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MAIR, or MAJOR, JOHN, a
celebrated name of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Little of the life
of this eminent person is known, beyond a few incidental circumstances
mentioned in his own works, and some allusions by contemporary scholars. Dr
Mackenzie and other writers not to be depended on, have stated, without
reference to any authority, that he was born in the year 1469. His
birth-place, by his own account, was the parish of North Berwick, and is
said to have been at the village of Gleghorn. In the early part of the
sixteenth century he became a member of Christ’s college in Cambridge. [He
afterwards went to the university of Paris. Mackenzie, who has corrected his
life of Major in the preface to his work, on the ground of some
communications received from Paris, says he joined the university in 1493,
and became master of arts in 1496. "Mr John Harvey," continues this
authority, "a Scotsman and bursar, or fellow of the Scots college, being
then rector of the university of Paris, he passed through all the honourable
places of the faculty of arts, being first procurator and then quaestor; and
designs himself thus in the Register, "M. Joannes Mair, Glegernocencis,
Diocesis S. Andrew,’ He was made doctor of divinity in 1508." –
Mackenzie’s Lives, vol ii. preface, vii.] "In this post," says bishop
Nicholson, "he seems to have written his history, which, as he acknowledges,
was penned in the year 1518, the seventh of king James the fifth’s
age." [Scottish History Library, 103.] Mackenzie says he left
Paris immediately on having written his history, and in the year
mentioned we know him to have been in Scotland, as he was then incorporated
a member of the university of Glasgow, and bore the titles of Canon of the
chapel royal, and vicar of Dunlop, while he is termed "Doctor Parisiensis."
[According to the records of the university of Glasgow, in the Notes to
Wodrow’s Biographical Collection, printed some years ago by the Maitland
Club, it is said that in the year 1518, "Egregius virdicus Joannes Majoris,
Doctor Parisiensis, ac principalis Regens collegii et pedagogii dicti
universitatis, Canonicusque capelie regis, ac vicarious de Dunlop. &c." was
incorporated along with forty-three others.] In 1521, the same authority
shows him to have been professor of theology in Glasgow, and one of the "Intrantes"
and "Deputati Rectoris;" probably performing, in the latter capacity, the
duties now performed, or presumed to be performed by the assessors of the
rector. During that year his well known work, "De Gestis Scotorum," was
published in Paris by Badius Ascensius, the same person who afterwards
published the history of Hector Boece. He is said by Bayle to have written "stylo
Sorbonico," a characteristic not intended as a compliment. The Latinity of
this work has been censured by scholars; but the matter which it clothes, if
not likely to repay a reader of the present age for the labour of perusal,
presents us with much contempt of prejudices common to the age; considerable
knowledge of the grounds of historical truth, and a mass of curious
information, sometimes of that petty and domestic nature, which is valuable
because it is so generally omitted by others. His notices of the state and
value of provisions, and of local customs might be valuable to the political
economist and antiquary. He has shown much sound sense in rejecting a mass
of the fables narrated by his precursors in history, Wyntoun and Fordun,
believing the tale of Gathelus coming from Greece, to have been invented for
the purpose of excelling the English who brought their "Brute" or "Brutus"
from Troy, the Greeks being, as all history and poetry must testify, a far
more respectable source of ancestry than the Trojans. Of the race of kings,
amounting to about forty-five, betwixt Fergus I. and Fergus II., now blotted
from the list, he mentions, and that but slightly, only three or four. On
this subject Dr Mackenzie, who wishes to speak favourably of the subject of
his memoir, while he has a still higher respect for the antiquity of his
native land, remarks, in a tone of chagrin, "in his account of our monarchs,
of fifteen kings, that he only acknowledges to have been between Fergus I.
and II., he mentions not above three or four of them; and it plainly
appears," continues the doctor, drawing the proper deduction, "from the
whole tract of his history, that it was not drawn out of ancient and
authentic monuments, for he cites none of them, but from the historians
above quoted." [Mede, Caxton, and Froissart are Major’s chief authorities.]
