SCOT AT THE COURT OF SICILY 21 



Philippus coronatus or clericus ; Philippus de 

 Salerno, and Philippus Tripolitanus and in con- 

 cluding that they belong to one and the same 

 person, we have a reasonable amount of evidence 

 in our favour. 



From what has just been said it is plain that 

 three distinct periods must have composed the life 

 of Philip so far as we know it : the first when he 

 served as an ecclesiastic in Tripoli of Syria or its 

 neighbourhood ; the second when he came westward, 

 and, not without a certain literary reputation, held 

 the post of Clerk Register in Sicily ; the last when 

 Frederick sent him, in the height of his powers and 

 the fulness of his fame, to that neighbouring 

 country of Spain, then so full of attraction for every 

 scholar. In which of these periods then was it that 

 Michael Scot first came into those relations with 

 Philip of which the Florentine manuscript speaks ? 

 The time of his residence in Spain, likely as it might 

 seem on other accounts, would appear to be ruled 

 out by the fact that it was too late for Philip to 

 be then described as servant of the King of Sicily. 

 Nor did he hold this office, so far as we can tell, 

 until he had left Tripoli for the West. We must 

 pronounce then for the Sicilian period, and precisely 

 therefore for the years between 1200 and 1213. 

 This conclusion, however, does not hinder us from 

 supposing that the relation then first formally 

 begun between Michael and Philip continued to 

 bind them, in what may have been a friendly co- 

 operation, during the time spent by both in Spain. 



The period thus determined was that of the 

 King's boyhood, and this opens up another line of 

 argument which may be trusted not only to confirm 



