THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 193 



own day, had yet made considerable progress in 

 the popular mind before the close of the century. 

 This explanation of the matter receives some in- 

 direct support from a remark of Bacon's. ' It is to 

 be noticed,' he says, 'that many books are taken 

 for magical works which are in reality nothing of 

 the kind, but contain true and worthy wisdom.' ^ 

 He adds that there are several ways of concealing 

 one's doctrine from the vulgar, such as the use of 

 Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic characters, and the Ars 

 Notoria or shorthand. There is much reason to 

 think it was in this very way that Michael Scot had 

 suffered. A mistake Hke that indicated by Bacon 

 was probably the real origin of his mysterious 

 reputation as a magician. 



As soon as the mistake had once been made, 

 and the notion of Scot's magical powers had fairly 

 taken possession of the popular mind, it was greatly 

 reinforced by the association of his name and 

 memory with the still living and adaptable Arthurian 

 legend. Alain de I'lsle, who lived as late as 1202, 

 says that the tales proper to this romantic cycle 

 were so heartily believed in Brittany that any one 

 casting doubt upon Arthur's return would have 

 been stoned by the people.^ From the Trouv^res 

 the legend passed to the Troubadours of the south 

 of France. When the Normans established them- 

 selves in Sicily, these latter poets, represented, it 

 is said, by Pietro Vidal, and Bambaldo di Vaqueiras, 

 carried to this new home of their race the materia 

 poetica which had so long engaged the best talents 

 of France. The rehgious war which desolated Pro- 

 vence in the beginning of the thirteenth century 



^ Epistola de Secretis, ed. Master of the Eolls, Longmans, 1859, 

 pp. 53] , 544. 2 Explanatio in Prophetias Merlini, iii. 26. 



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