As recently as 1987 a symposium held at Caen (published 1991) showed that the idea of the medieval encyclopaedia as a genre was still firmly in place.^[24] Among the papers, Sylvain Louis summarises the French thinking at that time on ‘Properties’, while M. De Boüard sees the genre as the expression of a new phase of medieval natural philosophy, comprising two types of encyclopaedia: the scientific/objective, and the symbolic/edifying. He sees a 'liberating' change occurring, from the latter to the former, and remnants of allegorisation as 'contaminating' some of the ‘scientific’ type.^[25] In English-language histories also, as an encyclopaedia ‘Properties’ fell short in the judgement of historians who tended to assess it by criteria we apply today to that type of work — impartiality, balance, order, consistency, factual accuracy and careful editing.^[26] The earlier twentieth-century literature on the history of western science tended, therefore, to place ‘Properties’ and comparable works within the march of progress and to find them wanting. Lynn Thorndike expressed the view that writings such as ‘Properties’ represented a primitive stage of scientific thought, and their longevity was therefore deplorable. In his later work, reprinted in 1967, Thorndike reproved the late-medieval encyclopaedists for failing to ‘advance’.^[27] To Charles Raven, their works were inconsistent, repetitive, subjective, without original thought or analysis, and cluttered up with marvellous and legendary content.^[28] Even more recently, Edward Grant stated: 'Without access to the hard core of Greek science, the Western world could not rise above the level of the Latin encyclopedists.'^[29]