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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028980873 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
SOME FACTS AND PROBABILITIES 
 RELATING TO THE HISTORY 
 
 JOHANNES SCOTUS 
 
 SURNAMED DUNS 
 
 AND 
 
 CONCERNING THE GENUINENESS OF THE 
 
 SPAGNOLETTO PORTRAIT 
 
 BELONGING TO THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE SHEA 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 !^nnt^ at tl)e UtterjBittie ^te0^ 
 
 1890 
 
 7^ 
 
j7 75^5^3 
 
 fl qs"? r 
 
 Copyright, 1890, 
 By GEOKGK shea. 
 
" If in what I have written any one find matters other than what is 
 true, let him not blame me for cleaving to what is the true rule of historic 
 narrative, and simply gathering from common fame the facts I have re- 
 solved to record." — Bede's Preface to his Ecclesiastical History. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 In writing the name of John Scotus I omit the 
 famous addition by which he is popularly known ; 
 chiefly because it is not in the inscription on the 
 tomb where his body lies, within the Church of 
 the Minor Friars, in Cologne ; and also because it 
 is probably a descriptive attribute simply indicat- 
 ing his birthplace. Such an indication was com- 
 mon in his time ; as, indeed, throughout the Middle 
 Ages, in Europe. We have specially significant 
 instances in that of his greatest opponent, Thomas 
 of Aquino, and in that of John Scotus, of the ninth 
 century, surnamed Erigena, the Irish-born.^ And 
 so, perhaps, to distinctively mark the Scotus of 
 the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries from the other 
 great scholar-monk, the designation Duns was 
 conveniently adopted. Duns, correctly so written, 
 is, in fact, the name of a locality, not an epithet 
 of personal quality ; and the word itself is Eng- 
 lish.^ The village of Dunum, in Ireland, and of 
 
 ^ Milman's Latin Chris., vol. iv. p. 185 ; Turner's Anglo-Saxons, 
 vol. iii. p. 361. 
 ^ Skeat's Etymological Dictionary. 
 
4 yOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 Dunse, Berwickshire, Scotland, each claim the 
 credit of having been his birthplace. The word- 
 ing of the inscription in the mural slab which 
 formerly marked his grave, " Scotia me genuit," 
 adds nothing for an intelligent decision of the con- 
 tention. The term Scotia would, at that age, as in 
 earlier ages and with truer historic accuracy, apply 
 rather to Ireland than Caledonia.^ It must, I 
 think, be taken as declaring his descent from, and 
 association and sympathy with, as it were the met- 
 ropolitan Scotia, from which maternal source had 
 proceeded into the Pictish country, Northumbria 
 and the Angles-land, those communities of schol- 
 arly and monastic life amid which he was nurtured. 
 It is most probable that he was born in or near to 
 Dunstone, not far from Alnwick, in Northum- 
 berland, England, near the border of Scotland. 
 A local tradition fixes the very spot — the village 
 of Embleton, where stands Dunstan borough Cas- 
 tle, notable for its defense during the War of the 
 Roses. At the close of one of Duns' manu- 
 script volumes, and written in the same hand, a 
 statement has been discovered that he was born 
 at Dunstane ; but this leaves the question where 
 it has been, as to which Dunse, or Dunstone, or 
 Dunum, — for each of these is only a form of the 
 same name. 
 
 ^ " Whose inhabitants then bore the name of Scots." Green's 
 
 Making of England, p. 274. 
 
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yOHANNES SCOTUS. 5 
 
 But he was not in his nature, nor in his bent of 
 intellectual genius, nor habit of mind, an Angli- 
 can ; no more than Erigena himself. He was of 
 the fine, searching, metaphysical, poetic, Celtic 
 spirit; and in his mental and religious develop- 
 ment the matured offspring of the propaganda of 
 scholar-monks created by the marvelous power, 
 and perfected by the vigorous discipline, of such 
 as Columba, Aidan, Bede, Alcuin, and the elder 
 Scotus, — saints and philosophers, and soldiers of 
 the Cross, who had, as Green relates more fully 
 than other historians, brought " the Angles-land " 
 under the enlightening and beneficent " sway of 
 Christianity," long before the result of the Synod 
 of Whitby (a. d. 664) ^ determined them to under- 
 take, in greater force, those mighty missionary 
 labors which carried the Gospel to the heathen 
 tribes of the Rhine, from the outlets of that river 
 to the borders of the Lake of Constance, and 
 thence beyond the Alps to the Plains of Lom- 
 bardy, where Columbanus established at Bobbio 
 that superb institution of religion and knowledge 
 which " lighted the flame of science and learning, 
 
 ^ " The synod had no sooner broken up than [Bishop] Colman, 
 followed by the whole of the Irish-born brethren and thirty of 
 their English fellows, forsook the See of Aidan and sailed away 
 from Hii." — Green's Making of England, pp. 313, 314. But 
 St. Cuthbert remained at Lindisfarne after this protest and great 
 secession, and became prior of the dwindled company of breth- 
 ren. — Green's Hist, of the English People, vol. i. pp. 313, 367. 
 
