Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scot

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Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scot

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Scott, “the Wizard of the North”, is credited variously as Scotland’s first scientist, alchemist, sorcerer and astronomer. He is also one of Scotland’s forgotten geniuses. Who is the man behind the myth?

Philip Coppens

Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scot has a very fascinating history. I believe a little bit of background is important as to how I became acquainted with Sir Wizard Lord. He is one of my ancestors. Here is how I found him and then I will share his history.

My Name is Scott H. Hendricks. For the past forty plus years, I have been pursuing our family history. In this search I got stymied at my 3rd great-grandfather, Rev. Joseph Washington Henderson. Once I found his home county in Pennsylvania, I found a wealth of well researched information taking the family back to Scotland. I kept working at the Scottish line and got to William Henderson b. 1520 Fife, Scotland d. 10 Sep 1547 Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland married to Elizabeth Scott. She was the daughter of Alexander 2nd Laird Fingask Scott, whose ancestry was well documented back to Uchtredus Filius Scoti (aka: Uchtredus Filius Duncan Scot) b. 1090. I was captivated by his grandson's name, Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scott.

Doing a relationship calculation, it appear that Michael was my 23rd great-grandfather. My current and ancestral families have always been dreamers and very creative people. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons I feel a kinship to twenty-third great-granddad Michael. Michael can be found on several Esoteric Websites and I have run across several comments stating that he was the basis for J.R.R. Tolkien’s character, Gandalf the Grey. I am not willing to go that far, to say that I know what was in Tolkien’s mind at the time of writing the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Needless to say as an author and historian, I had to find out more about this character called "the Scottish Wizard", "The White Wizard" & "The Wizard of the North."

The Michael Confusion

There are some sources who have Sir Michael “Wizard” mixed up with his great-grandson, Sir Michael Scott born in the year 1255 Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, died in the year 1304 Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. Others have Sir Michael “Wizard” being born of the parents Michael Sir Lord Balwearie Scot and Margaret of Balwearie Balwearie in the year 1255. The history of Sir Michael “Wizard” is confirmed by people he associated with and who knighted him and other records. For example above: He associated himself with Frederick II in Sicily, and Scott had a very famous student: Leonardo Fibonacci, the author of “Liber abaci” (Book of the Abacus - 1202). A Sir Michael Scott swore fealty to Edward I. of England in 1296. It would be problematic if we surmise he lived past the age of one-hundred twenty-five. Sir Michael “Wizard” had a grandson Michael born of Sir Michael and Margaret of Balwearie. I have learned when confusion of dates abounds, go with known associations. All the known associates of Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scot were living prior to 1232 and therefore, the "Scottish Wizard" would have to be the grandson of Uchtredus Filius Duncan Scot (1090 - 1130), the first known Scot of the Clan Scot(t)

The following is what I found to be factually incorrect leading to the "Michael Confussion"!

Scott, “the Wizard of the North”, is credited variously as Scotland’s first scientist, alchemist, sorcerer and astronomer. He is also one of Scotland’s forgotten geniuses. He was also called the Scottish Wizard and the White Wizard. He was the son of Michael Sir Lord Balwearie Scot and Margaret Balwearie. He was born in the year 1175 in the community Dumfries, Dumfries-shire, Scotland and died in the year 1232 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. During his life he was mostly an expatriate of Scotland, a true world traveler. Ancestry of Michael Sir “Wizard” Lord Scott and of the Name Scot(t) Here is one account of Sir Wizard Lord Scot history at ElectricScotland.com It appears they have the lineage correct but have the wrong Michael as the Sir Wizard Lord Scot.

SCOTT, originally Scot, a surname conjectured to have been at first assumed by, or conferred on, a native of Scotland, and afterwards adopted as a surname, when surnames became in use. Uchtredus filius Scoti, that is, Uchtred, the son of a Scot, is witness to an inquisition respecting possessions of the church of Glasgow in the reign of Alexander I. (1107-1124); also to the foundation charter of the abbey of Holyrood by David I. in 1128, as is also Herbert Scot, and to that of the abbacy of Selkirk in 1130. He was called Uchtredus filius Scoti, to distinguish him from others of the same Christian name, probably Saxons or Normans. His son, Richard, called Richard le Scot, is witness to a charter of Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, founder of the priory of that place, who died in 1158. Others bearing this surname, living in that and the following century, are mentioned by Douglas and Nisbet as occurring in old charters. John Scott was bishop of Dunkeld from 1200 to 1203, and Matthew Scott, bishop of Dunkeld, held the office of chancellor of Scotland from 1227 to 1231.

