Petrus Peregrinus writes on magnets

1269

A French crusader-engineer at the siege of Lucera wrote the Epistola de Magnete, the first systematic account of magnetic phenomena. He identified poles, the concept of a floating compass, and the attraction-repulsion law. His pragmatic experiments anticipate the scientific method. Roger Bacon praised him as the finest experimental scientist of the age, and his magnetic studies influenced European navigation for the next two centuries.