6 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 and for a long time made it the torch of North- 
 ern Italy." The character of the intellectual- 
 moral personality of the early Saxon kings, espe- 
 cially those of Northumbria, and its statesmen- 
 priests and scholars, cannot be clearly seen, with- 
 out being regarded in the light of that religious 
 education which they received from the monastic 
 institutions of Ireland, and from those which 
 were, in later days, planted by them throughout 
 the British Isles. For hence, and in successive 
 ages came, illuminated by the genius of Christian- 
 ity, such monarchs as Alfred of Northumbria, and 
 such priests and philosophers and controversial- 
 ists as Wilfrith and Erigena.^ There is little to 
 be found, and less that is trustworthy, in accessible 
 books concerning these two eminently historical 
 persons. In Green's History of the English Peo- 
 ple there is but slight mention of Duns Scotus 
 and none of Erigena, and nothing of either in 
 his Making of England ; and in the latter-named 
 work appears but the merest mention of Alfred 
 of Northumbria. Hook, in his Lives of the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury, makes inexcusable 
 errors about Duns Scotus. But Sharon Turner, 
 in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, is perspicu- 
 ous and correct, almost satisfactory ; and each cir- 
 cumstance is verified by authentic citations. I 
 shall make a place here — though the matter does 
 
 1 Montalembert's Monks of the West, vol. iii. etc. 
 
yOHANNES SCOTUS. 7 
 
 not appear strictly to belong to my theme — for 
 some memorials relating to them. 
 
 Northumbria during this epoch was prolific of 
 great men and great deeds. The two personages 
 whom I have mentioned chiefly interest us. Al- 
 fred of Northumbria, surnamed " the Wise," was 
 the express product of the religion, learning, and 
 statesmanship of the time ; John Scotus, sur- 
 named " Erigena," was the product, though in 
 later times, but belonging to the same epoch, of 
 its love of philosophy, polemic theology, and 
 daring intellectual speculation. The region of 
 Alfred's labors was at home in his native realm : 
 Erigena, as did Alcuin his fellow-student, found 
 congenial arenas at the Court -of France, amid its 
 splendor and its ambitious schemes. And Alfred 
 should prolong our attention, for he is regarded 
 by some authors as the model upon which Alfred 
 the Great formed his character. 
 
 Alfred, the eldest son of King Oswiu, is 
 spoken of by Sharon Turner, as " the precursor of 
 the greater sovereign, his namesake ; but the sim- 
 ilarity of his intellectual taste and temper with 
 the pursuits and sentiments of the celebrated Al- 
 fred of Wessex, makes his character still more 
 interesting. As Alfred of Northumbria appears 
 in Bede as the first literary king among the 
 Anglo-Saxons, we may reasonably suppose that his 
 
8 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 example and reputation had no small influence in 
 suggesting the love of study, and arousing the 
 emulation of the son of Ethelwulf." He was edu- 
 cated by the famous Wilfrith : afterwards known 
 as Boniface, the Apostle of Friesland. In the 
 second year of his reign Alfred remunerated his 
 teacher by a bishopric. Learned ecclesiasts " from 
 Ireland had given to his father and country what 
 intellectual information they had acquired. He 
 devoted himself to piety and literature, and vol- 
 untarily retired into Ireland, that he might pur- 
 sue his unambitious studies. For fifteen years 
 he enjoyed a life of philosophic tranquillity and 
 improvement. He exhibited to the world this 
 example of contented privacy till the death of 
 Ecgfrid, his younger brother, raised him to the 
 throne without a crime. . . . He reigned over 
 the province, which his knowledge enlightened 
 and his virtues cherished, for nineteen years." 
 Alcuin describes him thus : " Qui sacris fuerat 
 studiis imbutus ab annis setatis primas, valido ser- 
 mone sophista acer et ingenio, idem rex simul 
 atque magister." ^ 
 
 Johannes Erigena was a native of Ireland ; 
 his education was begun in his native land, and 
 " nourished " amid the monastic life of Northum- 
 bria ; a disciple of the Venerable Bede at Yarrow ; 
 
 1 De Pont. 718. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. g 
 
 and towards the closing years of his career, after 
 his return from the French Court, one of the Ht- 
 erary companions of Alfred the Great, " of Wes- 
 sex." He was distinguished by the acumen of his 
 intellect and by the extensiveness of his acquire- 
 ments. He " was a philosopher of a singularly 
 subtle m.ind ; men wondered at this subtlety, 
 which was so high above the general train of pop- 
 ular notions as to command universal reverence 
 rather than suspicion. But he had not only 
 broken the bonds of Latin Christianity, he went 
 almost beyond the bounds of Christianity itself." 
 Erigena" alarmed the Church" . . . by appealing 
 " to a new power above Catholic authority, — hu- 
 man reason." " Perhaps the only fact which may 
 be considered certain as to the early [period of his 
 studies] is, that he must have commenced at least 
 this train of philosophic thought [the supremacy 
 of reason bringing all theological questions to 
 the test of dialectic reasoning] in some one of the 
 monastic schools of Ireland or of the Scottish 
 islands. In some secluded monastery, among 
 those last retreats of knowledge which had es- 
 caped the Scandinavian invasions, he imbibed that 
 passion for knowledge which made him an accept- 
 able guest at Paris, the partner of the table and 
 even of the bed of Charles the Bald." Through- 
 out wild and turbulent times " Erigena lived . . . 
 resolutely detached from secular affairs, not in 
 
