An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot. J. Wood Brown
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 of an uncommon kind for a scholar like Scot, eager to acquire knowledge in every department. Sicily was still, especially in its more remote and mountainous parts about Entella, Giato, and Platani, the refuge of a considerable Moorish population, whose language was therefore familiar in the island, and was heard even at Court; being, we are assured, one of those in which Frederick received instruction.[46] There can be little doubt that Scot availed himself of this opportunity, and laid a good foundation for his later work on Arabic texts by acquiring, in the years of his residence at Palermo, at least the vernacular language of the Moors.
The same may be said regarding the Greek tongue: a branch of study much neglected even by the learned of those times. We shall presently produce evidence which goes to show that Michael Scot worked upon Greek as well as Arabic texts,[47] and it was in all probability to his situation in Sicily that he owed the acquisition of what was then a very rare accomplishment. Bacon, who deplores the ignorance of Greek which prevailed in his days, recommends those who would learn this important language to go to Italy, where, he says, especially in the south, both clergy and people are still in many places purely Greek.[48] The reference to Magna Grecia is obvious, and to Sicily, whose Greek colonies preserved, even to Frederick’s time and beyond it, their nationality and language. So much was this the case, that it was thought necessary to make the study of Greek as well as of Arabic part of Frederick’s education. We can hardly err in supposing that Scot profited by this as well as by the other opportunity.
In point of general culture too a residence at Palermo offered many and varied advantages. Rare manuscripts abounded, some lately brought to the island, like that of the Secreta Secretorum, the prize of Philip the Clerk, which he carried with him when he came from Tripoli to Sicily, and treasured there, calling it his ‘precious pearl’;[49] others forming part of collections that had for some time been established in the capital. As early as the year 1143, George of Antioch, the Sicilian Admiral, had founded the Church of St. Maria della Martorana in Palermo, and had enriched it with a valuable library, no doubt brought in great part from the East.[50] A better opportunity for literary studies could hardly have been desired than that which the Prince’s Master now enjoyed.
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. Amid delicious gardens at evening, or by day in the cool shade of courtyards: those patios which the Moors had built so well and adorned with such fair arabesques, all that was rarest in learning and brightest in wit, held daily disputation, while the delicate fountains played and Monte Pellegrino looked down on the curving beauties of the bay and shore. A strange contrast truly to the arcades of Bologna, now heaped with winter snow and now baked by summer sun; to the squalor of mediæval Paris, and much more to the green hillsides and moist forest-clad vales of southern Scotland. Here at last the spirit of Michael Scot underwent a powerful and determining influence which left its mark on all his subsequent life.
As royal tutor, his peculiar duty would seem to have been that of instructing the young Prince in the different branches of mathematics. This we should naturally have conjectured from the fact that Scot’s fame as yet rested entirely upon the honours he had gained at Paris, and precisely in this department of learning; for ‘Michael the Mathematician’ was not likely to have been called to Palermo with any other purpose. We have direct evidence of it however in an early work which came from the Master’s pen, and one which would seem to have been designed for the use of his illustrious pupil. This was the Astronomia, or Liber Particularis, and in the Oxford copy,[51] the colophon of that treatise runs thus: ‘Here endeth the book of Michael Scot, astrologer to the Lord Frederick, Emperor of Rome, and ever August; which book he composed in simple style[52] at the desire of the aforesaid Emperor. And this he did, not so much considering his own reputation, as desiring to be serviceable and useful to young scholars, who, of their great love for wisdom, desire to learn in the Quadrivium the Art of Astronomy.’ The preface says that this was the second book which Scot composed for Frederick.
The science of Astronomy was so closely joined in those times with the art of Astrology, that it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between them as they were then understood. The one was but the practical application of the other, and in common use their names were often confused and used interchangeably. We are not surprised then to find the title of Imperial Astrologer given to Michael Scot in the colophon to his Astronomia; he was sure to be employed in this way, and the fact will help us to determine with probability what was the first book he wrote for the Emperor, that to which the Liber Particularis was a sequel. For there is actually extant under Scot’s name an astrological treatise bearing the significant name of the Liber Introductorius.[53] This title agrees exceedingly well with the position we are now inclined to give it, and an examination of the preface confirms our conjecture in a high degree. It commences thus: ‘Here beginneth the preface of the Liber Introductorius which was put forth by Michael Scot, Astrologer to the ever August Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, at whose desire he composed it concerning astrology,[54] in a simple style[55] for the sake of young scholars and those of weaker capacity, and this in the days of our Lord Pope Innocent IV.’[56] One cannot help noticing the close correspondence between this and the colophon of the Astronomia. The two treatises were the complement each of the other. They must have been composed about the same time, and were doubtless meant to serve as text-books to guide the studies of Frederick’s youth. That this royal pupil should have been led through astrology to the higher and more enduring wonders of astronomy need cause no surprise, for such a course was quite in accordance with the intellectual habits of the age. It may be doubted indeed whether the men of those times would have shown such perseverance in the observations and discoveries proper to a pure science of the heavens, had it not been for the practicable and profitable interest which its application in astrology furnished. Astronomy, such as it then was, formed the last and highest study in the Quadrivium.[57] It was here that Scot had carried off honours at Paris, and now in his Liber Introductorius and Astronomia, we see him imparting the ripe fruits of that diligence to his royal charge, whose education, so far as regarded formal study, was thereby brought to a close.
In the year 1209, when Frederick was but fourteen years of age, the quiet study and seclusion in which he still lived with those who taught him was brought to an abrupt and, one must think, premature conclusion. The boy was married, and to a lady ten years his senior, Constance, daughter of the King of Aragon, and already widow of the King of Hungary. It is not hard to see that such a union must have been purely a matter of arrangement. The Prince of Palermo, undergrown and delicate as he was,[58] promised to be, as King of Sicily and possibly Emperor, the noblest husband of his time. Pope Innocent III., his guardian, foresaw this, and chose a daughter of Spain as most fit to occupy the proud position of Frederick’s wife, queen, and perhaps empress. Had the wishes of Rome prevailed at the Court of Aragon from the first, this marriage would have taken place even earlier than it did. The delay seems to have been owing, not to any reluctance on the part of the bride’s parents, but solely to the doubt which of two sisters, elder or younger, widow or maid, should accept the coveted honour.
It was in spring, the loveliest season of the year in that climate, that the fleet of Spain, sent to bear the bride and her suite, rose slowly over the sea rim and dropped anchor in the Bay of Palermo. Constantia came with many in her company, the flower of Catalan and Provençal chivalry, led by her brother, Count Alfonso. The Bishop of Mazara, too, was among them, bearing a commission to represent the Pope in these negotiations and festivities. And now the stately Moorish palace, with its courtyard, its fountains, and its gardens, became once more a scene of gaiety, as—in the great hall of forty pillars, beneath a roof such as Arabian artists alone could frame, carved like a snow cave, or stained with rich and lovely colour like a mass of jewels set in gold—the