This result was largely owing to a singular enterprise of the twelfth
century with which the learned researches of Jourdain have made us
familiar.[79] Scholars from other lands, such as Constantine, Gerbert,
afterwards Pope Sylvester II., Adelard of Bath, Hermann, and Alfred
and Daniel de Morlay, had indeed visited Spain during that age and
the one which preceded it, and had, as individuals, made a number of
translations from the Arabic, among which were various works in medicine
and mathematics, as well as the first version of the Koran. But in the
earlier half of the twelfth century, and precisely between the years
1130 and 1150, this desultory work was reduced to a system by the
establishment of a regular school of translation in Toledo. The credit
of this foundation, which did so much for mediæval science and letters,
belongs to Don Raymon, Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain. This
enlightened and liberal churchman was by origin a French monk, born at
Agen, whom Bernard, a previous Primate, had brought southward in his
train, as he returned from a journey beyond the Pyrenees. Don Raymon
associated with himself his Archdeacon, Dominicus Gundisalvus, and a
converted Jew commonly known as Johannes Hispalensis or John of Seville,
whom Jourdain has identified with Johannes Avendeath: this latter being
in all probability his proper name. These formed the heads of the
Toledo school in its earliest period, and the enterprise was continued
throughout the latter half of the century by other scholars, of whom
Gherardus Cremonensis the elder was probably the chief. Versions of the
voluminous works of Avicenna, as well as of several treatises by Algazel
and Alpharabius, and of a number of medical writings, were the highly
prized contribution of the Toledo school to the growing library of
foreign authors now accessible in the Latin language.
It is probable that when Michael Scot left Sicily he did so with the
purpose of joining this important enterprise. His movements naturally
suggest such an idea, as he proceeded to Toledo, still the centre of
these studies, and won, during the years of his residence there, the name
by which he is best known in the world of letters, that of the chief
exponent of the Arabo-Aristotelic philosophy in the West.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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