Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning/Appendix II

by Reginald Lane Poole

II. EXCURSUS ON THE LATER HISTORY OF JOHN SCOTUS.

The statement that John Scotus retired into England after the death of Charles the Bald has been the subject of much discussion, and, as usually happens, the dispute has been complicated by a good deal of what is no real evidence, and by much confusion of the real and the false. The following extracts will put the reader in possession of the materials on which to form an opinion with respect to at least an important section of the enquiry.^[1]

1. Bishop Asser of Sherborne says that king Alfred

legates ultra mare ad Galliam magistros acquirere direxit, indeque ^[2]advocavit Grimbaldum sacerdotem et monachum, venerabilem videlicet virum, cantatorem optimum, et omni modo ecclesiasticis disciplinis et in divina scriptura eruditissimum, et omnibus bonis moribus ornatum; Iohannem quoque aeque presbyterum et monachum, acerrimi ingenii virum, et in omnibus disciplinis literatoriae artis eruditissimum, et in multis aliis artibus artificiosum; quorum doctrina regis ingenium multum dilatatum est et eos magna potestate ditavit et honoravit.

This record stands between the years 884 and 886, but in a digression of a general character relating more or less to Alfred's whole reign.^[3] Florence of Worcester, in quoting the passage, placed it as early as 872, and the only fact that we can presume as to its real date is that it probably refers to the state of peace subsequent to the treaty of Wedmore in 878. Afterwards, under the date of 886, occurs the famous passage describing the quarrel that arose at Oxford between Grimbald and his companions who had come there with him, and the old scholastics of the town. It was natural to suppose that these companions included that John already mentioned; and such is the inference drawn in the Hyde annals, a. 886, according to which, anno secundo adventus sancti Grimbaldi in Angliam, incepta est universitas Oxoniae, . . . legentibus . . . Grimbaldo and others, the list ending with in geometria et astronomia docente Ioanne monacho et collega sancti Grimbaldi. Since, however, the passage in Asser relating to Oxford is known to be a modern interpolation, and since the Book of Hyde is a production not earlier than Edward the Third's reign, the evidence on this head may be wisely ignored. It is only necessary to add that one certain witness to the connexion shown by the passage first quoted from Asser, remains in king Alfred's preface to his translation of saint Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he says he learned of Plegmund my archbishop, and of Asser my bishop, and of Grimfold my mass-priest, and of John my mass-priest.

2. At a long interval from the mention of the arrival of the two scholars, and in what is regarded as a quite distimct section of his book, Asser relates, a. 887, Alfred's foundation of the monastery of Athelney, and r describes its first abbat:

Primitus Iohannem presbyterum monachum, scilicet Ealdsaxonem genere, abbatem constituit; deinde ultramarinos presbyteros quosdam et diaconos; ex quibus, cum nec adhuc tantum numerum quantum vellet haberet, comparavit etiam quamplurimos eiusdem gentis Gallicae, ex quibus quosdam infantes in eodem monasterio edoceri imperavit et subsequenti tempore ad monachicum habitum sublevari.

Asser proceeds to relate the attempted murder of abbat John by the servants of two Gaulish monks in the house. They waylaid him in church, and fell upon him with swords so that he nearly died. In regard to this passage it may be argued from the specification scilicet Ealdsaxonem genere^[4] that the author is introducing a new person whom he wishes to distinguish from the John already mentioned; at any rate Asser's words do not necessarily identify John the Saxon with John the comrade of Grimbald. It is, however, commonly held that the latter inference has a predominant probability. The two stories we find repeated by Florence of Worcester without any attempt at combining them.

3. Hitherto we have had no mention of John Scotus. It is evident that he may be the John whose name is associated with that of Grimbald; but it is impossible that he be John the Saxon. To combine the three was first attempted in the spurious compilation,–'undoubtedly a monkish forgery,' as it is described by sir Thomas Hardy,–which goes under the name of abbat Ingulf of Croyland. Its author invents a mode of reconciling the different nationalities by making John not an Old Saxon, but simply summoned from Saxony.

