There is reason to think that his travels did not end when he had reached Paris. Tradition says he crossed the Channel and visited both England and Scotland, where his medical skill was highly appreciated. It is indeed to an English author that we owe the knowledge of this journey performed by Michael Scot. The words of Roger Bacon are of capital importance here, not only telling us of Scot’s travels, but showing the nature of the work he carried with him in that progress, and the enthusiasm with which these books were received. ‘In the days of Michael Scot,’ he says, ‘who, about the year 1230, made his appearance with certain books of Aristotle and commentaries of learned men concerning physics and mathematics, the Aristotelian philosophy became celebrated in the Latin Schools.’[253] At the time of which he speaks, Bacon, born in 1214, may probably have been at Oxford pursuing his studies. It is not necessary to dwell upon the support which this brings to the tradition of Scot’s visit to England. We may take it as almost certain that Oxford was one of the universities where he appeared and was made welcome. The tradition that he thereafter pursued his journey to Scotland rests rather upon arguments derived from the probability of the case than from direct evidence. Scot had been a lifetime absent from his native land, and, finding himself so near it, a strong impulse must have urged him to revisit the scenes of his boyhood. Nor is it easy to account for the fact that his fame, though he spent so much of his time abroad, attained, and yet retains, such a currency in the North, except upon the supposition that he did actually yield to this attraction and thus once more made himself a familiar figure in the land of his birth. One matter of great interest is at least certain. Scot’s death occurred just at this time, when he was in the very height of his fame and influence, and probably while he was still in the North. The account, so often repeated and reprinted, which makes him live almost to the close of the century need not occupy our attention more than a moment. Already incredible from the time when Jourdain discovered that Scot’s version of Alpetrongi had been produced in 1217, such a notion becomes more than ever impossible since we have been able to carry the time of his mature literary activity back to the year 1210. Vincent of Beauvais, writing about 1245, talks of ‘old Michael Scot’ in such a way as to suggest that he had by that time been long in his grave. But the convincing evidence, though hitherto little noticed, is to be found in the poem of Henry d’Avranches, from which we have already quoted some lines in another connection. This author remarks regarding Michael Scot: ‘Thus he who questioned fate, to fate himself submitted,’ which shows that the time of his death must have been earlier than 1235, the date when Abrincensis composed his poem.[254]