Michael Scot

“ The quiet courtyard is forgotten; the azulejos have disappeared from walls and pavement; the rich wood-work of the ceilings, still bearing dim traces of colour and gold, looks down on the life of another age; even the curious cedar book-chest has crumbled to dust, for all its delicate defence of ironwork spreading away like a spider’s web from hinges and from lock. But the name and the fame endure, and the years which Michael Scot spent in Toledo have left a deep mark upon that and every succeeding age. ”

“ In the case of Michael Scot such evidence is forthcoming, but we may say at once that it proves upon examination to yield a distinctly negative result. His fame in those days was such that he is mentioned by several important writers of his own age, such as Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Vincent of Beauvais. None of these has a word to say of Scot’s reputation as a necromancer. Some may urge that an argument from silence is unsatisfactory; but does it not gain great force from the consideration that two of these witnesses are decidedly hostile to Scot? ”

“ Besides the practice of astrology and his deeper researches in astronomy and mathematics, Michael Scot devoted himself to another profession, that of medicine. This was then a science very imperfectly understood, yet here too, in the years that followed his return to court, Scot made a name for himself as a physician, and contributed something to the advancement of human knowledge in one of its most important branches. The healing art in Europe had only just begun to emerge from that primitive state in which savage peoples still possess it ”

“ The mistake that gave it so corrupted a form could hardly have been made as late as the seventeenth century, when such things were well understood. The manuscript, though dating from that time, is probably only a copy of one much older. The preface, indeed, mentions the year 1255 as the epoch of translation, and, although Michael Scot had then lain more than twenty years in his grave, this date would suit well as the birth-hour of a legend which, though certainly later than Scot’s [193] own day, had yet made considerable progress in the popular mind before the close of the century. ”

“ After some considerable time spent in making collections for the work which is now submitted to the public, I became aware that a biography of Michael Scot was in existence which had been composed as early as the close of the sixteenth century. This is the work of Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, who was born in 1553. He studied medicine at Padua, but soon turned his attention to mathematics, especially to the historical developments of that science. ”

“ The society and surroundings in which Michael Scot now found himself were such as must have communicated a powerful impulse to the mind. The Court was grave rather than gay, as had befitted the circumstances of a royal widow, and now of an orphan still under canonical protection and busied in serious study, but this allowed the wit and wisdom of learned men free scope, and thus invited and encouraged their residence. Already, probably, had begun that concourse and competition of talents, for which the Court of Frederick was afterwards so remarkable. ”

“ Bacon, especially, seems to have lost no opportunity of blackening his character. To these men Michael Scot was a sciolist, a mere pretender to knowledge, ignorant even of Latin; the very charlatan of the schools. He was a plagiarist too; one who passed off the work of another man as his own; nay, darker than all, he was a heretic, or so Albert would make him; a philosopher who interpreted and exceeded the forbidden doctrines of Averroës. ”

“ But it is not to be forgotten that his versions of Averroës were already condemned by the Church, and that the very manner of Scot’s appearance when he brought them from Spain must have heightened the suspicions of heresy which began to attach themselves to the translator of these forbidden works. The only hope for such a man was that he might be induced to tear his book and turn to less dangerous pursuits. This is exactly the idea which the painter of the Spanish Chapel has expressed, and in a form which accords so remarkably with the picturesque description of Michael Scot by Dante. ”

“ Changed habits of thought, reaching and affecting every class of society, make it useless now to seek in Scotland for any new developments of the legend of Michael Scot. This is not so certainly true, however, of the South of Europe; of Italy, Sicily, and Spain, where he was once a familiar figure. There the slow progress of education has left the common people still in possession of much legendary lore, and even of the living faculty by which in past ages such tales have been formed. ”

“ We may add that the facility with which difficult problems could be solved by the new methods of calculation borrowed from that people must have seemed little less than supernatural to those as yet unacquainted with the secrets of algebra.
It seems probable indeed that at least one starting-point of Michael Scot’s legendary and romantic fame may be looked for in the very quarter to which we have just begun to direct our attention. There is in the author’s possession a manuscript which promises to throw some light on the obscurity of this matter. ”

“ It was at Palermo, then, that Michael Scot must have passed the opening years of the thirteenth century; now more than ever ‘Master,’ since he was engaged in a work which carried with it no light responsibility: the early education of a royal youth destined to play the first part on the European stage. The situation was one not without advantages [24] of an uncommon kind for a scholar like Scot, eager to acquire knowledge in every department. ”

“ When Michael Scot was offered high ecclesiastical preferment in Ireland he declined it on the ground that he was ignorant of the vernacular tongue of that country. [7] This seems to supply anything that may have been wanting in the other arguments we have advanced, and the effect of the whole should be to assure our conviction that there need be now no further attempt made to deny Scotland the honour of having been the native land of so distinguished a scholar. ”

“ Thus the traits of Scot’s youth fit well the picture we are now constrained to form, and the whole gives promise that here at last we may have touched upon the man himself as he was, physically, mentally, and spiritually. A slight worn body spent with arduous study, like a sheath which the sword has almost broken through; a soul possessed with the sense of Divine things, yet sad, and subject to strange illusions; a conscience morbidly awake and painfully scrupulous ”

“ May not Michael Scot have passed from the French to the Italian University? Such a conjecture would be worth little were it not for the support which it undoubtedly receives from credible tradition. Boccaccio in one of his tales [28] mentions Michael Scot, and tells how he used to live in Bologna. Many of the commentators on the Divine Comedy of Dante dwell on the theme, and enrich it with superstitious wonders. [29] It would be difficult to find a period in the scholar’s life which suits better with such a residence than that we are now considering. ”