Hinc sanctum Grimbaldum, artis musicae peritissimum et in divinis scripturis eruditissimum, evocatum e Francia, suo novo monasterio quod Wintoniae construxerat praefecit in abbatem. Similiter de veteri Saxonia Iohannem, cognomine Scotum, acerrimi ingenii philosophum, ad se alliciens, Adelingiae monasterii sui constituit praelatum. Ambo isti doctores literatissimi, sacerdotes gradu et professione monachi sanctissimi erant.

The forger has merely confused Asser by importing into his narrative the name of John Scotus, which he knew, evidently, from the story long before made popular by William of Malmesbury.

4. This story is told by William in three separate works, in the Gesta Regum, the Gesta Pontificum, and in a letter addressed to his friend Peter. The second of these accounts also rëappears, nearly word for word, in what is known as the Second Chronicle of Simeon of Durham; but this has no claim to be regarded as an independent authority.^[5] Of William's three narratives, that contained in the epistle to Peter, which is entirely occupied with the subject of John Scotus, is the most complete, and I give it here as printed by Gale, e cod. Thuaneo ms., among the Testimonia prefixed to his edition of the De Divisione Naturae.^[6] From the point in the course of this letter, at which William's other works introduce the narrative about John Scotus and thenceforward run parallel with it, I give at the foot of the page a collation of them as well.

Petro suo Willelmus suus divinae philosophiae participium.

Fraternae dilectioni morem, frater amantisime, geris, quod me tam ardua consultatione dignaris. Est enim praesumtio caritatis, quod me tanto muneri non imparem arbitraris. Praecipis enim ut mittam in litteras, unde Ioannes Scottus oriundus, ubi defunctus fuerit, quem auctorem libri, qui περὶ φύσεων vocatur, communis opinio consentit: simulque, quia de libro illo sinister rumor aspersit, brevi scripto elucidem, quae potissimum fidei videantur adversari catholicae. Et primum quidem ut puto probe faciam si promte expediam, quia me talium rerum veritas non lateat: alterum vero, ut hominem orbi Latino merito scientiae notissimum, diuque vita et invidia defunctum, in ius vocem, altius est quam vires meae spirare audeant. Nam et ego sponte refugio summorum virorum laboribus insidiari, quia, ut quidam ait, Improbe facit qui in alieno libra ingeniosus est. Quapropter pene fuit ut iussis tam imperiosis essem contrarius, nisi iamdudum constitisset animo, quod vobis in omnibus deferrem, ut parenti gratissimo, in his etiam quae onerarent frontem, quae essent pudoris mei periculo.

