The title of the first part of this book, “Alchemy and the Occult in English Cultural and Political Life,” promises a wide-ranging introduction to a potentially very interesting and important theme. Still more attractively, this is to be followed up by detailed discussions of the intellectual impact of alchemy in part 2 and of its political significance in part 3. Sadly, however, confidence in the book is undermined from an early stage. Part of the problem is a writing style that presumably with the aim of making complex problems more accessible, turns them into propositions that are confusing or misleading. Symptomatic is the statement on page 3 that “[t]he purpose of this book is to explore the origins of alchemy in the fourteenth century.” No qualification or further definition is given for this statement, which thus appears to cover all forms of alchemy. Since Jonathan Hughes has considerable expertise on the history of alchemy, it is hard to understand why such a problematic formulation is left to stand. Chapter 2's title, “The Origins of English Alchemy . . .” (my emphasis), suggests what kind of alchemy is actually meant; and this chapter acknowledges the importance of earlier Islamic alchemy. Such vagueness is particularly damaging because the claims made by the book are bold.

Lack of precision also affects the presentation of evidence. Early examples appear in the discussion of Merlin and alchemy on pages 16 to 19. First, Merlin is introduced as if he were a genuine historical figure. Second, we are vaguely informed that “Glastonbury was the legendary site of the burial of King Arthur”; this, apparently, was the reason for the “discovery” of the grave of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury Abbey. Worse follows when the reader is informed that “[i]n 1192 the grave of Arthur and Guinevere in the abbey grounds was opened in the presence of King Henry II” (16). Once again no reference is given, which is hardly surprising, since Henry II died in 1189 and Gerald of Wales, the eyewitness and recorder of the event, does not mention any royal presence. In similar fashion, we are told that Merlin's “special knowledge” was “believed in the later Middle Ages to be the science of alchemy” (17). This is debatable, to say the least, and the statement is supported only by mention of “one alchemical text” that survives “in many fifteenth-century manuscripts” and was “known as Liber Merlin.” References are provided for this text, but the first simply gives the ultimate source for the quoted instructions on the fixing of mercury, in the form “BL Add MS 15,549, fol.158.” The second is merely “BL Add MS 15,549, fol. 155–60.” It is to be inferred that this provides the manuscript reference for one occurrence of the text. No evidence at all is given for the “many” other copies or for the titles used in them. The British Library's Manuscripts Catalogue states that MS Add. 15549 contains, on folios 153–68, “Instructions [of Rhasis] to his son Merlin, translated into English verse.” Thus even the title Liber Merlin is unsupported. Hughes does subsequently acknowledge that Merlin is pupil not teacher in this text, but he still concludes that Merlin was “a powerful archetype in the later Middle Ages, a man of science with an understanding of history who sees a way . . . to bring about the birth of the philosopher's stone, which was the nation” (19).

Some of the handling of titles, manuscript references, and other important details can only be described as careless, and the copy editor, if not the peer reviewers, could perhaps have done more to correct them before the book was published. Instances of this carelessness are far too many to list, but a few are as follows: the Malleus Maleficarum is referred to as the Malificius malificarum (8); Roger Bacon's Opus minus is dated 1367 when Bacon died in the 1290s and the work was written in the 1260s (9); BL MS Add. 15549 appears thus, but also as Add. 15,549 and Add. 1549 (225); a “portable altar” described on page 130 is clearly the Wilton Diptych, but when “the Wilton Diptych” is described on page 132, it appears to be a separate object.

This lack of accuracy seriously undermines potentially interesting studies of events such as the coronation of Edward III, which is described as “an enactment of the alchemical drama” (106). This is supported by descriptions of how Edward stood on the “squared circle” at the center of Westminster Abbey's cosmati pavement, and “the light of the Holy Ghost descended on him.” The design of the cosmati pavement itself is linked to numerous alchemical themes and symbols, such as “the quintessence of Christ and mercury”; and its central circle is stated to have been “regarded as a magic circle associated with Solomon's hexagram” (107). The evidence provided is, however, deeply disappointing, with no source cited for the details of Edward's coronation. The assertion that the cosmati pavement's use of hexagrams, squares, and circles, laid out in marble, onyx, and gold, proves its alchemical meaning is similarly unsupported. Instead, a legend quoted in the seventeenth century by Elias Ashmole and an inscription cited by a fifteenth-century Westminster chronicler are pressed into service, along with an illumination in a surviving copy of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum. The “symbolism” of the pavement is then speculatively attributed to Roger Bacon (108). Still more worrying is the earlier account of Westminster Abbey and its cosmati pavement (29–30; not noted in the index). This passage suggests that the remains of Edward the Confessor were only brought into the abbey church in 1269 and that references to Solomon and use of the colors white, red, and gold were necessarily and specifically alchemical. Thus its assertion that the Westminster pavement was an illustration of an “alchemical dictum” is unconvincing.

There is insufficient space here to deal with all the problems raised by the book's attitude toward evidence. I have discussed examples in some detail because I do not wish to make such serious criticisms without support. However, the tendency to take all forms of symbolism as in some way alchemical is also a great pity. If the case for serious acceptance and practice of alchemy in fourteenth-century England is genuinely to be made, then it is crucial for the definition of alchemy to be clear and consistent. As has been shown, that is not the procedure of this book. This is deeply unfortunate because, as suggested earlier in this review, there are ideas here that if carefully and accurately discussed, could make a genuine contribution to the intellectual history of late medieval England.