lO JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 monastic, but in intellectual, seclusion." He was 
 a prolific author of original works ; he was well 
 skilled in Greek literature, and a translator there- 
 from into English of philosophical and theological 
 treatises, the " curious and rich mysteries " of 
 which suited his genius. Some of these were 
 done at the request of the- king, who was a famous 
 patron of letters during that era. Erigena v/as an 
 inmate of the palace and in great favor with that 
 monarch. Alfred on his way home from his first 
 visit to Rome (in the summer of A. d. 856) again 
 visited the French court. Erigena was then with 
 the court at Compiegne ; and, as he was in fact at 
 that time head of the school of the palace, Alfred 
 must have become known to him. It was in that 
 school-room Alfred first saw Judith, the king's 
 daughter — she who afterwards became his step- 
 mother. On Charles's death (near Mont Cenis, 
 A. D. 877), Erigena, on the invitation of Alfred, 
 returned to England. This is probably the veri- 
 table story ; but Dean Milman says that " the 
 general denunciation of the Church and of Pope 
 Nicholas I. obliged him to fly to England," and 
 that he took " refuge in Alfred's new University 
 of Oxford." Other writers say that in all prob- 
 ability he never left France, and ascribe the date 
 of his death as occurring in Paris about the time 
 when his royal friend and patron died. He is 
 often thus confused, especially by French writ- 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. ii 
 
 ers, with Duns Scotus, who died while in the 
 service of the French court ; and, in hke manner, 
 Erigena is again confused by EngHsh writers 
 with John, the " Old Saxon," who had been 
 brought by Alfred the Great from the Abbey of 
 Corley, and who, for a time, ruled the monastery 
 and school at Athelney. That Asser does not 
 name Erigena in his account of the friends and 
 scholars whom Alfred gathered around his court 
 from France and other parts is not to be slightly 
 passed over.-^ Still, history places Erigena at 
 Malmesbury, Ethelingey, and Oxford ; with cer- 
 tainty at the first two, and it is, in my relation 
 of historical evidences, more advisable to adhere 
 to the ancient and respected authority and the 
 accepted tradition. Alfred acknowledged and re- 
 warded his ability and genius by putting him over 
 the new monastery at EtheUngey. There he died 
 by violence. So much appears certain. Accord- 
 ing to Asser he was assassinated, while alone and 
 engaged in midnight devotion before the altar, 
 by two lads who were under his educational direc- 
 tion, and who were suborned to the act by jealous 
 monks.^ 
 
 1 Asser, the Welsh monk, author of the Life of Alfred: his 
 friend and counselor, and afterwards bishop to his own countrymen 
 in Cornwall. 
 
 2 Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. pp. 361-365 ; Milman's Latin 
 Chris., vol. iv. pp. 184-189. 
 
12 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 It was at the close of the Roman governance 
 over Britain, that settlers from the north of Ire- 
 land (whose inhabitants then bore the name of 
 Scots) crossed over the strait of sea between 
 Ulster and Cantyre, and founded the kingdom of 
 Dalriada around Lake Linnhe. This small king- 
 dom long rested in obscurity ; yet silently con- 
 centrating its inherent strength and holding its 
 integrity against the Picts, who surrounded it on 
 the north and the east. Towards the end of the 
 sixth century it rapidly grew into enlarged and 
 vigorous life. The landing of Columba in the 
 isle of Hii, off the Pictish coast (a. d. 563), and 
 establishing lona for the propagation of the Faith 
 throughout North Britain and the parts accessible 
 to missionary efforts in Anglia, gave Dalriada an 
 important impulse and support. Aidan's conse- 
 cration to the see of Lindisfarne (a. d. 597) was 
 of almost equal consequence. These two centres 
 of education are greatest among the primal facts 
 of British history ; for by them was first preached 
 in our mother tongue the Gospel to the Saxon 
 people,^ and by their pupils the " Making of Eng- 
 
 1 King Edwin, of Northumbria, who in exile had learned the 
 Celtic tongue, and, also, kings Oswald and Oswiu, sat at the 
 bishop's feet, interpreting to the wondering hearers: and from 
 lona, Lindisfarne, and Melrose, Aidan, Cuthbert, Colman, and their 
 brethren, soon familiar with the Saxon speech, preached the Gospel 
 in every part of the Northumbrian kingdom. — Milman's Latin 
 Chris., vol. ii. p. 191 ; Green's Hist. English People, vol. i. p. 47. 
 
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JOHANNES SCOTUS. 13 
 
 land " was accomplished before the end of the 
 seventh century/ These holy isles should in- 
 spire a feeling of veneration in the hearts of all 
 true members of the Church in the United 
 States; for, from them, in direct and unbroken 
 progression, flowed that living stream which bore 
 the validity of episcopal order to America through 
 the consecration of Samuel Seabury, on Sunday, 
 November 14, 1784, at Longeau, Aberdeen, Scot- 
 land, by North-British bishops, who, in their con- 
 cordat, describe themselves as of " the Catholic 
 remainder of the ancient Church of Scotland." ^ 
 
 The apostolical labors of Columba, of Aidan, 
 of Bede, of Cuthbert, the kingly wisdom and pa- 
 triotism of Edwin, of Oswald, of Oswiu, of Alfred, 
 seemed to have annexed England to the Irish 
 Church, when the monks of Lindisfarne, and of 
 the new religious houses whose foundations fol- 
 lowed that of Lindisfarne, " looked for their 
 ecclesiastical tradition, not to Rome, but to Ire- 
 land, and quoted for their guidance the instruc- 
 tions, not of Gregory, but of Columba (a. d. 607- 
 
 ' Green's Making of England, p. 174; in Palgrave's Anglo- 
 Saxons, p. 70, it is declared that " to the successors of the Anglo- 
 Saxon prelates we mainly owe the preservation of the forms and 
 spirit of a free government, defended not by force, but by law; and 
 the altar may be considered as the corner-stone of the ancient con- 
 stitution of the realm." 
 