Ioannes igitur cognomento Scottus opinantes quod eius gentis fuerit indigena, erroris ipse arguit, qui se Heruligenam in titulo Hierarchiae inscribit. Fuit autem gens Herulorum quondam potentissima in Pannonia, quam a Longobardis pene deletam eorundem prodit historia. Hic,^[7] relicta patria, Franciam ad Carolum Calvum venit, a quo magna dignatione susceptus, familiarium partium habebatur; transigebatque cum eo (ut alias dixi^[8]) tam seria quam ioca, individuusque comes tam mensae quam^[9] cubiculi erat: nec^[10] unquam inter eos fuit dissidium, quia miraculo scientiae eius rex captus, adversus magistrum quamvis ira praeproperum, nec dicto insurgere vellet. Regis ergo rogatu Hierarchiam Dionysii de Graeco in Latinum de verbo verbum^[11] transtulit: quo fit ut vix intelligatur Latina^[12], quae volubilitate magis Graeca quam positione construitur nostra,^[13] composuit et^[14] librum quem περί φίσεων μερισμού,^[15] id est, de naturae divisione, titulavit propter quarundam perplexarum quaestionum solutionem^[16] bene utilem si tamen ignoscatur ei in quibusdam,^[17] quibus^[18] a Latinorum tramite deviavit, dum in Graecos nimium^[19] oculos intendit.^[20] Fuit multae lectionis et curiosae, acris sed inelegantis, ut dixi, ad interpretandum scientiae; quod eum (ut verbis Anastasii Romanae ecclesiae bibliothecarii loquar) non egisse aliam ob causam existimo, nisi quia, cum esset humilis spiritu, non praesumsit verbi proprietatena deserere, ne aliquo modo a sensus veritate decideret. Doctus ad invidiam, ut Graecorum pedissequus, qui multa quae non recipiant aures Latinae, libris suis asperserit: quae non ignorans quam invidiosa lectoribus essent, vel sub persona collocutoris sui, vel sub pallio Graecorum occulebat. Quapropter^[21] et haereticus putatus est, et scripsit^[22] contra eum quidam Florus. Sunt enim^[23] in libro περὶ φύσεων^[24] perplurima quae multorum aestimatione,^[25] a fide catholica^[26] exorbitare^[27] videantur. Huius opinionis^[28] cognoscitur fuisse^[29] Nicolaus papa, qui ait in epistola ad Carolum, Relatum est apostolatui nostro quod opus beati Dionysii Areopagitae, quod de divinis nominibus vel coelestibus ordinibus, Graeco descripsit eloquio, quidam^[30] vester Iohannes genere Scottus nuper in Latinum transtulerit; quod iuxta morem nobis mitti, et nostro debuit iudicio^[31] approbari, praesertim cum idem Ioannes, licet multae scientiae esse praedicetur, olim non sane sapere in quibusdam frequenti rumore diceretur.^[32] Itaque^[33] quod hactenus omissum est, vestra industria suppleat, et nobis praefatum opus sine ulla cunctatione mittat. Propter hanc ergo infamiam, ut^[34] credo, taeduit eum Franciae, venitque Angliam^[35] ad regem Aelfredum, cuius munificentia illectus, et magisterio eius, ut ex scriptis eius^[36] intellexi, sublimis, Malmesburiae^[37] resedit. Ubi post aliquot annos a pueris quos docebat, graphiis perfossus,^[38] animam exuit tormento gravi et acerbo; ut dum iniquitas valida et manus infirma saepe frustraretur, et saepe impeteret, amaram mortem obiret. Iacuit aliquandiu^[39] in ecclesia illa,^[40] quae fuerat infandae caedis conscia; sed ubi divinus favor multis noctibus super eum lucem indulsit igneam, admoniti monachi in maiorem eum^[41] transtulerunt ecclesiam, et ad sinistram altaris positum,^[42] his praedicaverunt versibus martyrem:^[43]

Conditus hoc^[44] tumulo, sanctus sophista Ioannes,
Qui ditatus erat vivens iam^[45] dogmate miro,
Martyrio tandem meruit conscendere coelum,
Quo semper regnant cuncti per secula sancti.^[46]

Sed et Anastasius de insigni sanctitate adhuc viventem collaudat his verbis ad Carolum.

[Here follows an extract from Anastasius the librarian, to which William adds:]

Alternant ergo de laudibus eius et infamia diversa scripta, quamvis iampridem laudes praeponderaverint. Tantum artifici valuit eloquentia ut magisterio eius manus dederit omnis Gallia. Verum si qui maiorem audaciam anhelant, ut synodus quae tempore Nicolai papae secundi Turonis congregata est, non in eum sed in scripta eius duriorem sententiam praecipitant. Sunt ergo haec fere quae controversiam pariunt.

