by Michael Martin

I had not heard of John Mair or Major until several years ago. At a symposium to mark the feast of St. Mungo, one of the speakers spoke of Mair’s role as Principal of Glasgow University. He emerged as an influential scholar whose academic achievements embraced history, philosophy and theology. The authors of the history of the university, A.L. Brown and Michael Moss describe him as ‘one of the last great scholastic philosophers and theologians …an international scholar’. I made a mental note to find out more about him.

John Mair (or Major) was born near North Berwick in 1467 or 1468 and went to school in Haddington (as did John Knox). There are few details known about his early life, but in 1493 he matriculated at the University of Paris, then the foremost university in Europe. In 1496, he became a regent, or student master in the College de Montaigu and started on the study of theology. In the following year he had a serious illness, from which he is said never to have fully recovered. It left him with migraine, colic, a lingering fever, catarrh and excessive somnolence, which meant that once asleep he was difficult to waken.