: An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot by Brown J Wood James Wood - Mathematicians Biography; Scot Michael approximately 1175-approximately 1234; Astronomers Biography

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State of Scotland in the twelfth century--Necessity of foreign travel to scholars bred there--Michael Scot: his Nation and Birthplace.--The account given by Boece, how far it is to be believed--The date of Scot's birth and nature of his first studies--Scot at Paris: his growing fame, and the degrees he won in that school--Probability that further study at Bologna formed the introduction to his life in the south, 1

The legendary fame of Scot--Nature of the magic then studied in Spain--Reasons for thinking that Scot's fame as a magician is mostly mythical--Origin of the story in his connection with the Emperor, and from the place and nature of his Spanish studies--Probability that he composed a work on algebra, which was afterwards mistaken for something magical--His association with the Arthurian legend in its southern development confirms his character as a magician, and may have suggested several details in the stories that are told concerning him, 179

INDEX, 277

Frontispiece, A Magician, from the S. Maria Novella Fresco--Photogravure by Alinari, Florence

Vignette on Title--The Eildons, from an engraving kindly lent by Messrs. A. and C. Black, London

BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY STUDIES OF MICHAEL SCOT

In the Borders of Scotland it is well known that any piece of hill pasture, if it be fenced in but for a little from the constant cropping of the sheep, will soon show springing shoots of forest trees indigenous to the soil, whose roots remain wherever the plough has not passed too deeply. Centuries ago, when nature had her way and was unrestrained, the whole south-eastern part of the country was covered with dense forests and filled with forest-dwellers; the wild creatures that form the prey of the snare and the quarry of the chase. In the deep valleys, and by the streams of Tweed and Teviot, and many another river of that well-watered land, stood the great ranks and masses of the oak and beech as captains and patriarchs of the forest, mingled with the humbler whitethorn which made a dense undergrowth wherever the sun could reach. On the heights grew the sombre firs; their gnarled and ruddy branches crowned with masses of bluish-green foliage, while the alders followed the water-courses, and, aided by the shelter of these secret valleys, all but reached the last summits of the hills, which alone, in many a varied slope and peak and swelling breast, rose eminent and commanding over these dark and almost unbroken woodlands.

Such was south-eastern Scotland in the twelfth century: a country fitted to be the home of men of action rather than of thought; men whose joy should lie in the chase and the conflict with nature as yet unsubdued, who could track the savage creatures of the forest to their dens, and clear the land where it pleased them, and build, and dwell, and beget children in their own likeness, till by the labours of generations that country should become pastoral, peaceful, and fit for fertile tillage as we see it now.

Already, at the early time of which we speak, something of this work had been begun. There were gaps in the high forest where it lay well to the sun: little clearings marked by the ridge and furrow of a rude agriculture. Here and there a baron's lonely tower raised its grey horn on high, sheltering a troop of men-at-arms who made it their business to guard the land in war, and in peace to rid it of the savage forest-creatures that hindered the hind and herd in their labour and their hope. In the main valleys more than one great monastery was rising, or already built, by the waters of Tweed and Teviot. The inmates of these religious houses took their share in the whole duty of peaceful Scottish men by following trades at home or superintending the labours of an army of hinds who broke in and made profitable the wide abbey lands scattered here and there over many a lowland county. All was energy, action, and progress: a form of life which left but little room for the enterprises of the mind, the conflicts and conquests which can alone be known and won in the world of thought within.

But though the nature of this primitive life in early Scottish days could not hinder the appearance of men of thought, and even helped their development as soon as they began to show the movements of active intellect, yet on the other hand Scotland had not reached that culture which affords such natures their due and full opportunity. Centuries were yet to pass before the foundation of St. Andrews as the first Scottish university. The grammar-schools of the country were but a step to the studies of some foreign seat of learning. The churchmen who filled considerable positions at home were either Italians, or had at least been trained abroad, so that everything in those days pointed to that path of foreign study which has since been trodden by so many generations of Scottish students. The bright example of Scotus Erigena, who had reached such a high place in France under Charles the Bald, was an incitement to the northern world of letters. Young men of parts and promise naturally sought their opportunity to go abroad in the hope of finding like honourable employment, or, better still, of returning crowned with the honours of the schools to occupy some distinguished ecclesiastical position in their native country.

This then was the age, and these were the prevailing conditions, under which Michael Scot was born. To the necessary and common impulse of Scottish scholars we are to trace the disposition of the great lines on which his life ran its remarkable and distinguished course. He is certainly one of the most notable, as he is among the earliest, examples of the student Scot abroad.

Nor are we altogether without the means of coming to what seems at least a probable conclusion regarding the very district of the Scottish lowlands where Michael Scot was born. Leland the antiquary tells us that he was informed on good authority that Scot came from the territory of Durham. Taken literally this statement would make him an Englishman, but no one would think of quoting it as of sufficient value to disprove the testimony of Bacon and Bonatti who both believed Michael to have been born in Scotland. If, however, there should offer itself any way in which both these apparently contending opinions can be reconciled, we are surely bound to accept such an explanation of the difficulty, and in fact the solution we are about to propose not only meets the conditions of the problem, but will be found to narrow very considerably the limits of country within which the birthplace of Scot is to be looked for.

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