5. This is the account of John Scotus's end which was received throughout the middle ages. The little that Vincent of Beauvais, to take but a single instance, says about him, is all derived, including the epitaph, through the channel of Helinand, from William of Malmesbury. William has, in common with Asser, just three points, (a) that John was a learned man, (b) that he was invited from Gaul by king Alfred, and (c) that he taught in England; in other words exactly what Asser relates about John the companion of Grimbald, with the exception of the notice that he was priest and monk: it has nothing corresponding to what he says of John the Saxon. Apart from the question of nationality, the latter was made abbat of Athelney, and his life was attempted by the servants of two Gaulish brethren of the monastery; whereas John the Scot, according to William of Malmesbury, went not to Athelney but to Malmesbury; he was not abbat, simply a teacher; was not wounded at the instigation of monks, but was actually killed by the boys whom he taught. The only point in common between the two is the name John.^[47]

6. With the epitaph quoted by William as commemorating this sanctus sophista loannes, we may connect a notice c Hist univ which is contained in a chronicle referred to by du Boulay Pans. 2. 443. ag fa e Historia a Roberto Rege ad Mortem Philippi I:

In dialectica hi potentes extiterunt sophistae, loannes qui eandem artem sophisticam vocalem esse disseruit, Robertus Parisiacensis, Eocelinus Compendiensis, Arnulphus Laudunensis. Hi loannis fuerunt sectatores qui etiam quamplure habuerunt auditores.

M. Hauréau rejects the comparison with the Malmesbury inscription, but he is in the meshes of the old snare about John the Saxon. His caution in refusing to apply the inscription as a help to explain the Paris chronicle will be respected; but when he urges on other grounds that the Johannes 'sophista' of the latter is identical with John Scotus, we are entitled to use this conversely as evidence for the credibility of William of Malmesbury's account. M. Hauréau's identification has since received powerful support from the arguments of Dr. von Prantl;^[48] and if their conclusion be accepted, it is surely reasonable to claim this John Scotus 'the Sophist' as the same person with his contemporary John the Sophist, whose epitaph William records; especially when the latter, no doubt repeating an old tradition of the monastery, expressly identifies this sophist with the Scot.^[49] The extract in du Boulay is therefore a piece of evidence that converges with those in the preceding paragraphs to one centre. We may or may not believe all that William says, but this we may affirm, that his narrative is self-consistent and intelligible, and that it is incompatible with, and contradictory to, the whole concoction with which the false Ingulf has entrapped our modern critics.^[50]

7. Mabillon and others have objected that John Scotus could hardly have visited England so late as after the year 880. But there is no reason, because he is known to have gone to France before 847, to conclude that he must have been born before 815. We may fairly presume that the young Scot came to the Frankish court when he was between twenty and thirty: he can hardly have been born much later than 825, but he may have been born as early as 815. But even should we accept an earlier date for John's birth, it does not follow as a matter of course that 'since, according to Asser's account, he must have gone to England as late as 884, he must have been called by Alfred at an age when one can look forward to little or no future activity as a teacher,' and when he could hardly have had much inclination to change his country and enter upon new surroundings. Setting aside the fact that Asser's notice, if indeed it refers to John Scotus, is not placed under any particular date, it is evident that one cannot assert the impossibility of a man's working power lasting until or beyond his seventieth year. At the same time there is no positive ground for excluding the alternative date for John Scotus's birth, which would make him fifty-three in 878 or fifty-nine in 884.

8. Another question arises about John's ecclesiastical position. Here we must note that William of Malmesbury makes no mention of him as anything but a plain teacher. It is true that Staudenmaier, whose conclusion on this head is repeated by the ^[51]later biographers, insists that William's John was abbat; but the only reason he can give is that the historian relates the destruction of John's tomb in connexion with Warin de Liro's sacrilegious treatment of past abbats of Malmesbury. The passage is as follows:

Huic [Turoldo] substitutus est Warinus de Lira monachus. ... Is, cum primum ad abbatiam venit, antecessorum facta parvipendens, tipo quodam et nausia sanctorum corporum ferebatur. Ossa denique sanctae memoriae Meildulfi et cete- rorum qui, olim ibi abbates posteaque in pluribus locis antis- tites, ob reverentiam patroni sui Aldhelmi se in loco tumulatum iri iussissent, quos antiquitas veneranda in duobus lapideis crateris ex utraque parte altaris, dispositis inter cuiusque ossa ligneis intervallis, reverenter statuerat; haec, inquam, omnia pariter conglobata, velut acervum ruderum, velut reliquias vilium mancipiorum, ecclesiae foribus alienavit. Et ne quid impudentiae deesset, etiam sanctum Iohannem Scottum, quem pene pari quo sanctum Aldhelmum veneratione monachi cole- bant, extulit. Hos igitur omnes in extreme angulo basilicae sancti Michahelis, quam ipse dilatari et exaltari iusserat, inconsiderate occuli lapidibusque praecludi praecepit.

Reading this extract carefully, it should appear that we have just as much right to infer that William is carefully distinguishing between John and the abbats, as that he intends to identify them. It was Ingulf who first made John Scotus an abbat.

Returning then to the John, the companion of Grimbald, in the narrative of Asser, we find him described as 'priest and monk.' Now all we know about John Scotus's clerical position from contemporary evidence is negative. Prudentius of Troyes, indeed, ridicules him for setting himself up as a disputant in a grave controversy, being barbarum et nullis ecclesiasticae dignitatis gradibus insignitum. But it is plain that his not holding any rank in the church, which is all the words need mean, does not involve the consequence that John was not ordained. Abailard, for instance, had, in all probability, only minor orders until he was in middle life; yet he afterwards was appointed abbat. It is no doubt the fact that John is never styled 'priest' or 'monk' by any of his opponents: nor does he ever describe himself as such, after the prevailing fashion, in his writings. But the latter circumstance, at least, has a very natural explanation: he desired to rank as a philosopher, not as a priest. This is indeed, as Dr. Reuter observes, a salient characteristic of his position in the history of Christian thought; and it would be readily accepted by his enemies as a confirmation of their judgement that he was a heretic. We are not to expect that, they would signalise, if they were aware of, his priestly calling.

9. On the other hand, it is a mistake to infer from the title of martyr, as to which even William of Malmesbury, in one of his accounts, expressed a doubt, an identification with another John Scotus, who held a place in the martyrologies, at least in England and France, until 1586, when I presume it was discovered that the philosopher was unqualified for the dignity.^[52] It is strange that Staudenmaier and others who repeat the statement not observed Mabillon's refutation of it. There is no doubt that the martyr who was ommemorated on the 14th of November was John Scotus, bishop of Mecklenburg, who was killed on that day in 1066.^[53]

10. Milman attempts to select from the various opinions with regard to John Scotus's retirement into England. He thinks (a) that John fled into England under the denunciation of the church and the pope, apparently following William of Malmesbury, here disregarding the long interval between John's participation in the Gottschalk controversy and the earliest possible date for his withdrawal from France; (b) 'he is said to have taken refuge in Alfred's new university of Oxford.' In a note we read that 'the account of his death is borrowed by Matthew of Westminster from that of a later John the Saxon, who was stabbed by some monks in a quarrel,' which statement is evidently taken directly from Guizot's Cour d'Histoire moderne, 3. 174 sq. (1829). 'The flight to England,' adds Milman, 'does not depend on the truth of that story.' The writer known as Matthew of Westminster however did not borrow his story about John Scotus's death from an account of a later John the Saxon, but took his matter directly from William of Malmesbury.^[54] Besides, we have already seen the entire dissimilarity of the stories about John Scotus and John the Saxon.