The above-mentioned Richard le Scot is said to have had two sons, Richard, whose name appears in the Ragman Roll as Richard le Scot de Murthockston, and Michael. The former was ancestor of the Scotts of Murdockstone, of whom came the Buccleuch family, and the latter was progenitor of the Scotts of Balwearie in Fifeshire, now represented by the Scotts of Ancrum, baronets.

The younger son, Sir Michael Scott, was possessed of a considerable estate in Fifeshire in the reign of William the Lion. From the chartulary of Dunfermline, it is ascertained that he married Margaret, daughter of Duncan Syras of Syras, and obtained with her the lands of Ceres. He had a son, Duncan, who succeeded him and who had two sons, the younger of whom was named Gilbert. The elder son, Sir Michael Scott, was knighted by Alexander II., and was one of the assize upon a perambulation of the marches between the monastery of Dunfermline and the lands of Dundaff in 1231. By his wife, Margaret, daughter and sole heiress of Sir Richard Balwearie of Balwearie, he got that estate in the parish of Abbotshall. He had a son, Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie and Scotscraig, the famous wizard, of whom a memoir is given below. In the Ragman Roll is the name of Michael Scott, one of the Scottish barons who swore fealty to Edward I. of England in 1296, said to have been this learned personage. He had two sons: Sir Henry, and Duncan Scott, proprietor of lands in Forfarshire, and progenitor of the Scotts in the North.

Here is the correct history of Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scott

Actually the real Michael Scott is a good deal less exotic, though he was clearly a remarkable man. Very little is known about him personally, although much has been conjectured. It is thought that he was born in the Borders, possibly about 1175, and that at some stage he lived in Aikwood Tower near Selkirk, at present inhabited by Sir David and Lady Steel. Whether or not he did come from the Tweed valley, as tradition insists, is not known, but he does at least appear to have come from Scotland. Such evidence as there is comes from Roger Bacon and Bonatti who refer to 'Michael(us) Scotus', which could either mean Michael from Scotland, or Michael Scott, the cognomen Scott indicating that he was part of the large Border clan. We shall never know. It is asserted by Leland that Michael came from the territory of Durham. This may be true: the see of Durham encompassed much of the Borders, and its school was well known. Michael may possibly have studied there.

He may also have gone to Oxford University and from there to Paris, where he appears to have obtained the prefix 'Master', pronounced in old Scots, 'Maister'. To be a Master meant not only to have passed both the examinations for the 'Trivium', being grammar, logic and rhetoric, and the 'Quadrivium', being the mathematical sciences of music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, but to be of sufficient standing to be allowed to teach those subjects at a university. Although his title has now degenerated to a post-graduate student's M.A., in his time it was possibly equivalent to a present day professor.

It is not known how Michael came to Palermo to work for Frederick II, King of Sicily. Perhaps he had studied or taught in Italy and came to Frederick's tutors' notice, but in any event he made a wise choice. Frederick was a perfect example of the enlightened mediaeval despot. His grandfather, Frederick I, known as Barbarossa on account of his red beard, held sway as Holy Roman Emperor over most of Europe from Denmark to Italy.

His father, Henry, married the Norman heiress, Constance of Sicily, but dying young, Frederick I became King of Sicily at the age of four. By 1215 his own military and political skills were such that, like his grandfather, he became Holy Roman Emperor. To the disgust of more bloodthirsty crusaders, he became King of Jerusalem by diplomacy rather than force, but most of his life was spent quelling revolts amongst his subjects and fighting off various Popes' territorial ambitions.