 2 An autotype verisimilitude of this great historical convention 
 is shown in the Library Hall of the General Theological Seminary, 
 Chelsea Square, New York. 
 
14 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 685). The real Metropolitan of the Church, as it 
 existed in the north of England, was the Abbot 
 of lona." ^ The tombs of the Saxon kings, within 
 the monastic ground at lona, attest the pious 
 affection and reverence which those monarchs 
 cherished for their more than alma mater ; and 
 to that place of burial was carried from the 
 field of battle the body of King Ecgfrid (a. d. 
 684) • for in a former time, " his father Oswiu had 
 brought a bishop from there to instruct his peo- 
 ple." " The spell," says the Venerable Bede, 
 " which it [the Irish Church] cast over Northum- 
 bria was irresistible." To cross the Irish Channel, 
 whether for piety or for learning, became a fashion 
 in the North ; whilst fresh missionaries streamed 
 over, in turn, to penetrate " into the wildest spots, 
 where English heathendom found a hold." ^ 
 
 That Era — comprehending many centuries — 
 constitutes in its scope an epoch, the power of 
 which has seldom abated and has never ceased to 
 exert its masterly efificacy over the jurisprudence, 
 the literature, the Church and the State of the 
 English-speaking nations. 
 
 Within those national, religious, and philo- 
 sophic educational influences, — still a living and 
 
 1 Green's History of the English People, vol. i. p. 64. 
 
 2 Bede's Hist. Eccl., vol. i. p. i ; vol. iii. p. 7 ; vol. iv. pp. 3, 4; 
 vol. ix. p. 10. 
 
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JOHANNES SCOTUS. 15 
 
 abiding spiritual and intellectual force, — the 
 heart and mind of John Scotus, " of Dunstone," 
 was instructed, educated, and matured. And so 
 it is, that what I have just premised appears to 
 me to bear upon the general theme of this essay : 
 for the moral and the religious intellectuality of 
 men take their health, strength, disposition, and 
 complexion as much from the atmosphere in 
 which they are cultured as by the root from which 
 they have sprung. 
 
 Trustworthy tradition relates that the aptitude 
 of John Scotus, of Dunstone, for the kind of 
 intellectual, philosophic, and moral attainments 
 which distinguished him in his career, was ob- 
 served at an early age ; and that, while a lad, he 
 was received by the brethren of the Franciscan 
 order at its monastery in Newcastle-on-Tyne ; not 
 far from which town lies the district of Dunstone. 
 It is conceded by those who have written on the 
 subject that he completed his scientific, theolog- 
 ical, and philosophical courses of study at Merton 
 College, Oxford ; though the inscription on the 
 former tomb stated " Gallia me docuit." He 
 was made a Fellow of Merton : for the number 
 and variety of his scholarly attainments and his 
 proficiency in each, especially in the science of 
 numbers, gained him wide note and admiration. 
 Upon a vacancy occurring, by the removal to 
 Paris of his master, William Varron (a. d. 1301), 
 
1 6 yOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 Scotus was appointed to the chair of Philosophy. 
 Thomas of London had, also, wandered to Paris 
 from his own school at Merton. That Scotus' 
 lectures at Oxford attracted immense gather- 
 ings of students is amply proved by contempo- 
 raneous history, and seem wonderful even after 
 we make allowance for the exaggeration of those 
 chroniclers. His reputation rose into high es- 
 teem among the learned men of the land. At 
 that time, as ever throughout his striking career, 
 especially after he went to France, exaggerations 
 and fictions of almost miraculous achievements 
 beset his proper fame, casting conjecture and dis- 
 credit upon his truly marvelous labors. 
 
 It is one of those fanciful legends which is the 
 subject of the famous portrait-picture by Jose 
 Ribera called Lo Spagnoletto — concerning which 
 painting I shall hereafter speak. 
 
 The merits of Duns Scotus — for I shall now 
 begin to name him by that distinguishing and pe- 
 culiar designation — became known and esteemed 
 in foreign lands. But the Franciscan school at 
 Oxford, to which he belonged, had, under the in- 
 spiration of Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln (b. a. d. 
 1 2 1 4 — d. A. D. 1 2 9 2), attained a reputation through- 
 out Christendom. Lyons, Paris, and Cologne 
 borrowed from it their professors. It was owing 
 to its influence that Oxford rose to a position 
 hardly less eminent than that of Paris itself. 
 
yOHANNES SCOTUS. 17 
 
 Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Ock- 
 ham/ its scholars, were among the most profound 
 and original of the schoolmen. The fame of 
 that school and of Scotus' own great talents soon 
 led to his being called (about a. d. 1304) to Paris. 
 There Ockham was first his pupil and then his 
 successful rival. Duns Scotus soon after received 
 from that University the doctor's degree. So 
 rapid was his advance that in his first year at the 
 University he was appointed Regent of its Theo- 
 logical School. As Alfred the Great "vVas in- 
 spired by the example of his wise and pious pro- 
 totype of Northumbria, so it would appear that 
 our Duns was inflamed by the brilliant and 
 daring example of Erigena. The statement 
 " Gallia me docuit " has, in this connection, a 
 meaning imparted to it : for though the mind of 
 Duns was " bent " by the monks of Newcastle, 
 and " inclined " at Oxford, it was at Paris, amid 
 the congregate learning, eloquence, and noble 
 ranks which attended the court and served and 
 adorned its colleges and seminaries, that the genius 
 of Duns received the instruction which gives sig- 
 nificance to the boast that France " taught " him. 
 Erigena had said, before Duns Scotus did, that 
 Paris had " nourished " him. With little delay he 
 broke into the ranks of polemical controversy. He 
 
 ' Brewer's Preface to the Monumenta Franciscana, one of the 
 Rolls Series; and Grosteste's Letters, in same series. 
 
