Welcome to the Michael Scot Research Trust: This site is intended to promote research and discussion about the life and works of Michael Scot. All suggestions welcome.

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• Scot’s Life
  Little is known about the life of Michael the Scot, now more usually known as Michael Scot.   He is often reputed to have been  born in the Scottish Borders around 1175, however the evidence for that is slender.  He is also reported, on equally slim evidence,  to have studied at the universities of Oxford, Paris and Toledo.
  At Toledo, he is said to acquired the knowledge of Arabic learning and language to allow him to become of the foremost figures in the medieval western recovery of the Greek intellectual heritage.
  After holding a series of ecclesiastical posts in Italy, he was appointed official court astrologer to the Emperor Frederick II., where he was concerned with astrology and alchemy, and there is some evidence that he continued to write and lecture on the newly available Aristotelian ideas.

• Scot’s Translations
  Scot’s work as a translator of Greek texts from the Arabic was seminal in western European intellectual history. Among his chief translations are -
• Al-bitruji’s In astrologia, completed in Toledo in 1217. On the motion of the planets.
• Aristotle’s De animalibus, completed at Toledo before 1220. Preserved in more than 60 medieval manuscripts.
• Ibn Sina’s De animalibus or Abbreviatio de animalibus, presented to Frederick II in 1232. Part of the philosophical encyclopedia, Shifa.
• Ibn Rushd’s Great Commentary on the De Caelo, with Aristotle’s full text.

• Scot’s Original Writings
  Scot’s own writings on astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences form a trilogy, Liber introductorius, Liber particularis and Physionomia (De secretis nature), all presented to Frederick in 1228, though not completed.
• Liber introductorius - compendium of astrological, scientific and general knowledge, for ‘beginners’
• Liber particularis - a more advanced treatment of the same topics, using Aristotle and Isidore of Seville extensively.
• Physionomia (De secretis nature)- detailed treatise on human anatomy, physiology and reproduction, along with some zoology.

• Scot as scientist
  While Scot worked within a very different theological and cultural framework from modern science, his work can be seen as critical in the medieval development of scientific, particularly using Aristotle as a model.

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