THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 191 



written on parchment in a hand of the seventeenth 

 century, and contains a short preface, followed by 

 two distinct works. One of these professes to be 

 an Arabic original, and the other a version of the 

 same in Latin, said to come from the pen of Michael 

 Scot. The title of the work deserves special atten- 

 tion. It is as follows : ' Almuchabola Absegalim 

 Alkakib Albaon; i.e. Compendium Magia Innaturalis 

 Nigrae.' Now, although the so-called Arabic of the 

 manuscript quite defies the best efforts of scholarship 

 to decipher it, this word almuchabola is perfectly 

 authentic, familiar even, being the common term in 

 that language for what we call algebra.^ 



This then seems to afford an actual example of 

 the way in which the Moorish science of numbers 

 might be mistaken for something magical. When 

 we examine the manuscript more closely the 

 suggestion which its title affords becomes still 

 stronger. Here and there, amid the strange 

 characters of an unknown tongue,^ are designs of a 

 curious kind ; parallelograms enclosed in bounding 

 lines of red, and containing erratic figures also in 

 red, that show luridly against the black background 

 with which the outlines are filled. The Latin 

 version explains that these are the signs of the 

 demons whom the accompanying spells have power 



1 Leonardo Pisano uses this word in the Liber Abbaci. See 

 p. 187vo of the Florence MS. Bibl. Naz. i. 2616, where the following 

 passage occurs : ' Secundum moduni algebrae et almuchabalae, scilicet 

 ad proportionem et restaurationem.' In an ancient list of works by 

 Gerard of Cremona (? the younger) found in the Vatican (No. 2392) we 

 have this title : 'Liber alcoarisnii de iebra et almucabula tractatus.' 

 See Boncompagni's Life of Gerard, Rome 1851. Works on almuchabola 

 are found also under the names of Al Deinouri, Al Sarakhsi, Al 

 Khouaresmi, Khamel Schagia ben Aslam, and Al Thoussi. See 

 D'Herbelot. 



2 They show a distinct likeness to the Magreb or West African 

 writing. 