1 8 yOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 found there a world wherein his great learning, 
 scientific knowledge, and philosophic subtilty 
 could disport, as it were, in easy triumphs with even 
 the famous masters who then were giving renown 
 to France. The disputes between the adherents 
 of the Franciscans, " Scotists," and of the Domin- 
 icans, " Thomists," gathered the followers of Duns 
 Scotus and those of Aquinas into opposite and 
 contending camps ; and those contentions make 
 an era in the history of celebrated theological argu- 
 ments. His notable proficiency in disquisition, 
 and the acute quality of his intellectual penetration 
 into abstruse subjects, — for which he showed an 
 almost intuitive power, — brought to his name 
 that epithet by which his genius and abilities 
 are, and have ever since been, universally acknow- 
 ledged, " Doctor Subtilis." " He could see conse- 
 quents yet dormant in their principles," — I quote 
 the phrase from Bishop South. On the margins 
 of pages in a unique copy, which I met with in a 
 friend's library, of Granger's History of England 
 — I shall refer to the book again — some admiring 
 reader has made notes, copied from other sources, 
 relating to Duns Scotus ; and, among many com- 
 ments copied by him, is : " He was so consummate 
 a philosopher that he could have been the dis- 
 coverer of philosophy if it had not before existed. 
 His knowledge of the mysteries of religion was 
 so profound that it was rather intuitive certainty 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 19 
 
 than belief. He would have written more had 
 he composed with less accuracy. Such was our 
 immortal Scotus ; the most ingenious, acute, and 
 subtle of the sons of men." ' 
 
 The epithet " doctor subtilis" was, it appears to 
 me, imputed by a popular sentiment, not merely 
 to applaud his skill as the eminent antagonist of 
 the great Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, the " an- 
 gelic doctor," but rather to depict peculiar and 
 rare dexterity for " finely woven," " precisely ac- 
 curate," and insinuating power in any scholastic 
 or theological disputation. The modern sarcoph- 
 agus at the church of the Minor Friars perpet- 
 uates the epithet " Joannes Scotus, Sacrae The- 
 ologiae. Doctor Subtilis." 
 
 Duns Scotus will be always recognized as an 
 early, and in his time, the valiant and powerful 
 asserter of the doctrine of the immaculate con- 
 
 ^ But there are diversities of opinion on this high esteem. 
 The following is a compendious sentiment not uncommon concern- 
 ing the " Duns " gift of nicely discriminating powers. The faculty 
 in him, however, displayed itself not in verbal dexterity merely, but 
 in keen mental penetration and discernment. One writer speaks of 
 him as celebrated for his " versatility in detecting invisible distinc- 
 tions, in multiplying hypotheses which differed from each other 
 only in some verbal incidents, in twisting every thought and propo- 
 sition as by an intellectual prism, in speculating upon themes above 
 the reach of human knowledge, and in the multiplication of inge- 
 nious theories without proof to sustain them, or utility to recom- 
 mend them " ! It seems that this critic has caught somewhat 
 of the discriminating spirit which he condemns. 
 
20 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 ception. His was the sometime dominant intel- 
 lect of the University of Paris; and that at a 
 period when it was the " great school of Western 
 Europe." Perhaps his most important literary 
 works are the " Questions and Commentaries on 
 Aristotle," and the " Sentences of Lombard." But 
 these things require no exposition in this mono- 
 graphic essay. 
 
 Duns Scotus was not wholly a simple-minded, 
 scholarly, humble, self-sacrificing, devout person- 
 age, like most of his fraternity, whose learning, 
 artistic skill, piety, and intrepid charity, were the 
 glory of that and of preceding times, and the light 
 from which is still an illumination even unto this 
 age. He displayed his family crest and arms, ac- 
 cording to the pride of the higher classes. Nor 
 did he keep himself retired from projects of politi- 
 cal ambition favored by the court of France. At 
 the moment of his death (a. d. 1308) he was en- 
 gaged as chief in an embassy at Cologne. He 
 was there to aid in establishing a university and 
 in other affairs on behalf of his religious order. 
 The mission embraced further objects, and prob- 
 ably those belonging to state-polity ; wherefore on 
 his arrival at Cologne he was received publicly 
 and with much ceremony by the magistrates and 
 nobility of the city. That the fatigue incurred by 
 the usual ceremonies of such occasions, and the 
 tumultuous hospitalities, unusual to him, of the 
 
yOHANNES SCOTUS. 21 
 
 generous burghers exhausted fatally his strength, 
 cannot be asseverated nor denied ; but he surely 
 did not die, as a legend tells us, in a state of vol- 
 untary poverty, either of spirit or worldly nega- 
 tion ; nor from physical debility following a single 
 and marvelous intellectual effort ; nor in clois- 
 tered retirement ; nor as an ordinary in the heroic 
 holy life of the " Ord. F. F. Minor." While the 
 city was jubilant over the presence of the great 
 Franciscan, and while he was energetically occu- 
 pied in the purposes of the mission and embassy, 
 he fell dead, of apoplexy, the eighth day of Novem- 
 ber, A. D. 1308, and was buried, as I have already 
 told, in the Church of the Minor Friars. If the 
 guesses of some writers correctly ascertain the 
 date of his birth as about A. D. 1265, then he died 
 at an early age. 
 