Despite these political distractions, he managed to find time to found Naples University and Salerno medical school, write poetry and learn to speak his subjects' many languages. He drew up codes of law; he tolerated and indeed encouraged Jews and Muslims in his lands; he initiated a limited form of parliamentary democracy and encouraged free trade. He conducted scientific experiments, the most notorious being the dissection of live captives in order to see how their digestion worked. On a less savage note, he had some children brought up without anyone speaking to them at all: he wanted to see how or indeed if they learnt to communicate. Sicily itself was a multiracial melting pot. There were Greek speaking communities dating from the Greek colonisation of the island over a millennium earlier; there were Moors; there had been Phoenicians and Romans; and there were Normans who in turn were descended from the Vikings. Sicily was then a prosperous country, and Frederick made the most of his position, not least by adopting the pleasant Eastern practice of having a harem. Into this fascinating cultural mix arrived Michael, possibly as a tutor, and certainly as court astrologer, for the young Frederick. The main evidence for this, such as it is, comes from the wording of the dedications of certain of Michael's books to Frederick. Alternatively, in those days, it may just have been prudent to dedicate any book to your patron. In any event, one of Michael's early works was the 'Astronomia', a textbook for astronomy designed for students studying for the relevant part of the Quadrivium. Incidently although the academic study of astronomy/astrology lapsed in Western universities after the Middle Ages, in the Middle East it was long retained; the future Ayatollah Khomeini studied astrology as part of his university education. Although nowadays astrologer and astronomer are two different animals, in the Middle Ages they were not. The two were virtually synonymous. What would be the point of being able to measure the movement of the stars were one not to prognosticate from them? Astronomy was considered the highest part of the Quadrivium, and given the general high level of understanding of astrology in the Middle Ages, the position of court astronomer/astrologer was probably very significant.

In 1209 Frederick married and about this time Michael may have produced his 'Physionomia'. Briefly this is an account of human and animal reproduction as then understood, followed by an examination of how an individual's nature may be discerned from each part of the body. Much of the text is derived from Arabic and Egyptian authors, and it was extremely successful, many copies being made. Many years later it was printed and was still in print in 1660.

Following Frederick's marriage, plague broke out in Palermo: the royal court fled east. Michael instead went to Toledo in Spain. Toledo was a centre for scholarship and resembled Sicily in that there was a long tradition of Jewish and Moorish settlers and students. Arabic, which Michael presumably had learnt in Sicily, was commonly spoken in Toledo, where there was a well-known school of translation. At that time, the Moors were the only ones who had preserved the Ancient Greeks' writings, and many of the Moors' medical, mathematical and philosophical works were enthusiastically being translated into Latin. Michael appears to have been working in Toledo from 1210 onwards, and to have maintained his links with Frederick. Frederick kept a private zoo to house all the came leopards , elephants, cockatoos and other creatures which were given to him as gifts, for he apparently was much interested in birds and animals. It was therefore appropriate that Michael should have translated for him, amongst other things, the works of Avicenna, the leading Arabic natural historian and philosopher.

In 1200 the great Scottish Wizard Michael Scott was to have imprisoned "the Plague" in the dungeons of Glenluce Abbey, thus starving it to death. Like other abbeys it housed about 15 monks and many lay brethren. Glenluce Abbey founded in 1190 by the Roland, Lord of Galloway, was a Cistercian Abbey. It is a sister house to Dundrennan whose monks were sent to house Glenluce Abbey. Like many of the abbeys today in the region it is a ruin, however the Chapter House ( from the 1500's) has been preserved in the 1990's to give the visitor an idea of what it was like. At the Reformation those monks who embraced the new faith were allowed to stay. The site was then turned into a house and late a church manse, until 1933 when it became the property of the State and now Historic Scotland.

