These are merely a few characteristic representatives of the host of theologians and philosophers of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Their works serve to illustrate widely diverse tendencies of thought: the heretical independence of the scholars of Chartres as contrasted with the mysticism of Hugh of St. Victor, the orthodoxy of Peter Lombard and Peter Comestor, and the cautious inquisitiveness of Alexander Neckam. Though these men differed in mental caliber, their learning was based almost exclusively on the Latin writings of classical and earlier Christian authors, and most of their geographical knowledge was borrowed from the sources we have discussed in Chapters I and II. But our period was also memorable by reason of the influx of a new body of learning destined to bring about profound modifications in the methods of European scholarship and to add materially to the sum total of European knowledge. This new body of learning was made available through translations from the Arabic. _TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ARABIC; WORKS WRITTEN UNDER ARABIC INFLUENCE; ARISTOTELIANISM AND ITS OPPONENTS_ The enthusiasm for the work of translation which prevailed during our period foreshadowed a far broader enthusiasm of the same sort that marked the great age of the Renaissance. Only a relatively few scholars, however, were familiar with Greek; and the number of direct translations from the Greek was limited.[399] The men of the Crusading age received the results of Greek scientific investigation primarily through the medium of the Moslems. We saw in Chapter III how the Moslems had translated certain works of Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and of the Hindus and had themselves composed sundry treatises under Peripatetic, Ptolemaic, and Hindu influences. Many of these Arabic translations, in turn, were converted into Latin by Occidental scholars of our period.[400] Western interest in Moslem science centered at first on the translation of astronomical and mathematical treatises and somewhat later on Arabic versions of Aristotle. Indirectly through both of these channels important geographical conceptions gained currency in Europe. ADELARD OF BATH; PETER ALPHONSI Among the early translators of astronomical and mathematical treatises was Adelard of Bath, whose connections with the school of Chartres we have already mentioned. Through Adelard’s Latin version of the so-called _Khorazmian Tables_[401] of Al-Khwārizmī, made in the year 1126,[402] knowledge of the Hindu conception of a world center, Arin, was introduced into Europe. The _Khorazmian Tables_ had found their way to Spain by the beginning of the eleventh century and were there adapted from the era of Yezdegerd to that of the Hejira by a certain Maslama al-Majrīṭi of Madrid.[403] In addition to Adelard’s version of Maslama’s work, there is reason to believe that the _Khorazmian Tables_ were also put into Latin by Hermann the Dalmatian.[404]