely from the teachings of Aristotle. In 1267, Bacon sent the voluminous Opus majus to his patron, Pope Clement IV, explaining this new system of education and how it would benefit Christendom. The defining premise of scientia experimentalis was that experience rather than argumentation should be at the heart of ascertaining whether something was true or not:

Towards the end of his discussion of scientia experimentalis, Bacon introduces alchemy as an exemplary form of this revolutionary new system of education: ‘exemplificari potest hujus scientiae dignitas in alkimia’ (the dignity of this science can be exemplified in alchemy; p. 214, trans. p. 626).