Michael Scot

Scot was born somewhere in the border regions of Scotland or northern England. It has been claimed that he studied first at the cathedral school of Durham and then at Oxford and Paris, devoting himself to philosophy, mathematics, and astrology. It appears that he had also studied theology and become an ordained priest, as Pope Honorius III wrote to Stephen Langton on 16 January 1223/4, urging him to confer an English benefice on Scot, and nominated Scot as archbishop of Cashel in Ireland.[2] Scot declined this appointment, but he seems to have held benefices in Italy. From Paris, Scot went to Bologna, and then after a stay at Palermo, to Toledo. There he learnt Arabic well enough to study the Arabic versions of Aristotle and the many commentaries of the Arabs upon these, as well as the original works of Avicenna and Averroes.[2]

Scot was a typical example of the polyglot wandering scholar of the Middle Ages—a churchman who knew Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. When he was about 50, Frederick II attracted him to his court in the Kingdom of Sicily, and at the instigation of the emperor he superintended (along with Hermannus Alemannus) a fresh translation of Aristotle and the Arabian commentaries from Arabic into Latin. There exist translations by Scot himself of the Historia animalium, of De anima and of De caelo, along with the commentaries of Averroes upon them.

The second version of Fibonacci's famous book on mathematics, Liber Abaci, was dedicated to Scot in 1227, and it has been suggested that Scot played a part in Fibonacci's presentation of the Fibonacci sequence.[3] A recent study of a passage written by Michael Scot on multiple rainbows, a phenomenon only understood by modern physics and recent observations, suggests that Michael Scot may even have had contact with the Tuareg people in the Sahara desert.[4]

In a letter of 1227, recorded by Scot in his Liber particularis, Frederick put questions to him concerning the foundations of the earth, the geography and rulership of the heavens, what is beyond the last heaven, in which heaven God sits, and the precise locations of hell, purgatory and heavenly paradise. He also asks about the soul; and about volcanoes, rivers, and seas. According to the chronicler Fra Salimbene, he attempted to catch Scot out in his calculations of the distance to heaven by scaling from the height of a church tower (by having it secretly lowered). Scot replied by saying that either the moon had gotten further away or the tower had gotten shorter.[nb 1]

Scot was a pioneer in the study of physiognomy.[5] His manuscripts dealt with astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences generally and account for his popular reputation. These works include:

• Super auctorem spherae, printed at Bologna in 1495 and at Venice in 1631.
• De sole et luna, printed at Strassburg (1622), in the Theatrum chimicum, and containing more alchemy than astronomy, the sun and moon appearing as the images of gold and silver.
• De chiromantia, an opuscule concerning chiromancy
• A divination-centered trilogy of books collectively titled the Liber introductorius ("The Introductory Book") which includes: the Liber quatuor distinctionum, the Liber particularis, and the Liber physiognomiae[nb 2]

The Liber physiognomiae (which also exists in an Italian translation) and the Super auctorem spherae expressly state that the author undertook the works at the request of the Emperor Frederick.

"Every astrologer is worthy of praise and honour," Scot wrote, "since by such a doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know."

He was offered in 1223 the role of being the Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland by Pope Honorius III;[2] then that of Canterbury in 1227 by Pope Gregory IX.

The date of Scot's death remains uncertain. The efforts of Walter Scott and others to identify him with the Sir Michael Scot of Balwearie, sent in 1290 on a special embassy to Norway, have not convinced historians, though the two may have had family connections.

A legend popular in the late 13th and early 14th centuries said that Scot foresaw that a small stone would strike him in the head and kill him, so he wore an iron skullcap to avoid his death. However, he removed the cap in church, only to be struck by a stone and die.[8]

The legendary Michael Scot used to feast his friends with dishes brought by spirits from the royal kitchens of France and Spain and other lands.

He is said to have turned to stone a coven of witches, which have become the stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters.

Scot's reputation as a magician had already become fixed in the age immediately following his own. He appears in Dante's Divine Comedy, the only Scot to do so,[9] in the fourth bolgia located in the Eighth Circle of Hell, reserved for sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets who claimed they could see the future when they, in fact, could not.[10] He is described by Dante as being "spare in the flank" (ne' fianchi è cosi poco).[11] While some argue that this is the "sole extant description of his physical appearance",[12] others contend that the description is more poetic. Richard Kay argues that because "the shades in the Dantesque afterworld create surrogate aerial bodies for themselves that are a projection of [their] soul[s]", this description is in reference to "some internal character trait to which [Dante] wished to draw our attention."[13] Kay argues that Dante was referencing a physiognomic description taken from Scot's own Liber physiognomiae—namely, that thin and small ribs signify an individual "who is weak, who does little labor, who is sagacious, [and] bad" (the original Latin, found in chapter 88 of the Liber physiognomiae, reads: Cuius costae sunt subtiles et paruae […] significat hominem debilem, pauci laboris, sagacem [et] malum).[14]

Boccaccio represents him in the same character, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola arraigns him severely in his work against astrology, while Gabriel Naudé finds it necessary to defend his good name in his Apologie pour tous les grands personages faussement soupçonnez de magie.

