Scholars are in disagreement about the origin of the compass, which may have been first used by the Chinese or by Norsemen. The magnetization of an iron needle by stroking it with a lodestone was first described in writing by Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), an English monk.
The first detailed experimental study of magnetism is to be found in a letter of Petrus Peregrinus (fl. c. 1269) to one Sygerum de Foucaucourt, a knight and neighbor. Little is known about the life of Peregrinus, whose original name was Pierre de Maricourt, Peregrinus being a title awarded to religious pilgrims and to individuals who served in the crusades. He is believed to have been a university graduate, and, at the time he wrote the letter in 1269, was apparently serving as a sort of military engineer in the army of Charles of Sicily as it lay siege to the Italian city of Lucera. English philosopher and scholar Roger Bacon (c.1214-1292) noted that Peregrinus had a reputation as a scholar prior to the siege, but the Peregrinus's earlier writings have been lost.
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