 The fantastic legend of his death vanishes into 
 thin air. Surely " the earth hath bubbles as the 
 water has, and this was of them." But though 
 a bubble, " of imagination all compact," it was one 
 belonging to the devotion and simplicity of the 
 period ; a fancy not to be regretted, for to its con- 
 ception we owe the myth which inspired a great 
 painter's pencil to delineate the features and in- 
 dividuality of the famous founder of the " Sco- 
 tists " as we to-day behold him on the living 
 canvas of Ribera. 
 
 The Church of the Minor Friars was one of 
 
2 2 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 the most suggestive ecclesiastical edifices on the 
 Continent of Europe. It is no longer, except in a 
 lessened degree. Modern restoration has reached 
 it. It is, happily, unaltered in its outward walls 
 and supports; and the interior — its structural 
 characteristics, its massive pillars, and its win- 
 dows — is not changed in its original general 
 lineal form. But the impressiveness of its former 
 appearance — its sober-colored walls and pillared 
 arches, " looking antiquity " — is gone ; and in its 
 stead, the whole of the chancel and nave are garish 
 and tasteless, edged with gilt, and emblazoned in 
 the gorgeous glories of the present German renais- 
 sance. When I was last (a. d. 1888) in Cologne 
 I again revisited the church, and searched for the 
 old plain slab of dark stone, which I first saw 
 many years before in the nave. It was not to be 
 found. Indeed, the person in attendance there — 
 perhaps the "kuster" — had never heard of it. I 
 recollect it, and the inscription, very distinctly. 
 It bore no name, only the well-known traditional 
 epitaph: Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit, 
 Gallia me dpcuit, Colonia me tenet. The new 
 sarcophagus is erected behind the altar; and is 
 similarly decorated in common with the surround- 
 ing restorations. The sacristy, with its grand, cen- 
 tral massive pillar, yet remains, notwithstanding, 
 in its original condition. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 23 
 
 Eminent as the name of Duns Scotus was in 
 his own and succeeding times, nothing relating to 
 him has contributed more to preserve in later ages 
 his unmatched fame than this " extraordinary " 
 portrait by Lo Spagnoletto. Before the death of 
 Duns Scotus, and afterwards, strange stones were 
 told, and believed by the multitude, of miracles 
 wrought by him in the cause of religion and learn- 
 ing ; for the fertility of his mind and its fecundity 
 in production were remarkable, even for that age, 
 when the love of learning was a predominant pas- 
 sion in studious cloisters. These labors are evi- 
 dent from the manuscript volumes at Merton. In 
 the library-rooms of that college lie buried in dust, 
 silence, and obscurity, twelve massive volumes of 
 the literary works in MSS. of Duns Scotus. " He 
 wrote so many books," said one of his ancient and 
 ardent admirers, " that one man is hardl)' able to 
 read them, and no one man is able to understand 
 them." Enthusiasm begat exaggeration, and ex- 
 aggeration superstitious credulity ; and among the 
 " miracles " imputed to him was, that, upon a cer- 
 tain challenge, he engaged to " translate the whole 
 of the Scriptures without tasting food." This is 
 
 THE SUBJECT OF THE PAINTING BY Lo SPAGNOLETTO. 
 
 Duns Scotus, continues this legend, " expired in 
 finishing the last chapter of Revelations." 
 
 The interesting inquiry for us is. Where is the 
 
24 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 original of that picture ? I believe it the one now 
 owned by, and in possession of, our General The- 
 ological Seminary, and shown in its library, at 
 Chelsea Square, New York. The reasons for this 
 belief are : — 
 
 First : An original was painted by Ribera, sur- 
 named Lo Spagnoletto. Of this no question has 
 been made. History itself verifies the fact. The 
 only question has been, and is, as to the origi- 
 nal, — if neither of the three, — that at Windsor, 
 that at the Bodleian, and that at Merton, — where 
 is the original } In Granger's History ^ an ac- 
 count of the original and of those copies is given ; 
 but while Granger describes and designates the 
 three copies, and the places where these severally 
 are, he says nothing, and appears not able to say 
 anything, about where the original is, or to assert 
 that it is in existence, though he mentions that 
 there was an original by Lo Spagnoletto. 
 
 Second : Before the Spagnoletto portrait in 
 question came into the possession of Mr. John 
 Chaundy, of Oxford, England, only those three 
 were known to exist ; two of which, each at dif- 
 ferent times, were asserted to be the original. The 
 third, which is in the library-room at Merton Col- 
 lege, is a copy of a copy, and never was regarded 
 as other than a copy. The Windsor picture was 
 for some time regarded as a Spagnoletto, and 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 60. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 25 
 
 sometime as the original ; but the latter preten- 
 sion is long since abandoned, and it is now 
 thought not to be a work of that painter. The 
 Bodleian is admitted to be a copy, and perhaps 
 of the Windsor. It was painted in the reign of 
 Charles II. by Ashfield, an English artist of good 
 reputation. 
 
