The De Urinis of Michael Scot seems now extant in the form of an Italian translation alone. The exact title is as follows: ‘Della notitia e prognosticatione dell’orine, secondo Michele Scoto, così de’ sani, come delli infermi,’ or, more briefly, ‘El trattato de le urine secondo Michaele Scoto.’[227] The author enumerates no less than nineteen divisions of his subject, which he seems to have studied very exactly. This work long remained an authority in the medical schools, as appears, not only from the two translations we have noticed, but also in the fact that large use was made of it in a later collection which commences thus: ‘In the name of the Lord, Amen. These are certain recipes taken from the book of Master Michael Scot, Physician to the Emperor Frederick, and from the works of other Doctors.’[228]
There has also come down to us a prescription called Pillulae Magistri Michaelis Scoti.[229] It enumerates about a dozen ingredients and the scribe has added an extravagant commendation of its healing powers. Mineral medicines were evidently not in fashion in those days; for the recipe speaks only of simples derived from herbs of different kinds. It is to be observed that this agrees exactly with the practice of Salerno, as the Materia Medica of that school was chiefly drawn from the botany of Dioscorides afterwards expounded by Ibn Beithar of Malaga, the great Moorish authority on the healing virtues of plants. There is no reason then to doubt the truth of the title which ascribes the prescription for these pills to Michael Scot. It is in any case a curious relic of early medical practice.
It is possible that the great plague which fell upon Palermo at the time of Frederick’s marriage may have been, in part at least, the occasion of that interest which both the Emperor and his astrologer took in the healing art. These epidemics, which in several of their most fatal forms are now only known by tradition, were the dreaded scourge of the Middle Ages; their prevalence being no doubt due to the rude and insanitary habits of life which were then universal. We read of another infectious sickness which attacked Frederick and his crusaders when they were on the point of sailing from Brindisi in 1227. The season was one of terrible heat, so great indeed that one chronicle says the rays of the sun melted solid metal! Lying in the confinement of their galleys on an unhealthy coast the troops suffered severely. At last rain fell, but immediately poisonous damps arose from the steaming soil, and the plague began to show itself. Two bishops and the Landgrave of Thuringia were among the victims of the pestilence, and very many of the crusaders died. Frederick himself ran considerable risk of his life. Against the advice of his physician he had exposed himself to the sun in the course of his journey to Brindisi. After three days with the fleet he was obliged to return on account of the state of his health, when he at once went to the waters at Pozzuoli, which proved a successful cure. Michael Scot must have entered into these affairs with a large concern and responsibility for his master’s health, and we shall think much of the importance and consequence he enjoyed at this time when we remember that the chief object of his care as a physician was the life of one on whom interests that were more than European then depended.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAST DAYS OF MICHAEL SCOT
The various occupations in which Michael Scot engaged upon his return to court were not without their due and, as we believe, designed effect. The part he had taken in producing the Latin Averroës was soon forgotten when it appeared that no immediate publication of these proscribed works was intended by the Emperor. Scot now stood boldly before the world in no suspicious character; distinguished only by his great learning and the fidelity with which he discharged his offices of astrologer and physician about the Imperial person.
This rehabilitation of his fame opened the way to further honours and emoluments which Frederick soon began to seek on his servant’s behalf. Scot had never quite lost character as a churchman, and the member of a great religious Order, though his studies had carried him far from the somewhat narrow and beaten track of an ordinary ecclesiastical education. Like Philip of Tripoli, he was probably in holy orders, and even held a benefice, while, as we see from the dedication of his De Coelo et Mundo to Stephen of Provins, he was careful, even in the wildest heats of his work on Averroës, to keep in touch with those who held high positions in the Church. Soon after his return from Spain a resolute and repeated attempt was made to secure for him some ecclesiastical preferment.
Honorius III. then sat in the Chair of St. Peter. In 1223 a dispensation was granted by the Curia allowing Michael Scot to hold a plurality. At the same time the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton the Primate of England, desiring that Scot should be preferred to the first suitable place which might fall vacant in that country.[230] Honorius was then at peace with the Emperor, and we may believe that it was in consequence of some strong representation made by Frederick that he took such an interest in the fortunes of this Imperial protégé.
The application to Canterbury was entirely in accordance with the habits of the time; for England was then the constant resource of the Popes when they wished to confer a favour on any of their clergy. Many and deep were the complaints which this practice awakened among the priesthood of the north. A like abuse of influence appeared in Scotland as well. Theiner reports the case of a clerk named Peter, the son of Count George of Cabaliaca, on whose behalf the Pope wrote in 1259 to the Canons of St. Andrews, desiring that he might be reinstated in his benefice of Chinachim (Kennoway in Fife) which he had forfeited as an adherent of the Empire.[231] It is only fair, however, to notice that there were instances of the contrary practice. In 1218, for example, one Matthew, a Scot, was recommended by Honorius to the University of Paris for the degree of Doctor, that he might teach there in the faculty of Divinity.