Michael the Scot (c. 1175-1234),
"wondrous wizard, of dreaded fame," was another agent
of the Arab influence. He received his education perhaps
at Oxford, certainly at Paris and Toledo. From manuscripts
obtained at the last place he translated two
abstracts of the Historia animalium, and some commentaries
of Averroes on Aristotle (1215-30).[1] A third
pilgrim from these islands, Alfred the Englishman, also
made use of Arabic versions; and most likely both he
and Michael brought home with them manuscripts from
Toledo and Paris. Of the renderings made by these men
and by some foreign workers in the same field, Friar Bacon
speaks with the utmost contempt. Their writings were
utterly false. They did not know the sciences they dealt
with. The Jews, the Arabs, and the Greeks, who had good
manuscripts, destroyed and corrupted them, rather than let
them fall into the hands of unlettered and ignorant
Christians.[2] Aristotle should be read in the original, he
also says; it would be better if all translations were burnt.
The criticism is acrid; but the men he contemns served
scholarship well by quickening the interest in Greek books,
and they succeeded so well because they gave to the
schoolmen not only versions of Aristotle's text, but
commentaries and elucidations written by Arabs and
Jews who had carefully studied the text, and could
explain the meaning of obscure passages in it.
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