Hanna Hodacs Making Friends on the Field - Friendship and Excursions in 18Th Century Linnaean

Hanna Hodacs "Making friends on the field - Friendship and excursions in 18th century Linnaean natural history".

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Aim with paper

What I set out to do in this paper is to explore how notions and praxis of early modern friendships can help us understand the success of Linnaean natural history. With this I thinking about the taxonomic inventions of Carolous Linnaeus, the Swedish 18th century naturalists. Modern scientific nomenclature, how species are named, dates back to Linnaeus first use of binary name, i.e. names that indicate which genera, or family, a species belong to. Linnaeus is also famous for his system of identifying plants, the so called sexual system. Ultimately I guess this paper is about writing an alternative history to a traditional intellectual history of Linnaeus.

Introduction

I would like to start discussing the geographies of early modern friendship and scholarship

To early modern philosophers friendships between scholars formed an ideal type. Only virtuous men could be true friends, and scholarship more than maybe anything else produced virtue in men.[1]However, this virtues scholar was typically quite an isolated guy.

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I could not make up my mind which of these three pictures illustrated this point best so I cut and paste them all in. They are of alchemists of course but as early modern natural history included mineralogy such distinctions become in part redundant.

It is only in the 19th century when scholarshipmoved into institutional settings similar to ones we know today. The establishment of research universities and specialisation into disciplines helped forming boundaries and platforms accommodating social interactions, and friendships between scientists.

Early modern universities in contrast were primarily designed for teaching. Scholarship, of the kind we perhaps would call research today, were predominantly done outside universities, within households and families of individual scholars, using domestic spaces such as gardens, kitchen, attics for studying, experimenting and observing. Although such activities frequently involved engaging children and servants for assistances it only occasionally come to involve fellow scholars, i.e. individuals of similar social and intellectual status.

This social or maybe more precisely geographical isolation reinforces an earlier notions of scholarship as a activity for monks in monasteries. Of course, the republic of letters provided a virtual social space for early modern scholars, but it has in general presented as a form of interaction with little face to face contact with other scholars, up until the 19th century. Although there are exceptions, mid- 17th century London and the circle around the Royal Society being one important one.

A geography of early modern friendship or social spaces

This isolation is hard to connect up with what we know about the geography of early modern and 18th century friendship. Descriptions of this period suggest two different geographies, one of increased social domesticity, of the middle classes moving away from the ale house and the country greens, towards homes and private houses.

There is also of course a the rise of the public, where some homosocial spaces, such coffeehouses frequented by males continuing to be important.[2]Moreover, the emphasis, as far as I gather, is on the indoors, or, if outdoors are discussed in those contexts they are enclosed spaces and often private areas, such as gardens and parks.

In this paper I would like to explore an alternative space which I suggest was important to the formation of scholarly friendship in the early modern period, with which I include the 18th century, namely the landscape in which natural history excursions took place.

It is hard to label this space, the term “field” in the history of science is usually reserved for the 19th and 20th century, when the history of science had become a history of science in a more narrow sense, involving the development of specific disciplines, natural history had become biology, chemistry, entomology etc. The field here is often placed next to laboratories, as a place primary defined because of its ability to falsify hypothesis.

Theearly modern natural history outdoor space I want to discuss is one which from the outset had more of a multifunctional use. It had educational, as well as economic and social uses. It is not a place far away, it was usually not an exotic landscape to those who visited it. Often the opposite in fact, it was forests, fields, and shore lines close to home.

Educational – long tradition

The use of the outdoors for educational use has a long history going back to the renaissance. Natural history was part of the medical curriculum, and at early modern universities excursions into the surroundings of universities, formed an alternative place to the botanical gardens, as spaces in which to study live material.

