BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY STUDIES 5 



honourable employment, or, better still, of return- 

 ing crowned with the honours of the schools to 

 occupy some distinguished ecclesiastical position in 

 their native country. 



This then was the age, and these were the 

 prevailing conditions, under which Michael Scot 

 was born. To the necessary and common impulse 

 of Scottish scholars we are to trace the disposition 

 of the great lines on which his life ran its remarkable 

 and distinguished course. He is certainly one of 

 the most notable, as he is among the earliest, 

 examples of the student Scot abroad. 



There can be little doubt regarding the nation 

 where he had his birth. Disregarding for a moment 

 the varying accounts of those who lived centuries 

 after the age of Scot himself, let us make a com- 

 mencement with one whose testimony is of the very 

 highest value, being that of a contemporary. Roger 

 Bacon, the famous scientist of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury, introduces the name of Michael Scot in the 

 following manner : ' Unde, cum per Gerardum 

 Cremonensem, et Michaelem Scotum, et Aluredum 

 Anglicum, et Heremannum (Alemannum), et Wil- 

 lielmum Flemingum, data sit nobis copia trans- 

 lationum de omni scientia.' l In this passage the 

 distinctive appellation of each author is plainly 

 derived from that of his native country. That 

 Bacon believed Michael to be of Scottish descent is 

 therefore certain, and his opinion is all the more 

 valuable since he was an Englishman, and not likely 

 therefore to have confused the two nations of Great 

 Britain as a foreigner might haply have done. To 



1 Compendium Studii, vol. i. p. 471, ed. Master of the Rolls. London, 

 Longmans, 1859. 