In John Leyden's ballad Lord Soulis, Michael Scot is credited with teaching magic to the protagonist, the evil sorcerer William II de Soules, who ends up being boiled alive.[15][16][17]

Walter Scott deploys Michael Scott (sic) in his The Lay of the Last Minstrel. In Footnotes 12/13, he credits him with conquering an indefatigable demon, after it had succeeded in splitting Eildon Hill into its three distinctive cones, by challenging it to weave ropes from sea-salt. He records that in the Scottish Borders any work of great labour or antiquity is ascribed either to Auld Michael, or Sir William Wallace, or the Devil.

Scot is portrayed as a black magician given to practical jokes in James Hogg's novel The Three Perils of Man.

Allan Massie's novels The Evening of the World and Arthur the King (as well as a third projected novel) are written in the format of a romance composed by Scot on the theme of empire for the instruction of Frederick II; it implies that Scot and Frederick were lovers.

Scot is the title character in the historic fantasy novel The Lord of Middle Air by Michael Scott Rohan, who claims descent from the magician.

Jane Yolen's Tartan Magic series features Scot as a villain.

In the children's television fantasy Shoebox Zoo, Michael Scot has survived to the present day, where he acts as a Gandalf-like character, serving as the mysterious, if somewhat grouchy, advisor to the protagonist, Marnie. He is played by Peter Mullan.

Michael Scot's soul is summoned from its current incarnation to his mouldering body by a lodge of black magicians in The Adept, by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris. During The Adept Book Two: The Lodge of the Lynx the personality of Scot is reintegrated with his modern incarnation (a young girl named Gillian Talbot) in order to heal the coma created by one part of the spirit being removed from the body for a protracted period.

Michael Scott [sic] was the teacher of the wizard Prospero in John Bellairs' novel The Face in the Frost.

In John Buchan's The Three Hostages (1924), Scott [sic] and his work Physiognomia are mentioned in reference to the arts of spiritual/mind control, a subject of great interest to Dominick Medina, the tale's antagonist.[18]

Scot appears as an Archmage in the White Wolf Publishing Mage/Changeling supplement Isle of the Mighty (1996).

In the book Falketårnet (English: "The Falcon Tower") by Erik Fosnes Hansen, he is one of the important characters. In this book he is known as an astrologer who gives another main character, Wolfgang, a horoscope.

In the short story "The Perils of the Double Sign" by Robertson Davies, (which appears in a collection called High Spirits,) the narrator mentions that Michael Scot is one of his favourite authors, and his knowledge of Scot's work on the occult aids him in his encounters with a genie.

Michael Scot’s life and work is the subject of Elizabeth Mac Donald’s novel "A Matter of Interpretation" (2019), which is partly fictional and partly based on fact.[19]

• Ackermann, Silke (2009), Sternstunden am Kaiserhof: Michael Scotus und sein Buch von den Bildern und Zeichen des Himmels ISBN 978-3-631-59489-6.
• Edwards, Glenn M. (1985). "The Two Redactions of Michael Scot's 'Liber Introductorius'". Traditio. 41: 329–340. JSTOR 27831175.
• (in English) Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Michael Scotus" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Kay, Richard (1985). "The Spare Ribs of Dante's Michael Scot". Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society. The Johns Hopkins University Press (103): 1–14. JSTOR 40166404. (subscription required)
• Masson, Georgina (1957), Frederick II of Hohenstaufen - a Life. London, Secker & Warburg.
• Meyer, Christian (2010). "Music and Astronomy in Michael Scot's Liber Quatuor Distinctionum". Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge. 76 (1): 119–177. Retrieved 30 December 2016. (subscription required)
• Pick, Lucy (1998). "Michael Scot in Toledo: Natura Naturans and the Hierarchy of Being". Traditio. 53: 93–116. JSTOR 27831961. (subscription required)
• Resnick, Irven M. (2012). Marks of Distinctions: Christian Perceptions of Jews in the High Middle Ages. CUA Press. ISBN 9780813219691.
• Wood, Brown, J. (1897), Life and Legend of Michael Scot.
• Thorndike, Lynn (1965), Michael Scot ISBN 1-4254-5505-0, ISBN 978-1-4254-5505-7.

• Christoph Kann (1993). "Michael Scotus". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). 5. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 1459–1461. ISBN 3-88309-043-3.