 Third : I was familiar, by many visits to Wind- 
 sor and Oxford since 1859, with those three copies 
 named by Granger. In the early part of last 
 spring (1889), while in Oxford, I saw a painting 
 in the rear of a shop wherein old engravings are 
 for sale, and thought it might appear, on further 
 scrutiny, to be the original, or a replica, of the 
 Spagnoletto Duns Scotus. On closer examina- 
 tion I believed it to be the original by Lo Spagno- 
 letto, and afterwards, by inquiry of Mr. John 
 Chaundy, the proprietor of the place, who was 
 quite aware of the probable genuineness of it, I 
 learned enough, with what I knew before con- 
 cerning the missing original, to agree with him. * 
 
 ^ After the Seminary became possessed of the painting I desired 
 more information as to the history of how it came into England 
 and from what place ; but I receive nothing further than that which 
 Mr. Chaundy himself told me at the time of purchase. The follow- 
 ing letter, dated Oxford, June 2, 1890, from E. M. Chaundy to me 
 is pertinent : " In answer to your letter of May 25, I am sorry to 
 have to tell you that my father, Mr. John Chaundy, about whose 
 illness you knew before, passed away in January last. He had 
 previous to the sale of the picture made every effort to find out the 
 history of it, but was never successful in learning more than what 
 
26 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 The reasons are many which convince as to 
 this opinion, — but there are circumstances which 
 appear to exclude any other conclusion. First: 
 Three are known to be copies, and by other 
 painters. Second : The existence of this Spagno- 
 letto being discovered, it fills the only vacant 
 place in Granger's history of the picture ; as it is 
 unquestionably an original painting, and as it an- 
 swers the traditional description of the " extraor- 
 dinary " portrait. Third : The painting is recog- 
 nized by connoisseurs as a genuine Ribera. It is 
 one of the best of his works. 
 
 As to the authenticity of the likeness, it is 
 agreed that it must, in a sense, be accepted as 
 traditional. It is a true portraiture nevertheless, 
 and not a fancy nor a mere imagination. The 
 features and expression are peculiarly and 
 strongly individual. It is " the counterfeit pre- 
 
 he himself told you concerning it. I am sorry that I have no posi- 
 tive information to add to what you already know, but I am very 
 glad to know that the picture is very much esteemed." 
 
 Mr. John Chaundy told me, that the picture had been placed with 
 him by a " private gentleman " to sell ; that it had been bought 
 many years ago by an ancestor of that gentleman, who understood 
 it had been brought into England from the South of France; and 
 that it was believed by the family to be a genuine Spagnoletto, and 
 the original of his Duns Scotus. He thought he verified this be- 
 lief by referring me to the memoir of the painting in Granger. 
 Mr. Chaundy was himself the owner at the time the Seminary ac- 
 quired it. He appeared to cherish the painting, but ill-health 
 required him to part with it. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 27 
 
 sentment " of a real person, and of such a person- 
 age as Duns Scotus. It has none of the charac- 
 teristics nor methods of treatment adopted by the 
 master painters of that era in their ideal heads. 
 The features are pronounced in Celtic physiog- 
 nomy. Ribera was born in 1588, two hundred 
 and eighty years after the death of Duns Scotus. 
 We must, however, reflect that it would be re- 
 markable if the personality of such a character as 
 Duns Scotus, in an age when the limner's art was 
 prevalent and of high merit, should not have been 
 perpetuated in lines and colors less fading than 
 those of memory. We have likenesses of men of 
 less attractive individuality, and of less celebrity, 
 which have come down to us from those and 
 earlier times.^ Tradition speaks of a portrait of 
 Duns Scotus, which was in a chateau near Blois, 
 in the days (a. d. 1409- 1450) of Agnes Sorel. 
 Let us, likewise, not omit to remember that Duns 
 Scotus was united to a society of scholar-monks 
 who were expert in the art of illuminating missals 
 and of painting miniature-portraits in colors and 
 in black outlines, on vellum, and who delighted to 
 delineate notable men of their own times, and 
 especially those belonging to their own immediate 
 
 ' Dictionary of Miniaturists , Illuminators, Calligraphers, and 
 Copyists : from the Establishment of Christianity to the l8th Cen- 
 tury, 3 vols. Bernard Quaritch, London, 1890. Life of Giorgio 
 Giulio Clovio, (London,) 1889. 
 
28 JOHANNES SCOT US. 
 
 religious fraternities. They were superior in skill 
 to the miniature painters, book-illuminators, and 
 calligraphers, and other pious art-devotees of later 
 eras. The scholar-monks of Ireland — his own 
 associates in missionary labors in France and on 
 the Rhine — still preserved the genius of their 
 predecessors for those fine arts, and were them- 
 selves masters of renown." The three copies on 
 
 1 Westwood's Fac-Similes of Miniatures and Ornaments of 
 Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS. Folio: London, 1868. Humphrey's 
 and Jones' Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, from the 14th to 
 lyth Centuries. Folio, London, 1849. 
 
