Clemens Scottus

Clemens Scottus (‘the Irishman’) (fl. c.800), scholar, was teacher at the palace school at Aachen under Charlemagne (d. 814) and his son Louis the Pious. A letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne, dated 797, refers to the presence of Irish scholars at the palace court, one of whom is likely to have been Clemens. We have no definite evidence of his presence there, however, till the reign of Louis. He may have been the successor to Alcuin, who left in 796. Apparently, he was still there in 826, judging from a reference to him in a poem of Ermoldus Nigellus.

Clemens is the author of a Latin grammar (‘Ars grammatica’) which is based on a very ancient commentary on the grammar of Donatus. It is set in the form of a dialogue between master and pupil and is dedicated to Louis's son Lothair. It opens with an excursus on philosophy and a discussion on the classification of the sciences which largely follows Isidore of Seville; the master then determines that grammar is the first of the sciences to be learned. The bulk of the work is taken up with a discussion of the eight parts of speech. The grammar is rigorously organised and very competent. It is closely related to another Latin grammar by an unidentified Irishman in the Carolingian empire, designated ‘Donatus Ortigraphus’ (qv) (fl. c.815) by the recent editor of the work. Fragments containing some grammatical material now at Würzburg may also have been compiled by Clemens; it is possible that he brought the famous Pauline codex M.p.th.f.12, containing thousands of Old Irish and Latin glosses, with him to Würzburg. An entry in the Würzburg necrology, ‘iv Kal. Junii Clementis Magistri Palatini’, suggests that, like many other Irishmen, he chose to end his days there.

There are at least two other Irish peregrini with the name Clemens. The author of a letter (772) to Duke Tassilo of Bavaria on the duties of a prince styled himself ego Clemens amicus vester peregrinus (‘I, your friend, the pilgrim Clemens’). He may have worked as a scribe for Bishop Arbeo in Freising, and can plausibly be identified with the author of a florilegium of patristic and biblical excerpts. Yet another Clemens, who was based in Bavaria, was condemned at a synod in 745.