Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/302

284 not observed Mabillon's refutation of it. There is no doubt that the martyr who was ommemorated on the 14th of November was John Scotus, bishop of Mecklenburg, who was killed on that day in 1066.

10. Milman attempts to select from the various opinions with regard to John Scotus's retirement into England. He thinks (a) that John fled into England under the denunciation of the church and the pope, apparently following William of Malmesbury, here disregarding the long interval between John's participation in the Gottschalk controversy and the earliest possible date for his withdrawal from France; (b) 'he is said to have taken refuge in Alfred's new university of Oxford.' In a note we read that 'the account of his death is borrowed by Matthew of Westminster from that of a later John the Saxon, who was stabbed by some monks in a quarrel,' which statement is evidently taken directly from Guizot's Cour d'Histoire moderne, 3. 174 sq. (1829). 'The flight to England,' adds Milman, 'does not depend on the truth of that story.' The writer known as Matthew of Westminster however did not borrow his story about John Scotus's death from an account of a later John the Saxon, but took his matter directly from William of Malmesbury. Besides, we have already seen the entire dissimilarity of the stories about John Scotus and John the Saxon.

11. In conclusion, if Asser intends to distinguish John the Old Saxon, the abbat of Athelney, from John the companion of Grimbald, it is possible that the latter is John Scotus. William of Malmesbury may have drawn a