“ We have already noticed how the commentaries of Avicenna on Aristotle had been translated into Latin at Toledo during the twelfth century, and how Michael Scot had completed that work by his version of the books relating to Natural History. Since the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, another Arabian author of the first rank had become the object of much curiosity in Europe. This was the famous Averroës of Cordova, whose history might fill a volume, so full was it of romantic adventure and literary interest. ”

“ Here the legend is not only considerably enriched, but it has recovered much of its original tone. Michael Scot again appears rather as the mighty mage than as the adroit juggler which Dante had represented him to be. One would say Folengo had read the spell of Cordova, where a circle similar to that described by him is actually proposed. The use of magical images too, on which he insists, is the very art which the Arabian author of the Picatrix professes to teach. ”

“ There exist translations by Scot himself of the Historia animalium, the De anima and De coelo, along with the commentaries of Averroes upon them. This connexion with Frederick and Averroes—both of evil reputation in the middle ages—doubtless contributed to the formation of the legend which soon enveloped Michael Scot's name. His own books, however, dealing as they do almost exclusively with astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences generally, are mainly responsible for his popular reputation. ”

“ It is quite possible that there may be a measure of historic truth here, as well as the art which can seize or create an occasion, and which loves to contrast the triumph of arms with the more peaceful honours of literary fame. Frederick, we must remember, in a sort represented both. He was Maecenas as well as Caesar. In welcoming Michael Scot and doing him honour at these imperial banquets he was but crowning the success of an enterprise in which his own name and interest were deeply engaged. ”

“ To Michael Scot, even before he came to [97] Toledo, the science of astronomy was already a beaten path. His progress in mathematical studies naturally led him to this, the highest sphere in which they could be exercised. At the court of Frederick he had made many an observation and cast many a horoscope. In the Liber Introductorius and Liber Particularis he had produced two manuals expounding in a popular way the twin sciences of astrology and astronomy ”

“ Roger Bacon speaks of Gerard of Cremona as a contemporary of Michael Scot, Alured of England, William the Fleming, and Herman the German, adding that those who were still young had nevertheless known Gerard, who was the eldest of this company of scholars. Now the Compendium Studii is commonly assigned to the year 1292, but even if we carry this passage back to 1267, when the most of Bacon’s works were written, it still appears evidently impossible that any one still young in that year could have seen a man who died in 1187. ”

“ How could such a man find time to write two or three novels a year, besides what was published in his own name? Even the few intimates who knew how early he got up to prepare his packet for the printer, and had some idea of the extraordinary power that he had acquired of commanding his faculties for the utilization of odd moments, must have wondered at times whether he had not inherited the arts of his ancestral relation Michael Scot, and kept a goblin in some retired attic or vault.
Scott's fertility is not absolutely unparalleled ”

“ She became a skinless [324] cat, and in that form haunted the guilty Princess for her sins; while Mengot was ever afterwards distinguished by the name of Scot.’
The second tale is to this effect:
‘Michael Scotti the wizard was a mighty master of witchcraft. There came to him one day a young lady, richly dressed, and wearing a thick veil. She told him that she wished to become a witch that she might cast a spell upon the child of a man who had forsaken her for another woman, now his wife; for she said that to bewitch this child would be the best revenge she could have. ”

“ The second form in which Michael Scot produced his work upon the Natural History of Aristotle was that of a version called the Abbreviatio Avicennae. The full title as it appears in the printed copy [87] is: ‘Avicenna de Animalibus per Magistrum Michaelem Scotum de Arabico in Latinum translatus.’ Like the De Animalibus ad Caesarem it consists of nineteen books, thus comprehending the three Aristotelic treatises in one work. ”

“ They live only in legend, and in the literature of romance, and must therefore be held apart by a firm line from the domain of sober historical inquiry.
This conclusion, be it observed, is not based upon the prevailing opinion of the present day that such arts are impossible, nor has it thence been reached by way of the inference that because magic is impossible, therefore Michael Scot cannot have meddled in it. Such was not at all the view held in the thirteenth century. ”

“ In the Scottish legend, which makes Michael Scot have much to do in forming these hills to their present shape, we seem to see him occupying his natural place in the myth as that Merlin whose art composed and maintained the magic kingdom of Avalon, where Arthur sleeps with Morgana till the hour of his return. ”

“ This diabolic teaching, thus preserved, flourished among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Indians, and other Oriental nations who remained its chief exponents, ‘though perchance,’ adds Passavanti, ‘it may be more studied among ourselves than we are ready to believe.’ [297] This [205] passage may serve to show why the artist of the Spanish Chapel was directed to draw his Magus in the fashion of the East, and helps us to understand the prejudice which Michael Scot’s outlandish costume must have raised against him. ”

“ Something of the Greek δεινότης, something terrible, superhuman almost, we discover in a spirit so fully roused and determined, and if we have read rightly the mind of Scot, no wonder that he and the Emperor were fully at one in regard to what they had to do. We have no means of knowing which of the two first conceived the idea of translating the works of Averroës: as master and servant they fairly share the fame of that great enterprise. ”

“ In any case, however, his chief merit in this department of study belonged to Michael Scot as the exponent of the Arabian naturalists. It is difficult for any one who has not read the books in question to form an adequate idea of their contents, and still more of their style; even from the most careful description. We are made to feel that the task of the translator must have been a very difficult one. ”