Focusing on Linnaeus’own student life, it illustrates quite well the extent to which the excursion tradition flourished. Linnaeus had a long history of participating and leading excursion prior to taking up the chair in medicine Uppsala in 1741. While studying in Lund, in the south of Sweden, he had taken part in several excursions, likewise, while a student in Uppsala, he taught natural history to other students on the field, leading excursions himself. He had also brought groups of students on long distance journeys, exploring different provinces of Sweden, journeys that has been described as travelling colloquium.

Once installed as professor in Uppsala however Linnaeus’ excursion took on a new format and a new scale. He used the landscape around Uppsala to facilitate eight excursions, organised annually.

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These excursions, which according to some descriptions could be mistaken for carnivals, could attract several hundred individuals, sometimes more than half of the students of Uppsala.

Setting out early in the morning they involved being on the move for 12 hours or more. The great number of students needed of course to be marshalled, trumpet players and drummers helped organise the movements, there were also a need for students with guns, to shoot birds and animals along the way. Otherwise the botany was at the forefront, as the students marched, they picking plants along the road, with Linnaeus regularly lecturing on the harvests, along the way.

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Once back to Uppsala, and remember this was a small and rather isolated town with a population of a few thousand, close to the eastern shore of the Baltic, a day trip away from Stockholm, there are descriptions of how the students marched up and down the streets, with their instruments, ending the event standing outside Linnaeus house, shooting “Vivat Linnaeus”.

In this respect the excursions seem to fall into the category of behaviour we associate with the history of youth, of young men and sometimes women, who while being subordinated feudal structures such as universities, or guilds, also were allowed to challenge the system in a controlled manner. There are in fact other examples of excursions filling a similar function, David Elliston Allen has written about how the excursions for apprentices belonging to the Society of Apothecaries, in London, from the 1620 and onwards, involved unruly behaviour among the students.[3]

Linnaeus excursions were controversial in a more traditional political sense as well, they evoked envious reactions among fellow professors who complained arguing the existence of more sinister plans, of Linnaeus building up an army of supporters with the aim to take some sort of political power. Consequently Linnaeus was asked to tone down the excursion, to make them more “Swedish” in character, by the pro vice chancellor.

One reason for this suspicion was that Linnaeus encouraged his student to dress similar, in sailors uniform, the idea was to allow them more freedom of movement. I have previously argued that this dress code promoted a social cohesion among the students, at least in part diminishing class differences between students. In this context it is important to say that university students in Sweden came from a socially very diverse background, compared to the rest of Europe, between 25 and 20 per cent of them came from the estate of farmers or lower social groups living of the land. Most of them destined to become clergymen.

Moreover, not only were the excursion a spectacle they were also a time and a place where individual students could demonstrate their skills in front of a crowd of budding naturalist, students who picked rare plants, were noticed by Linnaeus, suggesting that the excursion promoted a form of socially inclusive meritocracy, where Linnaean taxonomy formed the common denominator.

Political economy, cameralism

The exploration of this landscape also tied into continental political economy, and particularly the cammeralist notion that the domestic landscapes could hide untapped resources. It was the obligations of state officials, mineralogists, medics and clergy men to make inventories of the provincial landscape around them, in a manner reminiscent to the excursions. The many clergymen and provincial physician Linnaeus taught at would have been expected to be able explore their local areas too, reporting onpotential resources that could be exploited. In this respect the excursion were closely related to a patriotic and bureaucratic category of activity.

Social dimension

Next to the educational and economic ends excursions filled a social function. What prominent people had visited Linnaeus’ excursions in Uppsala was for example reported in the Stockholm newspapers, presumably by Linnaeus who knew how to promote himself.

More importantly here, the outdoors was also a place where friends could be made, relationships of a more horizontal, affectionate or non-instrumental sense to use some of the terminology from the reading for this workshop.[4]

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These pictures illustrate the social dimension to some of this behaviour. The first one is actually depicting Linnaeus excursion but it is made in the 19th century, and does misrepresent the excursions in several respects. For example, it was very rare that women came along. The other one I am not sure when or where it is from, but again possibly an 19th century depiction of an excursion.

