In 1415, the practice of artificially “multiplying” precious metals was illegal in England and Wales. The prohibition did not prevent one alchemist from setting up his furnace at the priory of Hatfield, near the town of Chelmsford in Essex, a subordinate priory of the great Benedictine abbey of St. Albans. The alchemist, William Morton, was not a member of the religious community, but a “wooleman” from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who had established a collaborative relationship with the former prior. Morton and his business partners, who included both religious and laymen, used the priory not only as a site for alchemical practice, but also as a platform for more ambitious bids for patronage. Their goal was to make two alchemical powders, or elixirs: one for transmuting “red” metals, such as copper and brass, into gold; the other for turning “white” metals, including lead and tin, into silver.
Just up the road from me there was once a working alchemist. Closer by, there was once a cunning man.
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