Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/96



entitled ‘De Ordine’ of the next edition (cf., Annal. Typogr. viii. 49; Bibliotheca Telleriana, 43; and , Apparatus Sacer, i. 6). In 1659 Peter Bellerus of Antwerp published the works of Adam Scotus, to which was prefixed an elaborate, but unsatisfactory, life of the author by Godfrey Ghiselbert, himself a Præmonstratensian. This new issue consisted of (a) forty-seven sermons, (b) a ‘Liber de ordine, habitu, et professione Canonicorum ordinis Præmonstratensis,’ divided into fourteen sermons (see above), and assigned in their title to Master Adam; (c) a treatise ‘De tripartito Tabernaculo;’ (d) another treatise ‘De triplici genere Contemplationis.’ The last three works are by the same writer, and are all dedicated to the Præmonstratensian brotherhood. The author of the ‘De Tripartito’ claims the ‘Liber de ordine,’ &c., and the author of the ‘De Triplici genere,’ &c. claims the ‘De Tripartito.’ One Adam, therefore, wrote the three treatises. And the ‘De Tripartito’ is full of hints which enable us to fix the author's era with certainty, and his country with a fair amount of probability. In part ii. c. 6 we read that the sixth age of the world dates from the coming of Christ, ‘of which age 1180 years are now past.’ The same date will suit the lists of popes and kings. The time in which Adam flourished may then be safely set down as being about 1180; he appears to have been alive two years or more later (De Trip. Tab. Proœm. I. c. iii.). As to the place of his birth we have no such certain indication. Ghiselbert assures us that the manuscripts of this writer call him sometimes ‘Scotus,’ sometimes ‘Anglicus,’ and sometimes ‘Anglo-Scotus.’ Everything in the treatises points to a locality which, about the year 1180, though within the limits of the kingdom of Scotland, was yet strongly under English influence, and already the seat of a Præmonstratensian community. In the explanation of the elaborate ‘tabula,’ or list of kings, in the ‘De Tripartito,’ Adam recommends his copyists to insert the royal line of their own sovereigns, after the kings of Germany and France, in the place of his list of English and Scotch ones. The only kingly house whose ancestry he traces up to Adam is that of England; but, on the other hand, he shows a minute knowledge of the character of Malcolm Canmore's children, and declares that he is writing in the ‘land of the English (Anglorum) and the kingdom of the Scots.’ Moreover, the book in question is formally dedicated to ‘John, abbot of Calchou.’ There is only one abbot of Calchou, or Kelso, named John, known before the middle of the sixteenth century—namely, John, formerly cantor of the abbey—who signed several charters under William the Lion. He was abbot from 1160 to 1180 (see Liber Sanctæ Mariæ de Calchou and Liber de Melros, i. 39, 43, &c.). There seems to be only one part of Great Britain which answers to all the requirements of the case, viz., the principality of Galloway, for which William the Lion did homage to Henry about the year 1175, a district where there were already three Præmonstratensian foundations by 1180. But it must be allowed that from many points of view Dryburgh would suit equally well. Ghiselbert, however, has preserved a number of passages from manuscript notices of Adam Scotus that had fallen into his hands, which tend to show that about 1177 Christian, bishop of Casa Candida (Whithorn in Galloway), changed the canons of his cathedral church into Præmonstratensian regulars. The name of Christian's new abbot, according to Mauritus à Prato, who here becomes Ghiselbert's authority, was Adam, or Edan, from the neighbouring foundation of Soulseat near Stranraer, and is identified with our writer. In the Præmonstratensian abbey of St. Michael at Antwerp Ghiselbert found another life of Adam which described him as being born of noble parents in Anglo-Scotia, and a contemporary of the ‘first fathers of the Præmonstratensian order.’ But the amount of truth that underlies these vague statements is very hard to appreciate at its exact value. Passing on to more certain matters, we can gather that, within two years of 1180, our Adam had been at Præmonstratum, the head abbey of the great order to which he belonged, and that the chief abbots of his order had requested him to forward them a copy of the ‘De Tripartito.’ In 1177 Alexander III had confirmed the statutes of the order which bade all the Præmonstratensian abbots be present at their annual general chapter. From the allusion made to this statute it seems probable that the writer was abbot of his house at the time, and most certainly he was a man of such reputation with his brethren that, had he lived long, he must have been elected to that office (Proœm. I. c. 8; and cf. ap., vi. 36).

It now remains to say a few words respecting the other works assigned to Adam. Ghiselbert has prefixed to his edition of this author forty-seven sermons which are in their heading ascribed to ‘Master Adam, called Anglicus of the Præmonstratensian order.’ From the author's preface to this collection we learn that it is only part of a body of 100 discourses, of which the first division consisted of forty-seven sermons covering the period from Advent to Lent. Among