6 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



the same purpose is the testimony of Guido Bonatti, 

 the astrologer, who also belonged to the age of 

 Bacon and Scot. ' lUi autem,' he says,^ ' qui fuerunt 

 in tempore meo, sicut fuit Hugo ab Alugant, Bene- 

 guardinus Davidbam, Joannes Papiensis, Dominicus 

 Hispanus, Michael Scotus, Stephanus Francigena, 

 Girardus de Sabloneta Cremonensis, et multi alii.' 

 Here also the significance of Scotus, as indicating 

 nationality, is one that hardly admits of question. 

 It was in all probability on these or similar 

 authorities that Dempster relied when he said of 

 Michael : " ' The name Scot, however, is not a 

 family one, but national,' though he seems to have 

 pressed the matter rather too far, it being plainly 

 possible that Scotus might combine in itself both 

 significations. In Scotland it might indicate that 

 Michael belonged to the clan of Scott, as indeed has 

 been generally supposed, while as employed by men 

 of other nations, it might declare what they believed 

 to have been this scholar's native land. 



At this point, however, a new difiiculty suggests 

 itself It is well known that the lowland Scots 

 were emigrants from the north of Ireland, and that 

 in early times Scotus was used as a racial rather 

 than a local designation. May not Michael have 

 been an Irishman ? Such is the question actually 

 put by a recent writer,^ and certainly it deserves a 

 serious answer. We may commence by remarking 

 that even on this understanding of it the name is 

 an indefinite one as regards locahty, and might 

 therefore have been applied to one born in Scotland 



1 Boncompagni Vita di Gherardo Cremonense, Koma, 1851, and the 

 De Astronomia Tractatus x. of Guido Bonatti, printed at Bale, 1550. 

 - Historia Ecchsiastica, xii. 494. 

 ^ In the last edition of Chambers's Encyclopa;dia, sub nomine. 



