112 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



Counts of Toulouse and Foix the champions of the 

 Albigensian party. 



The probabiHty that the Emperor had early felt 

 an interest in Averroes is confirmed by a curious 

 statement of Gilles de Rome/ who tells us that the 

 sons of the Moorish philosopher received a cordial 

 welcome from Frederick and lived in honour at his 

 Court. Renan indeed finds reason to doubt the 

 truth of this statement,^ yet we may remember 

 that the chronicler could not in any case have 

 ventured upon it unless the Emperor's sympathy 

 for Averroes had been matter of common know- 

 ledge. 



As to Michael Scot we may feel sure that he 

 was every whit as eager as his master could be to 

 honour the philosopher's memory and to gain a 

 nearer acquaintance with his writings. The manu- 

 script in the Laurentian library to which we have 

 already referred^ speaks, it will be remembered, of a 

 visit paid by Scot to the city of Cordova. It is not 

 difficult to determine with a high degree of pro- 

 bability the reason that may have led him thither. 

 Had he lived three hundred years earlier indeed, 

 the fame of Cordova as a centre of learning might 

 well have proved a sufficient attraction to account 

 for this journey. In the tenth century that city 

 shone as the seat of a great Jewish school : one of 

 those lately transferred to Spain from the eastern 

 cities of Pombeditha and Sura. The Caliph Hakim, 

 under whose protection this change took place, 

 gave royal encouragement to the learned men who 

 came to Cordova. Thousands of students assembled 



1 Opera, p. 102. 



2 Averroes, pp. 28, 254, 29L ^ gee ante, p. 18. 



