Caesar Von Heisterbach, the anecdote-monger of the century, relates more than one diverting tale of necromantic prodigies, the scene of which he lays at Toledo. The most remarkable of these stories tells how some Germans came thither to learn magic.[258] Their teacher in this art called up certain spirits, who appeared first as armed men, and then in the form of lovely maids. One of the students was thereby allured and carried off. The others drew their swords and threatened the master with death, until, overcome by fear, he used his power to secure their companion’s return.
From the favourite locality of these legends we may infer that the magic then in vogue was that of the Arabs, which, especially in Spain, had now begun to supplant the ancient and primitive European superstitions. This magic was not a mere ritual of spells, such as that of the Chaldean monuments, but rather a complete theurgy, like the magic of Egypt; the corruption of an ancient and elaborate religious system.[259] The Arabian mage pretended to bow the superior powers which other men could only worship, and boldly bade them do his will. It is hardly necessary to say that such a system did not originally belong to the Arabs, who had been, until the days of Mohammed, a rude and savage people. They learned it in Syria and Egypt, where the theories of Porphyry and Iamblichus still held sway.[260] In their hands this magic became enriched with many new conceits, such as the nimble fancy of these children of the East knew well how to interweave with all that they touched. The stars, they held, were the centres of supreme influence, but had certain correspondences with earthly things; with herbs, with stones, and even with sounds. These were in a sort the offspring of heaven, for plants of power were precious things put forth by the sun and moon; the minerals were condensed and congealed by the same heavenly agency in a planetary hour, and earthly voices, even the cries of dumb animals, were but the far echo of the music heard in heaven, the music of the spheres.
So far, indeed, this was but common doctrine, shared by all the science of the time, and eminently expounded in every astrological system. The magic founded upon it began with the notion that this close correspondence between heaven and earth might carry an influence able to react in an upward, contrary, and unnatural direction. Plants and precious stones, rightly employed, might prove able to bind the stellar powers on which all depended. Names and forms of conjuration might control the superior spirits which the stars represented. Hence arose a whole system of magical practice, in which, from the circle of the sorcerer—a symbol representing on earth the motion of the upper spheres—the vapour of mingled herbs and minerals rose to heaven above the glowing brazier, accompanied by recited spells. It is curious to notice that when, after several ages, this essentially Eastern and theurgic necromancy[261] gave place to the witchcraft of the North, with its dark demonolatry, the essential idea of the Arabian magicians still survived. Its influence may be traced in the importance always attached in popular belief to the reversal of natural practice, as a means of securing supernatural power and effect. Hence the bizarre details which crowd the witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: how hags walked backwards, or withershins, that is, against the course of the sun, or changed a prayer into a spell by muttering it in a contrary sense.
The Arabian magic as understood in Spain during the thirteenth century is very fully expounded in a curious work called Picatrix.[262] This book explains that the fundamental idea of the art was reaction leading up to transformation or magical change, adding that this reaction may be seen in three different regions of being; first among the elemental spirits themselves, next between these and matter, and, last, the reaction of one kind of matter upon another, as in alchemy. The second of these kinds of reaction admits the influence of earthly things upon the heavenly spirits, and is the foundation of that kind of magic which the Picatrix proceeds to expound, in details which are often much more curious than edifying. This book has special value as showing the intimate relation between magic and the ordinary studies of those times. Aristotle is often quoted in it,[263] and the position of necromancy with regard to other branches of science is clearly defined. It is not hard to see that, when thus understood, this art must have allied itself closely with astronomy and astrology on the one hand, and with alchemy on the other. In the account given by Bacon of Avicenna’s philosophy, he says that the third great division of that author’s works, and one which had never appeared in Latin, was that devoted to the most hidden parts of natural philosophy.[264] The science of those days left an acknowledged place for the occult and the mysterious among its doctrines. This place was filled by magic, a study forbidden indeed by the Church, but generally recognised as occupying a real though secret department among the other sciences and arts. The tradition we so often meet with that masters of necromancy actually taught the art of magic in Toledo, Salamanca, and perhaps Padua, seems but a reflection in later times of what was then the genuine belief of European scholars.
There is thus no reason why Michael Scot should not have devoted himself to what was the subject of actual and serious study during the times in which he lived, and especially so in the country where his chief literary labours were carried on. Were we to follow the mere likelihood of the case, his interest in astronomy and alchemy would lead us to think it very possible he might have studied an art that was so closely connected with these. But to change such a possibility into a certainty, or even a probability, something more convincing than any a priori argument must be found. If no actual proof of Scot’s magical practice be forthcoming we must be content to leave the matter where we found it; in the realm of dim and unsubstantial tradition.[265]
The true criterion here must doubtless be sought in the evidence furnished by contemporaries regarding the fact alleged. In the case of Michael Scot such evidence is forthcoming, but we may say at once that it proves upon examination to yield a distinctly negative result. His fame in those days was such that he is mentioned by several important writers of his own age, such as Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Vincent of Beauvais. None of these has a word to say of Scot’s reputation as a necromancer. Some may urge that an argument from silence is unsatisfactory; but does it not gain great force from the consideration that two of these witnesses are decidedly hostile to Scot? Bacon, especially, seems to have lost no opportunity of blackening his character. To these men Michael Scot was a sciolist, a mere pretender to knowledge, ignorant even of Latin; the very charlatan of the schools. He was a plagiarist too; one who passed off the work of another man as his own; nay, darker than all, he was a heretic, or so Albert would make him; a philosopher who interpreted and exceeded the forbidden doctrines of Averroës. Is it not certain that, if Scot had really practised magic in spite of the prohibitions of the Church, we should have heard of this charge from these active and bitter detractors? Our conclusion from their silence is therefore neither far to seek nor hard to defend. These tales, we must hold, were not current in the lifetime of Michael Scot, nor for many years after. They had no foundation in fact, but were the fancies of the following generation, and thus passed into the settled tradition which has ever since persistently associated itself with the philosopher’s name.
But this conclusion raises another question. How did such a tradition arise, and what were the points of attachment to which these stories clung? The ground for the legend of Michael Scot would seem to have been prepared by the close connection between him and his master the Emperor Frederick II. Every student of those times knows well the storm of invective and the weight of calumny which fell upon that great monarch as the consequence of his feuds with the See of Rome. He was officially declared to be no Christian but the mystic Beast of the Apocalypse, vomiting blasphemies. He was accused of having produced the apocryphal work De Tribus Impostoribus. His private life became the subject of grave scandal and repeated censure. Men were taught to believe that he revelled in a harem of Saracen beauties, and was addicted to infamous immorality, as well as to forbidden arts. These accusations were current, not only in Frederick’s own lifetime, but long afterwards. They may be studied at large in the Papal Epistolaries,[266] and a striking example of their current popular form is found in the following barbarous lines which we borrow from an obscure author[267] who used his pen in the service of the Guelfs:
‘Amisit Astrologos, et Magos, et Vates,