SCOT AT THE COURT OF SICILY 19 



Master ; who was of Scotland, and servant to his 

 most distinguished chief Don Phihp,^ the King 

 of Sicily's clerk ; ^ which experiment he contrived ^ 

 when he lay sick in the city of Cordova. Finis.' 



Taking the persons here named in the order of 

 their rank, we notice first the great Emperor 

 Frederick ii., the patron of Michael Scot. It is 

 worth remark that he is styled simply ' King of 

 Sicily,' a title which belongs to the time previous 

 to 1215, when he obtained the Imperial crown. 

 This is a touch which seems to give high originality 

 and value to the colophon. We may feel sure that 

 it was not composed by the fifteenth century scribe, 

 who would certainly have described Frederick in 

 the usual style as Emperor and Lord of the World. 

 He must have copied it, and everything leads one 

 to suppose that he was right in describing the 

 source from which he drew as ' very ancient.' 



Next comes Don Philip, whom we have rightly 

 described as the clerk of Sicily, for the word coronatus 

 in its mediaeval use is derived from corona in the sense 

 of the priestly tonsure, so that Philippus coronatus 

 is equivalent to Philippus clericus^ Of this dis- 

 tinguished man we find many traces in the historical 

 documents of the period.'' Two deeds passed the 

 seals of Sicily in the year 1200 when the King, 

 then a boy of five years old, was living under the 

 care of his widowed mother the Queen Constantia. 

 These are countersigned by the royal notary, who 

 is described as ' Philippus de Salerno, notarius et 

 fidelis noster scriba.' His name is found in the 



• Philipo. ' Coronato. ^ Destinavit sibi. 



* See Ducange, sub voce. 



■'' Huillard-BrehoUes, Hist. Dip. Frid. II., vol. i. pp. 44, 68, 242, 

 255. 



