Berthold Schwarz
Encyclopedia
Alchemist
An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy. Alchemist may also refer to:-People and groups:*The Alchemist , a hip hop music producer and rapper*Alchemist , an Australian progressive metal band...
of the late 14th century, credited with the invention of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
in literature of the 15th and 16th centuries.
It is clear that Schwarz was not the original discoverer of gunpowder, even in Europe.
Gunpowder had been known in China since at least the 11th century. In Europe, it had been known a century before Schwarz; gunpowder is mentioned in 1267 in Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
's Epistola de secretis operibus artiis et naturae, and a recipe recorded by one Marcus Graecus or Mark the Greek is dated to between 1280 and 1300.
The purported period of Schwarz' activity (late 14th century) thus falls between the first reports of gunpowder in Europe (late 13th century) and the development of effective applications in artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
(mid 15th century).
It is unclear whether Schwarz is a historical person. It has been suggested that he was a historical alchemist who had developed gunpowder in Germany, but other scholars consider him purely legendary.
Schwarz is possibly identical with Bertold von Lützelstetten, a scholar who is recorded as "magister artium Bertoldus" at the University of Paris during 1329-1336.
Other sources identify him with one Konstantin Angeleisen or Anklitzen who was persecuted for being an alchemist and had to flee to Prague, where he was executed in 1388.
It is also possible that Schwarz is not a historical person at all, but a symbolic inventor figure taking his name from that of Schwarzpulver "black powder", the German term for gunpowder (Gartz 2007).
The first reference to Schwarz is found in an anonymous manual of pyrotechnics of ca. 1410, preserved in various 15th century copies. The relevant passage credits an alchemist and master of arts "Master Berthold" (maister perchtold) with the accidental discovery of gunpowder, without giving any further details as to time or place.
Such details are first reported by Franz Helm, an author active in Landshut during the 1520s to 1530s, who is also the first to introduce the epithet "the Black" (in latinized form, as niger). According to Helm,
- Item hir ist zu wissen wer dz puluer vnd dz geschitz erdacht vnd erfunden hat, der ist gewessen ain Bernhardinerminch mit namen Bartoldus nigersten [...] Da man zelt 1380 Jar. [...] Der bartoldus nigger ist vonn wegen der kunst die er erfunden vnd erdacht hat gerichtet worden vom leben zum todt Im 1388. Jar.
- "Here is told who first invented powder and guns, this was a Bernhardian monk called Bartoldus nigersten ... in the year 1380 ... bartoldus nigger was executed for the art he had invented in the year 1388."
Feldhaus (1910) thinks that reports of a "Master Berthold" in the early 15th century, barely 25 years after this master's death, should be taken seriously as historical testimony of an alchemist Berthold, called "the Black", member of the Order of St. Bernhard, who developed a recipe for effective gunpowder in ca. 1380, and who was possibly executed as a magician some years later. The recipes given in the 15th century German manuals for pyrotechnics would then be directly derived from the recipe as developed by Berthold.
This historical Master Berthold, who would not have invented gunpowder ex nihilo, but who would rather have developed an effective recipe which opened technological possibilities and initiated the development of gunpowder warfare
Gunpowder warfare
Early modern warfare is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive, including artillery and handguns such as the arquebus and later the musket, and for this reason the era is also summarized as the age of gunpowder...
during the 15th century, is likened by Feldhaus to James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
who did not so much "invent" the steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
as improve the invention of Denis Papin
Denis Papin
Denis Papin was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the steam engine and of the pressure cooker.-Life in France:...
to a point where its application became worthwhile.
In 1853, a monument to Berthold Schwarz was erected in Freiburg.
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