Page "John Mair" Paragraph 23

Mair wrote in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard “ Our native soil attracts us with a secret and inexpressible sweetness and does not permit us to forget it ”.

He returned to Scotland in 1518.

Given his success and experience in Paris, it is no surprise that he became the Principal of the University of Glasgow.

In 1523 left for the University of St Andrews where he was assessor to the Dean of Arts.

In 1525 he went again to Paris from where he returned in 1531 eventually to become Provost of St Salvator's College, St Andrews until his death in 1550, aged about eighty three.

One of his most notable students was John Knox ( coincidentally, another native of Haddington ) who said of Mair that he was such as " whose work was then held as an oracle on the matters of religion " If this is not exactly a ringing endorsement, it is not hard to see in Knox's preaching an intense version of Mair's enthusiasms – the utter freedom of God, the importance of the Bible, scepticism of earthly authority.

It might be more surprising that Mair preferred to follow his friend Erasmus's example and remain within the Roman Catholic Church ( though he did envisage a national church for Scotland ).

Mair also enthused other Scottish Reformers including the Protestant martyr Patrick Hamilton and the Latin stylist George Buchanan, whose enthusiasm for witty Latinisms had him waspishly suggesting that the only thing major about his ex-teacher was his surname – typical Renaissance disdain for the Schoolmen.