Scott, MICHAEL

Scott, MICHAEL, a mediæval sage, who is said to have been astrologer to Kaiser Frederick II. (1194-1250), and to have translated for him, through the Arabic, some of the works of Aristotle, with Averrhoes' commentaries. His translation was apparently used by Albertus Magnus, and seems to have been one of the two familiar to Dante (see Jourdain, Traductions Latines d'Aristote; and the Academy, January 1892, p. 14). Dante, who died in 1321, alludes to him in the Inferno (canto xx., 115-117) in a way which proves that his fame as a magician must already have spread over Europe; and he is also referred to by Albertus Magnus and Vincent of Beauvais, and this really is all that we know of him. Dempster (1627) may be right in maintaining that 'Scotus' was the name of his nation, not of his family, in which case he would be probably an Irishman; but by Boece (1527) he was boldly identified with a Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, near Kirkcaldy, in Fife, who went on two embassies to Norway in 1290 and 1310. Camden, again (1580), asserts that he was a Cistercian monk of Holme Cultram in Cumberland; and Satchells, that in 1629 he had examined at Burgh-under-Bowness a huge tome which was held to be his grimoire. In Border folklore the 'wondrous wizard' of Sir Walter's Lay is credited with having 'cleft the Eildon Hills in three, and bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone;' and his grave is of course shown in Melrose Abbey. Nay, the 'Jingler's Room' in Oakwood Tower, near Selkirk, is pointed out as his, though Oakwood dates only from the 16th century. See monograph by J. Wood Brown (1897).