The views of civil liberty inculcated in this work surprise us when we
consider the period and state of society at which it was written, and they
would certainly at the present juncture be termed philosophically just. If a
man of so original a mind as Buchanan may be supposed to have derived his
political sentiments from an inferior genius, it is not improbable that the
doctrines of kingly power so beautifully illustrated in the dialogue "De
Jure Regni apud Scotos" may have been imbibed from the doctrines inculcated
by Major, under whom Buchanan studied logic. The doctrines of Major are more
boldly and broadly, if not justly, laid down than those of Grotius. [One
passage is peculiarly striking, and, had the effect of published opinions
been better known at the period, might have brought persecution on the head
of the author.] Although a churchman, he was likewise peculiarly unfettered
in his clerical opinions. He condemned the monkish profuseness of David I.,
that "sair saunt to the crown," and in a work entitled "Disputationes de
Potestate Papae et Concilii," [Printed in the Vindiciae Doctrinae Majorum
Scholae Parisiensis, &c. of Richerlus.] he afterwards uncanonically argued
the necessity of excluding all spiritual dignitaries from authority in
matters temporal. Mackenzie, in his corrected statement, continues, "he
remained in Scotland about five years, and taught theology in the university
of St Andrews." At what time he joined that university it would be difficult
to discover, but it appears that he was connected with the university of
Glasgow until the year 1522, when he receives in the record the several
titles already attributed to him, and with the addition of "Theologiae
Professor," and "Thesaurus capeliae regiae Strevelinensis." He
was, however, assuredly professor of theology in St Andrews in the year
1525, as Buchanan is said in his life, either written by himself or by Sir
Peter Young, to have then studied under him, in the college of St Salvator.
The celebrity of his lectures had attracted the poet’s attention; and,
whether as a pupil of Major, or to fulfill his previous intentions, he
followed his teacher to France. The connexion was the cause of an accusation
of ingratitude against Buchanan. Buchanan had afterwards penned an epigram
on Major, in which he turned his name to the bitter qualification, "Solo
cognomine Major." It is probable that the opportunity of so apt a witticism
was the sole motive of Buchanan; but Mackenzie and Christopher Irvine
maintained that Buchanan had been fed both in mind and body by the charity
of Major, who had procured him a professorship in the college of St Barbe.
"He who had eat his bread," observes the latter, "and lived under his
discipline, both in St Andrews and in the Sorbon, the space of five years,
might have afforded him an handsomer character than solo cognomine Major;"
and concludes, "but I leave these wretches to the care of the great accuser,
and go to my business." There appears to be no other foundation
for the charge but the inferences which may be drawn from a passage in
Buchanan’s life, which does not express such a meaning. Mackenzie
states that Major remained in Paris till 1530. Unfortunately little is known
of the circumstances of his life during that period, nor will our limits
permit an investigation among continental authors, which might provide
useful matter for a more extended memoir. We know, however, that his fame
was extensive and well supported. He has received high praise from such
bibliographical writers as Dupin, Belarmin, and Vossius. He is alluded to by
some of his countrymen with less praise; and Leslie and Dempster, probably
displeased at his view of the antiquities of his native country, sneer at
the barbarism of his style. Major was probably one of the latest
commentators on that universal text book, the Sentences of Peter Lombard. In
1519, he had published "In Libros Sententiarum primum et secundum
commentarium; "a work which has passed to oblivion with its subject. In
1521, he published an Introduction to Aristotle’s Dialectics, and in the
arrangement of the Gospels as to date. Mackenzie mentions that he returned
to Scotland in 1530, and taught theology at St Andrews "till he came to a
great age; for in the year 1547, at the national council of the church of
Scotland in Linlithgow, he subscribed, by proxy, in quality of dean of
theology of St Andrews, not being able to come himself by reason of his age,
which was then seventy-eight, and shortly after he died."
Anthony Wood has discovered
from a manuscript note of Bryan Twyne that Major was at some period of his
life at Oxford, but in what house is unknown, "unless," says bishop
Nicholson, "in Osney Abbey, whose melodious bells he commends." If we could
suppose Wood to have mistaken a century, the following might apply to the
subject of our memoir during the year when he is said by Mackenzie to have
gone to France. Speaking of St John’s school belonging to St John’s
Hospital, he says, "all that I find material of this school is, that it,
with others of the same faculty, were repaired by one John Major, an
Inceptor in the same faculty, anno 1426." [Wood’s Antiquities of Oxford, ii.
766.]
Memoir of John Major of Haddington
Doctor of Theology in the University of Paris; Afterwards Regent in the
Universities of Glasgow and Saint Andrews and Provost of the College of St.
Salvator 1469/70—1550. A Study in Scottish History and Education, By Æ. J.
G. Mackay (1892) |
