Lynn Thorndike

Background

Thorndike was born on July 24, 1882 in Lynn, Massachussets. He was the son of Edward Roberts Thorndike, a Methodist clergyman, and of Abbie Brewster Ladd. He was christened Everett Lynn, but later dropped the first name. According to his younger sister Mildred, he was "an exceptionally shy, sensitive, imaginative boy. . "

Education

After receiving the B. A. from Wesleyan University in 1902, Thorndike entered Columbia University, where he received the M. A. in 1903 and the Ph. D. in 1905.

Career

Nothing shows the single-minded determination of Thorndike's scholarly career more than the fact that his dissertation was titled The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe (1905), and his last book, Michael Scot (1965), was concerned with the relationship of Scot's work to astrology, alchemy, and magic. And his masterful eight-volume A History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923 - 1958) fulfilled the promise contained in the title of his dissertation. The dissertation also reflected a dominant influence of his graduate training at Columbia, that of James Harvey Robinson, the exponent of the new "intellectual history. "

From 1907 to 1909, Thorndike was an instructor at Northwestern University. He next taught at Western Reserve University until 1924, by which time he had been promoted through the academic ranks to professor.

The publication of the first two volumes of A History of Magic and Experimental Science in 1923 served notice to the scholarly world of his preeminence in detailed manuscript studies.

In 1924, Thorndike accepted a professorship of history at Columbia University, where his two older brothers already held professorships (Ashley in English literature and Edward Lee in educational psychology). He remained at Columbia for twenty-six years. A virtual cascade of articles and books resulted from Thorndike's research at this university and in many European libraries. That productivity did not cease with his retirement in 1950.

Thorndike's activity at Columbia was by no means confined to his own research and writing. Many American medievalists were trained in his seminar. His lectures on medieval and early modern intellectual history were mines of detailed fact and novel judgment. In this course (and in many of his publications) he attempted to counterbalance the often derogatory judgments made of medieval thought in comparison with that of the Renaissance.

The greatest debt owed to Thorndike by medievalists is the result of his extraordinary productivity. His The History of Medieval Europe (1917; second revision 1949) was, in its earliest form, one of the most popular textbooks in American colleges and universities. In its revised versions it has held its own amid the deluge of more recent textbooks. The third edition represents a balanced account, with emphasis on the classical influence upon the Middle Ages and unusually extensive treatment of the history of science and learning. Also widely circulated was Thorndike's A Short History of Civilization (1926; new ed. , 1948). It, too, represents something of a "first" in viewing history from a global viewpoint.

But Thorndike's international reputation rests primarily on his contributions to scholarship, and above all on A History of Magic and Experimental Science. This is not a twofold history, one of magic and one of science. Rather, it is an attempt to trace the relations between the two. Thorndike's basic thesis was that one of the principal roots of experimental science lies in magic broadly conceived. In a work so packed with facts drawn from manuscript sources, it is difficult to assay his guiding historical beliefs, but Thorndike expressed his general view of history eloquently in his 1955 presidential address to the American Historical Association. The progress made by scientists should be estimated in the context of their period and "according to their own lights, " Thorndike argued. He had earlier made this point in Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century (1929; repr. 1963). Also implicit in the History is the idea (specifically outlined in "The True Place of Astrology in the History of Science, " Isis, Sept. 1955) that the only universal "law of nature" prior to Newton's formulation of the law of gravitation was the astrological law of the all-pervading influence of celestial motions on this world. Regardless of the correctness of its main thesis, the History is a work of enormous importance because of the wealth of manuscripts Thorndike consulted. It constitutes a guide to many scientific and magical tracts previously unknown.

A similar service is performed by his A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (1937; rev. and enl. , 1963), compiled with Pearl Kibre. The value of this work is difficult to overestimate, including as it does references to hundreds of scientific treatises and thousands of manuscripts and editions. Its arrangement by incipits rather than by title or author helps in the ready identification of works that often appear in manuscripts without title.

If Thorndike had done nothing but publish the Catalogue and his History, his primary place in medieval studies would have been assured. But he also published many Latin texts and translations. The first of these, The Herbal of Rufinus (1946), prepared with the assistance of Francis S. Benjamin, Jr. , contains a wealth of medieval botanical knowledge. It was compiled by the little-known botanist Rufinus, in great part from the main sources available in the thirteenth century. Thorndike also published two collections of cosmological and meteorological texts, The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators (1949) and Latin Treatises on Comets Between 1238 and 1368 a. d. (1950). Both collections contain mélanges of Latin texts and English translations. Of more general interest to medievalists is Thorndike's University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (1944), a judiciously chosen collection of English translations that gives the flavor of medieval university life: the types of courses, the techniques of instruction, and so on.

Thorndike died in New York City.

Achievements

• Lynn Thorndike is remembered as the historian of medieval science and alchemy, who wrote The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe (1905), The History of Medieval Europe (1917) and History of Magic and Experimental Science, (1923–1958, in 8 volumes).

Works

More photos

• book

  • The History of Medieval Europe

    (SECTIONS: The Passing of Classical Civilization; The Rise...)

  • Peter Of Abano

    (THIS 82 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The His...)

  • Roger Bacon: His Life, Science And Attitude Toward Magic And Astrology

    (THIS 84 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The His...)

  • Latin Treatises on Comets Between 1238 and 1368 A.D.

    (ASIN: B0000CHVZL Product Name: Latin Treatises on Comets ...)

  • A History of Magic and Experimental Science (8 Volume Set)

    (individual manuscripts are usually briefly designated in ...)

  • Medieval Europe: Its Development And Civilization (1920)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century. Studies in the History of Medicine and Surgery, Natural and Mathematical Science, Philosophy and Politics

    (History of Medicine. Science -- history. Geschichte -- 14...)

  • A short history of civilization,

    (WORLD HISTORY.)

  • book

  • The Sphere of Sacrobosco and its commentators (Corpus of mediaeval scientific texts sponsored jointly by the Mediaeval Academy of America and the University of Chicago)
  • Check-list of rotographs in the history of natural and occult science

Membership

Thorndike was president of the American Historical Association in 1955.

With David Eugene Smith of Columbia and others he helped organize the History of Science Society in 1924, and was its president in 1928-1929. He was also one of the first thirty fellows elected to the Mediaeval Academy of America (1926) after its foundation in 1925.

Connections

He never married.

Father:

Edward Roberts Thorndik

He was a Methodist clergyman.

Mother:

Abbie Brewster Ladd

Brother:

Edward Lee Thorndike

(August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) He was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Brother:

Ashley Horace Thorndike

(1871 – April 17, 1933) He was an American educator and expert on William Shakespeare.

References

• History of Magic and Experimental Science (Volume III Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries)