Joseph the Smith and the Salvational Transformation of Matter in Early Medieval Europe 
465 
An thropos 101.2006 
which anything is composed) was also the word 
for wood used in construction (Meiggs 1982: 359; 
Hughes 1983: 440). In the European Middle Ages, 
“wood (together with the produce of the earth) was 
a material so precious that it became the symbol of 
earthly goods” (Le Goff 1988a; 204). Le Goff, who 
notes the early medieval tendency to see Joseph 
as a blacksmith, also sees in the later medieval 
identification of him as a woodworker “the incarna 
tion of the human condition in the wooden middle 
ages” that may have manifested “medieval feeling 
about raw materials,” including both the valuing of 
earthly goods and the need for redemptive rising 
above them (1988a: 207). 
Iron also has long been accorded symbolic and 
metaphorical significance, often as a substance 
which is in some manner base, meaning qualita 
tively lacking or negative in attributes. In classi 
cal literature, coarse iron ore, which derived from 
the wilds of the mountainous wasteland (Brown 
1947: 38, 46), was ranked qualitatively as the low 
est metal (following gold, silver, and bronze) and 
associated with humans (following gods and spir 
its; Treister 1996: 120). Centuries later, in north 
ern Europe, the Kalevala describes iron in broadly 
similar terms as a personified substance originally 
living in the wilderness and, therefore, wild, un 
tamed, and dangerous (Lbnnrot 1963: 48, lines 89- 
100). In the European early Middle Ages, Isidore 
°f Seville described iron as hard and cold (Brehaut 
1912: 155 f.) while Bartholomew Angelicus (13th 
century), in his discussion of “the Properties of 
Things,” declared iron to be of the earth, though 
capable of change by hammering (Addison 1908: 4, 
110). Similarly, Roger Bacon, ranking minerals and 
Petals on a scale of pure to impure, clean to un 
clean, puts iron at the bottom of the list as un 
clean, impure, and altogether too “earthy” (Bacon 
1992: 4, 6). In the color-imagery of the early Chris 
tian tradition and the early Middle Ages, the dark- 
ne ss of a lump of iron ore was a significant factor 
lr i its “baseness” since it signified the absence of 
a ny element of godly (spiritual) light or luminos- 
ny and thus represented the purely physical world, 
^cath and night, and/or spiritual humility (Dronke 
!974: 64, 76, 79). 
Both wood and iron were further believed to be 
’mbued with fundamental chthonic life force, wood 
because it derives from living trees rooted in the 
earth and iron because it was obtained from equally 
living” stone also rooted in the earth (Plumpe 
^43; see also Murray 1975: chap. 6). As a living 
l°rce, however, wood is subject to eventual death 
(rotting) and decay while iron is more durable (ev- 
er lasting). Iron also was long accorded exceptional 
magical power useful for either good or evil pur 
poses but, in any event, requiring care in manage 
ment (Eliade 1962: 27-30). 61 As this essay has re 
peatedly emphasized, iron’s greatest manifestation 
of seemingly magical potencies (and its point of 
greatest contrast with wood, both materially and 
symbolically) lies in its capacity to be transformed 
by heat and hammering from a lesser to a greater 
(stronger) and purer material, whereas when wood 
is affected by fire, no matter how spectacularly, it 
ultimately loses worth and is consumed (dies), re 
duced to ash and charred remains. 62 
Nonetheless, during metallurgical purification 
and transformation, the role of ore is as the ba 
sic raw material, the “irregular Lump” of mat 
ter (Robins 1953; 101), that begins the process of 
change. Thus, iron ore can stand as metaphor for 
whatever is to be (or could be) transformed into a 
finer product, whether it be physical, mortal, sinful 
(“impure”) humanity, as in early medieval Chris 
tian exegesis, or part of the lump of base black 
matter that initiated the ideologically related and 
soteriologically informed laboratory processes of 
the alchemist in the later Middle Ages and there 
after. Indeed, iron’s most widespread medieval ap 
preciation as base or primary matter may lie with 
late medieval alchemists who, as honorable schol 
ars and experimental artisans, correlated earth with 
iron. Alchemists continued the long-standing in 
terests of smelters and smiths in living matter. As 
Masters of Fire they, too, sought to understand and 
control the magico-religious transformation of liv 
ing stone, sharing with Christianity (for many were 
God-fearing men, even men in holy orders) a com 
mitment to seeking and perfecting means to achieve 
the spiritual perfection of earthly material. 63 
61 To note a few examples, iron was not allowed in the con 
struction of Moses’ sacrificial altar to Yahweh and gener 
ally was not permitted in Greek sanctuaries or in certain 
religious ceremonies in Rome (Robins 1953: 30 f.; Forbes 
1956:59; McNutt 1990:217-219). In the European early 
Middle Ages, and long after, iron’s inherent magical potency 
determined whether it should be used to cut certain plants 
and warded off the devil, witches, and storms (e.g., Flint 
1991: 321, 324; Robins 1953: 28). According to Robins, in 
Poland, when the initial introduction of iron ploughshares 
was followed by bad harvest, farmers blamed the iron and 
went back to using wood (1953: 31). 
62 Charcoal is the exception to this statement, but charcoal, 
though highly useful, seems to lack symbolic significance 
in traditional lore. 
63 Alchemy arrived in Western Europe during the 11 -13th cen 
turies and flourished for several centuries thereafter. For an 
introduction to its theory and development see, among oth 
ers, Jung (1953); Hopkins (1934); Eliade (1962); Salzberg 
(1991).