Greater voluminousness and thoroughness mark the work of these writers as compared with those of the twelfth century. The work of translation has been partly accomplished; that of compilation, reconciliation, criticism, and further personal investigation and experimentation proceeds more rapidly and extensively. The new Friar Orders invade the world of learning as of everything else: of the writers whose names head the following chapters Bartholomew of England and Roger Bacon were Franciscans;[962] Thomas of Cantimpré, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas were Dominicans. In these representatives of the new religious Orders, however, theology cannot be said to absorb attention at the expense of natural science. The prohibitions of the study of the works of Aristotle in the field of natural philosophy by the University of Paris early in the century preceded the friars and were not lasting, and the mid-century struggle of the friars with the other teachers at Paris[963] was one over privilege and organization rather than tenets. Teachers and writers were, however, sometimes condemned for their intellectual views at Paris and elsewhere in the thirteenth century, and whether the study of natural science and astrology was persecuted is a question which will arise more than once. In any case the friars seem to have declined in scientific prowess as in other respects toward the close of the century. Petrus Hispanus, who became Pope John XXI in 1276-1277, had not been a friar himself, and is said to have been more favorable to men of learning than to the regular clergy. Finally, in Guido Bonatti, Arnald of Villanova, Peter of Abano, and Cecco d’Ascoli we come to laymen, physicians and astrologers, who were to some extent either anti-clerical themselves or the object of clerical attack.
This was the century in which Roger Bacon launched his famous eulogy of experimental science. A good-sized fleet of passages recognizing its importance will be found, however, in our other authors, and we shall need to devote two chapters to experimental books which were either anonymous or pretended to date back to ancient or Arabic authors. And not without some justification, since we have been tracing the history of experimental science through our previous books.
[962] Little that is new on the theme of the Franciscans and learning is contributed by H. Felder, Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Studien im Franziskanerorden bis um die Mitte des 13 Jahrhunderts, Freiburg, 1904.
[963] Concerning it consult F. X. Seppelt, Der Kampf der Bettelorden an die Universität Paris in der Mitte des 13 Jahrhunderts, Breslau, 1905, in Kirchengesch. Abhandl., III; or H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, I, v, 2, “The Mendicants and the University”; or P. Feret, La faculté de théologie de Paris: moyen âge, Paris, 1894-1897, 4 vols.; and other works listed by Paetow (1917), p. 441.
CHAPTER LI
MICHAEL SCOT
Bibliographical note—Michael Scot and Frederick II—Some dates in Michael’s career—Michael Scot and the papacy—Prominent position in the world of learning—Relation to the introduction of the new Aristotle—Thirteenth century criticism of Michael Scot—General estimate of his learning—God and the stars—A theological digression—The three Magi—Astrology distinguished from magic—The magic arts—Experiments of magic—History of astronomy—The spirits in the sky, air, and earth—Occult medicine—The seven regions of the air—Michael’s miscellaneous content—Further astrological doctrine—Omission of nativities—Magic for every hour—Quaint religious science—The Phisionomia—Influence of the stars on human generation—Discussion of divination—Divination from dreams—Works of divination ascribed to Michael Scot—Medical writings—Occult virtues—Astrology in the Commentary on the Sphere—Dionysius the Areopagite and the solar eclipse during Christ’s passion—Alchemy—Works of alchemy ascribed to Michael Scot—Brother Elias and alchemy—Liber luminis luminum and De alchemia—Their further characteristics.
Michael Scot and Frederick II.
But little can be said with certainty concerning the life of Michael Scot.[964] However, a poem by Henry of Avranches, addressed to the emperor Frederick II in 1235 or 1236,[965] shows that Michael was then dead and that he apparently had occupied the position of astrologer at the court of Frederick II at the time of his death. The poet explains how astrologers (mathematici) “reveal the secrets of things,” by their art affecting numbers, by numbers affecting the procession of the stars, and by the stars moving the universe. He recalls having heard “certain predictions concerning you, O Caesar, from Michael Scot who was a scrutinizer of the stars, an augur, a soothsayer, a second Apollo”; and then tells how “the truthful diviner Michael” ceased to publish his secrets to the world, and “the announcer of fates submitted to fate,” apparently in the midst of some prediction made on his death-bed. Michael’s own statements also show that he was one of Frederick’s astrologers.[966] If at the time of his death Michael was Frederick’s astrologer, it is more questionable at what date his association with Frederick began, and in what countries Michael resided with the emperor, or accompanied him to, whether Sicily, southern Italy, northern Italy, or Germany. From the fact that three of Michael Scot’s works, or rather, the three chief divisions of his longest extant work,[967] namely, Liber Introductorius, Liber Particularis, and Phisionomia, were written at the request of Frederick II for beginners[968] and apparently in the time of Innocent III,[969] J. Wood Brown jumped to the conclusion that Michael was Frederick’s tutor before that monarch came of age, and that he spent some time in the island of Sicily, from which Brown failed to distinguish Frederick’s larger kingdom of Sicily.[970] As a matter of fact, there would seem to be rather more evidence for connecting Michael with Salerno than with any Sicilian city, since in one manuscript of his translation for the emperor of the work of Avicenna on animals he is spoken of as “an astronomer of Salerno,”[971] while in another manuscript he is associated with a Philip, clerk of the king of Sicily, and this royal notary in two deeds of 1200 is called Philip of Salerno.[972] Brown was inclined to identify him further with Philip of Tripoli, the translator of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets.
Some dates in Michael’s career.