GlenLuce Abbey - Ruins

Glenluce Abbey and Lands

Glenluce Abbey Historical Information and Artist Drawing

Stone Marker of Sealed Plague at Glenluce Abbey

Over the next few years, Michael appears to have devoted his mathematical skills to the study of astronomy and alchemy. Although Copernicus had yet to make his famous discoveries, astronomers had begun to notice that Ptolemy had not quite explained the movement of the heavens. Michael was one of those who translated the latest research into astronomy. As for the alchemy, although there is nowadays, particularly in esoteric circles, a great fondness for the philosophical implications of mediaeval alchemy, one must never forget that the primary motivation for alchemy was economic. The person who could transmute base metal into gold was onto a winner. Michael has some wonderful recipes involving a host of extravagant and inaccessible ingredients, which, for all we know, probably did produce a substance that looked, felt and behaved like gold. No doubt it had an annoying tendency to tarnish or disintegrate, unlike real gold, but out of his and others' labours arose the science of chemistry. It is possibly Michael's alchemical experiments, that presumably required propitious timing to accord with the movements of the planets in the heavens, that gave rise to Michael's purported association with magic.

Michael's great labour was the translation of works of the Moorish philosopher, ~ Averroes of Cordova. Averroes had devoted many years to the study of Aristotle, which ensured him a favourable reception amongst both Christians and Muslims; from there he had developed certain Manichean tendencies which were not so well received. Indeed, the Muslim orthodox condemned him to exile, while the Council of Paris in 1209 had indicated that any leanings towards Manichaeism, particularly as practised by the Albigensians, were not to be approved. At the time of Michael's translation, Pope Innocent III and his henchman, Simon de Montfort, were conducting a crusade against the Albigensians of Provence. Frederick's father-in-law died in battle while supporting one of the Albigensians' rulers, Count Raymond of Toulouse, and accordingly Frederick II was well disposed towards Averroes and at odds with the Pope. One might think that Frederick then had nothing to lose by encouraging Michael's translation. Nonetheless, for all Frederick's blessing, the book was such a political and philosophical hot potato that many years were to lapse before Frederick felt confident enough to have it published. One wonders what Michael may have felt about this.

Having finished the translation, Michael returned to Palermo in about 1220 to resume his profession of astrologer and scientist. He seems to have continued his mathematical studies because in reply to comments made by Michael, a Pisan merchant dedicated the second edition of his book on the Abacus to Michael as a tribute to Michael's learning. Michael also became a physician, not least because in those days one of the principal diagnostic tools was the astrologer's examination of the patient's urine: the time of arrival of the urine was treated rather as a decumbiture chart. He also prepared simples for the cure of various ailments and won great fame for his treatments.

With Michael's increasing reputation, and with a change of Pope, Frederick tried to engineer for his protege some senior clerical appointment. It is likely that Michael had been in holy orders since his university days. Attempts were made to find him a see in England: his native Scotland was probably out of the question as only four years earlier it had been relieved from an interdict and no doubt anti-papal feeling was still running high. Instead Michael was offered the Archbishopric of Cashel in Ireland but declined it on the grounds that he could not speak Irish Gaelic.

Preferment never in the end came his way: notoriety did instead. At this stage in his life, Michael seems to have taken on the mantle of a prophet, foretelling in verse, rather in the manner of Nostradamus, the fate of certain Italian cities. He also became a famous man of letters, travelling from university to university, no doubt a wearing business in those days of difficult travel and poor communications. It is said that as part of his travels he came back to Britain and that he was either in Scotland or the north of England when he died, some time in the early 1230s. Various Cistercian abbeys, including Melrose, claim the honour of being his burial place, but according to Sir Walter Scott, in 1629 a visitor to the parish church of Burgh under Bowness was shown a tomb, held in great reverence by the local population, which was supposed to be Michael's.

After his death, legends about his skill arose. He became a sort of Merlin to the admittedly Arthurian figure of Frederick II, and features in Boccaccio's Decameron as a famous sorcerer) but Dante, who had no time for fortune-tellers, placed him firmly in the Inferno. Michael is supposed to have a 'Book of Might', a necromantic book of spells, which was interred with him. The 'Book of Might' of which Sir Walter Scott makes so much, may well merely have been a treatise on geometry or algebra. Any book with strange symbols, Arabic numerals and non-Roman script may have seemed more sinister than it actually was. Michael is also supposed to have had a familiar who needed employment to keep him out of mischief. Michael told the familiar to divide Eildon Hill in three, which he did in a single night. However Michael, being a mathematician, expected accuracy in all things, and made the familiar remedy the fact that one of the three peaks is much larger than the other two: accordingly the familiar transferred a spadeful of the largest peak to the lowest, and the spadeful may still be seen on the skyline. Next night Michael told the familiar to stop the flow of the Tweed, and at Ednam, one may see the large basaltic dyke that familiar erected. .Michael, clearly exasperated at the ease with which the familiar performed his tasks, then told the familiar to go and spin ropes of sand at the mouth of the Tweed: and if you cross the bridge at Berwick on Tweed you can see that the familiar is still hard at it as each successive tide washes out his handiwork.

