It may seem remarkable that the Pope did not address his application in Scot’s favour to St. Andrews rather than to Canterbury. We are to recollect, however, that in 1223, the relations between Scotland and the See of Rome were still somewhat strained. The North had not yet forgotten what took place in 1217, when Gualo came thither as Legate to lay the Interdict upon Scotland. Churches were closed by this severe sentence; the sacraments forbidden; even that of extreme unction denied to the people; the dead were buried without service, and all marriages were celebrated in the churchyards. When the interdict was removed in the following year, the duty of proclaiming that remission was intrusted to the Prior of Durham and the Dean of York, who made a solemn progress in the Kingdom to announce the Pope’s clemency. We may feel sure that these events were not forgotten in five years by a proud and independent nation like the people of Scotland, and Honorius must be thought to have judged rightly in supposing his application on Scot’s account had a better chance of being effected by the English than by the Scottish Primate. Nothing indeed was overlooked that might give force to the recommendation. The Pope accompanied his request with a generous testimony to the scholar’s ability, saying that he was distinguished, even among learned men, for his remarkable gifts and knowledge.[232] Thus everything seemed to promise that Michael Scot would soon enjoy a rich English living; the El dorado of the foreign clergy in those easy days of sinecures secured by dispensations of plurality and non-residence.
Meanwhile, however, a much more favourable occasion offered itself to the Pope for securing the interests of Frederick’s protégé, and one which dispensed with any concurrence of the English Primate in the matter. In the same year which witnessed his application to Stephen Langton a vacancy occurred in the Archbishopric of Cashel. The chapter of that see proposed a candidate of their own to Honorius, probably the Bishop of Cork, but the Pope saw his opportunity and named Michael Scot for the vacant benefice. The obedient Chapter at once proceeded to elect him. The consequence being to their apprehension a foregone conclusion, the Curia issued another dispensation permitting this favourite of fortune to hold the Archbishopric along with all his other benefices.[233] So nearly did Scot come to the possession of a high place in the Church, and an office which would surely have altered his fame in the ages that were to come.
But those who thus took into their hands the shaping of the future for Michael Scot were soon to learn that the man they had to deal with was of another nature than their own; a very Scot in his scruples and the conscientiousness with which he gave effect to them. Incredible as it must then have seemed, remarkable as it would be even in our own day, Michael Scot refused Cashel,[234] and this for a reason which showed how high was the conception he had formed of the pastoral office. His nolo episcopari proceeded on the ground that he was ignorant of the Irish language. He would not, it seems, be a chief pastor without the power to teach and feed the flock committed to his care. He would not consent to be intruded upon a people to whom he must have proved unacceptable, nor would he, in the too common fashion of the day, commit his duties in Ireland to a suffragan, while enjoying ample revenues and a lordly title in Italy.
It is somewhat startling to find a principle not unheard of in the Scotland of our own century so clearly grasped and so conscientiously followed by this non-intrusionist countryman of ours six hundred years ago. Yet Michael Scot did not stand alone in his sacrifice even in these slack times, as may be seen by the case of his namesake, John Scot, who was Bishop of Dunkeld during the pontificate of Clement III.[235] This earlier Prelate ruled a vast diocese which included the country of Argyll as well as the more eastern parts of central Scotland. His conscience became uneasy under the responsibility, and, unwilling to continue the spiritual overseer of those whom from his ignorance of their language he could not edify, he wrote to the Pope, desiring that Argyll might be disjoined from Dunkeld, and that Ewaldus his chaplain, who knew Erse, might have charge of the new diocese as its Bishop. This was actually done in 1200, and the good Bishop died in great peace two years later. ‘How can I give a comfortable account to the Judge of the world at the last day,’ so he had written to Clement, ‘if I pretend to teach those who cannot understand me? The revenues suffice for two Bishops, if we are content with a competency, and are not prodigal of the patrimony of Christ. It is better to lessen the charge and increase the number of labourers in the Lord’s Vineyard.’ In some such terms must Michael Scot too have declined Cashel. His case, as well as that of Dunkeld, is enough to show that ecclesiastical corruption, though widespread, was not, even in those days, universal. May no Cervantes of the Church ever arise in Scotland to laugh such sacred chivalry away!
