Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Original chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun > Volume 1, 1914

Martinus
Polonus.
Ixx INTRODUCTION.
voracity in reading the Scriptures, belongs to the end of
the twelfth century. His ‘ Historia Scolastica’ is a sort of
abridgement of the Old and New Testaments, with addi¬
tions and commentaries. It gained an immense popularity
as a school book, and was regularly read in churches, as it
supplied both texts and ready-made sermons.
Orosius, a Spanish priest, flourished in the beginning of
the fifth century. He was a friend of St Augustine, at
whose suggestion he wrote a history of the world to prove
that the world has always been afflicted with wars and
calamities, as an answer to the pagan accusation against
the Christians that all the troubles of his time were due to
the disappearance of the old heathen worship. His work
is of importance in its later part, which deals with con¬
temporary events such as the barbaric invasions ; but what
gave it its great popularity in the middle ages was the
carefully dated summary of the history of the early
Eastern nations, from Ninus onwards.
The writer to whom Wyntoun is more indebted than to
any other, and whom he familiarly calls Frere Martin, was
known to the world of his day as Martinus Polonus. He
was not a Pole, however ; he was born at Troppau, in
Silesia, spent most of his life in Rome, and died in 1278
on his way to his native country where he had just been
appointed archbishop of Gnessen. His Chronicle of the
Popes and Emperors is written on a new and ingenious
plan that caught the popular taste of his time and of the
next two centuries, so that hundreds of MSS. are scattered
over all the libraries of Europe. There are several con¬
tinuations after his death, in Latin and even in French,
reaching the beginning of the sixteenth century. The
Chronicle has been printed for the last time with