Another happy tale, which Sir Walter Scott relates, involves Michael being sent to Paris as ambassador from the King of Scots. Some French pirates had plundered some Scots ships, and Michael was sent to demand redress. He accordingly opened his Book of Might and read out a spell from it. Immediately his familiar arrived in the shape of a black horse which flew off to Paris with Michael on his back. As they flew over the Channel, the crafty familiar asked Michael what old women commonly said before they went to bed. The astute wizard, realising that the familiar was hoping that he would start repeating the Lord's Prayer, which would give the familiar the chance to heave the wizard off his back, merely replied "What is that to thee? Mount, Diabolus, and fly!" On arrival in Paris, the French king at first refused to see Michael. Michael advised him not give a final refusal until Michael's horse had stamped three times. On the first hoof-stamp, all the bells in Paris rang. At the second, three towers in the palace fell; and just as the horse was about the stamp once more, the king shuffled forward sheepishly and agreed to do whatever the King of Scots wanted.

Agreeable as these stories are, they pale beside the stories of the death of Michael and his employer. Michael predicted the Emperor's death by saying that it would take place ad portas ferras (by gates of iron) in a town names after the goddess Flora. Frederick, not surprisingly, never went near the city of Florence again. However, in 1250, Frederick was campaigning Puglia when he fell sick in a town named Fiorentino. He was taken to the local castle and laid in a bed which stood by a wall recently built in the gateway of a tower. On the wall still stood the iron brackets on which the gates of the tower had been held. The emperor discovered these curious details, and after some thought, apparently said, "This is the place where I shall make an end, as it was told me. The will of God be done, for her I shall die." And soon afterward he did.

Michael's death was also unusual. He had predicted that he would die by a stone falling on his head. He had even calculated the weight of the stone. To prevent this, he had a little steel skullcap made. Nonetheless, in church one day, he removed his hat and skullcap in a reverential moment during the Mass: as he knelt, bareheaded, a stone fell from the tower, dislodged by the tugging of the bellrope during the elevation of the Host, and landing on his head, fatally wounded him.

Clearly Michael was a remarkable man and the accuracy of his predictions - and of course one only hears about the successful ones, the one that came true - suggest that he knew something about astrology that we do not. Michael Scott was the probably the foremost astrologer of his day; his medical diagnoses must have saved many lives; his mundane judgements affected the fate of nations. It is a pity we know so little of him. There is no known record of his own horoscope. But in a world of charlatans and mountebanks, he was a shining beacon for astrology, and a learned and distinguished scholar.

"Every great project in Scotland is said to be the work of William Wallace, the Devil or Michael Scott of Balwearie.” – Sir Walter Scott - (Sir Walter got Michael Sir Wizard Lord Scot mixed up with his great-grandson, Michael of Balwearie.)

References

Compendium studii Vol 1 p.471.London 1859

De Astronomia, Tractatus x, Bale, 1550

Leland published his antiquarian studies in 1549.

L'Anonimo Fiorentino, Comenta alIa Divina Commedia, Bologna, Fanfani 1866- 1874

Liber Introductorius. Bodleian Library

Life and Legend of Michael Scott, Rev. J.Wood Brown, Edinburgh 1897 p.39

Wood Brown Gp. cit. p.57

Liber Abbaci 1228

Wood Brown, Gp. cit. pp.149 -156

Wood Brown, Gp. cit. p.158

Decameron, 9th Novel, 8th day.

La Divina Commedia, Inferno, xx, 115 -117

Pipini in Muratori, 'Rerum Italicarum Scriptores' ix.660 B