TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Secret Societies, Natural Magic & Historiography

II. Johann Valentin Andreae's Utopian Brotherhoods

III. Andreae and the Fable of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood

IV. Utopian & Learned Societies in Seventeenth-Century Germany

V. Samuel Hartlib and the Utopian Movement

VI. Utopian & Learned Societies in England in the 1650s

Appendix A: Leges Societatis Ereuneticæ

Appendix B: Leges Societatis Christianæ (Leges Antilianæ)

Appendix C: The Cambridge Essentials

Appendix D: Skytte's Design for a Universum Collegium

This book studies the Protestant utopian movement that began in Germany, in large part due to the writings of Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), and came to England through the circle of Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-1662). It contributes significantly to our understanding of the role such "secret" societies had in the republic of letters in early modern Europe and how transnational movements flourished through correspondence within learned circles.

This introductory chapter examines the reasons why the contributions of such figures as Andreae and Hartlib--who sought to establish a Protestant millennium with science as the key to national prosperity--have previously been undervalued because historians of science have marginalized natural magic and other forms of occult science. Those like Hartlib who tolerated such practices as alchemy ipso facto could have played no role in the emergence of "true" science; in consequence, his involvement with the movement to establish utopian brotherhoods as instruments of societal amelioration, a movement inspired by the writings of Andreae, has still not been widely credited. Because Andreae and his circle were indirectly responsible for launching the so-called Rosicrucian furor--by publishing the utopian manifestos so clearly associated with "secret" wisdom in the public imagination--they have been similarly marginalized. Drawing on the work of Quentin Skinner and Jerome McGann, this chapter adopts a methodology based on "use in context"--in this case, utopian manifestos, the proposed laws of actual societies, letters between members, and so forth--to try to avoid the problems of textualist histories--which, in this case, have relied only on "literary" utopias.

This chapter examines the life's work of Andreae, whose stigmatization as the arch-Rosicrucian has occluded his considerable role in sparking a transnational movement that sought to improve the religious, social and intellectual order in early modern Europe through elite brotherhoods or secret societies. Most English readers encounter Andreae either through Frances Yates' seriously flawed The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972)--which claims that the Rosicrucian movement was intended to foster a Hermetic golden age associated with the court of Frederick V--or John W. Montgomery's critical biography, Cross and Crucible (1972), which presents Andreae as a pious, orthodox Lutheran theologian who had nothing at all to do with the Fama fraternitatis or the Confessio fraternitatis--the manifestoes of this "secret" society. I demystify Andreae by contextualizing his writings within his lifelong commitment to found a utopian brotherhood, a Societas Christiana or spiritual élite that would foster a second reformation. His writings and efforts provided a potent stimulus to Protestant intellectuals at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the history of which deserves wider currency.

This chapter charts Andreae's involvement in creating the legend of Christian Rosencreutz and his reaction to the public furor that followed the publication of the Rosicrucian manifestos, the Fama fraternitatis and the Confessio fraternitatis. It begins by examining the earliest of the Rosicrucian texts, the Chymische Hochzeit (1616), which Andreae himself finally admitted writing in his youth (1605). Then the role of Andreae's circle at Tübingen in creating the Fama and Confessio is discussed. When the clutter of three centuries of partisan scholarship is removed, these texts can be clearly seen as part of Andreae's lifelong commitment to learned brotherhoods. Lastly, a reception study from Andreae's own work in the aftermath of the furor--most importantly the revisions to his dialogue on fraternitas from the 1617 to the 1618 editions of the Menippus--reveals that his admiration for their aims was being replaced by repugnance at the public response to the call he had helped draft.

Chapter IV: Utopian & Learned Societies in Seventeenth-Century Germany

This chapter follows the story of Andreae's continuing influence in Germany, despite the conditions created by the Thirty Years' War and the anonymous publication of his work. It begins with the Societas Ereunetica at the University of Rostock. Though inspired by the scientific academies of Italy, Jungius's collegium, however, illustrates remarkably the affinity of learned societies in the seventeenth century for religious sectarianism, utopianism and secrecy. Next the most significant of the German utopian brotherhoods that followed in the wake of Andreae and the Rosicrucians are discussed, the Unio Christiana and Antilia. The Unio Christiana was founded at Nuremberg in 1628 by a few patricians and churchmen under the impetus of Johannes Saubert; it was later revived about 1660 in Stuttgart. The utopian brotherhood known as Antilia flourished along the Baltic during the Thirty Years' War. Its founders were directly inspired by Andreae as well as by a Baconian belief in experimental science as a key to prosperity. Antilia was to be a communal society reminiscent of the monastery, as their leges reveal. They negotiated for a small island in the Gulf of Riga on which to establish a colony and even considered immigrating to Virginia. Lastly the efforts of Joachim Morsius to revive the society modeled in Andreae's utopian tracts with the aid of Andreae and Duke August of Braunschweig-Lüneburg are summarized.

Wherever Hartlib's utopian zeal originated--his early contact with reformers and utopianists in Germany or at Emmanuel College, Cambridge--he devoted his considerable energies to utopian enterprises for nearly forty years. He was responsible for introducing the main impulse of continental utopianism to England. This chapter begins with his work to establish a scholarly network, the Societas Reformatorum et Correspondency (after the failure of Antilia). It then examines Hartlib's efforts on behalf of the Bohemian reformer Jan Amos Comenius, who was invited to England by the Long Parliament in 1641. While in England Comenius drew up plans for a collegium lucis, an epistolary society along the lines proposed by Andreae. Hartlib's efforts to bring out translations of Andreae's utopian tracts are also discussed.

The last chapter examines the efforts of individuals affiliated with the Hartlib circle during the intellectually turbulent 1650s. Thomas Henshaw, later a founding fellow of the Royal Society, and Thomas Vaughan, the noted alchemist, established a "Chymical Club," also referred to as a Christian Learned Society. Their research collegium flourished in Kensington where they lived communally and dedicated themselves to devotion and study. Vaughan's publication of the first English edition of the Rosicrucian manifestos is also discussed. Next, Bengt Skytte's plans for an international residential college to house scholars and their families are outlined. His model for a Universum Collegium, introduced in 1659 in London, was indebted to both Andreae and Comenius. Lastly the attempted revival of Antilia in 1659-1660 is described.

A brief afterward contrasts Charles II's private alchemical interests with the public enshrinement of the Royal Society; henceforth, such private interests become marginalized, as Newton's secretive alchemical research would attest.