Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

Get access

Assaying
(727 words)

Assaying (or docimasy, from Greek dokimasía, “examination”) is “the use of empirically developed analytic knowledge in the field of metallurgy, casting, and coinage, but also in alchemical and early chemical laboratories, since quantitative testing procedures were needed for the production and testing of salts, mineral acids, alcohols, etc.” (Alchemy) [8. 173]. In use since the Middle Ages, it developed into an independent discipline with its own literature in the 16th century; the first small book on assaying with formulas and instructio…

Cite this page
Bartels, Christoph, “Assaying”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_025923>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160321



▲   Back to top   ▲