Marianus Scotus

Background

Marianus Scotus was born in 1028, in Ireland.

Education

Marianus Scotus was educated by a certain Tigernach.

Career

In 1052, he became a monk. He was banished from Ireland (1056) for an infringement of monastic rules and then journeyed to Cologne, where he entered an Irish monastery. Ordained priest in 1059 at Würzburg, he spent the rest of his life as an incluse at Fulda and then at Mainz.

Marianus wrote a Chronicon, which is valuable not only as a world chronicle but also as a history of the Irish monastic movement in 10th- and 11th-century Germany. It was popular with other medieval chroniclers because it was based on many ancient and early medieval scholarly works.

Marianus Scotus died on December 22, 1082.

Achievements

• Marianus Scotus was a well-noted chronicler, who wrote a universal history of the world from creation to 1082 that disputed the chronology of the Paschal calendar formulated by Dionysius Exiguus, a 6th-century theologian.