11. In conclusion, if Asser intends to distinguish John the Old Saxon, the abbat of Athelney, from John the companion of Grimbald, it is possible that the latter is John Scotus. William of Malmesbury may have drawn a fact or two from what is said about the latter, but his account is altogether irreconcileable with the notice of the Old Saxon. It is the combination of the two persons mentioned by Asser, derived from the spurious authority of Ingulf, that has misled the modern critics, and induced most of them to discredit the narrative of William of Malmesbury, as though it depended upon that late forgery. William's account may therefore be judged by itself, and accepted or rejected just as we may rate the historian's general credibility: there is no reason for excluding these particular passages from that respect which those scholars who know William best are ready to pay to his honest, conscientious labours.^[55]

1. [Since this book was first published William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum has been reëdited by bishop Stubbs, 1889, and Asser's Life of King Alfred by Mr. W. H. Stevenson, Oxford, 1904.]
2. n
3. [Bishop Stubbs, pref. to William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum, 2 p. xlv., gives evidence to show that Grimbald came to England from Flanders not earlier than 892; but Mr. Stevenson, Asser 308 sq., points out that Grimbald was not an uncommon name at his monastery of Saint Bertin, so that it is not certain that the two persons are the same.]
4. Ealdsaxo means a Saxon of continental Saxony as distinguished from a Saxon of England. Gregory the Second, when recommending saint Boniface to his future converts, addressed the letter 'universo populo provinciae Altsaxonum,' Jaffé, Biblioth. Rer. Germ. 3. 81; and Asser himself elsewhere mentions 'regionem antiquorum Saxonum quod Saxonice dicitur Ealdseaxum,' p. 484 A.
5. The passage is not reprinted in the edition of Simeon in the Monumenta historica Britannica: see vol. i. 684 note b. It may be read in Twysden's Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores decem 148 sq., 1652 folio [and in T. Arnold's edition of Simeon's Works, 2. 115-117; 1885]. On the character of the Second Chronicle see the preface to the Monumenta, p. 88, and Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, 2. 174 sqq.
6. [It is also found in the Royal MS. append. 85 f. 25 b in the British Museum, which was written in the eleventh or twelfth century and is certainly not autograph, as is asserted in the index to Hamilton's edition of the Gesta pontificum, 531 b. In the first edition of this book I printed a collation of this manuscript, but the text has since been published from it by Stubbs in his preface to the Gesta regum, 1. pp. cxliii-cxlvi.]
7. At this point the other narratives begin. The following is the text of the Gesta pontificum with which I collate that of the Gesta regum: Huius tempore venit Angliam [G R Hoc tempore creditur fuisse] Iohannes Scottus, vir perspicacis ingenii et multae facundiae, qui dudum relicta patria [G R dudum increpantibus undique bellorum fragoribus in] Frantiam ad Karolum Calvum transierat. A quo magna, &c. The Gesta regum proceeds at once to the sentence beginning in the text of the Epistle with the words Regis ergo [G R cuius: G P Caroli ergo] rogatu.
8. G P omit ut alias dixi.
9. G P et mensae et.
10. The rest of this sentence is wanting in the Gesta pontificum, which contain instead the famous stories about the Scot and the sot, and the little fishes and the fat clerks.
11. G R and G P Dionysii Areopagitae in Latinum de Graeco, verbum e verbo.
12. G P add littera.
13. G R omit quo fit to nostra.
14. G R and G P etiam.
15. G P Perifision merimnoi.
16. G R propter perplexitatem necessariarum quaestionum solvendam; G P propter perplexitatem quarundam quaestionum solvendam.
17. G R aliquibus.
18. G R prefix in.
19. G R and G P acriter.