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This picture however is from the mid-18th century,it is a water colour by a Danish student, FrederikSeidelin, it depicts an excursion taking place in Clausthall-Zellerfeld, 30 to 40 k North East of Göttingen in the mid-1750s.

Next to Seidelin on the picture is portraying one of Linnaeus students, Peter Forsskål, whose autograph or stambok contains the illustration. Forsskål is known as one of Linnaeus travelling disciples, he died in Jemen, on a Danish expedition to explore the natural history and antiquities of North Africa and the Middle East. Linnaeus named a none stinging nettle species after Forsskål, saying it shared the same persistent and stubborn character as his former student. In spite of this being characters that might prevent rather than encourage friendship, Seidelin, painted the picture to commemorate the friendship between the two.

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He also wrote:

“When we learn about the nature of things, we are freed from superstition and fear of death, we are not confused by ignorance from which often gruesome images of horror rise. In addition, our characters are improved, when we learn what nature demands. An imminent trip prevents me from enjoying your pleasant company, noble and learned Mr Forsskål, you rare and loveable friend! Such are the terms of academic life, you have to leave the one you love. I have written these words in your book, in memory of our unvarnished friendship.
Your ardent companion and insect collector,
FrederikSeidelin[5]

As such it does exemplify the early modern connection between virtue and friendship, scholarship generated virtue, making scholars particularly good as friends, or “BBF, best-friend-forever-material, as my daughter would put it,.

But under the flag of friendship there was also something else that took place in Göttingen in the middle of the 1750s.[6]The notion of friendship, of socializing in nature, was, at least to Forsskål, combined with the aim to transform Göttingen natural history, something which is revealed in a letter from Forsskål to Linnaeus. Here he describes how he together with three “friends”, of whom presumably one was Seidein, had set out to establish the study of entomology, which hitherto had been regarded as “ridiciulous”.[7]

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A closer look at the painting the underlines that the study of insects forms an important objective, the net that is carried and the admiral butterfly hiding in the forefront of the pictures, suggest this. And Seidelin of course signs off his greetings “your ardent companion and insect collector, an another indication that insects were at the forefron.

However the plants the two naturalists had gathered in their epaulettes, we can just about make out them, suggested that entomology was not the exclusive end, that botany was also an objective. From the letter to Linnaeus we can gather that Forsskål was not very impressed with the state of botany in Göttingen either, again he focus on the excursions, which Forsskål says lacked the energy and interaction he associated with Linnaeus.

In this respect Forsskål’s excursions in Göttingen, and possibly even this painting suggest that the excursions were given a new meaning, it was a place to reform natural history with likeminded friends, in this case naturalists who applied or wanted to apply Linnaean taxonomy on nature. It might be possible to see this ambition in the stride of the men in this picture, there is a momentum and determination portrayed here I think.

But more to the point, the argument I am trying to make is that the early modern notions of friendship, in combination with the outdoors as a place where to perform scholarly friendship, helped promote Linnaean taxonomy.

I am not only basing this on a case study of Forsskål and Siedling. Studying the social life of 18th century naturalist, and particularly Linnaean ditto, suggest that excursions formed a central part when relationships were formed and friendships were established between and within different generations of Linnaean students. Here we are talking about students the birth years spanned the 1720 to the 1760s.

It was a way of getting to know one another, natural history students continued to use the landscape of Uppsala for excursions, long after Linnaeus ceased to lead them, it was also a way of reinforcing friendships between old acquaintances, as well as reaching across gaps created bydifferences in terms of age, social status and nationality.

When Linnaeus and his students travelled abroad as well as domestically, excursions formed a way of meeting other naturalists. Of course not all of these encounters generated friendships but I think together they highlight how a social history of early modern science, and particularly friendships, can provide us with ways of understanding intellectual changes and shifts.

In this case, taking into account the geography of early modern scholarly friendship, and add excursion field, which offered a place for friendship making, for socializing and botanizing, we might be able to explore an alternative history to the history 18th century natural history.