 The art of illuminating books, and embellishing them with min- 
 iature portraits, in colors or in mere black outlines, was at its 
 highest skill during those times. The social and political rev- 
 olutions of the Latin Empire were debarring the pictorial art from a 
 comparative merit, and it sought and found a new home and encour- 
 agement in the less disturbed tranquillity of Western Europe : and 
 a new field opened there creating distinctive schools of such pic- 
 torial embellishment. The spread of the art of illumination in 
 Ireland and in the north of England was due to the establishment 
 of Christianity, and to the numerous monastic institutions, of which 
 those of Columba and of Aidan were the most renowned. The 
 unique Anglo-Irish schools — of which fine examples are in the 
 libraries of Dublin, Lambeth, Oxford, and London — flourished 
 from the sixth to the fourteenth century ; and, contemporaneously, 
 that of the Anglo-Saxon, and on the Continent that of the Charle- 
 magne school ; each showing distinctive features. The monasteries 
 in the British Isles and in France, Belgium, and other places on the 
 Continent, kept up, regularly, departments, including staffs of illumi- 
 nators, outliners, copyists, and binders, — each detail an object of 
 art. The emigration and constant intercourse between the religious 
 orders affected the progress and history of art MSS. ; for the early 
 missionaries in their travels carried their devotional and service 
 books with them; and evidences of this are found in Paris, Vienna, 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 29 
 
 vellum of the Four Gospels, written for, or in the 
 possession of, Maelbrigid MacDurnan, the Abbot 
 
 St. Gall, Bobbio in Italy, and other places to which they resorted 
 in their learned and pious missions. French and Flemish illumi- 
 nations may be said to have arisen greatly from such communica- 
 tions by Great Britain with those countries ; and the improvements 
 introduced by the Van Eycks influenced the illuminists and min- 
 iature makers of France and of England. The most significant 
 specimens, for our purpose, are to be found abundantly among the 
 illuminated MSS. books at the British Museum. Six have a 
 special interest, not only as illustrating the immediate subject un- 
 der review, but for their artistic and historic value : i. The Exposi- 
 tion by Smaragous of the Rule of St. Benedict — a full-page min- 
 iature of St. Dunstan, showing him working at illuminating a page 
 of a vellum book. It is the product of English art near the end of 
 the twelfth century. 2. Charter of Foundation of New Minster at 
 Winchester, by King Edgar, a. D. 966, with a page filled with 
 bright, clear, definite miniatures, manifestly portraits; one of the 
 king himself. This is likewise by an English artist. 3. Para- 
 phrase in Anglo-Saxon of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua, by 
 JE&ac, Archbishop of Canterbury (died A. d. 1006). The minia- 
 tures are most delicately lined and beautifully tinted, and the faces 
 and expressions show natural portraitures. The same face ap- 
 pears several times, and is of a royal personage. 3. The finest in 
 dark outline are those in the Life of St. Guthlac, of Croyland — a 
 series of characteristic drawings, in ink, slightly tinted. It is, like- 
 wise, an English work, and of a late part of the twelfth century. 
 4. Poems in Latin, by Convenevole da Prato, the tutor of Petrarch, 
 written for Robert of Anjou (a. D. 1334-1342). There are twenty- 
 five, each an unmistakable portraiture, in different costumes, but 
 of the same period. It is like similar productions by French 
 and Flemish monks, of that and the preceding century. 5. The 
 richest illuminated pages in existence are, it is likely, those of the 
 Epistle of Philippe de Meziferes for peace and friendship between 
 Charles VI. of France and Richard II. of England. It is of the 
 fourteenth century. Each figure a portrait — no facial expression, 
 or figure, or costume alike, and each a costume of the time. The 
 
30 JOHANNES SCOTUS. 
 
 of Derry and the Bishop of Armagh, who died 
 about A. D. 927, are of a date as early as the 
 ninth century. No finer or more beautiful spe- 
 cimens of calligraphy and elaborate illumination 
 exist. One copy is esteemed among the chief 
 literary treasures of the Lambeth Palace Li- 
 brary;^ another is at St. Gall, Switzerland, 
 among the books which were used by the great 
 missionary and scholar; and the third is in the 
 library of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that Lo Spagnoletto 
 might easily have furnished himself with ample 
 
 likeness of Richard is strikingly like the large painting of that 
 monarch which is on the right side of the chancel in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey. 6. But that which has a unique interest for the scholar 
 and lover of art are the miniatures in the Divina Commedia. 
 They are by Italian artists of the fourteenth century. On page 109, 
 and again on no, are likenesses of Dante; that on page no is par- 
 ticularly valuable, for there we see, fresh as if the work were fin- 
 ished but yesterday, his lineaments and the very expression which 
 Giotto has preserved in the fresco of the ancient chapel of the 
 Palace of the Podestk, at Florence. There the face, in profile, of 
 Dante, looks to the left — in these two miniatures it is reversed: 
 but they are evidently copied "in little" and by no mean hand, 
 from that original. That famous portraiture — now irrecoverably 
 dimmed and overlaid by attempts to restore — might be regained 
 in some skillful reproduction from these unique illuminations. 
 
 The works of none of those schools exhibit the stiff nor grotesque 
 character of the Byzantine. They are entirely natural in form and 
 lifelike in expressiveness. 
 
 1 I have seen the original manuscript note upon the fly-leaf which 
 records, " This book was a present from King Athelstan to the city 
 of Canterbury." — Kershaw's Art Treasures of Lambeth, pp. 11, 
 27-30. 
 
JOHANNES SCOTUS. 31 
 
 authentic materials for his genius to work from ; 
 rich beyond the requirement of such an artist to 
 create a vivid, speaking, characteristic, and natural 
 presentment of a subject to w^hich his genius was 
 peculiarly sensitive. 
 
 And this ends all that appears to me pertinent 
 to be said on the theme of this monograph. 
 205 West Forty-Second Street, 
 New York, October 7, 1890. 
 
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