20. After intendit the Gesta regum go on directly with Succedentibus annis munificentia Elfredi allectus, venit Angliam, et apud monasterium nostrum a pueris quos docebat graphiis, ut fertur, perforatus, etiam martyr aestimatus est: quod sub ambiguo ad iniuriam sanctae animae non dixerim, cum celebrem eius memoriam sepulchrum in sinistro latere altaris et epitophii prodant versus, scabri quidem et moderni temporis lima carentes, sed ab antiquo non adeo deformes. The verses follow. The Gesta pontificum omit the passage Fuit multae to occulebat, but from that point agree closely with the text of the Epistola.
21. G P quare.
22. For et scripsit, G P scripsitque.
23. After enim G P insert revera.
24. G P perifision.
25. For multorum aestimatione, G P nisi diligenter discutiantur.
26. G P catholicorum.
27. G P abhorrentia.
28. G P insert particeps.
29. G P fuisse cognoscitur.
30. So G P as quoted by Gale: Hamilton's edition by error has quidem.
31. G P iuditio debuit.
32. G P dicatur.
33. G P omit this sentence.
34. G P omit ut.
35. G P omit Angliam.
36. G P regis.
37. G P Melduni.
38. G P foratus.
39. G P here insert inhonora sepultura.
40. G P in beati Laurentii ecclesia.
41. For in maiorem eum, G P eum in maiorem. [In the archetype of G P, preserved at Magdalen College, Oxford, cod. 172 p. 185, eum is inserted above the line.]
42. G P ponentes [in the Magdalen MS. corrected from positum].
43. For his praedicaverunt versibus martyrem, G P his martirium eius versibus praedicaverunt.
44. G P Conditur hoc; G R Clauditur in.
45. G R and G P iam vivens.
46. The last two lines are in the Gesta regum as follow:
    Martyrio tandem Christi conscendere regnum
    Quo, meruit, regnant sancti per secula cuncti.
    In the Gesta pontificum:
    Martyrio tandem Christi conscendere regnum
    Quo, meruit, regnant cuncti per secula sancti.
    Here the two narratives end, so far as the Scot is concerned.
47. [Mr. Stevenson observes, intr. to Asser, p. cxii. n. 2, that bishop Stubbs has, by one of his rare lapses, confounded Malmesbury’s account of John the Scot with that of John the Old Saxon in the Life’ by Asser ; but he has not detected the source of this confusion in Ingulf.]
48. I have since read the objections of Dr. Deutsch, Peter Abälard 100 n. 3, which, though undoubtedly of weight, appear to me to depend too much upon considerations as to the character and contents of a chronicle which we know in fact only through du Boulay.
49. [See however Mr. Stevenson's note to Asser, 335, where the sophist is identified with 'Johannes se wisa,' whose burial at Malmesbury seems to be recorded later than 1020.]
50. [Most of the foreign scholars who have discussed this subject have ignorantly treated Ingulf as a genuine authority: so Gfrörer 3, 938, and the biographers of John Scotus, Staudenmaier i. 120, 137, 140, Huber 115 sq., Christlieb 51. In the first edition of this book I dealt at some length with their various criticisms.]
51. g
52. Thus in André du Saussay's Martyrologium Gallicanum, the name (which is given as tempore Caroli Calvi) is relegated to the appendix, vol. 2. 1226, Paris 1637, folio.
53. It is curious to notice that Trittenheim dichotomises the Scot. According to him, De Scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, 119 sq., ed. Cologne 1546, quarto, 'Iohannes dictus Erigena' translated the 'Hierarchiam et libros Dionysii' with commentaries, 'et quaedam alia.' 'Johannes Scotus,' on the other hand, p. 115, was a pupil of Bede and a comrade of Alcuin; to him is due the exposition of saint Matthew, 'one book' [sic] De divisione naturae, and another book, De officiis humanis; 'alia quoque multa composuit,' adds Trittenheim, 'quae ad notitiam meam non venerunt.
54. Why do Milman and Haureau, Histoire de la Philosophie scolastique 1. 151, and so many others, refer to the so-called Matthew for facts which he only states at second or third hand?
55. 'A steady attempt,' says Stubbs in his preface to the Gesta regum, 1 p. x, 'to realise the position of the man and the book has had, in the case of the present Editor, the result of greatly enhancing his appreciation of both.'