The disappointment he nevertheless felt on this occasion may probably have encouraged Scot in his attachment to the court and to his new duties there as astrologer and physician, in which, as we have seen, he rose to such acknowledged eminence. Frederick did not, however, lose sight of his purpose to procure him preferment. The first application to Canterbury having met with no response it was renewed four years later in 1227, by Gregory IX., who in that year succeeded Honorius in the Chair of St. Peter. This new Pontiff was destined to become the Emperor’s most bitter and relentless foe, but as yet he remained on good terms with Frederick and inclined to show him favour. He seems to have made no difficulty in taking up the case of Michael Scot, and even added on his own account a eulogy meant to forward the scholar’s claim; representing him as a distinguished student, not only in Latin letters, but also of the Hebrew and Arabic languages.[236] So far as can be seen, however, the attempt of 1227 shared the fate of that which had been made in 1223. Canterbury gave no signs of acquiescence, and Michael Scot, for all his distinction, remained without the preferment which his friends so constantly sought to obtain for him.
There is reason to think that from this time a change took place in the spirit of the philosopher. The natural chagrin he must have felt as it became plain that no position he could accept would be offered to him in the Church affected deeply his fine and sensitive nature. He soon passed into a brooding and despondent mood, which remained unaffected by all the praise and fame paid by the learned world as a tribute to his remarkable talents and achievements. It is in this change of temper to a morbid depression that we are to find the occasion and inspiring spirit of those strange prophetical verses which bear his name and which differ so widely from all the other productions of his pen.
Such compositions were indeed far from being uncommon in Italy. The reputed prophecies of the Erythræan Sibyl were extant in the form of an epistle supposed to be addressed to the Greeks under the walls of Troy. This curious composition is said to have been rendered into the Greek language from the Syriac by a certain Doxopatros. His version was one of those volumes which had reached Sicily from the library of Manuel Comnenus Emperor of Constantinople, and was then translated into Latin during the twelfth century by Eugenio, admiral to King Roger. A series of poets from Giovacchino di Fiora[237] to Jacopone da Todi[238] then chose the prophetic lyre and made it resound with dark sayings and predictions of misfortune and ruin. Especially worthy of study in this connection are the verses ascribed to Merlin, which declare the fate of many Italian cities.[239] That Michael Scot gave his talents to this kind of composition rests on evidence as convincing as any which establishes the other events of his life. Pipini the chronicler says that ‘he was reputed to have the gift of prophecy, for he published verses in which he foretold the ruin of certain Italian cities as well as other circumstances.’[240] An earlier, indeed a contemporary, authority, Henry Abrincensis, in a poem presented to Frederick II. in 1235 or the early months of the following year, speaks of Michael Scot as ‘another Apollo,’ ‘a prophet of truth’ possessed of ‘hidden secrets’ and the author of ‘certain predictions regarding thee, O Caesar.’[241]
Quotations from the prophecies of Scot were made by Villani.[242] The lines referring to Florence may still be read in a manuscript of the Riccardian Library in that city,[243] and in another, preserved in Padua,[244] we find the following title: ‘Here begin certain prophecies of Michael Scot, the most illustrious astrologer of Lord Frederick the Emperor, which declare somewhat of the future, to wit, of certain Italian cities.’ This shows that verses, bearing to have been composed by Scot, were current at an early date, though the scribe of the Paduan manuscript has forgotten to fulfil the promise he makes in his title, for that which follows it is not the poetry of Scot but only a dull treatise on Latin prosody.
It is to Salimbene that we owe the preservation of these verses in their most complete form. He must have taken much interest in them, as he is careful to give, not only the original Latin, but an Italian translation as well. From his pages then we shall borrow the text of these curious lines.[245] According to Salimbene they are these:
‘Regis vexilla timens, fugiet velamina Brixa,