Rousseau, about botanizing alone….cf Felicia on approaching Rousseau,

[1] “The ideal of intense friendship always had a somewhat rarefied quality about it, nourished, as it was, by classical learning and literary affection. Pure, disinterested friendship was a luxury, available only to those exempt from the pressures of active life and well supported by friends and allies of a more practical kind. Ints precondition was leisure and affluence. For those engaged in the battle for subsistence, friendship could not help but remain predominantly instrumental. Aristocrats descised stupid common friendship’ and contrasted te ‘mercenary frienships of the vulgar’ with the’sublime heroic frendhip of noble souls. The ‘common people’ were incapable of ture friendship, they said. All they had were alliances animated by the desire for profit or pleasure, hence their application of the term friend indiscriminately to any niehbour or acquaintance who was not an enemy.” Keith Thomas 210 See also discussion by Garrioch, poor people can not be friends, 170, (see also 184)

[2] Keith Thomas text

[3] Allen, David Elliston, The Naturalist in Britain. A social History, 1976, p. 7 ff

[4] Keith Thomas, Terms here “affectionate and instrumental” 199

[5]Då vi lära känna alltings natur, befrias vi från vidskepelse och dödsfruktan, vi förvirras ej genom okunnighet, i vilken ofta hemska skräckbilder ha sitt upphov. Dessutom förbättras vår karaktär, då vi lärt vad naturen fördrar- En snart förestående resa hindrar mig att länge njuta av ditt angenäma sällskap, ädle och lärde herr Forsskål, du sällsynte älskvärde vän! Sådant är det akademiska livets villkor, att man måste lämna dem man älskat Till mnnet av vår smikande vänskap har jag alltså skrivit dessa får ord i ditt album. Din ivrige kamrat some insektsamlare Frederik Seidelin.

[6] On below se article by Arvid Uggla.

[7]Forsskål till Linne, 1338 Insecter äro här än så föraktad som försummad del af historia naturali. Wid ledighet och wackertwäder har jag sökt göra här åter samling deraf, och fådt 3 camerader, som äfwen begynt söka nöje deri. Botanices Professoren här Zinn fick höra deraf och har likaledes resolverat sig att bli insectsamlare, samt bedt mig om hjelp att känna dem efter Hr Archiaterns System och rangera dem efter fauna. Hans exemel har sedan warit efterdöme för en av hans bästa botaniska disciplar och worewäl om det framdeles kunde reta än fler. Mycken gunst frinsecter låter wäl ej förmoda sig här, så länge folkets curieusité än är så trög och ooplifwad i Botanquen, hwars nytta och nöije mer faller i ögonen. Så mycket är dock, att det je mer kan anses för ridicult at tplockainsecter, då Professorn sjef företeagit sig det. En botanisk excursion har jag på tillbåd, men tansärdlesnöije, bewistat. Alla lördagseftermiddagar går Professorn ut med dem, som willja göra sällskap, och så åg all efter honom till den föresatta orden; derwisar Professorn dem de örter, som de böra taga, och låter sjelf sin dränk bära hem en quantitetderaf att företagas följande mådag i det collegium, hwari örter demonstreras. Ingen lection eller widareomständighter förekoma på Excursion. DÅ jag war med, var Professoren sjelf tolfte, som räknades för tämmeligt antal. Ej ens hälften av Medicis lägga sig på botanique, och de som woro med på Excursionworo så slättaörekännare, som kan consiperas, utome en enda 12 års ynglign, som wisar mera flit och alware. Professor Zinn undrade högeligen på Upsala Curieusiteten, då jag beskref, i hwadfrequence och huru lefwande excurionerna under Herr archiaterns anförande der äro. Han tycks wälwara en mycket god communicativ man, men öfweralt saknas hos honom dneifwer för sciencen, den drift och föreställnignsgåfva, hwarwid Herr archiatern oförtröttad gjort historia naturalis i Swerige så allmänt behagelig.