Download or read book The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth-century England written by Jonathan Hughes and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alchemists did more than try to transmute base metals into gold: they studied planetary influences on metals and people, refined plants and minerals in the search for medicines and advocated the regeneration of matter and spirit. This book illustrates how this new branch of thought became increasingly popular as the practical and theoretical knowledge of alchemists spread throughout England. Adopted by those in court and the circles of nobility for their own physical and spiritual needs, it was adapted for the diagnosis and therapeutic treatment of the illnesses of the body politic and its hea.